Israel has been suspended from the International Olympiad on Astrononomy and Astrophysics (IOAA). The IOAA is part of a network of science Olympiads that seek to identify the most talented high-school students in each country.
This year the IOAA was held in Mumbai. Israel had pre-registered for the event although, eventually, it did not send a team. Members of the Indian and international scientific community sent the letter below to the IOAA requesting it to suspend the State of Israel, while allowing students from Israel to participate as individuals.
The initial signatories of the letter were Alok Laddha, Suvrat Raju, Ronak Soni, Sandip Trivedi, Ravinder Banyal, Ashoke Sen, Nissim Kanekar, Ahmed Abbes and Pierre Vanhove. In all, more than 500 academics signed the letter.
The IOAA board, comprising representatives from 64 countries discussed this proposal on 18 August. While the issue was not relevant for this year due to Israel’s absence, a significant majority of the board voted to suspend Israel from future Olympiads while allowing individual students to participate.
We greatly appreciate Prof. Aniket Sule, the president of the IOAA for his integrity and commitment to democratic values in placing our letter before the international board for an open discussion and vote.
This sets a significant and important precedent: countries that are guilty of genocide and practice apartheid are not welcome to send official representatives to international scientific and cultural events. Individuals from those countries can participate but not as official representatives of their governments.
I hope that, from next year, the other science Olympiads and even the Olympic games follow this precedent.
Of course this is only a small step in the larger scheme. But to whatever small extent, I hope this conveys the horror and disgust with which the rest of the world views Israeli policies in Palestine and encourages the Israeli government to change course immediately.
