Opinion
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Greenberg's View
Editorial
Gilad Shalit: One of Us
T
his Shabbat, it will be 986 days
since Gilad Shalit was captured
by Palestinian terrorists who had
tunneled into Israel from Gaza and killed
two other Israeli soldiers. It is time to
bring Gilad home.
But how?
Hamas, which rules over the Gaza Strip,
does not subscribe to the concepts of corn-
promise and coexistence. Israel has tried
everything from diplomacy to military
action to no avail.
Israel has sent troops into Gaza,
but they've come back empty handed.
Significant international pressure, includ-
ing Arab pressure, has been brought on
Hamas without effect. In contravention of
international law — no real surprise after
its many other violations — Hamas will
not even allow the International Red Cross
to visit Shalit.
The only way to bring him home is to
make a deal.
Ehud Olmert, Israel's soon to be ex-prime
minister, is right to insist that there would
be no cease-fire and release of Palestinian
prisoners unless Shalit is returned alive.
There are multiple reports that as part of
a cease-fire, Israel will release more than
1,000 Palestinian prisoners, both Hamas
and Fatah (the party that governs in the
West Bank under the Palestinian Authority
rubric), in exchange for Shalit. Lopsided
exchanges such as this have occurred many
times, but they are balanced by the Israeli
connection with the kidnapped soldiers
and their families.
Gilad was taken when he was 19; today,
he is 22. He could be almost anyone's son,
brother, friend or cousin. In fact, he is our
brother, and we should help him.
Israel is known for having a freewheel-
ing and vibrant diversity of opinion on
many issues. But just last week, a Tel Aviv
University poll found 77 percent of the
Israeli public (85 percent of the Jewish
public) backed Olmert's refusal to sign a
thing without Gilad coming home.
The time seems to be especially pre-
cipitous for a deal. Hamas is in need of an
achievement so they can trumpet another
pyrrhic "victory" over Israel as well
diminish their rival, Palestinian Authority
President Mahmoud Abbas. Olmert would
like an image enhancer, too, though it goes
well beyond politics and self-image. Shalit
was taken under his watch, and he wants
to bring him home.
This is a critical time to act. If Shalit is
not freed in the next few weeks, he could
easily spend his third year in captivity
and, like Israelis Ron Arad or Nachson
Wachsman, he may never come home.
There are things we can do to assist;
being a well-organized Jewish commu-
nity helps. Our organizations, synagogues
and agencies can make Gilad an honor-
ary member; the Jewish News will publish
the names of those who do. Doing so will
symbolically connect us to him, educate
our community and provide moral sup-
port to the Shalit family. It also will provide
practical support by ramping up the pres-
sure on those who have a direct effect on
the situation. It's also a good time to talk
with our children, and with each other,
about Jewish peoplehood and communal
responsibility and how it affects how we
live and what we do.
On the High Holidays, when across the
world more Jews gather together than at
any other time, we say, Kol Israel arevim
zeh la zeh — "all Israel is responsible for
one another:' Let us use this strength of
purpose on behalf of Gilad Shalit ... and
ourselves. I
The Jewish Community Relations Council of
Metropolitan Detroit lists way to help Gilad
Shalit: www.detro*rc.org. Groups making
him an honorary member should contact
B'nai B'rith Great Lakes Regional Director
Don Cohen (248-646-3100, dcohen@
bnaibrith.org) by March 16.
Reality Check
Fantasy City
I
forget sometimes what a magnifi-
cent building Detroit's Central High
School is.
I lived right across Tuxedo from the
school's entrance for the first 12 years of
my life. Its lawns and athletic fields were
my playground.
I never was a regular student there,
although United Hebrew Schools held
classes for its lower grades in the build-
ing and, according to a siddur I found in
my library the other day, I was the proud
winner of the 1952 Pesach Prize.
For doing what, I cannot imagine.
Perhaps, macaroon consumption.
The building itself, with its detailed
stone carvings and ornate windows and
an architectural model that resembles
a castle from the French Renaissance,
is stunning. Along with its companion
schools, Durfee and the long-vanished
Roosevelt, it presented an educational
complex unmatched in most cities of the
time, which was the late 1920s.
I was reminded of all this by a picture
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March 5 • 2009
iN
of the school that ran in the
newspapers recently. It accom-
panied a story about the
shooting of two people inside.
And there is pretty much
a history of Detroit's last 80
years in a nutshell.
From a city that prided
itself on its educational and
cultural facilities, and the
beauty that could be created
in the midst of a growing
industrial behemoth, to the
clueless, rudderless hulk of
today.
A place where it's hard to figure out
which is the most incompetent body
— the Board of Education or the City
Council. Both of them seem to occupy
an alternative universe, totally detached
from economic reality and acceptance
of the city's diminished role in the life
of this region. Where public service is a
punch line.
The defiant Council vote against the
regional plan for Cobo Hall
expansion, on the absolutely
bizarre premise that funds will
be coming from the federal
stimulus package, is typical
behavior. Those who purport
to run this city demand abso-
lute control rather than giv-
ing up any more of Detroit's
"jewels," even if that will mean
having absolute control of a
corpse.
How ironic that all this
involves a structure named for
Albert Cobo, Detroit's mayor in
the 1950s and the exemplar of effective,
honest government.
Only one in six eligible voters showed
up for last week's primary. I can't help
but feel that much of that abysmal
turnout was directly related to Kwame
Kilpatrick's betrayal of his city. He had
raised such hopes among its younger
people, comparable to those lifted up by
Barack Obama. Then he turned around
and spit in their eye.
The damage he did to the aspira-
tions of this generation, the hopes that
it was possible to remake Detroit into a
more vibrant place, is incalculable. Put
aside all the jokes about the juvenile sex
tapes. Here is his worst offense and Peter
Karmanos should be ashamed of himself
for handing this bum a six-figure job.
After all the big talk and paper
dreams, what is Detroit left with? Failing
schools. No retail district. Stalled plans
and shattered hopes. A modest develop-
ment corridor that stretches about two
blocks on either side of Woodward from
the river to the Boulevard. A handful of
fine historic neighborhoods.
And a whole lot of buildings like
Central High that recall another time:
when plans turned into skyscrapers,
dreams became reality and education
was housed in palaces. I 1
George Cantor's e-mail address is
gcantor614@aol.com.