This is an interview with Professor Yisrael Aumann, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in economics a few years ago for his contributions to game theory. The main subject of the interview is the attempt by various academic groups to boycott Israeli institutions, but toward the end (starting at about 6:20) he also relates - hilariously - to the recent decision by the U of Haifa to not award him an honorary doctorate because of his political views.
This is rich: UK Nobel prize co-winner boycotts university of his Israeli co-winner
These people have no shame. None. Tom Gross reports.
François Englert, 80, a Belgian Holocaust survivor, was yesterday
awarded the Nobel Prize in physics together with British physicist Peter
Higgs.
Englert is a Sackler Professor in the School of Physics and Astronomy
at Tel Aviv University, and has taught at, done research at, and been
associated with Tel Aviv University for over 30 years. He is also a
professor emeritus at the University of Brussels.
Interesting – but not surprisingly – in their reports yesterday,
media outlets with a track record of hostility to Israel, such as the
New York Times, did not mention in their quite lengthy articles that
Englert, a Belgium-born Jew, is a professor at Tel Aviv University, and a
Holocaust survivor.
In 2004, Englert, Higgs and Robert Brout won the Wolf prize, an
Israeli award granted by the Wolf Foundation and seen as a precursor to
the Nobel. (Englert’s colleague Robert Brout passed away in 2011;
otherwise he may have also shared yesterday’s Nobel Prize.)
(Tom Gross exclusive:) Englert’s British co-winner of Nobel Prize for
Physics, Professor Peter Higgs, effectively refuses to acknowledge the
fact his co-recipient teaches at Tel Aviv University. Higgs is calling
for an academic boycott of Israel, and refused to attend the Wolf prize
ceremony.
On Monday, the Nobel Prize for Medicine was awarded to two American
Jewish professors, James Rothman and Randy Schekman, together with
Thomas Suedhof of Germany. They narrowly beat their Israeli colleagues
to the prize. Hebrew University professors Howard Cedar and Aaron Razing
were thought to be frontrunners in the run-up to the announcement.
Both Israeli and Diaspora Jews have won an incredibly high number of Nobel Prizes.
In a crazy twist of events, Professor Stephen Hawking retracted a
retraction on Wednesday saying that support for an boycott of Israel was
the real reason behind his decision to pull out of the fifth
President's Conference in Jerusalem....
Earlier on Wednesday his spokesman at the University of Cambridge denied
that support for an academic boycott of Israel was the catalyst and
said that he withdrew on medical grounds.
...
"I have received a number of emails from Palestinian academics,"
Hawking said in the letter. "They are unanimous that I should respect
the boycott. In view of this I must withdraw from the conference."
When this was put to his spokesman, he told the Post
that he was unaware of this line in the letter and reaffirmed that
medical reasons was the sole reason for cancelling. The spokesman said
he would look into the letter.
Later on Wednesday, the University
of Cambridge withdrew its original statement attributing it to health
reasons and confirmed it was because of support for the call to boycott
Israel. “We have now received confirmation from Professor Hawking’s
office that a letter was sent on Friday to the Israeli President’s
office regarding his decision not to attend the Presidential Conference,
based on advice from Palestinian academics that he should respect the
boycott," a spokesman at the University of Cambridge said.
“We had
understood previously that his decision was based purely on health
grounds having been advised by doctors not to fly," the spokesman added.
You already know what I think of this from my previous posts. Hawking is just plain wrong. For a man who is supposed to be able to think for himself, he is certainly influenced by his anti-Israel environment.
Hawking has actually been to Israel four times, most recently in 2006. Here's a report on his last visit.
Let's go to the videotape.
Here's an interview that Hawking did during that trip with Yair Lapid (yes, that Yair Lapid). He talks about the 'peace process' around the 6:00 mark.
Let's go to the videotape.
But the BDS'ers are losing this one anyway.
Because Hawking is not coming to the conference, he will be at commencement in Cambridge on June 18. And there will be Israelis there (Hat Tip: Lance K).
On June 18, 2013 Cambridge will be awarding an Honorary Doctor of Science Degree, one of only four such awards, to Professor Ada Yonath, who is the Martin S. and Helen Kimmel Professor of Structural Biology and Director of the Helen and Milton A. Kimmelman Center for Biomolecular Structure and Assembly at the Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel, and Nobel Laureate in Chemistry 2009.
I vaguely recall that Yonath is also a far Leftist. But one point of the anti-BDS campaign is that BDS paints with a broad brush, turning all Israelis into 'oppressors.' It's just plain wrong. So the fact that Cambridge will award a prize to an Israeli with Hawking there still makes this a #BDSFail moment.
Solving a great mystery of life: Why are the Jews so smart?
A South Korean television crew visits the Ponovezh yeshiva in Bnei Brak. Sorry - the Hebrew is not translated because it's a report from Channel 2 television news. I will translate one small part of the Hebrew into English because it's important to understand what goes on in Israel. And yes, I know some of the people in the video.
Let's go to the videotape (Hat Tip: Debbie R).
In the last segment in Hebrew before they switch back to English, the announcer says that it's ironic that at the same time that Israelis look down on the yeshivas because they will 'never' produce anything 'scientific,' the Koreans are convinced that the yeshivas specifically are the source of all the Jews' wisdom.
All I can say is that the Koreans are getting to be smarter than the Israelis.
Nobel peace prize awarded to Muslim Brotherhood member
And you thought giving the Nobel Peace prize to Obama was the biggest, sickest joke you could think of....
Karman is a 32-year old journalist with three children. She leads an organization called, Women Journalists Without Chains. To her credit, she has fought for women's rights and has been imprisoned for challenging Yemeni President Saleh. She was instrumental in the Arab Spring's manifestation in Yemen, and is an adversary of the Salafists. She wants legislation passed against child marriage. She boldly stopped wearing the niqab in 2004 and appeared on television without it.
Although these are admirable causes, the fact remains that Karman chooses to sit on the Shura Council of Islah, the Yemeni branch of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Islah was founded in 1990 and has three pillars of support: Tribes, the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafists. The Islamist party has been extremely critical of Yemen's relationship with the U.S. and wants a religious police to "promote virtue and curb vice." It has been revealed that Anwar al-Awlaki hid in three homes owned by Islah members before he was killed by an American drone. One home belonged to Amin al-Okaimi, the chairman of Islah. The second safehouse was owned by al-Awlaki's driver, whose brother is a high-level Islah official. The third house was Sheikh Abdul Majid al-Zindani's, a co-founder of Islah that can be referred to as Yemen's version of Shiekh Yousef al-Qaradawi.
Zindani's leadership role in Islah proves that the party is not moderate by any standard. In 2004, the U.S. Treasury Department labeled him a "specially designated terrorist" for arming, recruiting and funding for Al-Qaeda. He also has links to Ansar al-Islam, an Al-Qaeda affiliate in Iraq. A U.S. federal court said that he coordinated the bombing of the USS Cole in 2000 and a lawsuit accuses him of having personally chosen the two suicide bombers for the attack.
The university he founded in Sanaa has been indoctrinating students since its founding in 1993. John Walker Lindh, the "American Taliban" who was captured while fighting U.S. forces in Afghanistan, went to school here. Anwar al-Awlaki did as well, and even was a lecturer from 2004 to 2005. The terrorist who tried to set off a bomb in his underwear onboard a flight to Detroit, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, was also in Sanaa during this time for "education." It has not been proven, but there is a reasonable suspicion that Abdulmutallab and al-Awlaki met at Zindani's school.
Zindani is very close to the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas. He is an official with the Union of Good, a network of charities overseen by Sheikh Yousef al-Qaradawi, the top Muslim Brotherhood theologian. This network is used by Hamas for fundraising. In April 2006, Zindani met with Khaled Mashall, the leader of Hamas, at a fundraiser in Yemen. Zindani urged the crowd to donate to Hamas.
Yet another Israeli - the third in recent years - has won a Nobel prize in Chemistry. The winner is Daniel Shechtman of the Technion. Shechtman is the tenth Israeli or Israeli-born scientist to win a Nobel Prize, and the third to win for chemistry.
Shechtman discovered quasicrystals, which have non-repeating patterns the committee described as "fascinating mosaics of the Arabic world reproduced at the level of atoms."
Prior to his discovery, crystals were thought to only have repeating patterns. The controversy of his finding was so great that Shechtman was asked, at one point, to leave his research group. His research, ultimately, prevailed, using Arabic mosaic patterns, which rely on mathematical non-repeating patterns, as a model.
Schechtman's discovery was made in 1982. Ironically, Israel Radio reports that Schechtman is actually a Physicist, and while it was widely believed he would eventually win a Nobel prize, it was expected to be in Physics and not in Chemistry.
Shechtman, 70, is a distinguished professor at the Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa. Technion President Prof. Peretz Lavie congratulated Shechtman on his win.
"This is a day of celebration not just for the Technion but for the entire State of Israel. We are very excited. We always knew that Prof. Shechtman's discoveries changed the face of science, and it was clear to us that he would win the desired prize at some point. We are happy that it happened this year."
Lavie described Shechtman as a "very unique scientist."
"On the one hand his exceptional international status, but on the other hand he's one of the must beloved and modest people in the Technion. We heard of his win just like everyone else. The tension was high and within a few minutes the news of his win spread like wild fire," said Lavie.
Knesset Education Committee Chairman Alex Miller congratulated Shechtman as well.
"This win proves once more that the human capital is the most important strategic asset of the State of Israel. Investing in education and in qualitative and investigative higher learning not only results in economical and cultural growths but also brings great honor to Israel around the world."
...
Yoav Shechtman, Prof. Daniel Shechtman's son told Ynet that announcement had taken the family by surprise: "You don't know that you've won until the very last moment," he said. "It's a great joy, the family feels wonderful. We are delighted about it." An overwhelmed Shechtman told AP: "It feels wonderful."
This little tidbit will be of interest to at least one reader: Israel Radio reported that Schechtman's Bachelor's degree from the Technion was in Mechanical Engineering.
UPDATE 5:51 PM
Reader Reuven K notes:
Back then, those who studied materials were part of the Mechanical Engineering faculty. The Technion only opened a separate Faculty of Materials Engineering in 1981. Even today, within Mechanical Engineering faculty there are those whose research is mostly in materials.
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
