How I almost won the Nobel Prize (but then I didn’t)

For a moment, I thought I was finally about to fulfill my dream of winning international recognition, but it was not to be. Let me tell you what happened.

Although in my parents’ eyes I was the prettiest and swiftest creature, it soon emerged that I would never be Miss World, nor would I shatter Olympic records. Later, I realized that my chosen career would neither make me fabulously rich nor earn me achievements of global renown. I reconciled myself to mediocrity.

Then, on awakening one morning earlier this week, I was convinced I had had a revelation which would shoot my name into the headlines. Apparently, during the night, my brain had processed the previous day’s news, and bits of information from earlier days seeped into the mix. I was certain that I had experienced a moment akin to Archimedes’ “Eureka!” (only without the bathtub).

My discovery contradicted accepted scientific claims whereby autoimmune diseases are not contagious. In these conditions, the immune system gets confused and, instead of attacking external threats, fights against healthy parts of its own body. Some autoimmune diseases can be controlled with medication and are mostly a nuisance. However, at the other end of the spectrum are severe diseases that can lead to collapse, even to death.

Scientists tells us these illnesses are caused by a combination of genetics and environment, and are not infectious. That is what I had planned to debunk.

If they are right, how would you explain that two bodies, close to each other yet separate, attacked their own healthy parts at precisely the same time? What are the statistical odds that the Defense Minister publicly undermining the IDF Chief of Staff’s personnel decisions, thus humiliating him in the middle of a war, would happen exactly at the same moment as the Justice Minister’s parallel lock-changing move against the Attorney General? Add the Education Minister turning against the world of learning, or the Communications Minister (no elaboration needed), along with most of their colleagues, and tell me: is there any explanation other than contagion?

Now let us see those pampered scientists try to disprove my discovery! Meaning, those scientists who haven’t yet left the country, still have some Israeli or international research budget left, or whose lab at the Weizmann Institute was not destroyed when we “arose like lions” against Iran, whatever that actually says about its nuclear capabilities and about the threat to Israel. I was sure that this was Nobel Prize material. It was disappointing to discover that I had missed the submission deadline for this year, but as the saying goes, all delay is for the best – I’d have more time to gather evidence to back up my theory.

I immediately wrote it up and sent a draft to a friend who comments on my writing. She promptly took the wind out of my sails, the very sails which were supposed to take me to Stockholm, where I would receive the coveted award from the King. No, she said, you are wrong, the disease you describe is not contagious and it does not move from one body to another. It only looks like separate body parts, but in fact it is one single, unified, well-trained organism, controlled from the head, operating as a whole, driven by a guiding principle. And then she added (I was a bit insulted) that she is surprised at my pretensions to offer a new “groundbreaking” explanation for something which is so plainly obvious.

And so I learned how quickly worldly glory fades. Not only mine, but also that of a body that was once fairly healthy, or at least knew how to cope with its ailments. And anyway, who even wants to travel to Sweden, with all its criticism of Israel? Especially in December, when it is so cold? Instead, I booked a room at the Dead Sea.