April 2011

In the wake of the Gabrielle Gifford shooting, the University of Arizona, through its School of Government and Public Policy, has set up the National Institute for Civil Discourse to help focus on political disagreements. The director, Brint Milward explained that “In a great democracy, it’s important for people to hold fast to principles, but at the same time to understand where they might be able to compromise.” Colin Powell has recently been added to the Institute’s board and honorary chairmen are President Bill Clinton and President George H. W. Bush.
With all these people aboard let’s hope the Institute can live up to its promise and will be more than a roster of big names.

In Iran they’re trying to pass a law to outlaw dog ownership. A key reason is that it is too Western. As someone who grew up in a Moslem country, it is difficult for me to think of Moslems as irrational. Rather it would seem this as other laws past or future is politically motivated. Given the ferment existing in Iran, given the knowledge and the need for freedom that has already been demonstrated in the country and the region, I wonder if someone ought to remind the leadership how revolutions occur. It just happened in Tunisia. People there kept being squeezed by bad laws and the administration of these laws, until one day, some tiny incident sets it all off, a fruit vendor had had enough. I don’t know how revolution will happen in Iran, I just know that laws like prohibiting dog ownership, whether or not they go ahead and pass it, make it that much surer.

Judge Richard Goldstone is a respected South African jurist who authored the “Goldstone Report”, which detailed the investigation of the Israeli military campaign in Gaza at the end of 2008 and the beginning of 2009. It became a controversial report, so much so Judge Goldstone had trouble not long after it was issued attending his grandson’s bar-mitzvah. In some pro-Israeli circles he was vilified and the criticism did not let up. Now the judge has issued a revised opinion of his findings citing evidence he did not have at the time and which soften his view of the Israelis intentionally targeting Palestinian civilians. He now finds they did not do so as a matter of policy. Some commentators find fault with his current reasoning, some with his new arguments admitting to being baffled as to why a respected jurist would flip flop in this way. It may be that the issue is not to be found in rational arguments but in personal ones. What inner conflicts, family pressures, personal issues led to the change? In the end Judge Goldstone’s amendment of his report ought to viewed not with criticism but with compassion.