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
“The BDSniks are a prime example of the kind of “anti-Zionists” who spread lies and misinformation and are clearly motivated by more than a “concern for Palestinians”. ”
Talk about projection! Israel was founded on lies.
Moshe Sharett admitted that the “Jewish state” is incapable of surviving without lying to its citizens and the rest of the
world; in fact it has been national security for the “Jewish state”
to do so:
“I have learned that the state of Israel cannot be ruled
in our generation without deceit and adventurism. These are historical facts that cannot be altered. . . In the end, history will justify both the stratagems and deceit and the acts of adventurism. All I know is that I, Moshe Sharett, am not capable of them, and I am therefore unsuited to lead this
country” (Simha Flapan, p. 52-53).
David Moss
So predictably it comes down to: “I object to Hawking criticising Israel, because I object to criticising Israel.”
He can’t just remain neutral on the matter: if he did go to the conference he would be adding legitimacy to Israel and its actions and expressing opposition to the academic boycott.
Jason Kennedy
The writer of this piece is a simpleton, but they get one thing right, they choose appropriate company (Iran, China) for Israel, with regards to human rights.
dylans1
The difference between Iran or the US and Israel is that the boycott of Israel is an act of solidarity in response to a call by an occupied and oppressed people as a non violent tactic to force an end to occupation. If there was a mass movement of Iranians or Americans (or Tibetans etc) calling for a boycott as part of their liberation strategy then I would support it. There isn’t. Therefore this idea that because one supports a boycott of Israel one is a hypocrite for not boycotting every repressive or human rights abusive country is a total red herring.
The decision to boycott a country for its human rights abuses is a tactical decision not a dogmatic one. We boycott Israel in solidarity with the Palestinian call for global support because they, an oppressed and occupied people, believe it is the best strategy to end the occupation of their land. It’s their call not ours.
Andre De Angelis
There’s not much mystery to the Israeli Palestine conflict. Israel has stolen land and is opressing the indigenous population.
Pretty simple. You don’t need to be an astrophysicist to understand it.