Science Museum

One reason I don't post often about Israel because I don't think there is anything new to say. But every so often a brief venture into the mire is worth while. Here The Independent (trust the Independent) is trying to fan the flames of a debate about whether the Science Museum should go ahead with an exhibition of Israel's contribution to science.

The article leads:

The Science Museum, one of Britain's most prestigious public institutions, was embroiled in a row last night after being accused of promoting Israeli universities whose research was used in the country's military campaign in Gaza.

So the accusation is at the top. And the row is because:

More than 400 academics, a Nobel laureate and the former chair of the Science Select Committee called on the museum to cancel workshops due to be held this week that promote Israeli scientific achievements to schoolchildren.

The Science Museum says.

that the event had been planned for nearly a year and "has no political theme". A statement added: "Scientists speaking at the event include a marine biologist, a physicist who works on experiments at the Large Hadron Collider at Cern [Switzerland], a nanotechnology expert, a water scientist and a geneticist ... Having considered the issue very carefully, and while fully respecting the right for everyone to express their views, [we] believe that not to proceed with the event would mean taking a political stand, which would be wholly inappropriate."

Professor Rosenhead, who is heading the protest, said:

that a host of evidence suggested a sinister link between Israel's scientists and defence policies. The most recent annual review of Tel Aviv University (TAU), he said, stated that "the Israeli Ministry of Defence is currently funding 55 projects at TAU", which "is playing a major role in enhancing Israel's security capabilities and military edge". The head of TAU's strategic studies, he added, is a serving major-general. The connections between these universities and defence was "very acute" he added.

I think most universities are developing science programmes including defence projects. Most of them are not referred to as 'sinister' but, this being Israel, everything is sinister. And then comes the clincher that some of these projects are "playing a major role in enhancing Israel's security capabilities and military edge".

So that's the Gaza link. That is what it amounts to. The country has a defence system. And it wants to enhance it.

That is genocide, straight off. I mean it is when the Jewish state does it. Because they just want to kill everyone. When other people develop military projects it means something different.

This exhibition is nothing to do with military projects, of course, but it's the same country, the same people, and some of them might be working in universities where some defence projects are being studied, and some of these defence projects might be used to massacre more Palestinians some time, because that is what Israel does. Israel can contribute nothing to science. Or at least it can not be seen to have contributed anything except massacres, genocides, and murders of little children.

My local idiot MP Ian Gibson, who is among the signatories, turned up at a rally in Norwich last year to save the Puppet Theatre and some other theatre companies and told us it was all the fault of the Iraq War. If it hadn't been for Iraq we would still have had a puppet theatre. QED.

Same logic. Same man.