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 only side exterminating theirvopponentbis Israel.
How is breaking off negotiations worse than violating agreements? Israel agreed to STOP all settlement construction under the 2002 Road Map, and the first phase of a 3phase program. Negotiations were to take place once Israel had met it’s obligations. 10 years later, Israel is still building.
That proves 2 things.
1. Israel cannot even stick t agreements they make
2. Israel are not serious about negotiations.
Since that signing, Isrsel have killed hundreds of infants and stolen even more land – hence proving they are indeed the agressors.
Baltiron
“… contains a qualifier …”
Which is worthless since they have declared all Israelis to be enemies, regardless of age, sex or etnicity.
“… pledge the clearance of Palestinians from at least the Jordan to the sea …”
A clear case of projection, it’s the fakestinians who repeatedly state that their goal is to eliminate their enemy from river to sea.
“What border might that be?”
The 1967 border, and a group of terrorists recently killed an entire family of Israelis. On leaving the house they heard an infant cry and turned back and knifed it to death.
“Israeli leaders kill infants by the hundreds”
No, they don’t. The number of fatalities aren’t that many. In particular, they don’t target infants. That’s something out of your Nazi-inspired racist propaganda points. An old racist myth based on hatred of they Jooos.
Baltiron
“… contains a qualifier …”
Which is worthless since they have declared all Israelis to be enemies, regardless of age, sex or etnicity.
“… pledge the clearance of Palestinians from at least the Jordan to the sea …”
A clear case of projection, it’s the fakestinians who repeatedly state that their goal is to eliminate their enemy from river to sea.
“What border might that be?”
The 1967 border, and a group of terrorists recently killed an entire family of Israelis. On leaving the house they heard an infant cry and turned back and knifed it to death.
“Israeli leaders kill infants by the hundreds”
No, they don’t. The number of fatalities aren’t that many. In particular, they don’t target infants. That’s something out of your Nazi-inspired racist propaganda points. An old racist myth based on hatred of they Jooos.
Baltiron
I’ve heard most of your racist blather before, if that’s what you mean.
Baltiron
The fakestinians broke the agreement first, the Israelis continue the building to gain leverage to convince the fakestinians to comply with earlier agreements.
Israel has stuck with agreements of peace with all parties that have reciprocated, such as Jordan, Egypt and Lebanon.
The claim that Israel kills hundreds of infants is just another racist lie, obvious since the number of fatalities are to low for it to be true. But do keep on repeating racist conspiracy theories from the Middle Ages, it makes you look like the racist creep you are.