RMS cancels talks in Israel | Hacker News Reader

RMS cancels talks in Israel

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27 pointsdharmatech14 comments

Good. It is a small gesture, but considering the recent decision regarding government support for illegal new settlements you have to do what you can. I suspect many people here might otherwise not have realized what is going on, and this draws attention to Israel's intention to do what it can to sabotage the chances for peace in the region.

Good on you RMS.

You are politicizing things. The stated reason the talk was cancelled was because the people paying for RMS' accommodations were unhappy about him appearing at Israeli universities; this does not imply RMS taking a stand either way.

Haaretz: http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/free-software-...

Too bad for Richard.

The Palestinians must have objected to calling it "GNU/Linux".

- Richard gets invited to speak in Israel

- SawyerX books the conferences

- Richard stays at Pali accommodation, paid by Palis

- Day before conference the people providing accomodation object to conference

- Richard cancels conferences

- SawyerX tries to look all strong next to the defiant Richard who had to cancel

Sounds like Richard is being used as publicity fodder.

Are we really calling Palestinians palis now? At first I had no idea who or what Pali was until I read the article. I don't know if its derogatory or not but calling a Pakistani a paki or the Japanese japs will get you quite a few raised eyebrows.

It's not an official country.

"Kurds" is a useful term even without a Kurdistan.

Palestinian Arabs aren't the only nation without an officially recognized country. I'm no fan of PC, but as soon as you throw a term like "Pali" (or "Zionist," for that matter) you lose me.

At least I'm not stooping to their level and saying they don't even exist, or are pigs and monkeys.

Zionist is acceptable, it is a common term in Israeli law.

I note that people like to use Zionist instead of Jewish or Israeli when they want to deny Jews or Israelis the right to exist in this land.

I confess I can never remember how to spell "Palestinians" correctly, so I am inclined to abbreviate.

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