While the MSM spills ink and breaks quills assessing the unfolding fallout from the Winograd report, Jonathan Freedland and Roger Cohen raise important points about the bigger picture of Israeli democracy. Freedland, of The Guardian, writes:
Israel’s boast that it is the only democracy in the Middle East is often met with a snort. But this exercise has shown that – at least within its own borders – Israel is capable of a democratic accountability entirely absent in its region. Imagine for a moment a panel of Syrian wise men or Egyptian elders delivering a similar message to Bashar Assad or Hosni Mubarak. They could expect to receive not plaudits, as Winograd has, but at best a lengthy spell in prison.
In the International Herald-Tribune, Cohen suggests more issues for inquiring minds:
How about a Saudi commission on how 15 of its citizens came to be among the 9/11 hijackers? Or a Lebanese commission on how Hezbollah has been able to operate as a quasi-independent armed entity within the state? Or an Iranian commission on how the hopes of its 1979 revolution led only to another form of dictatorship?
When those commissions convene, the Middle East will move forward.
