CENSORSHIP

The Israeli army has banned William Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” from a detention camp for prisoners arrested during the Palestinian uprising, an Israeli human rights group said. The army bans books from Ketziot prison camp in the Negev Desert if it believes the material could incite violence or if it contains a subversive message. In Hamlet’s famous “To be or not to be” soliloquy, the prince of Denmark weighs whether to take up arms or suffer in silence. The Israel Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories said camp authorities had withheld “Hamlet” as well as J. R .R. Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings,” “Sea Wolf” by Jack London and a travel guide to Germany when a civil rights attorney brought them for camp prisoners. Military sources said the decision to bar the play appeared to be an error in judgment and would be reviewed, but they also noted that more than 1,000 titles were permitted in the camp, along with uncensored Israeli newspapers.