The South African Civil Society Information Service

Chomsky Denied Entry into Israel

19 May 2010

Jewish-American intellectual, Noam Chomsky, professor of linguistics and philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was denied entry into Israel on Sunday. Chomsky was due to deliver a lecture at Bir Zeit University near Ramallah.

Chomsky's lecture would have covered American foreign and domestic policy.

He spoke with Al Jazeera about the reasons Israel denied him entry. In his words, there were two reasons: 

1) "The government of Israel does not like the kind of things I say, which puts them into the category of, I suppose, every government in the world."

2) "They seemed upset that I was taking an invitation from Bir Zeit and I had no plan to go on to speak in Israeli universities, as I have done many times in the past, but not this time. I was taking a Bir Zeit invitation."

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You can find this page online at http://sacsis.org.za/site/article/234.19.