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RMS Cancels Lectures In Israel
Eesh writes "Globes and Haaretz report that Stallman cancelled his plans for lecturing in Israeli universities as part of a visit to the Palestinian Authority, due to threats by the Palestinian organizers that they won't be paying for his trip if he does so. Globes write: 'Stallman was scheduled to visit Israel in July and to speak at Haifa University, Tel Aviv University and Shenkar College. The Palestinians initiated the visit, but when they understood that Stallman would also be speaking at Israeli universities they told him they would no longer fund the trip. In response, Stallman announced that he would cancel the speaking engagements in Israel, and would be satisfied with visiting the Palestinian Authority regions only.'" Here's the email from RMS and response from the Israeli organizer. Hopefully RMS will brush off being named "Linux founder" by Haaretz. Update: 05/29 19:39 GMT by T : Oops! As user Windrip points out below, it's Globes, not Haaretz, which attributed Linux to RMS.
Say it isn't so!!!
Seriously though. It's the Palestinian's money, they should have some say in it. Call it a "dick move" if you like, but at the moment, Israel is a highly aggressive and deadly enemy of the Palestinians. If the US was paying someone to visit and they decided to swing by the old USSR, you can bet some people in the US would have been pretty upset about that.
This isn't "politics." It can't be called "politics" when Palestinians throw rocks and Israel throws giant weapons of mass destruction back. To even think of using words as petty as politics when describing what is going on between Israel and Palestine shows absolute ignorance of what tragedies and atrocities have occurred there. And yes, even US protesters have been slaughtered by Israelis. They don't care who they kill.