The argument put forward by the critics of Professor Stephen Hawkins’s decision to boycott Shimon Peres’ invitation is the most regrettable excuse imaginable to come from a body of supposedly forward thinking people with any semblance of a moral conscience.
They argue that the boycott is against the spirit of open discourse which science advances. Effectively, they are saying; turn a blind eye to Israel’s wanton transgression because the issue at hand does not concern land grabbing, does not concern the systemic destruction and oppression of a nation, and does not concern Israel’s flagrant and well documented abuse of human rights. Instead, it concerns this little matter of science and its ‘lofty’ principles.
There are some who would want us to believe that there is a campaign of calumny against Israel and any criticism whether rightly or wrongly is aptly surmised in one notion; Anti-Semitism.
What they have succeeded in doing however is an attempt at redefining science, removing the toga of fairness it dons and clothing it in the bloody toga of brutality and intolerance.
There is no equality between Palestine and Israel, neither in GDP nor military prowess. To argue that there is because Palestinians shoot rockets into Israel is to be ungrateful to whatever circumstance has determined that you were not born a Palestinian. It is to not realise how fortunate you are to not have your lands stolen,your people impoverished, your opportunities at succeeding in this life minimised. Those rockets instead are the efforts of a feeble last effort resistance to a dominant military that is perhaps bettered by that of the United States only by sheer size.
It might interest you to know that the Palestinians have no effective means of redress against the transgression they currently endure. The UN forgets conveniently its mandate to protect human rights when Israel is involved. Otherwise, why is a sanction so difficult to impose on a country that has been predatory over its cousin’s fields? Palestinians in their oppressed history have been subjected to talks that have not returned any land, livelihood or dignity. Yet the world sits high, nudnik-ed by Israel into accusing these folks of a terrorist agenda or a sheer willingness to shy away from talks in favor of violence.
Science is a tool for humanity. It does not stand above human life or the principles of justice. What is science if all it does is to create bombs and guns for the oppression of people? What is science if it serves to oil the propaganda of a branding campaign? What is science if it formulates the psychology for terror? What is science if we rather theorize and research while women and children die? If science is a mockery then we people of conscience will have none of it.
The rest of humanity may redeem itself of its nonchalance and this boycott is the means. How else do you gain the attention of a country that cannot be sanctioned by the collective power of the United Nations? That scientists across the globe can join the movement for the Academic Boycott (spearheaded by Bricup) of Israel is not to punish its academia. That is propaganda talk. It is to make that tyrant of Goliath dimensions pause and check itself. And if science has to be involved in partisan politics to draw attention, to redress ills, to champion humanity then it is imperative it does so for any attempt at maintaining a supposedly dignified distance is akin to collaborative silence. The very idea that a boycott threatens the impartial nature of science is saying that science is without morals and utterly undignified.
We are grateful that similar views are echoed within Israel itself and even more intrigued at the high handedness its government displays towards the freedom of Israel’s Leftist academia, it is a sign that it is willing to abuse it’s citizenry to protect what is clearly a policy that borders on institutional prejudice.
A certain D. Newman of the faculty of humanities and social sciences at Ben Gurion University warned that this academic boycott ‘’just destroys one of the very few spaces where Israelis and Palestinians actually do come together’’. I say it is better there is no space in the world where people cannot meet each other as equals in mutual respect.
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