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.
Hawking had been set to headline an annual, star-studded geopolitical conference next month convened by Israeli President Shimon Peres. But yesterday, in a statement issued in his name, Hawking said he was withdrawing "based on advice from Palestinian academics."
AP
Stephen Hawking
As the Israeli Foreign Ministry conceded, "Never has a scientist of this stature boycotted Israel."
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.
For another, the high-powered confab he'd agreed to attend included not only Bill Clinton, Tony Blair and Mikhail Gorbachev but also Munib al-Masri — a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council. It's hard to imagine another place in the Middle East that would be as open or inclusive.
Then again, though Hawking has visited Israel before, he's also compared it to apartheid-era South Africa and demanded that Jerusalem negotiate with Hamas.
He's entitled to his politics, of course. Even if the only thing that makes his boycott attention-grabbing is not his science but his celebrity.
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