MIT Professor Noam Chomsky’s speaking tour of the Middle East was cut short today, when Israeli border troops barred him from entering the West Bank by way of Jordan. Chomsky was scheduled to speak at Bir Zeit University in the West Bank on Monday.
Israeli officials did not provide any specific reason for Chomsky’s ban, but the Interior Ministry suggested that once it was revealed that Chomsky only intended to visit the occupied West Bank and not Israel itself they contacted the military to try to get the ban rescinded.
According to Chomsky the border guards told him the Israeli government “doesn’t like the kind of things I say.” The 82-year-old, a self-described anarchist, says he told them no governments like anything he says.
