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Posted on 05/08/2013 4:42:13 AM PDT by LibWhacker
Professor Stephen Hawking is backing the academic boycott of Israel by pulling out of a conference hosted by Israeli president Shimon Peres in Jerusalem as a protest at Israel's treatment of Palestinians.
Hawking, 71, the world-renowned theoretical physicist and former Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge, had accepted an invitation to headline the fifth annual president's conference, Facing Tomorrow, in June, which features major international personalities, attracts thousands of participants and this year will celebrate Peres's 90th birthday.
Hawking is in very poor health, but last week he wrote a brief letter to the Israeli president to say he had changed his mind. He has not announced his decision publicly, but a statement published by the British Committee for the Universities of Palestine with Hawking's approval described it as "his independent decision to respect the boycott, based upon his knowledge of Palestine, and on the unanimous advice of his own academic contacts there".
Hawking's decision marks another victory in the campaign for boycott, divestment and sanctions targeting Israeli academic institutions.
In April the Teachers' Union of Ireland became the first lecturers' association in Europe to call for an academic boycott of Israel, and in the United States members of the Association for Asian American Studies voted to support a boycott, the first national academic group to do so.
In the four weeks since Hawking's participation in the Jerusalem event was announced, he has been bombarded with messages from Britain and abroad as part of an intense campaign by boycott supporters trying to persuade him to change his mind. In the end, Hawking told friends, he decided to follow the advice of Palestinian colleagues who unanimously agreed that he should not attend.
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
His disease has finally attacked his brain.
Hawking mind is gone. No one should pay much attention to him.
twisted dork
He spends too much time thinking about black holes and quantum physics.
Umm, Professor, did it ever occur to you to think about the way Palestinians treat Israel?
A lost, arrogant, bigoted, anti-Semitic soul.
Think:
$audi money. $audi money. $audi money.
All the intelligence in the world, yet not a shred of wisdom.
He’s intelligent, but way overrated.
Double ditto!
Hawking should stay in his quantum physics lane and stay out of world politics. Brilliant as he may be intellectually, he’s woefully short in understanding the Israeli-Palestinian issue.
BTT
That’s brilliant Stephen!.....like most of your other views.
............./sarc
“Hawking mind is gone. No one should pay much attention to him.”
Yeah, he lost my respect when he renounced the existence of God awhile back.
He seems like a very tragic, bitter figure. I’m inclined to recommend prayer for him.
Reminds me of the absent minded professor who opened his vest, pulled out his tie and wet his pants.
How can someone so damned smart be so ignorant?
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