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Academics blast Science Museum’s Israel Day
Mark Prigg, Science Correspondent03.03.09
THE Science Museum was today accused of promoting Israeli universities whose research was used in the military campaign in Gaza.
More than 400 academics, a Nobel laureate and the former chairman of the Commons science select committee urged the museum to cancel workshops due to be held this week that showcase Israeli scientific achievements for children.
They accuse the London museum of promoting scientists and universities “complicit in the Israeli occupation and in the policies and weaponry recently deployed to such disastrous effect in Gaza”, and vowed to picket the event if it goes ahead.
The Israel Day of Science seminars highlight the work of seven universities. Forty professors and politicians are among the signatories who want the workshops cancelled. They include Jonathan Rosenhead from the London School of Economics, who is leading the protest, Steven Rose from the Open University and architect and historian Charles Jencks.
The Zionist Federation is running the seminars at the Manchester Museum of Science and Industry today and at the Science Museum on Thursday. The federation's chairman, Andrew Balcombe, said the events were educational and non-political.
The Science Museum said in a statement: “Scientists speaking at the event include a marine biologist, a physicist who works on experiments at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Switzerland, a nanotechnology expert, a water scientist and a geneticist.”
Reader views (7)
Shall we start burning books next? Funny if you click on Israel-really impartial photos. Is the Evening Standard awake?
- Howard, London
Israeli scientists have saved peoples live and hugely benefited our world. Israeli Scientists invented the 'camera pill' and many other medical technological advances. Next time you have a serious stomache illness, will you refuse to have it used to analyse it?
- Zennia Esterson, London UK
Are other countries so crass that they think they have a right to just march into the UK and set up stalls wherever they like ?
- Duncan Mcintosh, Hackney, UK
What nonsense
- Paul, Bromley
Science and politics always have and will mix or did you think the arms they are using were made by bakers?
Yes ban anything Israeli, Why wouldnt they get sanctions like any barbaric country?
Lets face it reasoning doesn't work with Israel maybe its time to target their economy just like we did with Iran and Syria.
- Clear, London
As the sciences are used in warfare no matter what, this protest is clearly just a carry-forward of the anti-Israel sentiment over the Gaza strip. What next, ban Israeli civil aircraft from landing at Heathrow? Ban anything Israeli? This is a political protest against Israel and nothing more. This group want to 'punish' the nation in effigy - end of story. I'm not Jewish, and I would no more want to live in Israel than I would most of the other countries of the world - but there's right and there's wrong. This protest is pathetic posturing!
- Rogan, Irving
Science and politics should never mix.
- Weddigen, London
