Israel ‘cancels’ prize to mathematician – and dishonors itself | Hacker News Reader

Israel ‘cancels’ prize to mathematician – and dishonors itself

washingtonpost.com

25 pointsnabla911 comments

> The panel of experts say Goldreich’s views are irrelevant — that, according to the prize rules, it was strictly awarded for his scientific achievement.

> Yes, but... the International Mathematical Union could reverse... after finding out that the winner was, say, a conspiracy-spouting anti-vaxxer.

It seems that the author undermines his own argument. Opinions outside the field the prize pertain to are either relevant or they are not.

Cancel culture is universal and as old as mankind (ask Galileo for holding the unorthodox view according to the Catholic Church that the Earth revolves around the Sun). They used to cancel you by beheading you. Now they withhold awards. Awards are often about acceptability to the judging class.

It even applies to mathematicians. He who makes the rules picks the winners. Every contest is by definition arbitrary and the bestowers of the awards can rewrite the rules to suit their needs.

Apparently Goldreich’s mistake according to those politicians in the governing class in Israel:

"Gallant and Shasha-Biton contend that Goldreich’s public statements are so extreme that the state cannot honor him."

"Rather, he is an outspoken opponent of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and of Israeli settlements."

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On April 12, 1633, chief inquisitor Father Vincenzo Maculani da Firenzuola, appointed by Pope Urban VIII, begins the inquisition of physicist and astronomer Galileo Galilei. Galileo was ordered to turn himself in to the Holy Office to begin trial for holding the belief that the Earth revolves around the sun, which was deemed heretical by the Catholic Church. Standard practice demanded that the accused be imprisoned and secluded during the trial.

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/galileo-is-accus...

In my humble opinion, the western democracies, like Israel, came a long way since Galileo but many places haven't. That is, "the ruling class" would still behead you or otherwise kill you in shadows or openly e.g. Saudi Arabia, Russia, Palestinian Authority, Syria, China and many more... all these places where there is no freedom of speech, independent courts and rule of law.

I think it's a big mistake to classify Israel as a Western Democracy. It's an ethno-religious state. There's no recognized civil marriage in the country, (it's hard to imagine even the strongest hardliner in any Western Democracy to argue that a Jew can't legally marry a Muslim), the country has few formalized borders, statehood grows out of territoriality and ethnicity. The defining feature isn't the rule of law (which exists in plenty of non-democratic, non-western countries) but the secular citizen and legal statehood.

To understand how academic institutions in Israel deal with "embarrassing" professors, one need only look at the experiences of Ilan Pappe. He was exiled from Haifa University simply because he came to the defense of a master's thesis (not even his own student) that pointed out the massacre in Tantura (1948). Pappe was called a traitor and an enemy of the people.

https://www.ee.bgu.ac.il/~censor/katz-directory/05-05-06haar...

Today, only about 7 percent of Israel land is privately owned, about half of it by Arabs. Israel is the only “democracy” in the world that nationalized almost all if its land and prohibited even the leasing of most of agricultural lands to non- Jews, a situation made possible by a complex framework of legal arrangements with the Jewish National Fund, including the Basic Law: Israel Lands (1960), the Israel Lands Law and Israel Lands Administration Law (1960), as well as the Covenants between the Government of the State of Israel and the WZO of 1954 and the JNF of 1961.

You've been using HN exclusively for commenting on one political issue. Using HN primarily for political battle isn't allowed, and single-purpose accounts aren't allowed either. Both of these things are against the site guidelines—the first one explicitly (as you'll see if you read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html), and the second one implicitly, because single-purpose or agenda-driven accounts are obviously not using the site in the intended spirit of curiosity.

Would you please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and use HN in the intended spirit in the future? That means commenting on a variety of topics that happen to gratify your intellectual curiosity—not just one political struggle that you feel strongly about.

Note that all of the above applies regardless of how right you are, or feel, about the underlying issue.

I think Israel is a Western Democraty for these reasons:

"Western", due to its cultural ties and since it shares western values.

"Democracy" because of many institutions, including the rule of all, the free elections and government form, minority rights protection. It is true that it's not perfect, but overall the big picture is pretty clear, as far as I can see.

To elaborate: in my opinion, Israel is a new democracy, it definitely has some deviations from the old western democracies, but these are relatively small to change the overall spirit of the country and the form of government (It is a bit like saying that US is not a western democracy because it has an electoral college.) What more there are part of the ongoing political debates and changing norms.

https://freedomhouse.org/countries/freedom-world/scores

Indeed, a "newer" democracy. New and shiny. Please do not pay attention to the Arabs in the Occupied Territories.

Israeli academia is one of the most important mouthpieces of the establishment and is used to enable Israel to present itself abroad as "the only democracy in the Middle East."

That is why there is an academic boycott. Israeli academic institution boycotts are an important component of the BDS movement. The boycott is necessary because there is a moral imperative to end the occupation and only outside pressure, like the pressure that was exerted on the apartheid regime in South Africa, can perhaps achieve this.

I guess there is always some worse bar to compare against. Maybe the existence of worse doesn’t make this stand alone (not tit for tat) action ok

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