Opinion

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Dry Botta,.
Bones

THE NAIVE
NEWSMAN

Editorial

Dangerous, Divisive, Wrong

L

et's say it for the record.
swastikas, charging Israel with perpetrat-
It is a horrible slander to allege
ing a "Holocaust."
that defensive military actions
A Muslim Shiite leader whose work
reluctantly taken by the State of Israel con- is considered mainstream enough to be
stitute genocide against the Palestinians
published regularly in the Detroit News
— or that the Jewish community and
used both "genocide" and "Holocaust" in
other advocates for Israel would ever con-
his mosque's e-mail message warning
done or even contemplate the extermina-
that judgment day is coming for "the war
tion of a people.
criminals and their supporters inside and
This reality has to be emphasized over
outside of Israel [emphasis supplied]." He
and over because too many in the Metro
means us.
Detroit Arab American community have
The Jewish community has fought
leveled the outrageous charges. And it's
genocide in the Sudan, recognized it in the
not just the odd guy on the street: These
Turkish policy against Armenians dur-
vicious thoughts are vibrating from local
ing World War I and, of course, the Nazi
leadership.
campaign against Jews and Gypsies. We
The Dearborn-based Arab American
opposed the Rwandan genocide, stood
News had "Genocide in Gaza" emblazoned
up for Muslim victims of the Bosnian
in red on a recent cover displaying bod-
slaughter and we continue to condemn the
ies of dead children. The local head of the
Chinese repression of Tibet.
ostensibly moderate American Arab Anti-
Recall, too, that during World War II,
Discrimination Committee (ADC) used
at the very time that genocide was being
the word "genocide" in interview after
committed against the Jews of Europe, the
interview. Local rallies organized and sup- grand mufti of Jerusalem and other Arab
ported by ADC and the Dearborn-based
leaders were firmly on the side of Nazi
umbrella organization Council of Arab
Germany.
American Organizations (CAAO) regularly
Ironically, those who make the outra-
featured banners and signs with Nazi
geous charges about Israel ignore those

who trumpet their own
genocidal aims regard-
ing Jews and Israel (and
against Christians not
content to live according
to Islamist rule). Hamas
remains dedicated to kill-
ing Jews as a prerequisite
for the arrival of a Muslim
messiah. Iran calls for
Israel to be wiped from the
face of the Earth. Hezbollah
celebrates suicide bomb-
ers and promotes a cult of
death to extinguish Jewish
life. All this is real promo-
tion of genocide.
Not only have we expe-
rienced genocide, but also
the very word was coined
in 1944 by a Jew, Raphael
Lemkin, to describe the Nazi actions
against Jews. It is sickening that promi-
nent local Arab and Muslim leaders now
use the term to compare Jews to Nazis,
radicalize their community and indoc-
trinate their youth. They also desecrate
the memory of the Six Million and other

DryBonesBlog.com

actual victims of genocide.
Such hateful rhetoric also serves to
silence moderate voices in the local Arab
American community and in the Arab
world. That is the real threat to the peace-
ful and productive coexistence among
cultures — locally and in the embattled
Middle East — that we all crave. H

Reality Check

Time And Luck

W

hen I was an editor at WSU's
Daily Collegian, we'd hang out
at a bar called the Crosstown,
which wasn't far from the Wayne State
campus in Detroit.
It was located in an area that was pre-
dominantly Polish and there was still a
thriving business district along Chene
Street. On a long afternoon, we could
anticipate many of the regulars coming in.
A young man who worked at Fintex
Clothes down the block would come dash-
ing through the door, order two shells
of beer, sprinkle them lavishly with salt,
down them in a gulp one after the other
and dash out again.
Others were more leisurely and found
time to engage Rich, the owner, in extend-
ed conversations over the worrisome state
of the neighborhood.
Then there was Betty. She was in her
50s, wore the same dress no matter what
the weather was and always sat herself
down behind the piano in the corner.

Her repertoire was limited and
inclined towards salacious num-
bers like "Roll Me Over in the
Clover" and such.
After a while, she would grow
contemplative. "Let me ask you
young geniuses something;' she
would say. "I started out playing
all the clubs in town along with a
young guy named Amos Jacobs.
He was a singer and a comic and
not all that great.
"Now he's named Danny
Thomas; he's out there in
Hollywood making millions
and here I sit in joints like this. Can you
explain to me why that happens?"
What did we know? We were barely out
of our teens and hadn't seen enough of
bad luck in the world to come up with a
coherent answer.
Even now, 40 some years later, after see-
ing all sorts of luck, good and bad, I'm still
not sure what I'd tell Betty. "Things just

happen, dude seems inad-
equate, but it's the best I can
come up with.
Rich was a genial host, and
as long as the printers, who
were his steady customers,
kept buying the beers he
wasn't too concerned about
our age. But he was a keen
observer.
My friend Tom was a
pretty good pool player. He
won consistently at the bar's
only table, and Rich kept
watching. One evening, when
Tom was knocking off one opponent after
another for low stakes, Rich approached
and picked up a cue. Tom beat him twice
and was feeling pretty good about himself.
Rich seemed to be morose about all
this and asked if Tom would like to try a
winner-take-all game for $100. That was
a lot of money for college students but
Tom was flush with success and accepted

confidently.
Rich cleaned him out with ease and
then made it clear that the $100 was a
serious debt and he expected to be paid by
tomorrow. Tom looked ashen. He'd have to
explain to his parents why he had to with-
draw $100 from his savings account and
didn't relish that conversation.
But he'd learned a lesson about good
luck and bad luck and how some people
make their own luck.
Years later, when Tom was freelancing
a story on Detroit and I was a columnist
at the News, we drove back to Chene to
find the bar. It was padlocked and, from
the look of things, had been that way for
years.
No trace remained of the Fintex store,
either; and I'm sure Betty went baffled to
her grave many years before. Nothing stays
the same in the city. I I

George Cantor's e-mail address is
gcantor614@aol.com.

February 5 • 2009

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