THAT'S JUST MY OPINION -- BY HANK HONIG

Just the other day, the Sheik of the Grand Mosque in Mecca stated that the Jews were "descendants of pigs", the lowest of the low, if you will. So, being Jewish and wanting to make sure that the good Sheik was fully accurate in his statements, I decided to check out the accomplishments of his illustrious people as opposed to the accomplishment of mine, descendants of pigs that we are.

I decided to start by checking out the winners of the Nobel Prize, certainly a bench mark if ever there was one. In order to be fair, however, since there are 1.2 billion Muslims in the world (or roughly 19.6% of the world's population) and 1.41 million Jews (or roughly 0.2% of the world's population) we really should expect the accomplishments of the descendants of pigs to be far smaller than those of the descendants of Ishmael. Uh Oh!
There seems to be a problem there. Let's check it out.

In total, 8 Muslims have won the Nobel Prize. Two have won in literature two in peace (Mohammed Anwar Sadat and Mohammed Yaser Arafat, notably both Egyptians, although Arafat pretends to be a Palestinian on TV) and four in Chemistry.

On the other hand, 128 Jews have taken the Nobel. These include 10 in literature (more than the total number of Muslims), including such notables as Boris Pasternak and Saul Bellow, 8 in peace (equal to the total number of Muslims), including Henry Kissenger and Elie Wiesel, 22 in Chemistry, 13 in Economics, 44 in Medicine (5.5 times the total number of Muslims) and 31 in physics, including Albert Einstein.

Now you might ask what about famous authors who did not win the Nobel who might have been Muslims. The only one that actually comes to mind is Salman Rushdie, but there is a fatwa out on him. Of course you might mention Khalil Gibran, but he was actually a Lebanese Christian. And, after all, if you really wanted to consider non-Nobel Laureates among Jews, then you would have to add Benjamin Disraeli, Arthur Miller, Henry Miller, Henry Denker, Phillip Roth, Dr. Jonas Salk, Dr. Albert Sabin, Dr. Robert Oppenheimer, and that only takes into account the categories for which the Nobel Prize is awarded.

What about law? There you might find Arthur Goldberg, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Louis Brandeis, all justices of the Supreme Court, and, more recently, Frederick Lederer, Associate Dean of Law at The College of William and Mary and former Assistant Judge Advocate General of the Army. Or you might consider, William Kuntsler and Alan Dershowitz, if your political leanings are to the left and Norman Rosenberg, if you lean more to the right.

How about politics? There is, of course, President Bush's Press Secretary, Ari Fleischer, former Mayor of New York, Ed Koch and the current Mayor Mike Bloomberg, Senator and Vice Presidential Candidate Joe Lieberman, just to name a few.

Music? George and Ira Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Neil Diamond, Neil Sedaka, The Tokens, Oscar Hammerstein, Ethel Merman, Dinah Shore, Barry Manilow, Leonard Bernstein, Itzchak Perlman, Isaac Stern, and too many more to mention.

And, of course, when referring to Jews, we cannot forget Jesus of Nazareth.

Sons of pigs, Sheik? I don't think so?

And even if we were, I would much rather be the son of a pig, than someone who lies to their own people about history in order to convince them to take up suicide bombing as a legitimate form of political protest.

Look at the contributions of the two peoples to the world as we know it, and decide. Would you rather cast your lot with those who cured Polio or those who gave us the horror of September 11? I know what my choice would be, but I am only slightly biased.

But That's Just My Opinion.