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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.
Not this bullshit again. Being against Israel is not the same as being antisemitic, there are plenty of reasons to be anti-Israel considering all the lousy crap they've done and continue to do in that region. And accusing Palestinians of "antisemitism" is especially dumb, as Palestinians are just as Semitic as the Israelis are.
> How does Stallman pay his bills, anyway?
(For a detailed answer, you could read a biography about him: http://static.fsf.org/nosvn/faif-2.0.pdf )
Some organisations pay him for the talks he gives. He also won some awards in the 90s which came with chunky cash prizes which he said he would invest.
His bills probably aren't too big anyway. He asks his hosts to pay his travel and accommodation (usually staying with someone in their house rather than in a hotel). He has no kids, which saves him a lot of money.
FSF doesn't pay him any salary.
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RMS is not all of GNU, so here is his personal thoughts on the matter
Richard Stallman: What about them? The programmers writing non-free software? They are doing something antisocial. They should get some other job.
Any more questions?
You can't handle the truth.
Wow. Pretty selective quoting there. Maybe I can improve on it.
The Palestinians in the west bank are under occupation (with quite extensive autonomy in most internal affairs). The Palestinians in Gaza are under a military siege. They are not occupied, at all. The Palestinians living inside Israel are equal rights citizens. No apartheid at all. If you want to contradict these statements, please bring forward the facts on which you rely.
The Israeli arabs are citizens of Israel in the name only. Recently, there was a fairly well published case of an arab being sentenced for rape for having consensual sex with a jewish woman. She went to the police when she found out that he was arab not jewish and he was sentenced to 18 months in jail for "rape by deception." The occupation/colonization project of the West Bank has been going on for over 40 years so to not call it an apartheid system is insincere.
All of this does not matter to the question of artists canceling appearances. If an artist does not want to appear in Israel, that's fine. An artists who cancels is being suckered into making a political statement under the guise/threat of avoiding making one. A singer performing in Paris does not mean the singer supports France's laws against traditional Muslim wear. A singer performing in New York does not mean the singer supports the USA's aggressive intellectual property foreign policy. Yet, for some reason, a singer appearing in Tel-Aviv is told that this will be interpreted as supporting the occupation.
Ah, the old "why are you protesting against us and not against every other shit state in the world, you must be anti-semites!"-argument. FYI, there were fierce protests against the olympics being held in China, against various events in Morocco and Turkey and so on. Also note that rms is not a random singer, but a political activist who has spent his life promoting software freedom. It would not be out of character for him to protest against the the occupation of Palestine.
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Have you ever flown into Ben Gurion? It's a very different experience... I arrived, with a friend, with Egyptian and Jordanian visas (in Arabic) in our passports. We were separated, then questioned - Very expertly and professionally. There wasn't any arrogance like you might find entering the USA or Canada, but the questions were very persistent...
"Where are you going?"
"Do you know anyone in Egypt? In Jordan?"
"How long have you known your friend?"
"Who are you meeting there?"
"Why is it you have a Canadian passport, and your friend has a British Passport?"
You got the sense you were interacting with human lie detectors. Answers like "It's none of your business" would not have gone down well.
Apartheid by definition is racial segregation within borders of a country.
That's what happens in Israel. Palestine Authority is not a country but a part of Israel, however its citizens are denied the right to move freely within the borders of Israel.