Long before, world renowned phycisist Stephen Hawking has been regarded as a science advocate, supporting their rights everywhere to freedom of movement, publication and collaboration has been one of his goals. In his most recent endeavor, Stephen Hawking has expressed his support to a group of Palestinian students after he allegedly asked his 3.8 million Facebook followers to contribute to a crowd funding campaign. The Professor said that the campaign has been focused to bring back a second edition of the Palestinian Advanced Physics School, a physics lecture series for West Bank masters students.
Stephen Hawking's Support For Palestinian Students
In one of his statements reported by Step Feed, the Cambridge professor was quoted to have said that he aims to bring up a fundraising project aimed at raising funds to make a second Palestinian Advanced Physics School plausible. It was found that Hawking has allegedly made a video greeting in the school's 2016 session, where British, American and Jordanian scientists are said to have lectured in a range of topics in contemporary physics. Moreover, on his Facebook page, Hawking has also promoted a fundraising campaign for the school's continuation in 2017.
Hawking And His Advocacies
Furthermore, according to Haaretz, four years ago, Hawking has reportedly drawn the ire of Israel advocates when he withdrew from a conference in Israel while celebrating the 90th birthday of former President Shimon Peres, who is now deceased. Meanwhile, a certain organization dubbed as Scientists for Palestine that has been created to promote science in the country was said to have initially sought $7,500 in funds to make the 2017 lecture series happen. As of the press time, authorities have revealed that the campaign has successfully raised 146% of its initial crowd funding goal.
On the other hand, Scientists for Palestine was said to be the first ever Palestinian Advanced Physics School which has been founded in 2016.Hawking said that he was pleased to send a greeting to the Palestinian Master students who were attending the first Palestinian Advanced Physics School last year. Ultimately, Hawking has been quite vocal on his political views when it comes to the Palestinian struggle claiming that has he attended the conference personally, he would have been able to express his opinion that the policy of the present Israeli government is likely to lead to disaster.
