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By Dr Farrukh Saleem www.AmericanCongressForTruth.com
(The writer is an Islamabad-based freelance columnist)

Why are Jews so powerful?

There are only 14 million Jews in the world; 7 million in the Americas, 5 million in Asia, 2 million in Europe and 100,000 in Africa. For every single Jew in the world there are 100 Muslims. Yet, Jews are more than a hundred times more powerful than all the Muslims put together. Ever wondered why?

Jesus of Nazareth was Jewish. Albert Einstein, the most influential scientist of all time and TIME magazine’s ‘Person of the Century’, was a Jew. Sigmund Freud — id, ego, and superego — the father of psychoanalysis was a Jew. So were Karl Marx, Paul Samuelson, and Milton Friedman.

Here are a few other Jews whose intellectual output has enriched the whole humanity:

Benjamin Rubin gave humanity the vaccinating needle.
Jonas Salk developed the first polio vaccine.
Albert Sabin developed the improved live polio vaccine.
Gertrude Elion gave us a leukemia-fighting drug.
Baruch Blumberg developed the vaccination for Hepatitis B.
Paul Ehrlich discovered a treatment for syphilis.
Elie Metchnikoff won a Nobel Prize in infectious diseases.
Bernard Katz won a Nobel Prize in neuromuscular transmission.

Andrew Schally won a Nobel in endocrinology (disorders of the endocrine system; diabetes, hyperthyroidism).
Aaron Beck founded Cognitive Therapy (psychotherapy to treat mental disorders, depression and phobias).
Gregory Pincus developed the first oral contraceptive pill.
George Wald won a Nobel for furthering our understanding of the human eye.

Stanley Cohen won a Nobel in embryology (study of embryos and their development). Willem Kolff came up with the kidney dialysis machine.

Over the past 105 years, 14 million Jews have won 15-dozen Nobel Prizes while only 3 Nobel Prizes have been won by 1.4 billion Muslims (other than Peace Prizes). Why are Jews so powerful?

Stanley Mezor invented the first micro-processing chip.
Leo Szilard developed the first nuclear chain reactor.
Peter Schultz, optical fibre cable;
Charles Adler, traffic lights;
Benno Strauss, Stainless steel;
Isador Kisee, sound movies;
Emile Berliner, telephone microphone and
Charles Ginsburg, videotape recorder.

Famous financiers in the business world who belong to Jewish faith include
Ralph Lauren (Polo),
Levis Strauss (Levi’s Jeans),
Howard Schultz (Starbuck’s),
Sergey Brin (Google),
Michael Dell (Dell Computers),
Larry Ellison (Oracle),
Donna Karan (DKNY),
Irv Robbins (Baskin & Robbins) and
Bill Rosenberg (Dunkin Donuts).

Richard Levin, President of Yale University, is a Jew. So are:

Henry Kissinger (American secretary of state),
Alan Greenspan (fed chairman under Reagan, Bush, Clinton and Bush),
Joseph Lieberman, United States Senator,
Madeleine Albright (former American secretary of state),
Maxim Litvinov (USSR foreign Minister),
David Marshal (Singapore ’s first chief minister),
Isaac Isaacs (governor-general of Australia),
Benjamin Disraeli (British statesman and author),
Yevgeny Primakov (Russian PM),
Jorge Sampaio (president of Portugal),
Herb Gray (Canadian deputy PM),
Pierre Mendes (French PM),
Michael Howard (British Home Secretary),
Bruno Kreisky (chancellor of Austria) and
Robert Rubin (former American Secretary of Treasury)

In the media, famous Jews include
Wolf Blitzer (CNN),
Barbara Walters (ABCNews),
Eugene Meyer (Washington Post),
Henry Grunwald (editor-in-chief TIME),
Katherine Graham (publisher of The Washington Post),
Joseph Lelyyeld (Executive editor, The New York Times), and Max Frankel (New York Times).

Can you name the most beneficent philanthropist in the history of the world?

The name is George Soros, a Jew, who has so far donated a colossal $4 billion most of which has gone as aid to scientists and universities around the world.

Second to George Soros is Walter Annenberg, another Jew, who has built a hundred libraries by donating an estimated $2 billion.

At the Olympics, Mark Spitz set a record of sorts by winning seven gold medals. Lenny Krayzelburg is a three-time Olympic gold medalist. Spitz, Krayzelburg and Boris Becker are all Jewish.

Did you know that Harrison Ford, George Burns, Tony Curtis, Charles Bronson, Sandra Bullock, Billy Crystal, Woody Allen, Paul Newman, Peter Sellers, Dustin Hoffman, Michael Douglas, Ben Kingsley, Kirk Douglas, William Shatner, Jerry Lewis, and Peter Falk are all Jewish?

As a matter of fact, Hollywood itself was founded by a Jew. Among directors and producers, Steven Spielberg, Mel Brooks, Oliver Stone, Aaron Spelling (Beverly Hills 90210), Neil Simon (The Odd Couple), Andrew Vaina (Rambo 1/2/3), Michael Man (Starsky and Hutch), Milos Forman (One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest), Douglas Fairbanks (The Thief of Baghdad), and Ivan Reitman (Ghostbusters) are all Jewish.

To be certain, Washington is the capital that matters and in Washington the lobby that matters is The American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC. Washington knows that if PM Ehud Olmert were to discover that the earth is flat, AIPAC will make the 109th Congress pass a resolution congratulating Olmert on his discovery.

William James Sidis, with an IQ of 250-300, is the brightest human who ever existed. Guess what faith did he belong to?

So, why are Jews so powerful?
Answer: Education.

Why are Muslims so powerless?

There are an estimated 1,476,233,470 Muslims on the face of the planet: one billion in Asia, 400 million in Africa, 44 million in Europe and 6 million in the Americas. Every fifth human being is a Muslim; for every single Hindu there are 2 Muslims, for every Buddhist there are 2 Muslims and for every Jew there are 100 Muslims.

Ever wondered why Muslims are so powerless?
Here is why: There are 57 member-countries of the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC), and all of them put together have around 500 universities; one university for every 3 million Muslims. The United States has 5,758 universities and India has 8,407. In 2004, Shanghai Jiao Tong University compiled an ‘Academic Ranking of World Universities’, and intriguingly, not one university from Muslim-majority states was in the top-500.

As per data collected by the UNDP, literacy in the Christian world stands at nearly 90 per cent and 15 Christian-majority states have a literacy rate of 100 percent. A Muslim-majority state, as a sharp contrast, has an average literacy rate of around 40 percent and there is no Muslim-majority state with a literacy rate of 100 per cent.

Some 98 percent of the ‘literates’ in the Christian world had completed primary school, while less than 50 percent of the ‘literates’ in the Muslim world did the same. Around 40 percent of the ‘literates’ in the Christian world attended university while no more than 2 percent of the ‘literates’ in the Muslim world did the same.

Muslim-majority countries have 230 scientists per one million Muslims. The US has 4,000 scientists per million and Japan has 5,000 per million. In the entire Arab world, the total number of full-time researchers is 35,000 and there are only 50 technicians per one million Arabs (in the Christian world there are up to 1,000 technicians per one million).

Furthermore, the Muslim world spends 0.2 per cent of its GDP on research and development, while the Christian world spends around 5 per cent of its GDP.

Conclusion: The Muslim world lacks the capacity to produce knowledge.

Daily newspapers per 1,000 people and number of book titles per million are two indicators of whether knowledge is being diffused in a society. In Pakistan, there are 23 daily newspapers per 1,000 Pakistanis while the same ratio in Singapore is 360. In the UK, the number of book titles per million stands at 2,000 while the same in Egypt is 20.

Conclusion: The Muslim world is failing to diffuse knowledge.

Exports of high technology products as a percentage of total exports are an important indicator of knowledge application. Pakistan’s exports of high technology products as a percentage of total exports stands at one percent.

The same for Saudi Arabia is 0.3 per cent; Kuwait, Morocco, and Algeria are all at 0.3 percent while Singapore is at 58 percent.

Conclusion: The Muslim world is failing to apply knowledge.

Why are Muslims powerless?
Because we aren’t producing knowledge.
Why are Muslims powerless?
Because we aren’t diffusing knowledge.
Why are Muslims powerless?
Because we aren’t applying knowledge. And, the future belongs to knowledge-based societies.

Interestingly, the combined annual GDP of 57 OIC (Organization of the Islamic Conference) countries is under $2 trillion. America, just by itself, produces goods and services worth $12 trillion; China $8 trillion, Japan $3.8 trillion and Germany $2.4 trillion (purchasing power parity basis).

Oil-rich Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, and Qatar collectively produce goods and services (mostly oil) worth $500 billion; Spain alone produces goods and services worth over $1 trillion, Catholic Poland $489 billion, and Buddhist Thailand $545 billion.

(Muslim GDP as a percentage of world GDP is fast declining).

So, why are Muslims so powerless?
Answer: Lack of education!
All we do is shout to Allah all day and blame everyone else for our multiple failures…

By David Harris www.JPost.com

If all we knew about Israel came from the media, how would the country be portrayed? Images of war, conflict, corruption, and domestic fault lines would dominate.

And if all we knew about Israel came from international organizations, which make a habit of singling it out for vilification — especially when Israel’s very creation becomes an annual target for its enemies at the UN — what would we see? A nonstop litany of accusations of every conceivable evil known to humankind.

For many, these are the only sources of information about Israel. But anyone who’s been to Israel understands that the real place, seen up close, is quite different. That’s why there’s no substitute for a first-hand look.

Okay, Israel isn’t perfect. It has its share of problems. But what country — even among the most highly developed in the world — doesn’t have its shortcomings? And no one else faces the unique security challenges, with all the stresses and strains, which are Israel’s daily fare.

That said, Israel’s got an awful lot going for it — robust democracy, cutting-edge innovation, thriving arts, astonishing diversity, and no-holds-barred debate.

Above all, it has a zest for life.

You don’t have to believe me. Confirmation comes from an unlikely source, Sheikh Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s leader, although he draws rather different conclusions.

He declared, “We have discovered how to hit the Jews where they are the most vulnerable. The Jews love life, so that is what we shall take away from them. We are going to win, because they love life and we love death.”

This love of life isn’t just about hedonism or narcissism, though, of course, Israelis aren’t immune.

It’s about something more. The Israeli zest for life derives from the Jewish interpretation of the meaning of life — namely, inspired by a higher authority, to be agents of change for a more humane and compassionate planet. It’s about the oft-cited Jewish notion of tikkun olam, or healing the world.

Some have argued that Israelis would be justified if they turned inward, circled the wagons, and said to hell with a world that hasn’t always treated either Jews or Israel fairly. And they argue that Israel, as the only UN member nation targeted with annihilation by both state and non-state actors, could be excused if it succumbed to total self-preoccupation in the interest of self-preservation.

Yet these views don’t prevail. There’s an irrepressible Israeli yearning to engage the world and make it better.

And herein lies a window into Israel’s soul, which may not be the stuff of media coverage or UN resolutions, but reveals an all-too-rare inner truth.

One particularly striking example. Remember the two Israeli soldiers, Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser, who were kidnapped across an international border by Hezbollah in 2006, triggering a war that summer? They were wounded when abducted, but very much alive. In 2008, their corpses were returned to Israel in a so-called swap.

In contrast, among those sent back to Lebanon was Samir Kuntar, a Hezbollah terrorist captured by Israel after he killed a four-year-old Israeli girl and her father in 1978. The details of the murders, according to Newsweek, were “so sickening they give pause even to some of Israel’s enemies.” These barbaric acts, for which he has never apologized, earned him a hero’s welcome upon his arrival to Beirut.

Not only was Kuntar returned alive — Israel has no capital punishment, even in such grisly cases — but he came back to Lebanon with a bachelor’s degree in hand, courtesy of the Open University in Israel!

Yes, Sheikh Nasrallah is right in one respect — Jews love life, and not just for themselves. With its humanitarian spirit and pioneering medical research and technology, Israel is a small country making an outsized difference on the world stage in advancing the quality of life.

But Nasrallah also believes that the cult of death has the upper hand. Here, he couldn’t be more wrong.

In truth, the affirmation of life, as embodied by Israel, will always triumph over an ideology grounded in murder and mayhem.

Consider some striking examples:
Wherever disaster strikes in the world, a group called Israeli Flying Aid is ready to respond. Made up of hundreds of volunteers who donate their time, it goes at a moment’s notice to places near and far that have been struck by earthquakes, tsunamis, cyclones, floods, and political violence. The goal is to distribute food and medicine, provide first-aid assistance, and offer other survival help.

These volunteers are active in countries that have ties with Israel — and those that don’t. Often, their work is below the radar because countries accept their help, knowing the level of experience and professionalism, but, sadly, don’t want it known that it’s being provided by Israelis. But that public rejection has never been a deal-breaker for the group because lives hang in the balance. And sometimes they risk their own well-being to provide relief without government approval.

Or take Save A Child’s Heart, another completely volunteer effort. Based at the Wolfson Medical Center, near Tel Aviv, a team of dozens of top-flight medical personnel treat children with major cardiac problems from around the world, including the West Bank and Arab countries, and also train personnel in other lands to perform surgery.

Or consider Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem, which I had occasion to visit recently. Stand in the entrance or walk its corridors. From secular Jews to devout Muslims, all patients receive outstanding care. And if you probe, you’ll discover that some of those patients are from countries that not only have no ties to Israel, but even regularly accuse the Jewish state of infecting Arabs with deadly viruses. Yet their citizens find round-about ways to reach Israel and benefit from its lifesaving health care.

Which brings us to the 13-year-old boy whose parents brought him to Israel after doctors in Iran, their native land, and Turkey were unable to treat his life-threatening brain tumor. Their names haven’t been revealed for fear of retribution once they return to Iran, a country that calls for a world without Israel. But there they were at Sheba Hospital in Tel Hashomer counting on quality care to save a life — and getting it.

Or take the aftermath of a recent terrorist attack in Jerusalem, where the wounded Israeli was transported to the same hospital as his Palestinian assailant, who was shot by police, in an effort to save both their lives.

Visit Hebrew University, where the thirty-fourth class of students studying for a master’s degree in public health was recently welcomed.

The overwhelming majority of the students, many already physicians or health-care professionals, come from developing countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. They receive full stipends from Jewish foundations to get their degrees. When they complete the program, they are far better equipped to improve public health and, yes, save lives.

And at this moment, courtesy of Israel, a large group of African physicians is in the country for an annual program of advance training. They come from across the continent, including Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania, and Uganda, and they’re spending several months acquiring new medical skills, once again, to save lives.

Last month, a group of twenty-five students from two Israeli medical schools, Tel Aviv and Ben-Gurion universities, traveled for two weeks at their own expense to Ethiopia to volunteer in health agencies. Their goal, driven purely by idealism, was to help with de-worming efforts, especially in HIV/AIDS patients.

And one last particularly striking example. Remember the two Israeli soldiers, Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser, who were kidnapped across an international border by Hezbollah in 2006, triggering a war that summer? They were wounded when abducted, but very much alive. Earlier this year, their corpses were returned to Israel in a so-called swap.

In contrast, among those sent back to Lebanon was Samir Kuntar, a Hezbollah terrorist captured by Israel after he killed a four-year-old Israeli girl and her father in 1978. The details of the murders, according to Newsweek, were “so sickening they give pause even to some of Israel’s enemies.” These barbaric acts, for which he has never apologized, earned him a hero’s welcome upon his arrival to Beirut.

Not only was Kuntar returned alive — Israel, after all, has no capital punishment, even in such grisly cases — but he came back to Lebanon with a bachelor’s degree in hand, courtesy of the Open University in Israel!

Yes, Sheikh Nasrallah is right in one respect — Jews love life, and not just for themselves. With its humanitarian spirit and pioneering medical research and technology, Israel is a small country making an outsized difference on the world stage in advancing the quality of life.

But Nasrallah also believes that the cult of death has the upper hand. Here, he couldn’t be more wrong.

In truth, the affirmation of life, as embodied by Israel, will always triumph over an ideology grounded in murder and mayhem.