“The board of Deputies of British Jews is considering making a complaint to the police over a newspaper interview with the poet Tom Paulin in which he is reported as saying that American-born settlers in Israel should be shot dead,” the U.K. Telegraph reports.

“Paulin, who appears regularly on the panel of the BBC2 arts programme Newsnight Review (formerly Late Review), allegedly made the comment in an interview with the Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram.”

The interviewer wrote that Paulin, a consistent critic of Israeli conduct towards the Palestinians, clearly abhorred ‘Brooklyn-born’ Jewish settlers. Paulin, a lecturer at Hertford College, Oxford, was then quoted as saying: ‘They should be shot dead.’

‘I think they are Nazis, racists, I feel nothing but hatred for them.’ Earlier in the interview, he was quoted as saying: ‘I never believed that Israel had the right to exist at all.’

Listen: Mr. Paulin can write whatever he likes, can say whatever he likes, can think whatever he likes. But so can I. And so can you. Which is why I’ve provided you with this link to his Amazon.com page.

Feel free to post a thoughtful review of his books. (Me, I savaged the hateful prick, using the oft-maligned “lens” of biographical criticism; it remains to be seen whether Amazon will run my comments — much of what I submitted was taken verbatim from the Telegraph article).

To be honest, I’m not at all familiar with Paulin’s poetry; for all I know, his work may be absolutely stunning and powerful — verbal ambrosia, the nectar of springtimes spent soothing cold winter ennui.

So what?

Just as Paulin has a right to say, think, and publish whatever it is he wishes (should he find a publisher for it, that is), I have a right — a responsibility, in fact — to notify potential buyers of the kinds of vile thoughts their purchases will be helping to subsidize.

For his part, Paulin denies being “anti-semitic,” instead preferring to label himself a “philo-semite.” Me, I’m not interested in discussing “nuance” with someone calling for the execution of Jews — regardless of the “reasoning” this morally obtuse lefty offers for such a dictum.

Mike Whine, a spokesman for the board [of Deputies], said: ‘The latter part of his [Paulin’s] interview where he is quoted as suggesting that Israel has no right to exist and he would like to kill American-Jewish immigrants to Israel is, technically at least, illegal.

‘Whether or not the Crown Prosecution Service would prosecute him is a matter for them to decide.’ Mr Whine said the poet had clearly gone beyond opposition to Zionism and was promoting hatred of Jews.

Neville Nagler, director general of the board, said: ‘These are the words of a man filled with hate and fanaticism.’ Paulin was also reported by the newspaper as saying that he had resigned from the Labour Party because the Blair government was a Zionist government.

[…] [Paulin] has locked horns with the leaders of Britain’s Jewish community before. Last year he published a poem, ‘Killed in Crossfire,’ in which he likened the Israeli army to a ‘Zionist SS’.

No, Tommy Boy. The only thing that smells remotely of “Nazism” here is the vile propoganda you’ve chosen to loll and rut around in. And you stink because of it.