Comments for Engage - the anti-racist campaign against antisemitism

Comment on Fraser v UCU: tribunal finds no antisemitism at all by Martin Kessler

Martin Kessler — Sat, 18 May 2013 13:53:45 +0000

As a casual observer who by chance entered upon this site, I liken the boycotters to a story I read about the Pope. As I recall, the Pope was said to have bitterly denounced the military excesses of Napoleon to which Napoleon being informed asked “How many divisions has the Pope?

The point: For all the good the boycott has achieved I’m certain the boycotters would gladly trade their country’s growth in its GNP for Israel’s.

Comment on It’s official: thanks to Stephen Hawking’s Israel boycott, anti-Semitism is no more – Howard Jacobson by Jeremiah Riemer

Jeremiah Riemer — Sat, 18 May 2013 12:27:26 +0000

Time was when well-meaning people saw antisemitism as the canary in the coal mine. Has it now become (by definitional fiat) just a dead parrot?

Comment on It’s official: thanks to Stephen Hawking’s Israel boycott, anti-Semitism is no more – Howard Jacobson by zaccaerdydd

zaccaerdydd — Sat, 18 May 2013 10:39:39 +0000

It uses an intel tablet http://www.hawking.org.uk/the-computer.html, which is indeed based on Intel® Core™ i7 Processor. Sorry, this is well known, I know.

Comment on It’s official: thanks to Stephen Hawking’s Israel boycott, anti-Semitism is no more – Howard Jacobson by zaccaerdydd

zaccaerdydd — Sat, 18 May 2013 10:19:42 +0000

Here is an account of Hawking’s voice device, and I can’t see an obvious Israeli connection:

http://eyetrackingupdate.com/2010/06/01/biometric-devices-story-stephen-hawkings-voice/

Comment on It’s official: thanks to Stephen Hawking’s Israel boycott, anti-Semitism is no more – Howard Jacobson by zaccaerdydd

zaccaerdydd — Sat, 18 May 2013 10:02:39 +0000

Needless to say, an excellent piece. However, has it been established beyond doubt that Hawking uses Israeli tech in his voice box? If not it seems a needlessly vulnerable point in an otherwise persuasive essay.

Personally I think more apposite is Hawking’s past collaboration with the Israeli Jacob Bekenstein, who gave his name to the more accurately termed Hawking-Bekenstein Radiation, his having originally proposed that black holes have a well-defined entropy, and Hawking’s having originally opposed him.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Bekenstein

What would that mean for such collaboration today, especially since it was an Israeli who contributed so much to the discovery that ‘made’ Hawking in the first place?

Comment on It’s official: thanks to Stephen Hawking’s Israel boycott, anti-Semitism is no more – Howard Jacobson by josephinebacon

josephinebacon — Sat, 18 May 2013 06:50:42 +0000

Brilliant! I am going to send this piece to Len Wardle of the Cooperative Party, the Cooperative supermarkets are the only ones in the UK to boycott Israeli goods. Like UCU who claim that being anti-Israel is not being anti-Jewish, the Cooperative Movement claims it is only boycotting goods from “the settlements” when in practice they boycott all Israeli agricultural produce (which will, of course, include agricultural produce from Arab farmers in Israel) by boycotting Agrexco, Mehadrin and one other company. They claim they are doing it on “moral grounds”! Please mention this in your next think-piece, Howard!

Comment on Hannah Weisfeld on Stephen Hawking by Brian Robinson

Brian Robinson — Sat, 18 May 2013 00:51:41 +0000

HOWARD JACOBSON in the Independent

Friday 17 May 2013
It’s official: thanks to Stephen Hawking’s Israel boycott, anti-Semitism is no more
Why is Israel alone of all offending countries to be boycotted? Perhaps because it’s that offending country which also just happens to be Jewish?

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/its-official-thanks-to-stephen-hawkings-israel-boycott-antisemitism-is-no-more-8621112.html

http://tinyurl.com/bwwbsol

“Gather round, everybody. I bear important news. Anti-Semitism no longer exists! Ring out, ye bells, the longest hatred has ceased to be. It’s kaput, kicked the bucket, shuffled off its mortal coil, joined the bleedin’ choir invisible. It’s a stiff, ladies and gentlemen. An EX-PREJUDICE! …”

Comment on Hannah Weisfeld on Stephen Hawking by Noga

Noga — Thu, 16 May 2013 15:07:34 +0000

Prof. Hawking ought to be told what his name is being used for:

1) The movement has to take a clear, categorical stance against the very existence of Israel. [-]

7) BDS …is a complementary movement – complementary to other forms of struggle – and not an end in itself. [-]

8) BDS represents one strand of struggle among many that include armed struggle, as enshrined in the Palestine Liberation Organization charter of 1968 (long before it was amended by Bill Clinton in the 1990s)

http://english.al-akhbar.com/blogs/angry-corner/bds-and-its-agenda

BTW, all these “requisites” are already being promoted by the BDSers, as we learned from one of its proponents, Norman Finkelstein.

Comment on Hannah Weisfeld on Stephen Hawking by Brian Robinson

Brian Robinson — Thu, 16 May 2013 12:31:02 +0000

The word ‘Judenfrei’ seems to have been gaining currency in discussions, or perhaps it’s just that I’ve only just noticed it. But that word carries such a weight of baggage and no-one here needs to be reminded of its resonances. Is the use deliberate, or quasi-deliberate, in some way to link the present situation with the past, perhaps conveying an apocalyptic warning? Noga spoke above, in a different context, of cringing, well when I see ‘Judenfrei’ it makes me cringe.

In some happy future arrangement, with a peaceful Palestine existing alongside a peaceful Israel, Palestine (the former West Bank) wouldn’t be free of Jews — Palestinians could visit and even live in Israel, Jews could do the same in Palestine. That would be an Israel within pre-67 borders, of course.

Isn’t there some other word we could use? Anyway, why should we speak German?

Comment on Hannah Weisfeld on Stephen Hawking by Jacob Arnon

Jacob Arnon — Thu, 16 May 2013 12:27:44 +0000

“George W Bush was derided for talking about the axis of evil; namely North Korea, Iran and Syria, but it pains me to admit that he was largely correct.”

I believe the axis of evil didn’t include Syria. H named Iraq, Iran, and North Korea. In any case he took out Saddam but didn’t do anything about the more dangerous regimes in Iran and North Korea and these two regimes are still there, still evil. That’s my point, Yehuda.