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Israel Roiled After Chomsky Barred From West Bank
By ETHAN BRONNER, May 17, 2010
JERUSALEM A fierce debate broke out in Israel on Monday amid finger pointing and hand wringing over the countrys refusal a day earlier to permit Noam Chomsky, the linguist and icon of the American left, to enter the occupied West Bank from Jordan.
Front-page coverage and heated morning radio discussions asked how Mr. Chomsky, an 81-year-old professor emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, could pose a risk to Israel and how a country that frequently asserts its status as a democracy could keep out people whose views it found offensive.
Mr. Chomsky, who is Jewish and spent time living on a kibbutz in Israel in the 1950s, is an outspoken critic both of American and Israeli policy. But he has supported a two-state solution here and has not condemned Israels existence in the terms of the countrys sharpest critics around the world.
The decision to bar him from entering the West Bank to speak at Bir Zeit, a Palestinian university, is an act of folly, part of a large series of follies in the recent period, which together could mark the end of Israel as a freedom-loving state of law, or at least pose a big question over it, remarked Boaz Okun, the legal commentator of the mass-selling Yediot Aharonot newspaper, in his Monday column.
Government spokesmen were mortified at the development and issued statements saying that the decision was made by an interior ministry official at the Jordan-West Bank border and did not represent policy.
There is no change in our policy, asserted Mark Regev, a spokesman for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The idea that Israel is preventing people from entering whose opinions are critical of the state is ludicrous; it is not happening. This was a mishap. A guy at border overstepped his authority.
But Mr. Chomsky said in a television interview from Jordan with Al Jazeera in English that the interior ministry official who interviewed him was on the phone with other ministry officials during the several hours of questioning on Sunday at the West Bank border and that he was taking instructions from his superiors.
There were two basic points, Mr. Chomsky told the interviewer. One was that the government of Israel does not like the kinds of things I say which puts them into the category of I suppose every other government in the world. The second was that they seemed upset about the fact that I was just taking an invitation from Bir Zeit and I had no plans to go on to speak in Israeli universities, as I have done many times in the past but not this time.
Some conservative members of Parliament said they had no objection to the decision.
This is a decision of principle between the democratic ideal and we all want freedom of speech and movement and the need to protect our existence, asserted Otniel Schneller, of the centrist Kadima party, on Israel Radio. Lets say he came to lecture at Bir Zeit. What would he say that? That Israel kills Arabs, that Israel is an apartheid state?
In another three months, Mr. Schneller went on, some Israeli would be standing over her sons grave, the victim of incitement in the name of free speech. People like Mr. Chomsky, he added, do not have to be granted permission to enter.
Mr. Chomsky said he had last visited in 1997. This time he came to the border with his daughter and two friends. The friends were permitted entry but he and his daughter were not. In the end, all four chose to return to Amman, the Jordanian capital.
Moustafa Barghouti, who was to be Mr. Chomskys host in the West Bank, angrily condemned Israels refusal to let him in, saying, The decision of Israel to prevent Professor Chomsky from entering the Palestinian Territories is a result of the numerous campaigns against Chomsky organized by the Jewish lobby in the United States.
Israel Roiled After Chomsky Barred From West Bank - NYTimes.com
By ETHAN BRONNER, May 17, 2010
JERUSALEM A fierce debate broke out in Israel on Monday amid finger pointing and hand wringing over the countrys refusal a day earlier to permit Noam Chomsky, the linguist and icon of the American left, to enter the occupied West Bank from Jordan.
Front-page coverage and heated morning radio discussions asked how Mr. Chomsky, an 81-year-old professor emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, could pose a risk to Israel and how a country that frequently asserts its status as a democracy could keep out people whose views it found offensive.
Mr. Chomsky, who is Jewish and spent time living on a kibbutz in Israel in the 1950s, is an outspoken critic both of American and Israeli policy. But he has supported a two-state solution here and has not condemned Israels existence in the terms of the countrys sharpest critics around the world.
The decision to bar him from entering the West Bank to speak at Bir Zeit, a Palestinian university, is an act of folly, part of a large series of follies in the recent period, which together could mark the end of Israel as a freedom-loving state of law, or at least pose a big question over it, remarked Boaz Okun, the legal commentator of the mass-selling Yediot Aharonot newspaper, in his Monday column.
Government spokesmen were mortified at the development and issued statements saying that the decision was made by an interior ministry official at the Jordan-West Bank border and did not represent policy.
There is no change in our policy, asserted Mark Regev, a spokesman for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The idea that Israel is preventing people from entering whose opinions are critical of the state is ludicrous; it is not happening. This was a mishap. A guy at border overstepped his authority.
But Mr. Chomsky said in a television interview from Jordan with Al Jazeera in English that the interior ministry official who interviewed him was on the phone with other ministry officials during the several hours of questioning on Sunday at the West Bank border and that he was taking instructions from his superiors.
There were two basic points, Mr. Chomsky told the interviewer. One was that the government of Israel does not like the kinds of things I say which puts them into the category of I suppose every other government in the world. The second was that they seemed upset about the fact that I was just taking an invitation from Bir Zeit and I had no plans to go on to speak in Israeli universities, as I have done many times in the past but not this time.
Some conservative members of Parliament said they had no objection to the decision.
This is a decision of principle between the democratic ideal and we all want freedom of speech and movement and the need to protect our existence, asserted Otniel Schneller, of the centrist Kadima party, on Israel Radio. Lets say he came to lecture at Bir Zeit. What would he say that? That Israel kills Arabs, that Israel is an apartheid state?
In another three months, Mr. Schneller went on, some Israeli would be standing over her sons grave, the victim of incitement in the name of free speech. People like Mr. Chomsky, he added, do not have to be granted permission to enter.
Mr. Chomsky said he had last visited in 1997. This time he came to the border with his daughter and two friends. The friends were permitted entry but he and his daughter were not. In the end, all four chose to return to Amman, the Jordanian capital.
Moustafa Barghouti, who was to be Mr. Chomskys host in the West Bank, angrily condemned Israels refusal to let him in, saying, The decision of Israel to prevent Professor Chomsky from entering the Palestinian Territories is a result of the numerous campaigns against Chomsky organized by the Jewish lobby in the United States.
Israel Roiled After Chomsky Barred From West Bank - NYTimes.com
