MIDEAST

THE JEWISH NATIONAL FUND

Arab-Jewish Technology
Gap Is Narrowing

extends best wishes for
peace, health and prosperit y

This Rosh Hashanah, JNF celebrates 90 years of transforming
and beautify ing the Land of Israel. We thank the Jewish communit y
for its support of JNF land development activities for the housing
of Soviet and Ethiopian immigrants. You make it possible for
them to find a home in their homeland!

HAPPY NEW YEAR 5752!

Sue Ellen Eisenberg

Edward Rosenthal

President, JNF of Greater Detroit

Regional Director

May the coming year be
filled with health, happiness
and prosperity for all of our
Families, Friends and Customers

CSHANA TOVA

••

Futu ristic
Furnishi nus, Inc.

ANDREW D. SALLAN

Best Wishes

to all of our
clients & friends for a
Happy & Healthy New Year
from all of us
at
The Principal Financial Group

Ron LeVine, Agency Manager
Marty Davidson, Assistant Manager
Steve LeVine, Management Assistant
Paul Alekman ❑ Jack Baroff
Paul Davidson ❑ Burt Gold ❑ Sue Hodess
Jerry Kaufman ❑ Noah Lambert

1700 N. Woodward, Suite 200, Bloomfield Hills

645-6770

76

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 1991

■■
••

SCOTT P. DRESNER

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CARL ALPERT

Special to The Jewish News

W

ith scientific insti-
tutions of interna-
tional caliber, like
the Technion — Israel In-
stitute of Technology, the
Hebrew University and the
Weizmann Institute, Israel
has been able to counter-
balance the numerical and
geographical superiority of
the Arab world in most areas
of national defense. We have
maintained that even 100
million Arabs can be no
match for our technological
supremacy. Our achieve-
ments, both on land and in
the air, have confirmed this
belief again and again.
There are serious indica-
tions, however, that the gap
between us is narrowing. A
number of Arab lands have
learned their lesson and are
now making supreme efforts
to raise their scientific and
technological standards. The
quick defeat of Iraq in the
Gulf War did not obscure the
fact that Saddam Hussein
had made considerable pro-
gress in his efforts to join the
exclusive club of nuclear
powers, and the most recent
revelations make it clear that
only Israel's pre-emptive
strike 10 years ago, which
destroyed his nuclear reactor
and set his program back by
a decade or more, forestalled
his use of atomic weapons
which could have changed the
course of the Gulf War
drastically.
Scholars of the Neaman In-
stitute, at the Technion, who
have been studying
developments in the Middle
East, are now warning that
we must discard our smug
sense of superiority and wake
up to the fact that the Arabs
are beginning to catch up
with us. The Neaman In-
stitute began its study of the
situation five years ago with
the cooperation and participa-
tion of other distinguished
bodies in Israel, and the facts
which have emerged are
creating genuine concern
here.
The purpose of the research
program is to examine the
development of science and
technology in neighboring
Arab countries and Iran and
to compare it to the trends in
the same area in Israel. Dur-
ing the past year, the study
was focusing on higher educa-
tion and on use of computers.
In the past 15 years the
number of university
students in the Arab world

has increased fourfold, from
half a million in 1970 to 1.9
million in 1985. In Egypt
alone there are 600,000
students, and about 35 per-
cent of these are studying in
scientific and technological
disciplines. Before the out-
break of the Gulf War, Iraq's
universities had an enroll-
ment twice that of Israel.
Even Syria has more students
than Israel, which heretofore
had been proud of its 80,000
enrollment.
Until 40 years ago there
was not even a single univer-
sity in Saudi Arabia. Today
there are seven institutions of
higher learning, with over
100,000 students, and we
must not minimize the
academic level there, which

Until 40 years ago
there was not even
a single university
in Saudi Arabia.
Today there are
seven institutions
of higher learning.

continues to rise. They have
learned to tap into other in-
stitutions in the world as
well, and today there are one
and a half times more Arab
students enrolled in various
universities overseas than
Israelis studying both at
home and abroad.
For every Israeli who earns
a doctorate in one of the scien-
tific of technological profes-
sions, there are four or five
Arabs who also qualify for a
doctorate in some of the best
institutions in Europe and
North America. This does not
create a brain drain, for many
of them return home as
teachers and thereby con-
tribute to the raising of the
domestic level.
In both Egypt and Saudi
Arabia startling progress has
been made in the aeronauti-
cal and allied industries. Par-
ticularly in the latter country,
enormous funds from its oil
resources have been funneled
into this area. American
know-how is freely available.
Israel still enjoys clear
supremacy in its ongoing ad-
vanced research. Interna-
tional scientific journals
carry reports by our research
scholars which in terms of
ratio to population places us
in third place in the world in
original, creative research.
Arab progress should in
itself be no cause for alarm if
such progress is utilized for