JERUSALEM: Britain has banned a far-right Israeli political activist from entering the country, saying his views could foment violence, the activist and a British official said Tuesday.

The activist, Moshe Feiglin, is a West Bank settler who heads a faction in the hardline Likud Party. His theocratic platform, which calls for harsh military action against Palestinians, pulling Israel out of the U.N. and encouraging non-Jews to emigrate, is considered extreme even by some settlers.

A British government official confirmed Feiglin had been barred from entering the country. The official would not say whether Feiglin had requested entry, or whether it was common to pre-emptively bar a foreign national.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the Home Office has released no official statement since its policy is not to comment on individual cases.

Feiglin said Tuesday he was surprised by the Home Office's decision and had no plans to visit Britain in any case. He questioned why the British government banned him, although he has never been tied to violent activity, while allowing journalist Ibrahim Mousawi of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah to hold a lecture tour in Britain this month.

In a letter Feiglin received in December, the Home Office's Border and Immigration Agency alleged he has used his position "to propagate views which foment and provoke others to serious criminal acts and also foster hatred which might lead to inter-community violence in the UK." Feiglin said he ignored the letter until early March because he had suspected it was a practical joke.

The letter did not allege Feiglin had ever engaged in armed activities, but listed several quotes from articles he wrote, including one in which he calls for "a holy war, now" against Arabs, and another referring to the Prophet Muhammad as "strong, cruel and deceitful."

In another quote cited in the letter, Feiglin wrote, "Arabs are not sons of the desert but its father. They created the desert — everywhere they come vegetation stops and the wind blows everything away."

Feiglin acknowledged he wrote the statements, but said the reference to Arabs being the desert's "father" came from a 1938 book by Sir Claude Jarvis, then the British High Commissioner of Sinai.

"Why would a political activist be banned while a representative of Hezbollah is allowed in? It appears that Great Britain, like all of Europe, has surrendered to extremist Islam," Feiglin said.

The decision to allow Mousawi to enter the U.K. as a guest of the Stop the War organization was roundly criticized by Jewish groups and by opposition Conservative leader David Cameron.

Hezbollah, which has close ties to Iran, openly calls for Israel's destruction and is suspected of attacks on U.S., French, Israeli and Jewish targets worldwide since the early 1980s. The group sparked a 34-day war in 2006 by attacking an Israeli patrol along the Israel-Lebanon border, killing three soldiers and capturing two.

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/03/11/africa/ME-GEN-Israel-British-Ban.php