Israel as a science based country

My impression is that, Israel is a great nation, scientific and religious.

Your readers deserve to see research metrics from the Arab world (Nature 469, 453 and 470, 147; 2011) compared with those of its nearest neighbour, Israel.

You compare the number of publications, researchers per million of population and the percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) expended on research and development (R&D). But all of your graphics omit Israel, even though the GDP graphic includes the European Union and Turkey.

The picture would be different had Israel's metrics been included. Israel published 14,943 papers in 2008 (Science Citation Index). In 2007, there were 7,841 researchers per million population, and civilian expenditure on R&D totalled 4.3% of GDP in 2009 — the highest percentage in the world (Central Bureau of Statistics, State of Israel).

From 1948, Israel and its Arab neighbours started on a roughly equal footing. Israel has achieved much, despite arguably being the poorer nation in terms of traditional measures such as land area, natural resources and freedom from conflict. Its strong investment in human capital, fostered by a free and open society, has produced six decades of spectacular growth. Those achievements stand in contrast to six decades of regrettably slow (and relatively static) progress in the Arab world. Your analysis would have been more accurately portrayed in this context. [http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v471/n7336/full/471037b.html?WT.ec_id=NATURE-20110303]