Opinion
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Greenberg's View
Editorial
H
ouse Speaker Nancy Pelosi had
the best intentions when she
embarked on her version of
shuttle diplomacy in the Middle East this
month, but as often happens, those good
intentions took her down a road leading
to a place far from her intended destina-
tion, peace.
We have no doubt that Pelosi is a friend
to Israel, and she was trying to help Israel
in giving the peace process a boost dur-
ing her first trip to the Middle East since
becoming America's third-highest-ranking
elected official.
It's worth noting that nine other mem-
bers of Congress — five Democrats and
four Republicans —visited Syria, and
among them were such true-blue friends
of Israel as Democrat Tom Lantos of
California and Republican Frank Wolf of
Virginia. It's no betrayal of either the United
States or Israel for an American official to
call on Syrian President Bashar Assad.
The problem is that Pelosi is not just
another member of Congress. As speaker
of the House, she stands above her 434
colleagues and thus deserves and receives
far more attention. She therefore must be
more diplomatic in her private and public
comments than a run-of-the-mill member
of Congress would be.
If she chooses to thrust herself into the
foreign policy arena, she has the responsi-
bility not to say anything that contradicts
the official positions of the United States,
which are by right the province of the
executive branch of government. It also
would be nice if she tried not to embarrass
our truest ally in the Middle East, Israel.
Unfortunately, Pelosi failed to meet those
standards while she was in Damascus.
She told reporters she had carried a
message from Israeli Prime Minister Ehud
Olmert to Assad that Israel was prepared
to negotiate with Syria, a sentiment she
said Assad returned.
But there was no great diplomatic
breakthrough. Olmert denied relaying any
such message to Assad. Instead, he said he
told Pelosi that Syria has to behave like a
"normal nation" and stop supporting ter-
rorism and interfering in the affairs of its
neighbors before there can be peace talks.
Not only did Pelosi create false hope, but
also she put Israel in the position of kill-
ing that hope and thus reinforced the false
,teve61 men err -art con
Pelosi's Peace
HO J1AN
LIFESPANS
EVENTUALLY ED,
THE WORLD'S
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idea that Israel is the primary obstacle to
Middle East peace.
Israel, and only Israel, has the preroga-
tive to decide when it is ready to talk to
Syria; and it is reasonable to refuse to
enter such talks, which will inevitably
focus on the Golan Heights, until Syria
shows it is willing to see Israel and
Lebanon as independent countries and
not as part of Greater Syria. The very least
anyone should expect is for Syria to stop
supplying Hezbollah.
It is possible that Olmert told Pelosi
exactly what she said he told her. But
part of the diplomatic game is under-
standing the difference between what is
for public consumption and what should
remain private.
That's the bigger picture here: Pelosi
isn't a diplomat, and her constitutional
role is not to engage in foreign policy. She
needs to understand that every nuance of
every statement from the House speaker
on a foreign trip will be analyzed and
interpreted and twisted, and she either
needs to watch her words or put away her
passport. II
of how many of the goals you set
for yourself have been achieved.
I've got no complaints on that
score.
I've danced in Paris with the
woman I love — but for heaven's
sake don't tell Sherry.
But seriously folks, as the
Las Vegas lounge comics used
to say, most of my goals were
embarrassingly modest. See a
World Series, preferably won by
the Tigers: Check and double
check. See a Super Bowl won by the Lions:
Whoops.
Spend five nights in every state. There's
work to be done there.
I'm still seven states short, and I don't
know how I'll get in the four nights I need
for Arkansas.
See an Ivy League football game. I prob-
ably blew my chance when my daughter
was in law school and adamantly refused
to go to a game in Cambridge if Michigan
was on the dish that Saturday. Since that
was just about every Saturday, that took
care of that.
But now I'm told that Andrew Samson,
the placekicker for Bloomfield Hills
Andover High the last few years, will be
on the team at Penn as a freshman next
fall.
The Quakers are good solid Ivies, so
maybe I can go in with my friend Norm
Samson, who happens to be Andrew's dad,
and get in my game.
Cornell, I believe, would be the appro-
priate rival.
I'd also like to sell something to the
movies, write a musical review consisting
of all the songs ever written about walk-
ing, win the Lottery, read Remembrance
of Things Past and visit Rio.
But all that can wait — although it
would be nice if the Lottery got a move
on. I I
E-mail letters of no more than 150 words to:
letters@thejewishnews.com .
Reality Check
Images For Life
L
ately, I find myself studying death
notices far more attentively than
ever before. A natural progres-
sion, since too many familiar names now
appear there.
What strikes me is the photograph
that often accompanies the notice. In so
many instances, it shows a young man
in a World War II military uniform or a
woman in 1950s' hairstyle. The pictures
obviously were taken when the departed
was in the full bloom of youth. That is
how the survivors chose to remember
them.
The images you carry in your mind can
be so much more powerful than the real-
ity before your eyes. Among the strongest
of these mental pictures for me, though,
come from the opposite end of life's spec-
trum.
I've taken a few tours of the pediatric
facility at Children's Hospital of Michigan
in Detroit and the sight of those infants,
so tiny and so vulnerable, hooked up to
incredible machines after life-saving sur-
gery, is hard to shake.
It's a big reason that
Sherry and I are happy
to serve on the board of
ENSURE: The Endowment
for Surgical Research at
Children's.
ENSURE will be holding
its annual fundraiser on
Thursday, May 10, at the
Second City, at Andiamo's in
Novi. You get dinner, the reg-
ular Second City show and
all sorts of other goodies for an utterly
reasonable $150 a person.
The group was founded by the late
Barry Lipson, whose own son was given a
chance at life by the remarkable surgeons
and staff at Children's. His wife, Debbie,
carries on the work.
Helping these most helpless of our chil-
dren is the best work I can imagine. No
wonder the picture stays.
When you start thinking about life's
beginning and end, it prompts a toting up
George Cantor's e-mail address is
gcantor614@aol.com .
April 19 a 2007
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