I’ll never watch Midnight Cowboy the same way again. It was clear something was up with Jon Voight last year when he went on Fox and, between queries about daughter Angelina, told an elated Bill O’Reilly that America’s liberal professoriate was a dangerous fifth column. He slammed unnamed but “cunning professionals” for feeding “propaganda” to the “extremists” who criticize President Bush. And—remember this in exactly two sentences—he repeatedly condemned “religious fanaticism.”
Now Voight has traveled to Israel to, as Haaretz reported yesterday, “express … his opposition to exchanging land for peace with the Palestinians.” Says Voight in an interview clip accompanying the story: “God gave this land to the Jewish people; they shouldn’t be giving it away.” He tearfully calls Israel “the sole reminder of the survival of the Jewish people.”
Himself not Jewish, Voight also sent around a strange primary appeal earlier this year in which he declared, “Every Jew should be voting for Giuliani.” Look, I’m all for philo-Semitism, but what’s with this guy?
—Justin Elliott
Photo used under a Creative Commons license from jesilu_mac.
