What do I learn tomorrow?

Our speaker was referring to a necessity of the 21st Century economy, but I think it’s fair to say that 88-year old Shimon Pres seeks to answer that question every day.

“Ïsrael must be based on values that are old spiritually but young scientifically,” the Israeli President told our group.

I asked about Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent speech that was seen as a laying the groundwork for a military attack on Iran’s nuclear facility. The speech was given at ceremony marking the 38th anniversary of the death of David Ben Gurion, the country’s first Prime Minister and Peres’ mentor.

“We didn’t initiate attacks,” responded Peres. “No war plans take into account failures. They’re ultimately assessed on the actual confrontation and the judgment of history.”

Three generations separate Peres and the three students we met with this afternoon. They

They were involved in this past summer’s protests about economic disparities and echoed Peres’ remark that “the greatest contribution of Jews to history is dissatisfaction.”

“The Israeli myth is failing. Work will not save us from poverty,” declared one student.

“I did everyting right. I served in the army, am going to Tel Aviv University, but how will I pay for my kids and my mortgage,” asserted another.

An economics professor provided the hard numbers: Israel needs to give more of its people the ability to work in a modern economy.

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A note about events back home. Dan Rodricks’ Sun column about the Schurick conviction for authorizing robo calls designed to suppress the vote in last year’s election prompted me to send him this mesage:

Sen. Lisa Gladden and I introduced the law making it illegal to use fraud to “willfully and knowingly … influence or attempt to influence a voter’s decision whether to go to the polls to cast a vote.” What prompted our legislation was the flyer distributed in African-American and Hispanic communities urging people to vote on the Thursday after Election Day in 2004 and erroneously implying that they could not vote if they owed rent or child support. Such tactics are part of a national pattern and practice of trying to suppress the vote among minorities. To our knowledge, Maryland was the first, and still only, state to take action against such dirty tricks. As to the First Amendment concern raised by defense counsel, fraudulent speech is not protected political speech.