On Sun, Jul 17, 2011, Orna Agmon Ben-Yehuda wrote about "Re: Finally - A RMS talk in Tel-Aviv. Including details": > And I guess also about his explanation: > http://stallman.org/articles/palestine-trip.html
Unlike other people on this list (who already mentioned Hitler on this thread, so I guess it should be officially over...), I personally do understand Stallman's view - that basically this boycott isn't as terrible as terrorism, so he'd rather see the Palestinians continue do things like this non-violent boycott, instead of returning to violent terrorism. That's all fine. But I don't understand why he seems to think that after he supported this boycott, we (Israelis) would want to hear him talk - whether he speaks in Jaffa, in Haifa, or in my back yard. And I most of all don't understand the closing of his "explanation": "I hope that Free Software / Barmagiyat Horrah / Tochna Chofshit can provide an opportunity for Israelis and Palestinians to experience practical cooperation, and that this will make at least a small contribution to peace." This is one of the ridiculous pieces of irony (sorry Richard if you're reading this...) that I've read in a while. Indeed - free software *can* and *should* bring Israelis, Palestinians, Iranians, Indians, Pakistanis, Americans and everyone else together to do something useful together. But you can't do this when suddenly some of these free-software writers start to boycott the other free-softwre writers because of the universities they study at, the place they work at, or just the place they live in. Richard, the boycott that your Palestinian hosts asked you to support may sound to you justified, but no matter how you twist it around, it doesn't help the cause of free software. It will mean fewer (if any) Israelis will listen to your talk, it already means that many Israelis heard of free software for the first time through this negative story (which already appeared on the Israeli media), and it means that we lost a chance to perhaps bring together Palestinian and Israeli free software software writers and users - because now every such attempt will look to each side as a "loss" in some sort of juvenile pissing contest - a failure of the boycott or caving-in to one. -- Nadav Har'El | Sunday, Jul 17 2011, 16 Tammuz 5771 n...@math.technion.ac.il |----------------------------------------- Phone +972-523-790466, ICQ 13349191 |Learn from mistakes of others; you won't http://nadav.harel.org.il |live long enough to make them all yourself _______________________________________________ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
