Nice one Steven

Steven Hawing has just revealed he will not be attending a science conference in Israel, in keeping with the academic boycott which was launched recently to attract the World's attention to the appalling treatment of Palestinian academics at the hands of a brutal Israeli state. Naturally the authorities have reacted with horror, and this morning on The Today Programme a spokesman for the Israelis bemoaned the fact of his "political act" and claiming that what is needed is a dialogue between the two sides. He even had the gall to say the Israelis have no power inside Gaza and the West Bank, completely ignoring the fact that those lands are under military occupation and that therefore they hold all the power. He spoke about reaching a "compromise", yet all the evidence in the past has shown that this is what the Israelis have consistently refused to do. At all. About anything.

As the world's most famous scientist, Hawking's decision not to attend has had precisely the effect intended: to bring the plight of the Palestinian people to as wide an audience as possible. No wonder the Israelis are annoyed. They want to sell the lie that Israel is a fair, democratic state doing the best it can while living in the midst of  a group of terrorists determined to push them into the sea.

The other day I was watching a re-run of that great ITV documentary series The World at War. This episode was showing how the Germans constructed the ghetto in Warsaw to house the Jewish population. Their last task was to build a high concrete wall around the ghetto so that movement in and out of that hideously overcrowded hell-hole could be carefully controlled. Strange thing: it looked remarkably similar to the wall the Israelis have built around the West Bank. The Germans viewed the Jews as Untermenschen, beneath contempt, sub-human, to be controlled and manipulated at their will. Just like the Israelis are doing right now. Steven Hawking has reminded the world of this injustice, and I say, Good on ya mate!