Samia al-Botmeh of Birzeit University in the West Bankprovided a clue when she told the Guardian:
We tried to communicate two points to him. First, that Israel is a colonial entity that involves violations of the rights of the Palestinians, including academic freedom, and then asking him to stand in solidarity with Palestinian academic colleagues who have called for solidarity from international academics in the form of boycotting Israeli academia and academic institutions...
Was Hawking persuaded that Israel is a colonialist entity and not entitled to remain a member state of the United Nations?
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Does Hawking like the PLO regard the decisions of the League of Nations and the United Nations illegal and void?
Does Hawking believe in collective punishment of the entire population of Israel for the decisions of a democratically elected Government that a large segment of that population did not vote for?
Hawking visited Iran in 2007 for the International Physics Olympiad. His conscience was then apparently untroubled by the stoning of adulteresses, imprisonment without trial, torture and the persecution of religious and ethnic minorities -- to say nothing of arming terrorists and threatening to wipe countries off the map.
Will Hawking now boycott Chinese academia in the future while China continues to occupy Tibet and repress the Falun Gong?
Has Hawking ever spoken to his academic contacts in the West Bank about the indiscriminate firing of tens of thousands of shells into Israeli population centres - acknowledgedas war crimes by his academic colleague UN Special Rapporteur Professor Richard Falk?
Asked by The Jerusalem Post about Hawking's boycott - Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahusaid:
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He should investigate the truth, he is a scientist. He should study the facts and draw the necessary conclusions: Israel is an island of reason, moderation and a desire for peace.
Hawking certainly must have made some investigations to come to the decision he has.It would help to understand his position if he were to share the results.
Perhaps Hawking's conduct was best summed up by analyst Nathan Harden:
When one's disagreement with a nation's political regime justifies the shunning and boycott of that nation's scientists and scholars, we are on dangerous ground. Hawking and other politically liberal scholars who participate in the academic boycott of Israel are hypocrites. They are quick to profess devotion to tolerance and academic freedom, but they don't live up to those ideals -- not when it comes to Israel, anyway.
If it is has become acceptable to support an academic boycott of an entire nationality (all Israelis), we aren't far off from a future in which it will be acceptable to back an academic boycott of an entire ethnicity (all Jews).
Every man is entitled to express his opinion - but he should be prepared to justify and defend his decisions with detailed and reasoned arguments when those decisions are challenged.
Hawking's failure to adequately answer his hosts is regrettable.
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