Wiesenthal Center Applauds Announcement in Stockholm to Bestow Nobel Prize on Israeli Scientist

October 5, 2011

Prize awarded just days after Swedish Academics call for academic boycott of Israel

The Simon Wiesenthal Center congratulates scientist Daniel Shechtman from Israel’s renowned Technion Institute for being awarded this year's Nobel Prize for Chemistry. “It is a wonderful moment for Dr. Shechtman, the Technion Institute and the entire House of Israel,” said Rabbi Abraham Cooper associate dean of the Jewish human rights organization. “We note that media reports indicate that it took a long time for Dr. Shechtman's controversial findings to overcome entrenched views within the scientific community that initially mocked him and that now lauds him.”

“In the field of science, the commitment to truth is ultimately supposed to prevail and in this case, it has triumphed. So perhaps now would be a good time for  the 218 Swedish professors, lecturers and students to drop their demand, made earlier this week, that Sweden's Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) cancel an ongoing agreement with the Technion Institute,” Rabbi Cooper noted.

“The real losers of the these functionally anti-Semitic anti-Israel boycotters will be Swedish Academia and Middle East moderates committed to peace and truth itself,” Cooper concluded.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center is one of the largest international Jewish human rights organizations with over 400,000 member families in the United States. It is an NGO at international agencies including the United Nations, UNESCO, the OSCE, the OAS, the Council of Europe and the Latin American Parliament (Parlatino).

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