Israel Matzav

Israel's disproportionality

From a JPost commentary on Professor Ada Yonath (pictured) winning the Nobel Prize for Chemistry on Wednesday.

When US President Barack Obama reached out to the Muslim world in his landmark speech in Cairo on June 4, he listed the achievements of Muslims throughout history.

Among them, he singled out that they had won Nobel prizes. But Obama, who wanted to find favor with Muslims, did them a favor by not getting into numbers.

Since the prize was first given in 1901, it has been bestowed upon exactly nine Muslims. Now, thanks to Ada Yonath, the tiny state of Israel, home to just 7.4 million people, has equaled the achievement of some 1.5 billion Muslims, who make up roughly one fifth of the world's population.

And that's just Israelis. There are only about 13.3 million Jews in the world today, yet Yonath will become the 171st Jew to win the Nobel Prize.

That's right folks: 7.4 million (Jewish) Israelis have produced as many Nobel Prize winners as 1.5 billion Muslims.

And the nine Muslims include some 'controversial' (to put it mildly) recipients:

Yasser Arafat shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres in 1994 for the Oslo diplomatic process. Norwegian Kaare Kristiansen resigned from the Nobel Committee in protest.

International Atomic Energy Association director Mohamed ElBaradei won the Peace Prize in 2005, but if Iran succeeds in obtaining nuclear weapons, ElBaradei could be remembered not for peace, but for the deaths of thousands or even millions of people.

And you wonder why the Muslims hate the Jooos? It's envy. Pure and simple.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 2:55 PM