Opinion
Editorials are posted and archived on JN Online:
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Dry Bones
Community Excellence
hen our "High School Yearbook" start-
ed 12 years ago, we saw it as a way to
honor "smart kids" — graduating sen-
iors with high academic achievement.
But through the years, the section now called
"Cap & Gown" has come to symbolize much more.
If all that we published were the student's name and
grade point average, there would be interest, but
very little meaning. But when we, as a community,
look at the names, faces and resumes of our out-
standing students, we glean vast amounts of infor-
mation about our youth and about ourselves.
In 1991, 40 students were represented in Cap &
Gown. They represented Southfield-Lathrup High
School (10), West Bloomfield High (10),
Berkley (4), Bloomfield Hills Andover (3),
North Farmington (3), Beth Jacob (3),
Yeshivat Akiva, Ferndale and Bloomfield
Hills Cranbrook Kingswood (2 each) and Detroit
Country Day (1).
Twelve years later, with our limitation removed on
the number allowed from each school, we have:
West Bloomfield (27), Berkley (18), North
Farmington (17), Akiva and Andover (13 each),
Birmingham Groves (10), Cranbrook Kingswood
(7), Walled Lake Western (6), Ann Arbor Huron
and Beth Jacob (5 each), Country Day and
Southfield-Lathrup (2 each) and a wonderful assort-
ment of individuals from schools like Kalamazoo
Loy Norrix, Flint Carmen-Ainsworth,
Lake Orion, Milford, Farmington,
Waterford Kettering, Grosse Pointe
North and Grosse Pointe South.
Amateur demographers must
refrain from reading too much into
the numbers. Because of our fire in
January, not all schools were notified
by e-mail or fax about the Cap & .
Gown deadline. Some parents missed
our announcements in the Jewish
News. And some deserving students
just didn't want to be bothered with
filling out another form. A few stu-
dents who would have qual-
ified for inclusion submitted
their material after the
deadline.
Statistically, there may be some
aberrations. Communally, there is no
doubt that our high school graduates
— our hope for our Jewish future —
are academically and communally tal-
ented.
Our Cap & Gown section for 2002
begins on page 63. Enjoy browsing
through the portraits of your young
friends and neighbors, our leaders of
tomorrow. 111
A Useless Meeting Now
that he will not give up any of the settlements.
The point is not that those positions — Palestinian
dependence on terror, Israeli reliance on military
might alone — are untenable, which they surely are,
but that the conditions for achieving a lasting peace
simply don't exist. If it couldn't be done two years ago
— after nearly a decade of apparent progress under
the Oslo Accords — it's not doable now when each
side has further hardened its heart against the other.
The hardening is understandable. The vicious suicide
bombings, like the other attacks on Israeli civilians, have
reinforced the hand of the political right in
the Jewish state. Israel's reprisal actions —
however justified as a necessary war on terror-
isrri
have similarly given greater power to
the most warlike elements among the
Palestinians. On both sides, the voices of compromise
and criticism have been effectively silenced.
External criticism, even by allies, is resented. The
Arab leaders are afraid to say the obvious — that
Yasser Arafat's leadership has been a disaster for his
people in the last two years and that it must be
replaced. To tell the truth about Arafat would, they
fear, mean acknowledging to the Arab street that the
policies have been wrong since at least 1967.
Jewish leaders in America and elsewhere in the
world refrain from criticizing Sharon for fear of giv-
ing any further ammunition to the Muslim world
and to the anti-Semites, such as those who are stir-
ring in Europe.
So we are left with Israel and the Palestinians
unable to resolve their confrontation themselves,
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EDIT ORIAL
I is all well and good that world leaders, includ-
ing U.S. President George W. Bush, the United
Nations, the European Union and Saudi
Crown Prince Abdullah, believe an internation-
al conference can be summoned to plan -the future
relationship between Israel and the Palestinians.
The world has sporadic bursts of interest in this terri-
bly troubled land, when it becomes eager to use its
moral force to craft a solution for the problem
the British created 90 years ago by promising
the same land to both the Jews and the Arabs.
But until and unless substantial majorities of
Israelis and Palestinians truly believe that
peace is the best solution, it isn't going to happen.
Every indication so far is that neither side trusts
the other further than they can throw them. The
Palestinians had an almost unbelievably generous
Israeli offer on the table at Camp David and later at
Taba, one that gave them their statehood, a capital
in East Jerusalem and true security guarantees. They
decided they could get more by playing the terror
card — with the predictable abysmal results of the
18-month-long intifada (Palestinian uprising).
Israel, now convinced that it does not have a part-
ner for peace in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip,
has become harsher. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon's Likud Party is debating a resolution that
would flatly forbid the creation of a Palestinian state
west of the Jordan River. Sharon himself has said
EDITORIAL
and no effective and credible outside voices that
could help each see its way to the kinds of compro-
mises that are going to be needed. An international
conference of ministers will either be an exercise in
wheel spinning and name-calling — or worse.
Holding a conference now arouses hopes that surely
will be dashed on the rocks .of reality, a process that
will only further delay a real solution.
Most Israelis want peace with the Palestinians,
even though they know that will mean ceding most
of the lands captured in 1967 to a new State of
Palestine, withdrawing from some of the settlements
and accepting that Israel will not have absolute
authority over all of Jerusalem. But Israelis need
rock-solid assurance that the Palestinians will not
simply take those concessions and then renew a war-
fare intended to destroy Israel. The most useful
thing the Arab states, the European nations and the
United Nations might do is work together to show
that they would defend Israel's security. An enforce-
able agreement to stop the flow of Arab money to
the terror groups would be a good start.
Israel needs to show good faith also. It can stop the
growth of the settlements by ending state subsidies that
underwrite that growth in areas that do not enhance
the nation's security. This would be a reasonable first
step. American enforcement of its requirement that the
arms it has sold Israel be used only for defensive pur-
poses also would contribute to easing tension.
The way out of the morass is by taking small,
concrete steps. A grandiose multinational parley isn't
such a step. ❑
2002
29