Ramallah: The unanimity of Palestinian voices calling on the British cosmologist Stephen Hawking to pull out of a conference to be hosted next month by the Israeli President Shimon Peres was the decisive factor which persuaded Hawking to cancel, according to senior Palestinian officials.
The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) had successfully persuaded Professor Hawking not to lend his name to the Israeli conference and that has indeed brought the campaign to a new level which reflects the spread of the campaign’s message and the effectiveness of that message, said activists.
“The campaign will continue until Israel fulfils its obligations under international law and ends its occupation, colonisation and apartheid,” said Omar Barghouthi, a Palestinian human rights activist and a founding member of the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement for Palestinian rights.
“Hawking is the most prominent academic to date to join the boycott against Israel until it fulfils its obligations under international law. This will undoubtedly open the door encouraging many academics around the world to follow suit.
“Israel knows it is losing the legitimacy of its occupation and paying for its apartheid and denial of Palestinian rights. BDS is playing a key role in this. With every major church boycotting some Israeli goods and every trade union adopting BDS or every famous musician, scientist or writer joining the boycott against Israel, its brand becomes tarnished and it becomes more of a world pariah, just as South Africa was during apartheid. This is the most effective way to contribute to our struggle to end Israel’s multi-tiered system of oppression,” he told Gulf News.
Haidar Eid, a member of the BDS Steering Committee, said that the movement had set up guidelines for boycotting Israel for Palestinians in the territories occupied in 1967, guidelines for the Palestinians of the 1948 areas, Palestinians in Diaspora, along with Arab boycotting guidelines and international boycotting standards.
“The Palestinians had unanimously and successfully defined the term ‘normalisation’ and passed this definition to their allies in boycotting movement,” he told Gulf News. “Our message is not boycotting the Israelis as individuals but we aim at boycotting Israel in terms of institutions which contribute to the spread of that country’s colonial policies until Israel complies and shows respect to international law.”
