Odd little news story about Fidel Castro and Israel. Castro said, “The hatred felt by the state of Israel against the Palestinians is such that they would not hesitate to send the one and a half million men, women and children of that country to the crematoria where millions of Jews of all ages were exterminated by the Nazis.”

Castro doesn’t deny the Holocaust? That’s a little backward of him. I’m not sure he’s in the progressive vanguard anymore. He went on to say, “It would seem that the Fuehrer’s swastika is today Israel’s banner.”

That’s totally standard fare, nothing you can’t hear on any college campus, any hour of the day. Here’s where things get really weird. A spokesman for the Israeli Foreign Ministry, Yigal Palmor, said, “With these outrageous comments, Fidel Castro shames his old-time companions and the ideals he always pretended to serve. Che Guevara must be spinning in his grave.”

Che Guevara? The guy from the T-shirt? He was a vicious killer and totalitarian who loved to shoot “class enemies” against his paredón — his wall — in La Cabaña, as they shouted “Viva Cuba libre!” and “Viva Cristo Rey!” and who fathered the Cuban gulag, into which he and the revolution tossed dissidents and gays and any other “undesirable” they could get their hands on. Guevara planned for all of Latin America the hell in which he helped to plunge Cuba.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry is either too cute by half or moronic. If Guevara can hear its spokesman from where he is, he is laughing his head off. If he were alive today, he would be as determined and nasty a foe of Israel as anyone in Tehran (or Damascus or Gaza City or Amherst).

By the way, I once did a column on FAQs, Frequently Asked Questions — and the number-one question was, “What might I read about Che Guevara, to get beyond the myth — beyond the adored image on the T-shirt?” That column is here.

UPDATE: Please see this post.