The Missing Peace: The Inside Story of the Fight for Middle East Peace (review)

In the late 1940s, an aspiring graduate student at one of America's leading universities was advised by a senior faculty member that if he was either Jewish or Italian, he need not consider a career in the State Department or the Foreign Service, as these were closed shops for these two ethnic groups. Scarcely 25 years later, the Secretary of State was Jewish (Henry Kissinger), and his Deputy Italian (Joseph Sisco). Now along comes Dennis Ross, an identifying Jew, to narrate a blow-by-blow account of the Middle East peace process (so-called) in which he played a critical role, often instructing the President of the U.S. on what to say and do in formal negotiations! Although at times Palestinian leaders complained about Ross's identity and role, in the end, more tellingly, both Israeli and Palestinian negotiators begged him not to follow through on his announced intention to resign from government at the end of the Clinton Administration. They feared his departure would mark the end of peace efforts and a descent into violence and chaos. As Alice said, "curiouser and curiouser."

A lifelong Democrat, Ross nevertheless became the senior Middle East person on the National Security Council staff in the Reagan years. After the 1988 election, he became head of the Policy Planning Staff in the State Department. In this capacity, he was a top aide to Secretary of State James Baker, for whom he has much respect (as he did for President Bush, the father). The Clinton team wisely invited him to remain with them as chief negotiator for the Arab-Israeli conflict. He remained in that job for the entire Clinton presidency, and thus served a total of 12 years through two administrations as top policy maker and negotiator in one of the most intractable conflicts of the 20^th century.

Ross emerges in this incredibly detailed account as a consummate diplomat. He is equally hard on Israelis, Jews, Palestinians, and Arabs. His personal likes and dislikes are plainly evident, especially in the personality sketches interspersed throughout the account, in which he doesn't mince words. Among those he admired most are Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres, President Clinton, some of his own staff, and some Israelis, such as Amnon Shahak (IDF Chief of Staff and later a Cabinet minister). At the top of the list of those he admired least are Benjamin Netanyahu (Likud leader and Prime Minister, 1996–1999), Yitzhak Shamir (Likud leader and Prime Minister through most of the period from 1983 to 1992), and Yassir Arafat.

Throughout this tortuous narrative, Ross never takes his eye off the ball: his job was not to impose a solution on the parties to the conflict, nor simply to promote American interests. He was convinced that there was no alternative to the two sides' directly negotiating an end to the conflict between them, with the U.S. helping. As the situation progressed, however, game-playing often interfered with the negotiations. In particular, both Israelis and Palestinians often expected Ross to run interference for them, or to draft negotiating proposals that they felt would be more acceptable coming from the Americans. Nothing perhaps better illustrates the importance of active involvement by the U.S. in this enduring conflict.

If there are errors or weaknesses in this book, they lie in Ross's failure to clearly date various developments as he goes along, making it difficult for the reader to maintain a clear orientation to the facts. Thus, a reference to consultations with Newt Gingrich as Speaker of the House and Robert Dole as Majority Leader of the Senate (p. 185) seems out of date, since these gentlemen did not assume these titles until after the 1994 election. A series of maps is helpful, however, as is an extensive list of the main Dramatis Personae. Missing, however, is a map of the city of Hebron, which was the subject...