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?”
Alex Ross
Iranian citizens from minority communities (e.g. Zoroastrians, Catholics and Jews) can only vote for candidates from their designated minority list. Would be like only allowing UK Muslims to select from a “Muslim List” and not allowing UK Muslims to participate in the Labour, Conservative or Lib Dem parties. Sounds more like apartheid than the electoral system in practice in Israel??
Barnz Mcaleer
Whose land is Iran occupying? What indigenous people is Iranian govt ethnically cleansing to make way for some colonial fantasy? Iran is subject to sanctions, has been for years. There’s nobody writing op-eds excusing its behaviour in western MSM. Iran doesn’t have a well funded and well oiled lobby machine in the west to excuse each and every human rights violation its guilty of.
Israel is shielded from sanctions by Uncle Sam, so its really only BDS that can in any way put pressure on Israel, pressure that the international community should be putting on it, but for some reason refuses to. Not so with Iran, its been sanctioned up the gazoo. So its important that ppl like Hawking involve themselves where they can help to exert pressure that governments should be exerting.
Its quite simple really, just not for the foaming mouth breathers who want Israel a free rein unlike any other nation in tyjhe world.
shalomaleichem
I think that racism is the agreed term for discrimination based on ethnicity, nationality or skin colour. This has nothing to do with whether races themselves exist, which they don’t.
But I agree semantic games is an excellent way of avoiding the question.
thomtownsend
Ok, I would disagree with your definition and remove nationality (for a variety of reasons), which is why I asked the question. Seeking clarification is, in my view, rarely considered “semantic game”, but whatever, that’s not important.
Personally, I don’t consider his actions racist. I doubt there is much we can agree on there as I would summise that you’re of the view that the BDS movement’s explicit and implicit aims are motivated by racism. I don’t think they are. We’ve somewhat reached an impasse at that point.
shalomaleichem
You are being presumptuous. I did read the thread . and I stand by my comment. I think discrimination on grounds of nationality, religion, ethnicity and so on is wrong and this should be highlighted and condemned where it occurs.
I don’t argue that people should not be forgiven for mistakes but we should aim not make these mistakes in the first place. On the other hand you seem happy to provide excuses for the wrong moral choices.