British physicist Stephen Hawking has stepped into a political black hole.
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Indeed, as the , supporters of Israel have accused Hawking of hypocrisy. The celebrated scientist suffers from motor neuron disease and uses a computer-based system to communicate. That system uses Israeli technology.
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Professor Stephen Hawking has been accused of hypocrisy by an Israeli activist group after he declined an invitation to speak at an important conference in Jerusalem this June, announcing instead that he’s joining a growing academic boycott of Israel in protest of its policies towards Palestine.
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“Hawking’s decision to join the boycott of Israel is quite hypocritical for an individual who prides himself on his own intellectual accomplishment,” said Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, director of the Shurat HaDin Israel Law Center in a statement.
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But the chips to power his fondleslabs come Intel’s fabs in Israel, Darshan-Leitner complains, and if Hawking wants to join an academic boycott of Israel then he shouldn’t be so duplicitous, and cut his ties with Intel.
“He calls it an independent decision based on the unanimous advice of his own academic contacts here. I propose he first seek the advice of Intel engineers working here. He seems to have no understanding of this world,” she said.
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The famous physicist Stephen Hawking is the latest high-profile academic to back the “Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions” (BDS) movement. He has pulled out of an academic conference in Israel. In a letter to Israeli president Shimon Peres, Hawking says his decision to back out of the conference is a result of “his independent decision to respect the boycott, based upon his knowledge of Palestine, and on the unanimous advice of his own academic contacts there.”
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Here’s a bit of irony: Turns out, the microprocessor Hawking uses to run his famous computer-assisted speech program was developed, in part, by a team of Israeli scientists working for Intel. Nitsana Darshan-Leitner of the Israeli legal advocacy group Shurat HaDin suggested that perhaps, in the interest of consistency, Hawking should boycott his own voice.
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The news among the Jews is Prof. Stephen Hawking’s boycott that was, then wasn’t, then was. It began with a news item in the Guardian stating that Hawking, who was slated to attend the President’s Conference in Israel one month from now, had canceled after some discussion with Palestinian academics who urged him to boycott the event. This news item was met with immediate outrage by Israelis and Jews everywhere.
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While we awoke to the reality that Hawking had fallen in with the BDS crowd, there was some mighty fine comfort in a statement by Nitsana Darshan Leitner, who heads up the Israel Law Center, Shurat HaDin, “Hawking’s decision to join the boycott of Israel is quite hypocritical for an individual who prides himself on his whole intellectual accomplishment. His whole computer-based communications system runs on a chip designed by Israel’s Intel team. I suggest if he truly wants to pull out of Israel he should also pull out his Intel Core i7 from his tablet.”
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Stephen Hawking’s decision to join the academic boycott of Israel has prompted anger from the organisers of a conference he was due to address.
The acclaimed physicist and author of A Brief History of Time was due to be the keynote speaker at the fifth President’s Conference hosted by Israeli President Shimon Peres next month. But he has told Mr Peres that he will not be attending “based on his knowledge of Palestine”.
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Israel Law Centre, a civil liberties group, told Wired magazine that in order to be consistent, Prof Hawking should now pull the Israeli-designed Intel chip out of the computer that enables him to talk.
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BRITISH physicist Stephen Hawking has angered Israel with his boycott of a conference there next month, prompting calls for him to pull the Israeli-made chip from his communications system.
The highest-profile academic to join the growing boycott movement, Professor Hawking’s decision was based on “his knowledge of Palestine”.
But the Israeli government branded as hypocrisy the boycott by Hawking, whose book A Brief History of Time has sold more than 10 million copies.
“This is a case of a brief history of hypocrisy,” Israel’s spokesman Yigal Palmor told The Australian. “It is a shame someone like Hawking would add another brick in the wall to alienation and confrontation rather than do something constructive for peace.”
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The Shurat Hadin Israel Law Centre said the Israeli Presidential Conference, hosted by President Shimon Peres and that Hawking was boycotting, featured international personalities and attracted thousands of participants.
“Hawking’s decision to join the boycott of Israel is quite hypocritical for an individual who prides himself on his own intellectual accomplishment,” the centre director Nitsana Darshan-Leitner said in a statement. “His whole computer-based communication system runs on a chip designed by Israel’s Intel team. I suggest that if he truly wants to pull out of Israel, he should also pull out his Intel Core i7 from his tablet.”
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In a major victory for the Israel boycott movement, British theoretical physicist Prof Stephen Hawking has pulled out of next month’s prestigious presidential conference in Jerusalem.
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The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign against Israel pushes for a complete cultural and academic boycott until a final peace settlement is reached with the Palestinians.
Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, director of the Israel Law Centre, criticised Hawking’s decision, noting that the cosmologist uses Israeli-developed technology to cope with his motor neurone illnesse.
“Hawking’s decision to join the boycott of Israel is quite hypocritical for an individual who prides himself on his own intellectual accomplishment. His whole computer-based communication system runs on a chip designed by Israel’s Intel team. I suggest that if he truly wants to pull out of Israel he should also pull out his Intel Core i7 from his tablet.”
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LONDON – After much back and forth on Wednesday, Prof. Stephen Hawking retracted his statement that he pulled out of the fifth President’s Conference in Jerusalem because of ill health and clarified that it was because he supports an academic boycott of Israel.
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Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, director of Shurat HaDin – Israel Law Center, called Hawking’s boycott hypocritical.
“His whole computer-based communication system runs on a chip designed by Israel’s Intel team. I suggest that if he truly wants to pull out of Israel, he should also pull out his Intel Core i7 from his tablet.”
She suggested that he should also consult his academic contacts and the Intel engineers in Israel before deciding to boycott.
“He seems to have no understanding of this world.”
Since 1997, Hawking’s computer- based system has been sponsored and provided by Intel.
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Stephen Hawking is famous for insisting that the strongest arguments are based on reason while the weakest are based on authority. So it’s curious to see the eminent physicist using his authority as a physicist to elevate politics over free inquiry by joining an academic boycott of Israel.
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This is ironic in more than one way. To begin with, among the most impressive things about Hawking is that he has achieved what he has while living with a severe motor-neuron disease. If his life is a little easier today, it’s because he can communicate via technology running on a computer chip designed by Intel’s Israel-based team.
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Cambridge – The world’s most famous scientist has announced that he will boycott an upcoming Israeli conference to show solidarity with Palestinian academics and protest Israeli’s oppressive occupation of Palestine.
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Shurat HaDin, an Israeli legal center that represents victims of terrorism, called Hawking a hypocrite for boycotting Israel while using Israeli technology in his communication system. “Hawking’s decision to join the boycott of Israel is quite hypocritical for an individual who prides himself on his whole intellectual accomplishment,” a representative of Shurat HaDin is quoted in the Guardian. “His whole computer-based communications system runs on a chip designed by Israel’s Intel team. I suggest if he truly wants to pull out of Israel he should also pull out his Intel Core i7 from his tablet.”
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