"The Jewish faith encourages a belief in progress and personal accountability." I don't think this is the case. But as he has given no evidence for such claims

"The Jewish faith encourages a belief in progress and personal accountability." I don't think this is the case. But as he has given no evidence for such claims I will not bother giving any evidence. Is not much of Israel's success not from economic assistance from the US and the Jewish diaspora? As a welfare state, Israel hasn't done too bad but I don't think it has excelled at all in any measurable way in technology. Most of these startups are based on contingencies set by military aid given by the US to Israel. As others have stated, speaking about start up companies (are they even successful?) per capita doesn't make much sense when you're comparing countries that are as diversified as much as the US and as large. "It ranks second behind the U.S. in the number of companies listed on the Nasdaq." And? "Israel, with seven million people, attracts as much venture capital as France and Germany combined." Well, France and Germany don't have large groups of people living outside sending money into the country for whatever reason. "Some oil-rich states spend billions trying to build science centers. But places like Silicon Valley and Tel Aviv are created by a confluence of cultural forces, not money." So now Tel Aviv should be comparable to Silicon Valley? Isn't the article supposed to be persuading us to believe this? "The surrounding nations do not have the tradition of free intellectual exchange and technical creativity." I guess he's never read a history book. Is he speaking about recent history? "For example, between 1980 and 2000, Egyptians registered 77 patents in the U.S. Saudis registered 171. Israelis registered 7,652." How many of those patents are military related? Yes, we know that Egypt and Saudi Arabia are not the pinnacle of innovation. Wow, look how many more patents Israel has compared to the whole of Africa.