Noam Chomsky, the leftist American writer and journalist, barred from entering the occupied West Bank on Sunday night, has not been particularly outspoken about the incident, informs Al Jazeera Tuesday.
He told the Arabian news service that the Israeli government was upset, that his plans to speak at a Palestinian university were scuppered; he likened Israel to a “Stalinist regime” in a brief interview with Haaretz; but he has otherwise kept a low public profile.
In the US media, too, Chomsky’s expulsion attracted relatively little interest.
But the incident has sparked a debate within Israel, where a number of prominent journalists and writers questioned whether it’s part of a trend – of the Israeli government denying entry to people simply because of their political views.
The Israeli daily Ma’ariv reported that the decision to bar Chomsky came from an official in the Israeli interior ministry – and that he was barred for being a “leftist.”
The Association of Civil Rights in Israel told the Jerusalem Post that people with left-wing views are routinely barred from entering Israel.
Oded Feller, an attorney for the group, said the Israeli interior ministry has not set out clear criteria for barring people from Israel, and that political considerations are often involved.
“The interior ministry simply doesn’t publish this despite a court ruling that ordered them to do so.”
Boaz Okon, the legal affairs editor for the Israeli daily newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, said the issue could mark “the end of Israel as a freedom-loving state of law”.
“When freedom disappears – it comes first of all at the expense of the weak, the marginal groups or the minorities. But it does not end there. Now it is also reaching intellectuals with a worldwide reputation.
“Therefore, it would not be an exaggeration to say that the decision to shut up Prof. Chomsky is an attempt to put an end to freedom in the State of Israel,” Okon wrote.
