Jewish Book Fair

Lessons To Be Learned

Finally free of diplomatic restraint, Dennis Ross shares his narrative.

you deny the core of the other side's
be based on the June 4, 1967, borders.
faith, what is the message you're send-
Ross was not worried for himself or
ing? It's not reconciliation."
for the process but for the top Syrian
• Ross helped guide Middle East policy
aving juggled an armful of nar-
negotiator, Walid al-Moualem, who had
ratives for much of his career,
through three U.S. administrations —
told Assad such a letter was forthcom-
Dennis Ross decided it was
Reagan, the first President Bush and
ing. Ross knew the bad news created the
time to deliver his own.
Clinton — and was valued for an intu-
possibility that Moualem, whom he
In The Missing Peace (Farrar, Straus
itive understanding not just of how the
liked and admired, could lose more than
and Giroux; $35), an encyclopedic, 800- region's leaders ticked but of what their
just his job.
page tome published in August, Ross
cultures brought to the table.
The meeting ended well, and Ross
exhaustively details how Israeli and
Those narratives launch his book.
records Moualem's elation.
Palestinian "narratives" — or mytholo-
'A reason to write the narratives was
The book will prove a valuable
gies about themselves — beset a peace
to have" the sides "face up" to them,
resource for historians because, free of
process fraught with mistrust and missed Ross said. "You can't rip yourself out of a the dissembling niceties of diplomacy,
opportunities.
narrative, but you have to recognize
Ross pulls back the curtain on the calcu-
both narratives."
"I tell the story in real detail because I
lations U.S. administrations make — for
want people to understand what was
If the talk of "narratives" sounds like
instance, regarding other nations' elec-
happening and why," Ross said in a
an invitation to a dry discussion of theo- tions.
recent interview with JTA at his office at ry, Ross, an adept taleteller, leavens the
He shows how the first Bush and the
the Washington Institute for Near East
book with insight into the leaders.
Clinton administrations not only
Policy, where he has worked since leav-
One is Ross' description of a falling-
favored Labor Party governments in
ing government in January 2001. (If
out between President Clinton and
Israel but actively campaigned for them.
John Kerry's bid for the White House is
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
The admissions are a welcome relief
successful, Ross, who has briefed the
Netanyahu at the Wye Conference in
from State Department bromides that
Democratic presidential candidate,
1998 over Netanyahu's demand that
the United States plays no role in foreign
would likely be a player in the new
Arafat "take care of" Ghazi Jabali, the
elections.
administration).
top P.A. security official in the Gaza
Much of Ross' scorn, in the book and
For Ross, the "why" has much to do
Strip, who was wanted for his role in an
in conversation, is reserved for Arafat.
with how each party — Israel, the
attack on Israeli settlers.
"It isn't going to work until both sides
Palestinians and Arab states — viewed
When Arafat asks if that means
are prepared to cross those thresholds
its history and role, and how the failure
Netanyahu wants Jabali killed,
themselves, and in the year 2000, the
to recognize and accommodate the
Netanyahu reportedly replied, "I won't
Israelis were prepared to do so and the
other's narrative often impeded progress
ask; you won't tell."
Palestinians, at least Yasser Arafat, were
toward peace.
Arafat and Clinton stormed out of the not," Ross said in the interview. 'And
"Arafat at Camp David denies that the room. Ross was assigned the task of
the Palestinians hive paid a terrible price
Temple was in Jerusalem," Ross said,
explaining to Netanyahu why making
because of that, and so have the Israelis."
describing statements by Palestinian
the assassination of a top Arafat associate
Ross clearly is frustrated with the
Authority President Yasser Arafat at the
a condition for releasing 500 prisoners
cards-to-the-chest approach of Arafat's
make-or-break peace summit in July
— after Netanyahu had already commit- opposite at Camp David, Israeli Prime
2000. "What message does that send? If
ted to their release — was a nonstarter.
Minister Ehud Barak, but says issues of
In a single parenthetical aside, Ross
Barak's personality pale in comparison to
ably sums up three years of U.S. frustra-
Arafat's historical failure.
tion with Netanyahu.
"Could Barak's style have been differ-
THE
Netanyahu "was sitting alone, obvi-
ent? Of course," Ross told JTA.
ously stunned, and feeling he was the
'As I used to say to the Palestinians,
victim, asking me, Why is Israel treated
`Don't take it personally, he treats us the
this way, why am I treated this way?
same way, he treats Israelis the.same
What have I clone to deserve this?' I was
way.' But the fact is, when push came to
struck by his belief that he and Israel
shove, when he had to confront history
were one and the same, and that he was
and mythology, he was up to it. Arafat
the innocent victim of mistreatment."
wasn't."
Ross has respect for, but few illusions
Ross does not spare himself The
about, some of the Arab leaders he deals
American approach during the Oslo
with. In one harrowing passage, he
period — one he largely shaped — was
describes his dread of a meeting with
mistaken, he said in his interview.
Dennis Ross:
Syrian dictator Hafez Assad in 1994:
"There was no consequence for not
"There was no
Ross had to tell Assad that Israeli Prime
fulfilling obligations," he said of the
consequence fbr
Minister Yitzhak Rabin had rejected an
process. "Clearly, one of the most
not Milling
American offer to write into a letter that
important things we should have done
obligations."
a permanent Syrian-Israel border would
with Arafat was determine whether he

RON KAMPEAS
Jewish Telegraphic Agency

11

A

•

was able to make peace or not. One of
the critical lessons is the importance of
creating what would be a test for us of
whether or not he was prepared to con-
dition for peace.
"The measure should have been some-
thing like, 'You tell your public you're
not going to get 100 percent of borders
and Jerusalem and refugees, that there's
going to have to be compromise, but
what you're going to get is a fair deal
and a dignified deal,"' he continued. But
Arafat "never did that, ever, not once."
Israelis and Arabs also get tough
advice from Ross.
"The one unmistakable insight about
the Arabs is this," he writes: "No Israeli
concession can ever be too big."
Ross faults Israeli bureaucrats charged
with carrying out policy more than he
does the leaders, whom he credits with
having made a "psychological leap" in
recognizing Palestinian rights.
"Whether it was getting Palestinian
goods through Israeli ports, exporting
cut flowers to Europe, ending the indig-
nities of Israeli checkpoints — even dur-
ing extended periods when there were
not acts of terror — denying Palestinians
the right to import certain products
from Jordan and the Arab world or sim-
ply obtaining permits for building,
Israeli officials continued to control
most aspects of life for the Palestinians,"
he writes.
Despite such difficulties, Ross advo-
cates a return to greater engagement
than the current administration has
demonstrated, albeit with the caveats
about demanding results from the
Palestinians.
"I would have liked to have seen it
much more involved than it was," he
said of the Bush administration in his
interview "To be fair to this administra-
tion, you could look at the 1990s and
the year 2000 and you could certainly
see that our intensive engagement did
not produce peace.
"But now you can compare the inten-
sive engagement to the disengagement,
and the one thing the intensive engage-
ment did is that maybe it didn't produce
peace, but it did prevent war between
Israel and the Palestinians," he contin-
ued. "Disengagement did not prevent
war." ❑

Ambassador Dennis Ross, the
JCC Book Fair's opening night
speaker, appears 8 p.m. Thursday,
Nov. 4, at the Jewish
Community Center in West
Bloomfield. $10 JCC mem-
bers/$12 nonmembers.

aumwmamts-

amwizzawam

10/29
2004

79