We forgot Gilad

Aviva and Noam Shalit met with the pope this week and sought his help. Benedict XVI promised to try. Benjamin Netanyahu informed President Mubarak this week that he is interested in renewing the negotiations on Shalit’s release, and even promised to appoint a new negotiator in place of Ofer Dekel next week.

Another meeting, another promise, another feeble statement, and everything is being done with outrageous laziness, as if nobody really cares. Somehow we internalized Noam Shalit’s message that Gilad was abducted on Olmert’s watch and it was up to the outgoing prime minister to bring him back; Netanyahu is a different story already.

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It is clear to everyone, for some reason, that during Netanyahu’s term in office it will be much harder to work out a deal with Hamas, and so Gilad has been destined to rot in captivity and continue to suffer. Nobody presses Netanyahu and the Shalit affair has been pushed back in terms of priority order.

It appears that we dedicate more thought to the weather than to our captive soldier; even though we cannot do much about the weather, at least we are talking about it. Yet we stopped talking about Gilad.

Here and there our leaders utter the same overused words, invite Noam Shalit to one kind of official visit or another, mention our obligation to “bring back our child,” and move on to more important matters: Cuts, budget struggles, and the inflation in the number of ministers without portfolio, none of whom assumed the task of handling the ongoing captivity of one soldier.

New rounds of recruits are reporting to the IDF’s enlistment base, and they and their parents have in mind the terrible scenario of captivity and a delayed release, yet nobody hits the streets.

We’ve become indifferent

The face of the boy that was posted on billboards across the nation disappeared, and the “help me” cry he uttered had been forgotten. The intersections have emptied of youngsters fighting to bring him back. The website of the organization dedicated to his release is seeking volunteers who would agree to man the protest watch near the prime minister’s residence.

Aviva and Noam Shalit have not been blessed with the rhetorical talents of Karnit and Miki Goldwasser, whose outcry shook us all. The Shalit family’s outcry is being whispered. The sticker that urged us not to let the indifference kill him has become irrelevant.

Indeed, we have become indifferent. If no public official takes real responsibility for the Shalit affair, we must help his family in its fight. This is the struggle of anyone concerned by the ongoing erosion in the value of accountability, and to hell with the question of price.

In about a month, we will mark three years to Gilad’s abduction, and again our leaders will bestow upon us sentences replete with empathy and love but empty of substance. We are fed up with this tacky banality. Spare Gilad’s suffering parents and spare us these words. The time has come for you to let action talk, before it will really be too late.