British physicist Stephen Hawking has canceled plans to attend a major conference in June that will be taking place in Israel. He cited, as a reason, that he believes he should respect a Palestinian call to boycott contact with Israeli academics, according to USA Today.
Hawking said he would not be attending "based on advice from Palestinian academics that he should respect the boycott," according to a statement released by the University of Cambridge.
The university said they had "previously understood" that Hawking's decision was based on health concerns, as he is now 71 and suffers from severe disabilities, but that they have since been told otherwise by Hawking.
Hawking is the most prominent figure to endorse a strategy that is designed to bring pressure on the Israeli government in protest of their treatment of Palestinians. The Israeli Presidential Conference is being hosted by President Shimon Peres in late June, and Hawking had previously agreed to attend, though he has since changed his mind. The theme of the conference is "Facing Tomorrow 2013."
"For health reasons, his doctors said he should not be flying at the moment so he's decided not to attend," Tim Holt, the acting communications director at the University of Cambridge, had said previously. "He is 71 years old.
"He's fine, but he has to be sensible about what he can do," finished Holt. Hawking suffers from amytrophic lateral sclerosis, which is also known as Lou Gehrig's disease.
The university changed its position after being informed by Israeli officials that Hawking had insisted that his reason for not attending was due to the boycott.
Israel Maimon, one of the organizers of the conference, was very upset by Hawking's decision.
"The academic boycott against Israel is in our view outrageous and improper, certainly for someone for whom the spirit of liberty lies at the basis of his human and academic mission,"Maimon said. He then called the boycott incompatable with an open and democratic dialogue.
The British Committee for the Universities of Palestine praised the decision by Hawking as supportive of its goal.
"This is his independent decision to respect the boycott, based upon his knowledge of Palestine, and on the unanimous advice of his own academic contacts there," the committee said in a statement on its web site.
Hawking gained media attention earlier this year when he made statements that the Big Bang Theory didn't need God and that the Earth is doomed.
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