Window on Israel: Nobel prizes and politics

Israel brought home another Nobel prize last week; Professor Ada Yonath shared this year's award for chemistry. Ha'aretz ran a front page chart showing the country in first place with respect to Nobel prizes won for science since 2000, in relation to population.
 
Israel is not quite in the league of Jews the world over, who account for over 20 percent of Nobels, but it does its part as a "poor cousin" whose universities and research institutes do not have the resources of those in North America or Europe.
 
Israelis take pride from their Nobel laureates, and also derive a little entertainment from them.
 
Not only is Prof. Yonath a renowned chemist, she's also staking a claim as an analyst of Israel's options in the fields of terror and international relations.
 
Within a week of the announcement of her prize, she was proposing that Israel release all its Palestinian prisoners. That is, over 11,000 rather than the 1,000 demanded by Hamas for the release of Israeli soldier Gilad Schalit. Moreover, she would release them without reference to Schalit.
 
She concludes that holding the prisoners increases terror. 

We need to think about ways to reduce their motivation to kill and be killed... We have it in our power to change the current situation; when a man sits in our jails for a number of years, and around him friends and family become angry. That is how we create terrorists... Regardless of these inmates, there are enough people who are currently free on the other side who are able to hurt us... releasing all of the prisoners would help avoid future kidnappings."

Despair not: a right-wing Nobel laureate has also spoken.

Hebrew University Professor Israel (or Robert) Aumann shared the economics prize in 2005 for his work on rational analysis and game theory. Aumann's comments on public affairs are arguably more informed by the expertise for which he won a Nobel than those of Professor Yonath. Critics have charged that he used game theory to justify Israeli occupation and subjugation of the Palestinians.

Aumann is a religious Jew, and his opinions derive, at least in part, from his faith.

We are here because we are Jewish, we are Zionist, because of our ancient bond to this land; we aspire to realize our 2000-year-old hope of becoming a free nation in our land, the Land of Zion and Jerusalem. Without this profound understanding, we will not endure. We will simply no longer be here; Post-Zionism will finish us off... Our panicked lunging for peace is working against us. It brings us farther away from peace, and endangers our very existence. ...Roadmaps, capitulation, gestures, disengagements, convergences, deportations and so forth do not bring peace.  ...These things send a clear signal to our 'cousins' [Arabs] that we are tired, that we no longer have spiritual strength, that we have no time, that we are calling for a time-out. They only whet their appetites. It only encourages them to pressure us more, to demand more, and not to give up on anything."

As in other countries, expertise in Israel is compartmentalized. The professional home of Prof. Yonath is the Weizmann Institute of Science. Prof. Aumann's principal affiliation is with the Center for Rationality at the Hebrew University. Neither had been prominent on talk shows or political panels before acquiring recognition by the Nobel Committees. The prestige of their prizes made them celebrities. They have every right to speak freely about politics, no matter how close their views are to the conventional ones. Both won prizes for professional work that was anything but conventional.

We know from discussions in the Talmud, as well as academics who work under the headings of postmodernism and deconstruction, that concepts are not always what they seem to be in conventional usage. Somewhere in her writings, Prof. Yonath may deal with the knotty problem of individuals judged to be murderers, who may be considered combatants protected under the laws of war despite their lack of uniforms or service in the armies of recognized states. And Prof. Aumann may have dealt professionally with the linkages between religious doctrine, rational analysis and game theory.

As yet, however, neither has won international recognition for excellence in political discourse.

Israel deserves recognition not only for the quality of its science and other intellectual pursuits, but also for the openness of its media to individuals who express themselves on the political extremes of both left and right.