comment: >
  
  So you said the quiet part out loud. Christian vs Muslim “values”. I could engage in some history of Islam but I can see you don’t seem to know of those things and that’s understandable. This could be true given fundamentalist influence on modern Islam. I am not attacking your faith, values, or intelligence.
  Let’s just make sure Christian fundamentalists don’t have the same impact on our culture. I am all for real Christian values as espoused by Jesus himself. You don’t see a lot of that in right wing US politics.
context: I feel like a better comparison would be between Pakistan and Bangladesh, given that both of them were given the similar starting parameters (caveat is Bangladesh had a lot less support/investment). >
  
  I'd say that Bangladesh is still doing better than Pakistan as it is not involved in any active proxy wars with another country. Pakistan has a massive debt problem and has essentially become a Chinese puppet nation. Remember how few years back Chinese workers on the belt and road project in Pakistan beat up the police (or was it military personnel? ) who were trying to tell them not to go to nearest town for their own safety? >
  
  Bangladesh has also, with little fanfare, brought its birth rates down to be on par with educated, Western countries. In fact, Bangladesh's birth rate is now actually below replacement level. The overpopulation the country is famous for will soon be "the overpopulation it was once famous for." >
  
  Bangladesh's leadership seems to have in the past 10 years hunkered down and been unceremoniously working on some of the biggest issues facing that nation and showing some good results. Birth rates declining, literacy rates improving, percentage of people living in extremely poverty decreasing. All of these things are huge in determining what kind of future is possible for Bangladeshis and in that regard the people there should feel good for the overall direction the country is going in. >
  
  Lol let’s not give Bangladesh’s leadership too much credit here. NGO’s have played a major role in educating the population on controlling the birth rate, in addition to the general trend of industrializing and equal opportunity to education which is leading to lower birth rates. >
  
  Pakistan had a LOT less help from Western nations. For a long time, Israel was mostly funded by other countries (especially Germany). Also, Israel invested a ton of money into education, which has payed back immensely. You wouldn't know it now, but in the 50s, Israel was in a complete economic tailspin and would have likely ended up in the same place as Pakistan, or even more likely been wiped out entirely, had it not been for Western intervention. >
  
  It's not only that, Israel has benefited immensely from donations from wealthy Jews from around the world since the Rothschild began helping the first pioneers buy Palestinian land from the Ottomans in 1881. Post holocaust/founding donations to the country have also increased dramatically.
  Also, many wealthy, educated, and intelligent Jews move to Israel (even though life is harder there) because they want to feel part of Jewish history, that they are contributing to the return of Jews to their homeland. 
  Pakistan isn't a global ethnic group experiencing a religious and historic pull back to Pakistan and thus doesn't have the same global and historic "project" that Israel has. >
  
  I have a good friend from Israel. Jerusalem was his birthplace. His family moved there from Spain during the Inquisition in Spain in the 15th-16th centuries. The Jews have been in the region for much longer than Europeans have been in the Americas. No doubt donations from many places have helped Israel. As y’all have mentioned several times “wealthy Jews” have helped Israel and others have too. 
  Are there no wealthy Arabs to help Pakistan? What about Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Oman well I could continue but I am sure you get the point. 
  Being well aware of population difference there is also the issue of several existential wars Israel has had to engage with their neighbors. Pakistan has only had issues internally with extremist and other branches of Islam particularly the Shia. So most of Pakistan’s fighting has been internal population. 
  As I am not a historian of the Partition I am unaware of how this may have been influential on Pakistan’s development. It is interesting both the beginning of the modern state of Israel and the beginning of the modern state of Pakistan are contemporaneous. So I too wonder what explains the very different trajectories. Both are in possession of nuclear weapons. >
  
  All the countries you mentioned are Arab. They're the Gulf states, and no one there has some descendant in Pakistan. South Asians are treated as other ethnicity and outsiders.. There are not the global connections that exist for Israel.
  I'm going to add onto this: the claim that Pakistan only has internal problems is false. They have a lot of tensions with India, and that's why they both have nukes.
  On the other side, you have Taliban militants who attack locations near the border with Afghanistan. >
  
  Egyptians are not Arab either. I do know many in Pakistan are of Arab lineage and the Saudi’s have recognized this. 
  India nor any country have invaded Pakistan. The Taliban have more in common with Hamas and Hezbollah than a country. I know they control Afghanistan but Hamas controls Gaza. 
  I am certainly no apologist for Muslim extremists. >
  
  I never said how many and I don’t generally post evidence of things I have experienced. Having been in Saudi Arabia and the Emirates along with many places in southern Asia I can attest to the cultures being quite similar. 
  I don’t think of this forum as educational in any way.
  It was nice chatting. >
  
  It's not educational.
  It's a place where you provide evidence for your arguments.
  You're also assuming you're the only one who's been to that part of the world, and let's indeed stop here given that evidence is 'educational'. >
  
  Why is Canada much wealthier than Russia although they both have traditionally strong ice hockey teams?
  The one thing to take away from your observation, if anything, is that religion or being a religious sanctuary plays no role whatsoever in the economic development of a nation. Just like being good at ice hockey doesn't either.
  You have very poor, very rich, and middle income countries that are strongly religious or even quasi-theocracies all over the muslim world, from Saudi-Arabia to Indonesia to Iran, over the christian world, from the Vatican over Poland to the Democratic Republic of Congo, and so on.
  If anything is to take away, it's that religion or religious rule doesn't matter for how an economy progresses. And why would being a sanctuary in that matter change that?
  I don't know why you would even make that connection in the first place ("though they both were..."). >
  
  I've wondered what is "wrong" with Russia. They are huge with a lot of natural resources. It seems like they always had the potential be rich and European in nature. I don't know a lot about history but I know they stayed feudal with an enslaved population much longer than other countries. Then they allow various authoritarians to rule them after that. Why is their history so different? Just chance? >
  
  Because Russia is extremely corrupt >
  
  Why is that? >
  
  A lot of issues with the post-Soviet collapse causing the economy to fall into the hands of a very few very wealthy oligarchs, a large, informal criminal economy and in general a society that does not function as a democracy. A region like Chechnya can only be governed with an iron fist, otherwise it will break away. If Russia transitioned to a mixed-market, liberal democracy it would probably break apart like Yugoslavia. >
  
  Ok. But that doesn't answer the original question. Why was it feudal for so long, then authoritarian? Why did it go a different way than the rest of Europe?
  There probably is no answer, other than a bunch of chance occurrences. Not sure what I'm looking for as an explanation. >
  
  Because Russia developed much differently than the rest of Europe. It was a collection of semi-autonomous city states before being subjugated by the Mongols for 200 years, then it was reunited under Muscovy, who carved an expansionist, semi-colonial empire out of Siberia, East Europe and Central Asia. This empire was then violently overthrown in a revolution and replaced with a communist dictatorship, which did not fall until 1991. 
  The rest of the great European powers went through a transition after WW2 where they lost most of their power, colonies and military might and slowly transitioned to liberal democracies and fell under US hegemony. Russia, meanwhile, actually expanded its original imperial borders after WW2 and emerged from it more powerful and influential than it had ever been in its history. This power was then ripped from them in a humiliating and pathetic collapse that reduced them to a near third-world banana republic for almost a whole decade.
  Whereas the former Great European states have found a new power in the EU and NATO, Russia has not and would like its old power back. >
  
  That’s just like your opinion, man. >
  
  The Ashkenazi Jews were one of the most accomplished segments within what was then the most advanced area of the world (Europe).  For example their over-representation in science and other intellectual fields was very impressive.  And this was despite facing widespread prejudice.  So its not too surprising that a country settled and founded by them would be a success.  They did get a decent amount of foreign aid as well, and continue to do so. >
  
  Jewish culture places an emphasis on education to a greater extent than almost any other world culture. Jews have won 36% of all the Nobel Prizes won by Americans, despite never being more than 2% of the US population at any time.
  Cultural practices have consequences. There are some cultures in Pakistan, to which sizable amounts of the Pakistani population belong, that still do not believe in allowing women to learn to read. >
  
  Not just emphasis on education. All Jews are required to be literate. Always have been. So in a pre-industrial world, a newly industrial world, etc imagine a whole population who is literate. Pretty amazing feat. Judaism as a religion also emphasizes interpretation/higher reasoning. SOOO many come on to Jewish reddit groups talking about how they want to read the Torah to understand Judaism. You can't understand Judaism by reading the Torah I say. You understand Judaism by questioning the Torah. Question god. Question if any of it is true or real. Question, answer, and then question your answers. So it's unsurprising that Jews bring this questioning to the rest of the natural world and the issues or presumptions in it.
  TLDR: We're a people based on literacy and questioning everything we're told. That makes for a pretty good scientist or economist too. >
  
  I argue with my brother that this focus on questioning the Torah is why there are so many Jewish lawyers. It's been bred into Jews for thousands of years to ask questions. The passover Seder is all about questions. Question question question. 
  He argues that Jews general focus on education is why, because legal scholarship is an extension of education principals.  
  Mind you he's a lawyer so he'll usually take the contrarian side of any argument..... >
  
  Lol I have a law degree. I don't use it but I have it. The entire structure of the Mishna is all a problem/case, a majority ruling/consensus, and a published dissent. So I agree with you. It's basically the same thing. Especially since don't forget, Judaism isn't meant to only be a religion as we think of it today. It was meant in ancient times as a means for governing a people. It was essentially a code of literal laws. And it's also a religion. So law and Judaism do go hand in hand to me.
  I mean just look at it this way... Judaism doesn't think it's the only good religion. I mean, Judaism is for Jews. But there's no concept of needing to 'save' or convert anyone. Other religions are good people too. Anyone who follows the Noahide laws is 'good'/'moral/righteous. And what is one of the 7 Noahide laws? To be 'good' a religion has to set up a court of justice. Like THAT is what Judaism was so concerned with when it came to other religions--that they have a court of law or system of justice. >
  
  If you look at the UN yearly Human development index, Pakistan is quite low compared to Israel which is close to the US at a high development rate. 
  Their per capita income actually isn’t bad, but they’re suffering because of low education (if you look at mean years of schooling it’s like 6-9years at highest average vs. western countries that maintain the standard of +12 years), a life expectancy that isn’t improving as fast as other countries, and the biggest factor for the low score is gender inequality. They’re classed as barely better than Afghanistan, which is kind of a low bar.
  
  The labor force participation for women is 24.9% as compared to 82.7% for men. It is the lowest in the region after Afghanistan. Overall in terms of the Gender Inequality Index, Pakistan is only ahead of Afghanistan in South Asia. The higher gender inequality has huge economic and social implications for the country as women constitute around 49% of the total population.
  
  The gender inequality comes from their cultural and religious history, so you’ve pretty much got your answer there. >
  
  Access to education, and the ability to use it after graduating. >
  
  Pakistan substituted religious schooling in for a real public education system, resulting in generations of unemployed young men with no productive skills. Meanwhile the men who did receive practical education fled the country for better opportunities abroad. Top that off with a long period of hot and cold war with India to little/no productive end for Pakistan. 
  On the flip side, Israel nailed the diplomatic game, securing a lot of foreign support at critical times.  While Israel now approaches pariah state status over the situation with Palestine, Israel still managed to secure the country with both the largest economy and most powerful military as well as a permanent UN security counsel seat as a practically permanent benefactor. Israel also has a robust education system and substantial economic influence for it's size. >
  
  Not just men. Pakistan split from India who focused on education. Today literacy among women puts Pakistan worldwide at 148 with 46.5% and India at 130 with 65.8%. Source >
  
  Their unstable government, too much reliance on external forces, poor development strategies. These come to mind. >
  
  Israel was not set up for a religion.  It was set up for a specific ethnicity.  Israel has a higher atheist population than the US, in fact.  Plus, having unofficial sponsorship from the US became vital in the mid-20th century as a foothold in the ME, especially where USSR influence was concerned (see Afghanistan).
  ​
  Pakistan was set up for a religion.  And when you give a religion total political dominance, bad things happen. >
  
  Decisively winning wars and not chasing away all your educated and elite due to repression helps. >
  
  
  
  The Jews who emmigrated to Israel were educated and Westernized and socially and culturally ready to construct a modern state
  
  
  Israe had the backing of the U.S.
  
  
  Pakistanis were by and large extremely poor, uneducated, and still acutely remembered the authoritarian British colonial regime.
  Colonialism is a HUGE factor in the current poverty and lackof development of the global south. >
  
  This is nonsense. The US didn't start supporting Israel until the 70s, and the majority of Israelis are from that region. Israel started out in a much worse position than Pakistan. It was surrounded by hostile countries, it's smaller, has less resources, and existence was always on the line. Pakistan has it's fair share of issues, but they're not comparable because those issues were just as prevelant if not more prevalent in India and Bangladesh yet both of these countries are doing wayyyy better than Pakistan. The reason why Pakistan is struggling isn't colonialism, it's because of their backwards religious views. India and Bangladesh both decided to opt into a more secular socity in favor of economic development, but Pakistan didn't. Instead they doubled down on their islamic fundamentalism and that has permanently stifled the growth of the country. Women are not educated and don't work, the economy is restrained by nonsensical religious laws, public funds went to create things like the Taliban rather than fund infrastructure, and the culture is extremist because of the islamic scriptures. Pakistan could've been like Bangladesh or India, but they chose to be more like Afghanistan. >
  
  West Germany gave billions in reparation to Israel starting in the 1950s. That's a huge amount of money that made up a big chunk of their development budget for many years. 
  And blaming religious fundamentalism for Pakistan's economy just tells me you do not understand the region very well. Until the 2000s Pakistan had a better economy than both India and Bangladesh. The real reason is lack of stable government. Iran and Saudi Arabia are religious fundamentalist countries but have very highly educated populations and way better economies than Pakistan. >
  
  Culture tends to drive a country's religious mores.  As an example, think of how Catholicism is practiced in Brazil, the US, and in Italy.  Same religion but vastly different at the local level even though they all 'report' through the same hierarchy.  With that tenor in mind, Islam as practiced in Pakistan is vastly different than Iran, Jordon, or Morocco.
  For any number of reasons today's Israel is strongly 'westernized' whereas large parts of Pakistan are still clan driven in a feudal like structure.  To that end, there are many areas of Pakistan with little to no loyalty to the nation of Pakistan.  As it stands, this is what makes Pakistan's cultural values antithetical to western mores and will inhibit Pakistan from becoming a modern democratic state. >
  
  Having unconditional support from the world's largest superpower for 70 years has helped a lot. Pakistan has always been kind of in the woods geopolitically. >
  
  Historically US has supported Pakistan until recent years. After India took a neutral stance in the cold war, Russia and India became allies with Russia not pressuring India to take a stance. US sanctioned India and supported Pakistan for quite some time. Though not as much as it supported Israel. >
  
  Lol one was given a blank check from the first world and one wasn’t.. lol
  One has unlimited financial and military backing from the western world and one doesn’t … 
  Shocking I know. >
  
  I'm having trouble understanding your question. Not because I don't get the ask but mainly the answer is so obvious. The u.s. dumps tons of cash to Israel because evangelicals believe Israel needs to exist as a prerequisite for Jesus return. So, to get votes, Israel is given fairly modern u.s. hardware and other subsidies totally about 3 billion. The other is Pakistan which gets us no votes, has no connection culturally or religiously and provides no resource benefit. So yea, kinda obvious. >
  
  Pakistan is a social engineering project sponsored by Saudi Arabia.
  They are re-enacting a backwards medeival society based on religious fundamentalism and holy war.
  All the best Pakistanis leave that country. Look at how wonderful most Pakistanis are everywhere else in the world.
  Notice that Saudi Arabia doesn't want to apply what it sponsers in Pakistan to its own country. For other Saudi projects, see Afghanistan and Somalia. >
  
  Keepin’ the brothers down. >
  
  Israel embraced western values while Pakistan embraced Muslim values. Not super complicated.