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?”
Andre De Angelis
>> But aren’t you confusing Israel with the Occupied Territorie
No, because they are both controlled by the Israeli government.
Andre De Angelis
”but I think it is mistaken to refer to all occupations as Apartheid”
You are correct. Occupying powers have obligations to protect the rights of those under their control. Israel has violated the most important ones as well as the Geneva Conventions, by building illegal settlements.
That’s what makes the Israeli occupation apartheid.
” I think that the “apartheid” label rests upon the conceit that the occupation can be explained solely in terms of ethnic supremacy and domination”
That’s because it is. There are 2 sets of laws – one for settlers and one for Palestinians. There are also huge disparities in privileges and human rights. That is apartheid.
” Israelis view the occupation as necessary only in so far as there are still threats to the lives of Israeli civilians.”
That argument falls over at the first hurdle by the simple fact that Israel has moved Israeli citizens into the occupied territories. If the lives of Israeli citizens was really at stake, then the Israeli government would forbid such practices as opposed to subsidizing them.
Unless of course, the Israeli government has a systemic human shields policy.
“but I also think that such a right is conditional upon Palestinians accepting a just framework of peace in conjunction with Israel.”
So long as it is mutual, you would be right. That is what UNSC242 is all about.
“But removing the occupation itself will only come through direct talks”
Sorry, but that is akin to sending home a battered wife to resolve her differences with her wife beating husband.
The customary international law contained in Articles 7 & 8 of the Fourth Geneva Convention does not allow the Occupying Power to negotiate any special agreements with the local authorities that would impair the rights of any protected population safeguarded under the terms of the Convention. The negotiation of a cession of territory during a belligerent occupation would also violate Article 52 and 53 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties and render the agreement null and void.
Resolution 242 contains a logical sequence of events in fulfillment of Charter principles:
a) Withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict; and only then
b) Termination of all claims or states of belligerency.
David Moss
He was originally going to attend and criticise the Israeli governmen- see the BBC report (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22446054) but was advised against it.
There are lots of reasons one can imagine why he might have been convinced that his original plan wasn’t the best. He might have been told (plausibly enough) that even going and criticising would serve as a coup for the Israeli govt (serving to legitimise it). Or negative reactions from the Israelis themselves might have been a factor: even though he’s being criticised for not going, one can well imagine that he’d equally have been told that his actions were inappropriate, if he went along to this celebration of Israel and started criticising it.
Andre De Angelis
It’s not that they are poor thinkers, it’s that they don’t have your bias shalomaleichem.
1) Unless you are opposed to the sanctions on Iran, you are a hypocrite.
The boycott of South Africa was certainly of foreigners picking sides. Are you opposed to such political action?
2) The apartheid regime in SA was not unique, it is identical to Israel. Former South African Prime Minister Dr. Hendrik Verwoerd, described Israel as apartheid in 1961 – 6 years before the occupation.
And the traditional position of Palestinian nationalism is upheld by Hamas is no different to the nationalist position upheld by Israel – only less violent.
Andre De Angelis
“It would have been morally inconsistent and racist for non-Indians to have boycotted only British imperialism.”
So I take it you weer opposed to the boycott of South Africa, which targeted only the South African government and institutions?
Seriously, you are tripping all over the minefield of contradictions you are laying down.
In any case, your argument is the same one the South African regime used to oppose boycott – that there were other human rights abusers in the world and why pick on them? Should those who protest China’s crimes in Tibet also be held to account for not devery human rights abusing regime in the world every time they criticize China?
“It is also racist when non-Palestinian people say I only boycott human rights abuses when Jews are the perpetrators.”
No, it’s their choice to pursue one cause. Your argument is simply infantile.
“Do you think it mere coincidence that the noisiest public boycott campaign skips over the most egregious human rights abusers in order to target a nation who have been persecuted everywhere they have lived throughout the last 2,000 years?”‘
The nation of Israel is 65 years old dude. Ancient Israel lasted no more than 400 years.
Now getting back to planet earth, Israel has conducted the longest occupation in the world.
Drop the messianic delusion.