Is Israel uniquely bad, or has hypocrisy towards the Jewish state become so widely accepted among some progressives that even an eminent scholar like Hawking is susceptible to hypocritical and lazy double standards?
After a great deal of confusing reports, it was confirmed yesterday that physicist and cosmologist Stephen Hawking has pulled out of a conference in Israel next month after being lobbied by pro-Palestinian campaigners.
Initially some had claimed his decision to pull out of the conference was due to ill health, but a statement published by the British Committee for the Universities of Palestine with Hawking’s approval cleared the matter up.
“This is his independent decision to respect the boycott, based upon his knowledge of Palestine, and on the unanimous advice of his own academic contacts there.”
So “respect for the boycott” was a humanitarian gesture, then?
Ok. But why did professor Hawking see fit to visit Iran in 2007 for a conference? As far as I am aware, there was no statement at the time from Hawking refusing to travel to the Islamic Republic out of “respect” for the country’s political dissidents, or until the government stopped executing homosexuals.
A year earlier, in 2006, Stephen Hawking visited China, whose government is responsible for large scale human rights abuses in Tibet. Tibet is, as Human Rights Watch noted several years before his visit, “a place where some of the most visible and egregious human rights violations committed by the Chinese state have occurred”. A 2008 UN report found that the use of torture in Tibet was “widespread” and “routine”.
There’s no need to be an apologist for the Israeli occupation of the West Bank to question where professor Hawking’s moral compass was when he chose to visit these two serial human rights abusers – and ask why it has suddenly appeared when the country in question is Israel.
Is Israel uniquely bad, or has hypocrisy towards the Jewish state become so widely accepted among some progressives that even an eminent scholar like Hawking is susceptible to hypocritical and lazy double standards?
346 Responses to “So why did Stephen Hawking think it was ok to visit Iran and China?”
JarekAF
I get you on the distinction between Israel proper and the “Greater Israel”
But I don’t think that distinction matters. The claim is that the Palestinians residing in the Occupied Territories are subject to “Apartheid” or “Jim Crow” like treatment.
That home above is in the Occupied West Bank. They do not get to vote in Israeli elections, even though they are subject to Israeli dominion.
Aren’t those chopped up pieces of green in the right similar to Bantustans? It’s not like a duly elected Palestinian leadership had a say in where the Wall goes.
shalomaleichem
Good grief, why are so many people such poor thinkers these situations are not parallel to BDS and so are just not relevant.
1) The situation you mention in India would be parallel to Palestinian academics boycotting Israelis, not foreign academics singling out Israel. Nationals of one nation refusing to co-operate with their enemies is one thing, foreigners picking sides on the basis of what often amounts to lies is something else altogether.
2) The apartheid regime in SA was a unique and evil regime justifying boycott based on real injustices. Whatever the wrongs of the Israeli government they are nowhere comparable in scale and occur in the context of a 100 year old territorial dispute in which the traditional position of Palestinian nationalism is upheld by Hamas.
You are an argument against universal suffrage.
Ginger Beer
Basically, boycotts are not an effective form of protest if they can’t be used against real human rights abusers.
shalomaleichem
If I’ve understood you correctly, you think its moral to treat people according to irrelevant considerations. Of course you are free to do so but this is simply stupidity.
As I said earlier you are abandoning reason. I see no point in continuing discussion with someone who is irrational.
JarekAF
I don’t follow. Are you saying Israel isn’t a human rights abuser? 47 years of occupation suggest otherwise.
Boycotts were effective in South Africa.
Not sure your point. I think they’re more effective against countries that are more democratic than otherwise as public opinion plays a role.
But not really sure where you pulled this standard. Seems meaningless.