Israel Prize
In 1993, he was selected for the Israel Prize. Before the award ceremony, Leibowitz was invited to speak to the Israel Council for Israeli-Palestinian Peace, where his controversial remarks calling upon Israeli soldiers to refuse orders triggered outrage (and Yitzhak Rabin had threatened to boycott the ceremony). The jury convened to discuss the possibility of withdrawing the prize, but Leibowitz himself announced that he would refuse to accept it, because he did not want to create antagonism when receiving the prize.
Read more about this topic: Yeshayahu Leibowitz
Famous quotes containing the words israel and/or prize:
“Who is the LORD, that I should heed him and let Israel go? I do not know the LORD, and I will not let Israel go.”
—Bible: Hebrew, Exodus 5:2.
Pharaoh.
“What we have we prize not to the worth
Whiles we enjoy it, but being lacked and lost,
Why, then we rack the value, then we find
The virtue that possession would not show us
Whiles it was ours.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)