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?
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346 Responses to “So why did Stephen Hawking think it was ok to visit Iran and China?”
thomtownsend
Oh, agreed. Israel is the subject of “wild, hysterical…etc” claims. So, in turn is the BDS any other “pro-Palestinian” movements. You’ve made some pretty wild claims about them yourself in the second sentence..I inferred from you, perhaps wrongly of course, that you think most of the BDS movement is full of anti-semites. There are some, for sure, but I’ve know plenty who aren’t.
Anyhows. What kind of critical examination is Hawking being subjected to here..that he is “morally inconsistent”..as I say, we all are. This isn’t much of a “critical examination” though is it? All we have here is an author wondering why Hawking hasn’t taken a similar approach to two examples of countries that presumably were the first to spring to mind. As I say, make that criticism a little more robust..why is Hawking not boycotting a range of countries that do things we in Northern Europe broadly disagree with? I gave the example of the US. There are many others. Perhaps the “critical examination” needs to be related to how global protest movements work..why is it ok that this issue gets more attention that others? Why are we all here banging on about Israel/Palestine and probably not commenting on blogs about a range of other similarly depressing issues of oppression and conflict. I’m not saying that this analysis isn’t out there, but it’s not to be found here, where it’s much easier to trott out a fairly useless argument about one man’s “moral inconsistentcy”.
Goghal
There wasn’t a widely publicised and active academic boycott against those two countries. His decision was in solidarity with many of his peers, so presumably not only guided by his own personal convictions.
As for Israel, it is not unique in ethnically discriminating its own population, nor for wishing to make itself a religious state (hello Iran). What Israel has, is a disproportionate level of international support, from the USA and to a decreasing amount from European countries, which has made a fair and lasting peace between Palestine and Israel difficult to achieve. This is understandable as many Israeli citizens are originally from these countries.
It is a democracy unlike the two other countries mentioned, so there is potential for it to be influenced by public opinion. A boycott of any kind is a reasonable way for ordinary people to show Israel that a continued and flagrant disregard for human rights and international laws will not go on unanswered. Consequently it raises the topic for discussion and political debate. Something desperately needed in a country politically dominated by very unsavoury right wing parties.
Alex Ross
Well…firstly, it wasn’t only the Young Conservatives who drew attention to some of the inconsistencies in the west’s attitude to Apartheid South Africa. The great Nigerian musician, Fela Kuti, attacked western liberals for ignoring brutal attacks by authoritarian regimes on black populations in the rest of Africa whilst focusing exclusively on S/A. The purpose of this, of course, wasn’t to diminish the suffering of black people under Apartheid, but to attack the tendency for trendy liberals to focus on what is currently fashionable to the detriment of publicising serious crimes committed elsewhere (largely because they only feel comfortable criticising the crimes of perceived “westerners”!!) .
Also, secondly, Israel is not remotely comparable to Apartheid S/A (as a broadly liberal democratic state). The OT’s certainly do have discriminatory rules based upon ethnicity…which is inexcusable IMHO…but the OT’s exist as a result of a protracted conflict and the only solution to that is peace negotiations with sincerity demonstrated on each side…not silly posturing!
Ben Soffa
Unsurprisingly, James’ post makes no mention of the views of the Palestinians themselves. Instead of noting that the call for boycott originated with hundreds of Palestinian civil society organisations (trade unions, professional groups, community groups) he presents the pressure as being from “pro-Palestinian campaigners”:
http://www.bdsmovement.net/call
The case being put here is that Hawking should ignore the clear call from Palestinian civil society. If there was a widespread view amongst Iranians that a boycott would be effective, then there’d be a strong case for respecting that, just as was the case in South Africa.
This ‘what aboutary’ (should one not criticise Saudi because Iraq carries out more executions etc.) results in support for the status quo and upholding the control of the powerful.
If one takes the view that only states can selectively impose sanctions, but that pressure from individual citizens is unacceptable unless applied against all ‘bad people’, then fine. It is just a relief to millions of people who have gained their liberty from such boycotts, that when states refused, or only latterly took action against injustice, many ordinary people did do what they could.
David Moss
Perhaps because he visited China and Iran for academic conferences, whereas the ‘Israeli Presidential Conference’ is a glorified celebration of the Israeli state and 90th birthday party for Peres.