Why did post-colonial Arabs fail to advance in science and technology?

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"For example, Israel was much younger than Egypt, but, it become a world leader in science and technology."

Comparing Israel to the Arab nations is not appropriate, because Israel was built primarily from European Jews, who brought with them the education and culture of modern Europe. Particularly in the arts, science and technology, in pre-war Europe, an overwhelming number of top level scientists, mathematicians, artists, musicians, etc, were Jewish. Look up the biographies and you'll see it. Jews were among the most well educated and sophisticated Europeans in places like Germany, Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, etc. So Israel was essentially 'jump started'.

Add to this the enthusiasm and hope that the early Israeli settlers brought with them, having escaped the horrors of Europe and given the chance to found their own independent nation/state for the first time in 2000+ years? You get a dynamic quite different than that of the Israel's Arab neighbors.

The Arab nations must be measured against themselves and against other nations that have similar history and demographics. Israel is essentially a newly founded European/Jewish nation in terms of its culture and political system, quite different than its Arab neighbors in this respect - simple geographic proximity is not sufficient reason to use it for comparison.

Some sources - there are far more than can be easily listed here:

The first wave of modern Jewish migration to Ottoman-ruled Palestine, known as the First Aliyah, began in 1881, as Jews fled pogroms in Eastern Europe

The Second Aliyah (1904–14), began after the Kishinev pogrom; some 40,000 Jews settled in Palestine

The Third Aliyah was triggered by the October Revolution in Russia, the anti-Semitic pogroms in Eastern Europe, the British occupation of Palestine and the Balfour Declaration.

The Fourth Aliyah refers to the fourth wave of the Jewish immigration to Israel from Europe and Asia

Chaim Zelig Slonimsky (Białystok, March 31, 1810 – Warsaw, May 15, 1904) was a rabbi, mathematician, and inventor.

Jewish Nobel Prize Laureates

Albert Einstein - The Einsteins were non-observant Jews. After the death of Israel's first president, Chaim Weizmann, in November 1952, Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion offered Einstein the position of President of Israel...he took the draft of a speech he was preparing for a television appearance commemorating the State of Israel's seventh anniversary with him to the hospital, but he did not live long enough to complete it

Jews have made contributions in a broad range of human endeavors, including the sciences, arts, politics, and business.[175][176] Although Jews comprise only 0.2% of the world's population, over 20% of Nobel Prize laureates have been Jewish, with multiple winners in each field.

The State of Israel was established in 1948, at the height of the War of Independence. It expressed the culmination of a long process during which the Jewish people had started returning to their homeland – a process which continued after its establishment. Indeed, since its establishment, some 2.7 million Jews have immigrated to Israel from some 130 countries. These continuous waves of immigration have left their mark on the country’s politics and society.

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