After Dr. Richard M. Stallman (RMS) cancelled his lecture at the University of Haifa I tried to arrange an alternative meeting hall for him. Like some other people I thought that all that was required was "not an Israeli university" or perhaps "not a prominent symbol of the state".
Yesterday (9-Jun-11) RMS sent me a response which indicates that there is an even bigger problem. According to him, "the Palestinians' boycott is so strict that they object to [him giving lectures hosted by] all organizations except those that support the boycott." My opinion is that under such circumstances RMS should refuse to speak, or at least have a "sudden and unavoidable scheduling conflict" which necessitates cancelling his visit. If this really is the situation then I will not be searching for lecture halls for him and will not be attending his lectures either. Tom |------------------------------------------| | Tom Balazs | Haifa | tom123onl...@gmail.com |------------------------------------------| From: Richard Stallman <r...@gnu.org> Date: Thu, Jun 9, 2011 at 17:58 Subject: Re: Fwd: A Lecture Hall for a Talk by Dr. Richard Stallman, President of the Free Software Foundation To: Tom Balazs <tom123onl...@gmail.com> Cc: rms-ass...@gnu.org Our theater is very busy during the month of June, and the date you had mentioned wouldwnt work. My visit is in July, not June. Maybe that was misunderstanding. However, it seems that the Palestinians' boycott is so strict that they object to all organizations except those that support the boycott. I don't know whether they object if such an organization rents a hall. So I must charge the minimum cost of 750 N.I.S in order to be able to operate the Theater. How many dollars is that? I have no idea whether I have this much in my pocket. -- Dr Richard Stallman President, Free Software Foundation 51 Franklin St Boston MA 02110 USA www.fsf.org, www.gnu.org Skype: No way! That's nonfree (freedom-denying) software. Use free telephony http://directory.fsf.org/category/tel/
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