[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.]
Physicist pulls out of
conference hosted by president Shimon Peres in protest at treatment of
Palestinians
By Harriet Sherwood and
Matthew Kalman in Jerusalem
 |
Photograph: Facundo Arrizabalaga/EPA
A statement published with Stephen Hawking's approval said his withdrawal was
based on advice from academic contacts in Palestine.
|
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.
Hawking's decision met
with abusive responses on Facebook, with many commentators focusing on his
physical condition, and some accusing him of antisemitism.
By participating in the
boycott, Hawking joins a small but growing list of British personalities who
have turned down invitations to visit Israel, including Elvis Costello, Roger
Waters, Brian Eno, Annie Lennox and Mike Leigh.
However, many artists,
writers and academics have defied and even denounced the boycott, calling it
ineffective and selective. Ian McEwan, who was awarded the Jerusalem Prize in
2011, responded to critics by saying: "If I only went to countries that I
approve of, I probably would never get out of bed … It's not great if everyone
stops talking."
Noam Chomsky, a
prominent supporter of the Palestinian cause, has said that he supports the
"boycott and divestment of firms that are carrying out operations in the
occupied territories" but that a general boycott of Israel is "a gift
to Israeli hardliners and their American supporters".
Hawking has visited
Israel four times in the past. Most recently, in 2006, he delivered public
lectures at Israeli and Palestinian universities as the guest of the British
embassy in Tel Aviv. At the time, he said he was "looking forward to
coming out to Israel and the Palestinian territories and excited about meeting
both Israeli and Palestinian scientists".
Since then, his
attitude to Israel appears to have hardened. In 2009, Hawking denounced
Israel's three-week attack on Gaza, telling Riz Khan on Al-Jazeera that
Israel's response to rocket fire from Gaza was "plain out of proportion …
The situation is like that of South Africa before 1990 and cannot
continue."
Israel Maimon, chairman
of the presidential conference said: "This decision is outrageous and
wrong.
"The use of an
academic boycott against Israel is outrageous and improper, particularly for
those to whom the spirit of liberty is the basis of the human and academic
mission. Israel is a democracy in which everyone can express their opinion,
whatever it may be. A boycott decision is incompatible with open democratic
discourse."
In 2011, the Israeli parliament
passed a law making a boycott call by an individual or organisation a civil
offence which can result in compensation liable to be paid regardless of actual
damage caused. It defined a boycott as "deliberately avoiding economic,
cultural or academic ties with another person or another factor only because of
his ties with the State of Israel, one of its institutions or an area under its
control, in such a way that may cause economic, cultural or academic
damage".
• This article was
amended on 8 May 2013. The original described Hawking as Lucasian Professor of
Mathematics at the University of Cambridge. He stepped down in 2009.
