It's not about nationality: Ashkenazi Jews in general -- Israeli or not -- tend to be smarter. ~20% of Nobel prize winners are Jews compared to less than 1% of the global population. So either there's a Jewish conspiracy (which some people believe...) or Jews tend to be smarter.

Some people would say that this is cultural. I doubt it -- I think it's genetic. Intelligence is a physical attribute determined by genes, just like every other physical attribute. It's really no different from the observation that Kenyans and Ethiopians win most marathons.

In general, we should expect different traits to be exhibited at different frequencies by different populations that were reproductively isolated in the past. This doesn't mean prejudice is okay. Not all Jews are smart, and not all Kenyans are going to win marathons. We can acknowledge these correlations without behaving in a prejudiced way toward individuals.

Most people would rather not talk about this. And that's certainly my rule of thumb for in-person conversations. But, hey, we're on the internet.