I suspect there are more than a few secular Jewish science fetishists who are going to feel more than a little conflicted about this announcement by Cambridge University:
Stephen Hawking has pulled out of a high-profile conference to be held in Jerusalem in June to support an academic boycott of Israel, conference organisers and the university said on Wednesday.
The academic and cultural boycott, organised by international activists to protest against Israel’s policies toward the Palestinians, is a heated and contentious issue; having the renowned physicist and cosmologist join it is likely to help the anti-Israel campaigners significantly.
“Never has a scientist of this stature boycotted Israel,” said Yigal Palmor, the spokesman for Israel’s Foreign Ministry.
It’s always entertaining to watch the Left devour itself, as it always does in the end. It should be interesting to see how some of those who celebrated the boycott of Sun City due to South African apartheid attempt to decry the boycott of al-Quds due to the Israeli version. And it should be informative to see if this affects the subsequent media coverage of Hawking, which hitherto can only be described as “uniformly fawning”.
Now, unlike the boycotters, I support Israel as a Jewish state. Of course, I also support Germany as a German state, Nigeria as a Fulani/Hausa, Yoruba, and Igbo state, and England as an English state. Which raises an interesting line of questions to direct towards those who proclaim the Diversity Gospel, beginning with this: do you support or oppose Israeli apartheid in the interest of maintaining its existence as a Jewish state?
And it raises another question. Can Stephen Hawking sing?