Over the years, the Labor Party has had, and still has, rich activists - attorneys and businessmen of the Pinhas Sapir school, the Mapainik who knew that the country could not be built by the hoe alone. Some Labor leaders are more than well off. They live in spacious homes and don't need checks from Morris Talansky to travel overseas and stay at ritzy hotels. Why aren't they being maligned and gossiped about? Because they don't flash their cash. Ehud Barak hasn't begun to understand what the problem is. He bought a fabulous luxury apartment in the Akirov Towers with money earned honestly during his six years of civilian life, after screwing up as prime minister. He met with Henry Kissinger, who owns a corporate consultancy firm, decided to follow his lead, and made a nice pile of money. On his return to politics, he realized that with a place like that he wouldn't go far, so he slapped on a crazy price tag and offered it for sale. I don't see any sin in that. If they pay, they pay. If they don't, they don't. But he would be a lot smarter if he used some of the profit to cover the gigantic debts he left the Labor Party after losing the Knesset election. In making his choices, Barak has failed to understand that there are some things the head of a social democratic party doesn't do. Barak has a lot of brains, but the question is where he hides them. Barack Obama's victory speech after the Democratic primary was packed with information on every possible subject. Anyone in the world reading his words carefully could form an idea of what he plans to do and where he is headed if he gets into the White House. The four Kadima candidates think that the less they say, the greater their chances of winning. The only exposure so far has been Shaul Mofaz's feet, now clad in sandals after being told he dresses too formally. What does this reveal about his suitability to run the country? Is this how we choose our leaders? The difference between Israel and America is that over there nobody wants to get involved. Nobody wants to stand and watch a fight in the street, even out of curiosity. Around here, everyone wants to know what's going on, in a kind of sick nosiness. It never occurs to people that they might have prevented what happened. If only they reacted, if only they called the police when they heard something, or suspected something was happening right under their noses, in the apartment across the hall or in the park down the street, so many tragedies might be averted. If you see something terrible about to happen, don't treat it like gossip. Run to the police and sound the alarm. Our inability to free Shalit is a kind of impotence that we haven't seen around here since the disappearance of Israeli navigator Ron Arad. Apart from the humanitarian aspect, every day Shalit sits in captivity eats away at our power of deterrence. But when Hamas says it will not settle for less than a thousand prisoners in exchange for Shalit, we have reason to be proud. If one Israeli soldier is worth a thousand prisoners in their eyes, the honor is all ours - and the shame theirs. Before that sinks in, we must do everything to bring Shalit home, whatever it costs.

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