Stephen Hawking joins academic boycott of Israel

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Stephen Hawking joins academic boycott of Israel

Physicist pulls out of conference hosted by president Shimon Peres in protest at treatment of Palestinians

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.

ISRAEL DESTROYS ENTIRE VILLAGE, LEAVES CHILDREN HOMELESS

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ISRAEL DESTROYS ENTIRE VILLAGE, LEAVES CHILDREN HOMELESS

Israel Just Did Something Appalling, And Likely To Create New Palestinian extremists.

Palestinian extremists are not born, but made. They are the result of decades of resistance. In the West Bank, once again Israeli bulldozers have destroyed the homes of hundreds of Palestinian. This time, the targets were the villages of Khirbet Jenbah and Khirbat el-Halawa in the West Bank, home to over 100 people.

In spite of the recent international efforts to stop Israel from continuing building Israeli settlements on occupied territories and at the expense of Palestinian people, Israel continues to destroy Palestinian homes. These recent demolitions happened Tuesday morning in the Firing Zone 918, a very controversial area that was declared by Israel a restricted military zone since the 1970s. The creation of restricted military zones on occupied land violates international law. According to some, this was one of the biggest demolitions in the past decade.

In addition to the homes destroyed, several buildings funded by the European Union, with funds from ECHO (the European Commission’s humanitarian arm) were also demolished. But the main point is that many of these Palestinian families have lived in those houses for generations, even before the creation of the State of Israel.After the demolition, Palestinians were seen going through the remains of their houses in a desperate effort to save some of their possessions. Many of them set up temporary tents to be able to stay there, hoping for the international community to address this violation.

“Israeli media report that children were seen digging in rubble for their toys after the operation.”

It is important to mention that in 1999, the village of Khirbet Jenbah was entirely destroyed, but Palestinians won a court arbitration and were allowed to go back. However, this time Israel claimed that the villagers were unwilling to relocate and that is why negotiations failed. Cogat, the Israeli defence ministry unit that administers civilian affairs in the West Bank, confirmed that

“enforcement measures were taken against illegal structures and solar panels built within a military zone”.

Nearby villages, home to over 1,000 people are also in danger of facing demolition. So far, more thanhalf a million Jewish settlers have moved to the West Bank through Israel’s illegal expansion of its settlements. And this is a number now growing by 16,000 a year. Additionally, Israel’s parliament recently passed a law that increases police powers, that allows them to stop and frisk suspects without any probable cause, only on the suspicion that they might be violent. This law will evidently increase the racial profiling of Arabs. This law is the result of the increasing Palestinian extremists that have been reported to stab and kill Israelis in recent months.

These actions by Israel are not new. For the past 50 years the destruction of Palestinian homes has been known. However, these demolitions and settlement expansions not only put in doubt the viability of a future two-state solution for the conflict; it seems that Israel has not realised yet that these actions create more and more Palestinian extremists. Generations are born and raised in an environment of illegal occupation, violence, oppression and international indifference. Israel’s continuous illegal actions encourage fear and above all, promote more hatred against the existence of this State, which can result in the creation of newer generations of Palestinian extremists.

And although violence has no excuse, Israel is not contributing to the elimination of violence from the Palestinian side; in fact, it is actually encouraging it. People can only take so much before they begin to resist.


Originally published by Reverb Press.

Yemen: the devastation of a nation, largely ignored

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Yemen: the devastation of a nation, largely ignored

The UK’s role in Yemen has been described as a ‘paradox of aid and arms’: we have committed millions for humanitarian relief yet are one of Saudi Arabia’s biggest arms suppliers


UN report into Saudi-led intervention finds evidence of widespread air strikes against civilian targets

 A girl, displaced from Sa’’ada by fighting, at a Unicef-led programme in a school in Sana’’a in October 2015. 

We are waiting to see when we will die” – the words of a resident of the besieged city of Taiz in Yemen, retold by a British Yemeni at a meeting with cross-party MPs in Westminster last week.

Taiz has been under siege by rebels for months, cut off from humanitarian aid, with no electricity, no schools, and where the vast majority of health facilities have closed.

Britain’s international development committee (IDC) had invited representatives of the Yemeni diaspora to contribute to our inquiry into the crisis in Yemen. We were shocked to hear about the desperate situation in Taiz, which bears a worrying resemblance to Madaya in Syria. But the world is watching Syria while the crisis in Yemen is largely ignored.

The crisis is having a devastating effect on the whole country. According to the UN (pdf), an astonishing 82% of the population needs humanitarian assistance - 21.2 million people, compared with 12.2 million in Syria. The food situation is particularly concerning, with 14.4 million people struggling to find enough to eat, including 1.3 million children who are acutely malnourished. Millions cannot access safe water or basic healthcare and 1.8 million children are out of school. The Yemeni diaspora described the situation as collective punishment, with the population being punished for the actions of the rebels.

But who are the rebels and how did this crisis happen? Yemen has a long history of conflict and instability, which had left it the poorest country in the Middle East. The current crisis escalated in March when a Saudi-led coalition launched airstrikes to stop the advance of the Houthi rebel group, which had taken control of the capital, Sana’a, and forced the government into exile in Saudi Arabia. It was meant to be a short sharp campaign by the coalition, yet has now dragged on for 10 months, leaving the country in tatters.

Civilians are paying a high price for this war. The UN high commissioner for human rights said on 5 January that there had been more than 8,000 civilian casualties since March, including 2,795 killed. Civilians account for half the deaths in this conflict, many from the reported use of explosive weapons in populated areas and attacks on hospitals and schools. The population have been living under the constant bombardment of aerial attacks and ground fighting. Reports of violations of international humanitarian law have been no less constant.

It has not only been the war that has had such a damaging effect on Yemen’s people. As the diaspora told the committee, the blockade on ports has been devastating, particularly for a country that imports 70% of its fuel, 90% of its food and all its medical supplies (pdf).

In September, fuel imports fell to 1% of the monthly requirements (pdf). As a result, hospitals are closing at an alarming rate and industry has come to a standstill. We heard from Yemeni businessmen that huge numbers of businesses have shut down, leading to high unemployment. The black market is inflating prices, especially for fuel which costs 286% more than it did before the war, according to the UN World Food Programme. Prices are skyrocketing at the same time as people are losing their incomes.

Peace talks held in Switzerland last month failed when the ceasefire was broken repeatedly by both the Houthis and the Saudi-led coalition. The talks were described to us as a “bit of theatre” while delegates continued to wage war.

On Wednesday, the IDC will hear from key stakeholders, including Unicef and Oxfam, and from both the Department for International Development (DfID) and the Foreign Office.

DfID has committed £85m to Yemen, making the UK the fourth largest donor to the humanitarian crisis. However, the UK is also the largest supplier of arms to Saudi Arabia and supports the coalition’s intervention, a position described in evidence to the committee as undermining DfID’s humanitarian response and creating a paradox of aid and arms.

I hope Wednesday’s meeting will provide an opportunity to draw attention to the catastrophic scale of the crisis and what the UK is doing and can do to help end the suffering.

Israel warns Brazil of consequences unless it accept settler as ambassador

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Israel warns Brazil of consequences unless it accept settler as ambassador

Israel warns ties may suffer if Brasilia does not accept nominee Dani Dayan, a former head of the Jewish settlement movement

Palestinian boys look towards the Israeli settlement of Beit El, in the occupied West Bank. Israel has appointed a settler, Dani Dayan, as its ambassador to Brazil, a position Brasilia has yet to confirm. Photograph: Abbas Momani/AFP/Getty Images

Brazil’s reluctance to accept an Israeli ambassador who is a West Bank settler has led to a standoff with Israel now warning it could downgrade diplomatic relations.

The appointment four months ago of Dani Dayan, a former head of the Jewish settlement movement, did not go down well with Brazil’s left-leaning government, which has supported Palestinian statehood in recent years.

Most world powers deem the Jewish settlements illegal.

Israel’s previous ambassador, Reda Mansour, left Brasilia last week and the Israeli government said on Sunday Brazil risked degrading bilateral relations if Dayan were not allowed to succeed him.

“The State of Israel will leave the level of diplomatic relations with Brazil at the secondary level if the appointment of Dani Dayan is not confirmed,” Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely told Israel’s Channel 10 TV, saying Dayan would remain the sole nominee.

She said Israel would lobby Brasilia through the Brazilian Jewish community, confidants of President Dilma Rousseff and direct appeals from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Brazilian government officials declined to comment on whether Rousseff will accept the nomination of the Argentine-born Dayan. But one senior Foreign Ministry official told Reuters: “I do not see that happening.”

The official, who asked not to be named because he was not authorised to speak on the matter, said Israel would have to choose a different envoy because the choice of Dayan has further worsened relations that turned sour in 2010 when Brazil decided to recognise Palestinian statehood in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, which Israel captured in a 1967 war and settled.

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Israel quit Gaza in 2005 but claims East Jerusalem as its indivisible capital and wants to keep swathes of West Bank settlements under any eventual peace deal with the Palestinians.

Rousseff’s predecessor, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, angered Israel by drawing Brazil closer to Iran.

Tensions rose last year when an Israeli foreign ministry spokesman called Brazil a “diplomatic dwarf” after Brasilia recalled its ambassador from Israel to protest a military offensive in Gaza.

Brazil’s government was also angered by the announcement of Dayan’s appointment by Netanyahu in a Twitter message on 5 August before Brasilia had been informed, let alone agreed to the new envoy as is the diplomatic norm.

Over the weekend, Dayan went on the offensive to defend his nomination, telling Israeli media that Netanyahu’s government was not doing enough to press Brazil to accept him. Dayan said not doing so could create a precedent barring settlers from representing Israel abroad.

Emmanuel Nahshon, spokesman for Israel’s Foreign Ministry, said ties with Brazil were “good and important”, noting Israel’s recent opening of a new consulate in Brazil and the business opportunities for Israeli security firms during the Olympic Games to be held in Rio de Janeiro in August.

Israel has a considerable role in providing avionics technology for Brazil’s aerospace and defense industry.


Celso Amorim, a former Brazilian foreign and defence minister, said on Friday that the diplomatic dispute over Dayan’s appointment showed that “it is time the Brazilian armed forces reduced their dependence on Israel.”

CIA admits role in 1953 Iranian coup

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CIA admits role in 1953 Iranian coup

Declassified documents describe in detail how US – with British help – engineered coup against Mohammad Mosaddeq

Mohammed Mosaddeq is described in one US document as 'mercurial, maddening, adroit, and provocative'. Photograph: Bettmann/Corbis

The CIA has publicly admitted for the first time that it was behind the notorious 1953 coup against Iran's democratically elected prime minister Mohammad Mosaddeq, in documents that also show how the British government tried to block the release of information about its own involvement in his overthrow.

On the 60th anniversary of an event often invoked by Iranians as evidence of western meddling, the US national security archive at George Washington University published a series of declassified CIA documents.

"The military coup that overthrew Mosaddeq and his National Front cabinet was carried out under CIA direction as an act of US foreign policy, conceived and approved at the highest levels of government," reads a previously excised section of an internal CIA history titled The Battle for Iran.

The documents, published on the archive's website under freedom of information laws, describe in detail how the US – with British help – engineered the coup, codenamed TPAJAX by the CIA and Operation Boot by Britain's MI6.

Britain, and in particular Sir Anthony Eden, the foreign secretary, regarded Mosaddeq as a serious threat to its strategic and economic interests after the Iranian leader nationalised the British Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, latterly known as BP. But the UK needed US support. The Eisenhower administration in Washington was easily persuaded.

British documents show how senior officials in the 1970s tried to stop Washington from releasing documents that would be "very embarrassing" to the UK.

Official papers in the UK remain secret, even though accounts of Britain's role in the coup are widespread. In 2009 the former foreign secretary Jack Straw publicly referred to many British "interferences" in 20th-century Iranian affairs. On Monday the Foreign Office said it could neither confirm nor deny Britain's involvement in the coup.


The previously classified US documents include telegrams from Kermit Roosevelt, the senior CIA officer on the ground in Iran during the coup. Others, including a draft in-house CIA history by Scott Kock titled Zendebad, Shah! (Viva, Shah!), say that according to Monty Woodhouse, MI6's station chief in Tehran at the time, Britain needed US support for a coup. Eden agreed. "Woodhouse took his words as tantamount to permission to pursue the idea" with the US, Kock wrote.

Mosaddeq's overthrow, still given as a reason for the Iranian mistrust of British and American politicians, consolidated the Shah's rule for the next 26 years until the 1979 Islamic revolution. It was aimed at making sure the Iranian monarchy would safeguard the west's oil interests in the country.

The archived CIA documents include a draft internal history of the coup titled "Campaign to install a pro-western government in Iran", which defines the objective of the campaign as "through legal, or quasi-legal, methods to effect the fall of the Mosaddeq government; and to replace it with a pro-western government under the Shah's leadership with Zahedi as its prime minister".

One document describes Mosaddeq as one of the "most mercurial, maddening, adroit and provocative leaders with whom they [the US and Britain] had ever dealt". The document says Mosaddeq "found the British evil, not incomprehensible" and "he and millions of Iranians believed that for centuries Britain had manipulated their country for British ends". Another document refers to conducting a "war of nerves" against Mossadeq.

The Iranian-Armenian historian Ervand Abrahamian, author of The Coup: 1953, the CIA and the Roots of Modern US-Iranian Relations, said in a recent interview that the coup was designed "to get rid of a nationalist figure who insisted that oil should be nationalised".

Unlike other nationalist leaders, including Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser, Mosaddeq epitomised a unique "anti-colonial" figure who was also committed to democratic values and human rights, Abrahamian argued.

Some analysts argue that Mosaddeq failed to compromise with the west and the coup took place against the backdrop of communism fears in Iran. "My study of the documents proves to me that there was never really a fair compromise offered to Mosaddeq, what they wanted Mosaddeq to do is to give up oil nationalisation and if he'd given that of course then the national movement would have been meaningless," he told the Iranian online publication, Tableau magazine.

"My argument is that there was never really a realistic threat of communism … discourse and the way justifying any act was to talk about communist danger, so it was something used for the public, especially the American and the British public."

Despite the latest releases, a significant number of documents about the coup remain secret. Malcolm Byrne, deputy director of the national security archive, has called on the US intelligence authorities to release the remaining records and documents.

"There is no longer good reason to keep secrets about such a critical episode in our recent past. The basic facts are widely known to every school child in Iran," he said. "Suppressing the details only distorts the history, and feeds into myth-making on all sides."

In recent years Iranian politicians have sought to compare the dispute over the country's nuclear activities to that of the oil nationalisation under Mosaddeq: supporters of the former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad often invoke the coup.

US officials have previously expressed regret about the coup but have fallen short of issuing an official apology. The British government has never acknowledged its role.

Israel exonerates itself over Gaza beach killings of four children last year

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Israel exonerates itself over Gaza beach killings of four children last year

Israeli investigation says missile attack that killed boys aged between nine and 11 was ‘tragic accident’ in findings contradictory to journalists’ reports from scene

The killing of four children on a beach in Gaza was one of the most controversial incidents in last summer’s Gaza war. Link to video

The Israeli military has cleared itself of culpability in one of the most controversial incidents in last summer’s Gaza war: a missile attack that killed four children on Gaza beach and injured a number of others.

Israel’s advocate general’s office said the attack, which led to the death of four boys aged between nine and 11 was a “tragic accident”.

An account of the investigation, posted late on Thursday by military spokesman Lt Col Peter Lerner, said the strike had targeted a “compound” which had been known as belonging to Hamas’s Naval Police and Naval Force (including naval commandos)”.

But journalists who attended the scene in the immediate aftermath of the attack – including a reporter from the Guardian – saw a small and dilapidated fisherman’s hut containing a few tools where the children had been playing hide-and-seek.

Mohammad Ramiz Bakr, 11, Ahed Atef Bakr and Zakariya Ahed Bakr, both 10, and Ismail Mahmoud Bakr, nine, were killed when they were hit by explosive rounds. Three of them died as they sought to flee the beach after the first child was killed.

Three other people were injured in the attack: Hamad Bakr, 13, was hit by shrapnel in his chest; his cousin Motasem, 11, injured in his head and legs, and Mohammad Abu Watfah, 21, who was hit by shrapnel in his stomach.

The conclusion of the Israeli military investigation comes while the Israel is under a preliminary investigation by the International Criminal Court to establish whether war crimes were committed during the Gaza war – both by Israel and Hamas. The finding will inevitably raise questions over the way in which Israel investigates incidents in which civilians were killed.

Israel’s conduct in last summer’s war was thrown under a harsh spotlight last month with the publication of the testimonies of dozens of soldiers who served in Gaza, collected by the Israeli human rights group Breaking the Silence, which included allegations that the Israeli military did not meet its obligations to protect civilians in wartime.

According to the UN, 2,200 Palestinians were killed in the 50-day conflict, of whom 1,492 were civilians, 605 militants and 123 unverified.

Thursday’s statement by the Israel Defence Forces said the conclusion came at the end of an “extensive criminal investigation”.

“During the investigation,” it added, “testimonies were collected from a large number of IDF soldiers and officers who were involved in the planning and execution of the attack.”

The statement continued: “Additionally, an extensive number of documents relating to the attack were reviewed, along with video footage documenting the attack in real time, as well as media images and video footage which documented parts of the incident.

“Efforts were made to collect the testimonies of Gaza strip residents who were, allegedly, witnesses to the incident. In this context, the collection of testimony from three witnesses was coordinated. Regretfully, despite the prior coordination, the witnesses eventually declined to meet the investigators, and instead provided affidavits in regard to the incident.”

Although the attack was witnessed by a Guardian reporter, no attempt was made by the Israeli military investigators to seek a statement. 

The IDF statement continued: “From the factual findings collected by the investigators, it revealed that the incident took place in an area that had long been known as a compound belonging to Hamas’s Naval Police and Naval Force (including naval commandos), and which was utilized exclusively by militants.”

The hut, however, was in plain sight of nearby hotels housing international journalists, none of whom described seeing militants in the area at the time of the attack.

Continuing its statement the Israeli military continued: “The compound in question spans the length of the breakwater of the Gaza City seashore, closed off by a fence and clearly separated from the beach serving the civilian population.

“It further found in the course of the investigation (including from the affidavits provided by Palestinian witnesses), that the compound was known to the residents of the Gaza Strip as a compound which was used exclusively by Hamas’s Naval Police.

“The IDF carried out a number of attacks on the compound in the days prior to the incident. In the course of one such attack, which took place on the day prior to the incident (15 July 2014), a container located inside the compound, which was used to store military supplies, was attacked.”

The Israeli claims appear at odds in several details with what journalists were able to see at the time.

The breakwater is both easily accessible from a side lane and also is located on one of the busiest parts of the public beach in Gaza port and accessible not only to the fishermen who use it, but local Palestinians who come to sunbathe and swim within feet of it.

The container described in the Israeli finding also appeared to contain no military equipment.

Describing the moment of the attack the Iisraeli military continues: “On 16 July, aerial surveillance identified a number of figures entering the compound at a running pace.

“These figures entered a shed adjoining the container which had been attacked the day prior. Against the backdrop of the aforementioned intelligence assessment, these were believed to be militants from Hamas’s Naval Forces, who had arrived at the compound in order to prepare to execute the aforementioned military activity against the IDF. It should be stressed that the figures were not identified at any point during the incident, as children.”

“In light of the above, it was decided to conduct an aerial attack against the figures which had been identified, after all the necessary authorizations for an attack had been obtained, and after a civilian presence in the area had been ruled out.

“When one of the identified figures entered into the remains of the container which had been attacked on the day prior to the incident, one missile was fired from the air towards the container and the adjoining shed. As a result of this attack, it appeared that one of the figures identified was hit. Following this attack, the rest of the figures began to run in the direction of the compound’s exit. Shortly before their exit from the compound, an additional missile was fired from the air towards them, which hit the figures in question after they had exited the compound.”

What is not clear from the Israeli report is why Israeli targeters had failed to identify that children had been playing on the beach prior to the attack.