May 9, 2013 | National Post

Stephen Hawking Should Go to Israel — and Gaza

The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel has done nothing to cripple the Jewish state’s economy. But it has scored a few big symbolic victories. This week, it scored one of its biggest: Renowned physicist Stephen Hawking withdrew from a prestigious June 18-20 conference personally sponsored by Israel’s President. His May 3 letter to the conference organizers stated: “I have received a number of emails from Palestinian academics. They are unanimous that I should respect the boycott. In view of this, I must withdraw from the conference. Had I attended, I would have stated my opinion that the policy of the present Israeli government is likely to lead to disaster.”

Israel supporters are up in arms. They know that Israel has been stung. Still, it’s important to put this gesture in context: Hawking is just one A-list star who’d been scheduled to attend the conference. Other (non-boycotting attendees) include Mikhail Gorbachev, Tony Blair, Bill Clinton and Prince Albert of Monaco.

As for Hawking himself, this seems like a self-defeating move. It will briefly make him a celebrity among activists, but it will also cast a controversial political gloss on a reputation that is otherwise built on his pedigree as a great scientist (though admittedly this isn’t the first time he’s opined on world events — a decade ago, he called the Iraq Invasion a “war crime”). Moreover, Israelis and diaspora Jews are heavily represented in the world of theoretical physics. This move will lose him friends and collaborators in the twilight of his life and career.

So here’s a suggestion for Hawking — which I offer on the (admittedly thin) conceit that he might read advice offered to him by a Canadian opinion writer: Go to Israel. Attend the conference. Take the podium. Tell off your hosts. Tell that that their current policy is wrong. Be part of the debate. Many Israelis will agree with you (in fact, I would probably agree with much of it myself). And they will take you more seriously because you will have had the courage to speak your mind on Israeli soil — as opposed to just becoming a quantum-mechanical version of Naomi Klein.

The additional complication for Hawking, as a scientist, is that many of the scientific devices and innovations the world relies on were pioneered by Israeli scientists. That includes numerous breakthrough in the world of medical science, which Hawking might be especially inclined to appreciate.

Indeed, it always seems odd when scientists bash Israel in favour of Arab societies whose contributions to the world of science have flatlined in recent centuries — just as anti-Israel gay groups (such as QuAIA here in Canada) attract derision for repeating talking points provided by militantly homophobic Palestinian leaders.

And so I will go further with my advice for Mr. Hawking: After he attends next month’s Presidential conference in Jerusalem — which is entitled “The Human Factor in Shaping Tomorrow” — I would urge him to travel to Gaza and the West Bank, to promote another cause that might be dear to his heart, and on which he certainly can speak with authority: the humane treatment of people with disabilities.

As a theoretical physicist, Hawking lives in a world of thought experiments. So here’s one for him: How would his life have been different had he been born into Palestinian society?

For one thing, he would have had to deal with the brutality that has accompanied the Middle East conflict, on both sides, since the early part of the 20th century. But he also would have had to deal with something else: the hostility of Palestinians to anyone cursed (as they see it) with any sort of crippling disease, such as the ALS-related motor neuron disease with which Hawking himself is afflicted.

Here, for instance, is how a Christian charity, pro Terra Sancta, describes the challenges they face in providing support for disabled Palestinians: “In Palestine, from the West Bank to the Gaza Strip, there is no support in place for children with learning difficulties of for families with disabled children. In the traditional mindset, disability is still seen as a form of divine punishment and brings shame on the family. It is particularly a problem for females, who struggle to marry and are therefore cast out of society. Many families choose to isolate disables family members, not allowing them to leave the house.”

The Palestinian territories can be dangerous. But surely Hawking, after delivering his scathing remarks in Jerusalem, would be welcomed as a visiting dignitary. He would then have ample opportunity to deliver his message of education and empowerment to parents of disabled Palestinian children, from his wheelchair: Let your children flourish, and look what renown they can achieve.

If he chooses, Hawking might even wish to cite specific examples — such as Palestinian 3-year-old Mohammed al-Farra, a multiple amputee who lives with his grandfather in Israel’s Tel Hashomer hospital.

“His parents abandoned him,” the Washington Post reports. “Mohammed’s plight is an extreme example of the harsh treatment some families mete to the disabled, particularly in the more tribal-dominated corners of the Gaza Strip … It also demonstrates a costly legacy of Gaza’s strongly patriarchal culture that prods women into first-cousin marriages and allows polygamy, while rendering mothers powerless over their children’s fate … In the midst of [Mohammed’s] treatment, his mother abandoned Mohammed because her husband, ashamed of their son, threatened to take a second wife if she didn’t leave the baby and return.”

Certainly, Hawking is no stranger to the campaign for disabled dignity: In the 1990s, he was one of a dozen eminent individuals who signed the “Charter for the Third Millennium on Disability,” which champions the rights of the world’s 600-million disabled people. This is an opportunity for him to advance that agenda.

If he wishes to do so, Stephen Hawking is perfectly entitled to prosecute his campaign to make Israel a pariah among nations. But surely, the great scientist would no doubt agree, no three-year-old should be a pariah in his own family.

— Jonathan Kay is Managing Editor for Comment at the National Post, and a Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington, D.C.

Issues:

Israel Palestinian Politics