'They don't produce science': RFK Jr's anti-Arab claims checked

US Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr has falsely claimed that Arabs do not produce science or literature and do not win prestigious international awards, making sweeping remarks that are contradicted by decades of achievements by Arab scientists, mathematicians and writers.

Speaking at a Republican campaign rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on Monday, Kennedy made the comments while supporting Senate candidate Mike Rogers, who faces Democrat Abdul El-Sayed in next month's election.

"There are 500 million Arabs in the world," Kennedy said. "And yet they don't produce science, they don't win the Nobel Prize, they don't win the Fields Prize, they don't win the Wolf Prize, they don't produce literature."

Kennedy went on to blame the Muslim Brotherhood for what he portrayed as the destruction of an earlier tradition of scientific and cultural achievement.

"They've created stagnant societies that do two things — hatred and war and victimization," he claimed.

But how much of what Kennedy said is actually true?

The *New Arab *examined his claims against the historical record and the achievements of Arab scientists, mathematicians and writers. The evidence tells a very different story.

Have Arab scientists won Nobel and Wolf prizes?

Yes. Egyptian-American scientist Ahmed Zewail won the 1999 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for pioneering the use of ultrashort laser pulses to observe chemical reactions.

Zewail, born in Damanhur, Egypt, had already received the Wolf Prize in Chemistry in 1993, directly contradicting Kennedy's assertion that Arabs do not win either award.

More recently, Palestinian-American chemist Omar Yaghi, born in Jordan to Palestinian refugee parents, shared the 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for developing metal-organic frameworks.

These highly porous materials have applications ranging from capturing carbon dioxide to harvesting water from desert air.

Yaghi also received the Wolf Prize in Chemistry in 2018.

Kennedy's claim that Arabs do not win major international scientific honours is therefore contradicted by the records of the very institutions he named.

Responding to Kennedy's remarks on Tuesday, American scientist Peter Hotez pointed to his late colleague Zewail, with whom he had served as a US science envoy during the Obama administration.

"My late colleague and brilliant co U.S. Science Envoy with me in the Obama Admin the @Caltech Nobel Laureate in Chemistry Ahmed Zewail would disagree," Hotez wrote on X.

He also highlighted the contributions of medieval Arab scholars to preserving and transmitting scientific and philosophical knowledge, including the works of Aristotle, Hippocrates and Galen.

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Have Arabs won the Fields Medal?

Kennedy also claimed that Arabs do not win the "Fields Prize", apparently referring to the Fields Medal, one of the most prestigious honours in mathematics.

However, Michael Atiyah, a British mathematician born to a Lebanese father and Scottish mother, received the Fields Medal in 1966.

Atiyah was recognised for groundbreaking contributions to mathematics, particularly in topology and geometry.

Although Atiyah was British, his Lebanese heritage makes him an example of internationally recognised scientific achievement among people of Arab descent.

The distinction matters: Kennedy made a sweeping claim about Arabs as a population, rather than limiting his remarks to scientists working in Arab countries.

Do Arabs produce internationally recognised literature?

Kennedy's assertion that Arabs do not produce literature is also contradicted by numerous internationally recognised authors.

Egyptian novelist Naguib Mahfouz won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1988, becoming the first Arabic-language writer to receive the award.

The Swedish Academy praised his creation of "an Arabian narrative art that applies to all mankind".

His best-known works include the Cairo Trilogy, which explores Egyptian society and political change across generations.

More recently, Omani novelist Jokha Alharthi won the 2019 Man Booker International Prize for Celestial Bodies, translated from Arabic by Marilyn Booth.

The award, shared between author and translator, made Alharthi the first Arab writer to win the prize.

Arab writers also claimed two major honours at the 2025 US National Book Awards.

Lebanese-American author Rabih Alameddine won the fiction award for The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother).

Egyptian-Canadian writer Omar El Akkad received the nonfiction prize for One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This, which examines Western responses to Israel's war on Gaza.

These achievements directly contradict Kennedy's claim that Arabs do not produce literature or receive prestigious international recognition.

Have Arabs won the Nobel Peace Prize?

Kennedy's broader assertion that Arabs do not win Nobel Prizes is also contradicted by several recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize.

Egyptian President Anwar Sadat shared the 1978 award with Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin for their efforts towards a peace agreement between Egypt and Israel.

Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat shared the 1994 prize with Israeli leaders Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres for their roles in the Oslo peace process.

Egyptian diplomat Mohamed ElBaradei shared the 2005 award with the International Atomic Energy Agency for efforts to prevent nuclear proliferation.

Yemeni journalist and activist Tawakkol Karman shared the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize for her nonviolent campaigning for women's rights and participation in peacebuilding.

She became the first woman from the Arab world to receive the award.

Tunisia's National Dialogue Quartet, representing trade unionists, employers, lawyers and human rights activists, won the 2015 Nobel Peace Prize for helping facilitate the country's democratic transition following the 2011 revolution.

The Nobel Committee credited its mediation with helping avert a potentially devastating political crisis.

Although peace prizes recognise different achievements from scientific and literary awards, these examples further disprove Kennedy's categorical assertion that Arabs do not win Nobel Prizes.

My late colleague and brilliant co U.S. Science Envoy with me in the Obama Admin the @Caltech Nobel Laureate in Chemistry Ahmed Zewail would disagree. God rest his soul he didn’t have to endure this, and of course RFK Jr forgets that it was the Arab scientists of the Middle Ages who kept Aristotle, Hippocrates, Galen alive to hand it down in the Renaissance. My favorite books on this topic attached

— Prof Peter Hotez MD PhD DSc(hon) (@PeterHotez)

October 27, 2026

Did the Muslim Brotherhood destroy Arab intellectual life?

Kennedy also blamed the Muslim Brotherhood for what he described as the decline of Arab scientific and cultural achievements.

However, his explanation conflates centuries of intellectual history across numerous countries with the influence of a political and religious movement founded in Egypt in 1928.

The Brotherhood was established by Hassan al-Banna and developed into a wider Islamist movement advocating the organisation of society around Islamic principles.

Its branches and associated movements have followed different political paths across countries, including electoral participation and political opposition, while some offshoots have embraced violence.

It is not a single government exercising control over the Arab world.

Moreover, the scientific and literary achievements cited above all occurred after the Brotherhood's establishment, undermining Kennedy's suggestion that the movement brought Arab intellectual achievement to an end.

His remarks also overlook the contributions of Arab and Muslim scholars during the medieval period, when advances in mathematics, medicine, astronomy and philosophy helped shape scientific development far beyond the region.

The historical record does not support attributing the intellectual and cultural development of hundreds of millions of people across numerous countries to a single political movement.

Anti-Muslim rhetoric in Michigan's Senate race

Kennedy's remarks came as Republicans intensified attacks on Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, who is Muslim.

President Donald Trump appeared in Michigan on Sunday, where he called El-Sayed a "jihadist" and suggested he would need to pass through a metal detector before entering the Senate.

The comments prompted accusations of racism and anti-Muslim prejudice.

El-Sayed has denied ties to extremist groups and disavowed the Muslim Brotherhood.

Kennedy's comments targeted Arabs as an ethnic and cultural population, while his attempt to blame the Muslim Brotherhood introduced a religious and political dimension to his claims.

Arabs are not exclusively Muslim, and Muslims are not exclusively Arab. The distinction further exposes the problems with Kennedy's sweeping characterisation of hundreds of millions of people.