JERUSALEM — Stephen Hawking, the physicist and cosmologist, has pulled out of a high-profile conference scheduled to be held in June in order to support an academic boycott of Israel, conference organizers said Wednesday.
The academic and cultural boycott, organized by international activists to protest Israel’s policies toward the Palestinians, is a heated and contentious issue; having Hawking join it could help the anti-Israel campaigners significantly.
“Never has a scientist of this stature boycotted Israel,’’ said Yigal Palmor, the spokesman for Israel’s Foreign Ministry.
Organizers of the fifth annual Israeli Presidential Conference, held under the auspices of President Shimon Peres, said they had received a letter over the weekend from Hawking, a longtime Cambridge professor, announcing his decision.
Cambridge issued a statement indicating that Hawking had told the Israelis that he would not be attending ‘‘based on advice from Palestinian academics that he should respect the boycott,’’ according to the Associated Press.
He's brave, but what does he have to lose at this point?
Earlier, the university’s director of communications, Tim Holt, said by telephone that Hawking, 71, had withdrawn from the Israel trip for health reasons. The university later said it had been told otherwise by Hawking’s office.
Israel Maimon, the chairman of the conference, strongly criticized the professor’s decision, saying in a statement, ‘‘The academic boycott of Israel is in our view outrageous and improper, certainly for someone for whom the spirit of liberty lies at the basis of his human and academic mission.’’
Honestly, WE NO LONGER HEAR or CARE what ISRAELI HYPOCRITES SAY!
Maimon, a lawyer and a former Israeli government Cabinet secretary, added: ‘‘Israel is a democracy in which all individuals are free to express their opinions, whatever they may be. The imposition of a boycott is incompatible with open, democratic dialogue.’’
Take your "democratic" apartheid and all its imagery and shove it.
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The Guardian newspaper first reported Hawking’s change of mind and cited a statement by the British Committee for the Universities of Palestine, which The Guardian said was published with Hawking’s approval. It described the cancellation as ‘‘his independent decision to respect the boycott, based upon his knowledge of Palestine, and on the unanimous advice of his own academic contacts there.’’
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UPDATE:
"Stephen Hawking makes a peaceful protest" May 11, 2013
When the esteemed physicist Stephen Hawking announced his decision to boycott Israel’s Presidential Conference, a gathering of politicians, scholars, and other high-profile figures scheduled for June, the response was as predictable as the movement of the cosmos that inspired Hawking’s career.
It's not a boycott because he's not refusing Israeli products or anything. It's not a state action, it's an individual protest. But hey, what's one more distortion from the Jewish war paper.
The conference chair, Israel Maimon, called the move “outrageous and improper,” while Omar Barghouti, a founder of the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement that advocates protests against Israeli policies, declared, “Palestinians deeply appreciate Stephen Hawking’s support.”
And so do a lot of other people all over the planet.
In fact, the decision to withdraw from a conference is a reasonable way to express one’s political views. Observers need not agree with Hawking’s position in order to understand and even respect his choice. The movement that Hawking has signed on to aims to place pressure on Israel through peaceful means. In the context of a Mideast conflict that has caused so much destruction and cost so many lives, nonviolence is something to be encouraged. That is equally true of attempts to inspire cooperation on the Palestinian side.
Can you believe that coming from a war-promoting paper? I feel insulted.
Chances for a peaceful solution in Israel and Palestine are remote enough without overreactions like Maimon’s. Foreclosing nonviolent avenues to give people a political voice — and maybe bring about an eventual resolution — only makes what is already difficult that much more challenging.
Yeah, at bottom, and no surprise there, they are most concerned with Israel and its image.
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