Palestinians and Jordanians are both claiming Nobel Prize winner Omar Yaghi as one of their own after he won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry on Wednesday, although some have criticised him for previously accepting an Israeli award.
Yaghi won the coveted prize alongside fellow scientists Susumu Kitagawa and Richard Robson for their development of metal–organic frameworks, which an expert likened to Hermione Granger’s enchanted handbag in the fictional 'Harry Potter' series.
The three laureates, in research dating back to 1989, developed a new form of molecular architecture that is small on the outside but with a large interior, according to Olof Ramström, a member of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry.
The chemists, working separately but adding to each other’s breakthroughs, devised ways to make stable metal organic frameworks –which may be compared to the timber structures of a house.
Yaghi, 60, is affiliated with the University of California, Berkeley, and is tri-national. He was born in Jordan to a Palestinian refugee family from the city of Masmiya, between Yaffa and Jerusalem, with American, Saudi, and Jordanian citizenship.
He had moved to the US at the age of 15 to continue his studies, and was granted Saudi citizenship by royal decree in 2021.
Both Jordanians and Palestinians have celebrated Yaghi’s win but have debated online over his nationality.
While Palestine and Jordan share deep historical and cultural ties, the issue surrounding Palestinian identity in the kingdom also remains deeply sensitive, with more than half of Jordan's population descended from Palestinian refugees.
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were forcibly expelled to Jordan when Israel was established in 1948, among them Yaghi’s family.
While they and their descendants were granted Jordanian citizenship, many still identify as Palestinian.
Many Saudis online have also claimed Yaghi.
One person wrote on X that Yaghi’s Nobel Prize win was thanks to the country "that provided him with all the means of success and in which he conducted the research that earned him the award - Saudi Arabia, whose citizenship he holds".
"He is not to be associated with any former nationality, including his birthplace, from which he was displaced, nor the country where he lived until the age of 15, which, had he remained in, would not have enabled his success or earned him any recognition," she wrote, sharing an image of the scientist in traditional Saudi attire with a list of his scientific achievements.
Israeli prize controversy
Yaghi has, however, been criticised due to him accepting a prize in Israel for his work in chemistry, and many Palestinians and other Arabs said his Nobel win was "nothing to celebrate".
In 2018, the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) strongly condemned Yaghi’s acceptance of the Wolf Prize in Chemistry, awarded by the Israeli Wolf Foundation.
The prize, valued at $100,000, was granted in recognition of his scientific achievements in the field of biochemistry.
PACBI at the time denounced the move as "a violation of the Palestinian academic and cultural boycott, which calls on academics and cultural figures to refrain from normalising ties with institutions linked to the Israeli state".
It had also condemned Yaghi’s statement where he expressed his "appreciation" and "pride" for receiving the award from the Wolf Foundation, saying these remarks whitewash the role of Israeli institutions in perpetuating oppression and occupation.
A Jordanian news site was one of many that hit out at Yaghi online, saying: "Several Arab nations are currently disputing over the nationality of Nobel Chemistry Prize winner Omar Yaghi - a Jordanian of Palestinian origin who, in the end, is American to the core and seemingly indifferent to any Arab affiliation."
It shared images of him accepting the Wolf Prize in 2018.
(Agencies contributed to this report)