I think Israel's strongest players are immigrants from the former USSR. I doubt that there is an Israeli GM who was actually born in Israel.

No, I don't believe there has been one(see http://closetgrandmaster.blogspot.com/2009/12/state-of-chess-in-israel.html),

although a number of IM's are native born.

At any rate, I fail to see the significance of where the player was born as opposed to him being a naturalized citizen. For example, many American athletes are not native born, but if they compete and triumph in an international competition, the victory is considered an American one, no? 

The relevant question is not where they were born but where their chess skills were formed, and it's pretty clear that they were not formed Ba'Aretz. About the American example, I don't view Reshevsky as being representative of the American chess either.

I think any strong chess player could come from any country......like Paul Keres from Estonia and the recent Magnus Carlsen from Norway.....so there are many such surprises and you never know you may have the next world champion from Japan. In the future I believe there will be more players from diverse countries in the future and not just from Russia, as was in the past.

here i comewith kamikaze attack!!!

Could he have meant Tropic of Cancer/Capricorn?

You're missing the point. The question isn't whether they are able to represent their country (of course they are), the question is whether the country is producing the players. Clearly if they're only naturalised then the country has not produced them, which is the debate at hand.

There are no bans on chess in Iran.

 I know. But it was banned in 1979.

OK, I didn't know that. Do you know how long the ban lasted?

Worst chess playing nation?

You couldn't get much worse than the six inhabitants of Petoria, Brian (the dog) being the most able opponent, I reckon.

I'm on the same beam I think, though I might depart somewhat on Reshevsky. Quite a bit (most or even all) of his maturity as a player came as a result of being an American player and having played his countrymen for years, and having gone to Europe and played after having grown up and sharpened his play after  years of being an American and playing, for the most part, the NY guys.

I wouldn't call him an exponent of the Polish school--not exactly. Someone like Capa is also a strange case. Despite his early years (which were very early years indeed) as a young player amongst Cuban players, he still got so much of his chess in US clubs after years of playing greats even up to Lasker. He got his chess in two places: Cuba and US. On the other hand, Capa wasn't emulating anyone in terms of style--he was a one off and discovering a pure chess truth, and pursuing a modern perfect style.

Oh well, it's an interesting question and sometimes it's not clearly one nation that that can claim the player.

Kamsky, despite having come over at age 16 (as I recall) might have been such a hybrid player except that while here in the US he continued to be trained by Soviet School players and informed by the Soviet School of thought, so the several hundred points he gained here after age 16 still belong to the USSR. Or at least it could be argued. I consider him a product almost entirely of the USSR when it comes to his chess.

 Till 1988.

To be fair to underdeveloped countries, you'd have to factor in the GDP. Maybe number of masters/GDP. 

I wonder if the inverse should not be true, though. Chess is a relatively cheap passtime. (pastime? both look wrong now....)

I see lots of threads here about people buying boards and sets for hundreds of dollars, but you could easily find a set and board for under 10USD in South Africa. I don't think it's just economics. How can a nation (South Africa) frequently have 3 players in the top 20 golf -expensive- and not one in the top 2000 chess -cheap-?

The answer lie in the word "incentive". Why would someone want to develop golf skills (expensive) as opposed to chess (cheap)? Because golf has more money in this pursuit than chess...it is economics.

Last year the number 1 golfer made US$100 million... can anyone guess how much the number 1 chess player made?

This is similar to why I gave up on XiangQi (Chinese Chess). I bought a set, and a couple of English language books on it, and I played some on the internet. But I never used my set for anything other than analysis while reading the books. There's nobody to play here in the US, unless you live in one of the few major cities with a Chinatown neighborhood. And the nearest tournaments are in Canada.

Wow, that's huge, and very sad.

They probably thought it was too Western of a game. Fellow Iranians on chess.com, what was it?

I'd be interested what the Iranians say about this.

I always attributed the rule to clerical interpretations/attitudes towards how a good muslim should behave. There has historically always been friction between the game and Islam (as opposed to middle east culture which has, I believe, always been taken with the game). It may be rooted in chess as a gambling game, and  a game of the coffee shops which were not the most reputable places.

I recall a story of one famous player that  made his chess playing be well-known, and thereafter a public avocation, because he didn't want to be considered as a candidate for a judgeship.

It's probably complicated. I also remember stories of caliphs (political and religious heads) valuing the game greatly. In one a skilled blind player was taken to play the Caliph and during the game the Caliph, losing, slipped another rook onto his side of the board (the "blind" side played by touch rather than blindfold almost always for such games). Later on the sightless one said that had he been playing anyone else he would have complained to the Caliph.