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| Volume XII, Spring 2005, Number 1 |
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| Book Review: The Missing Peace: The Inside Story of the Fight for Middle East Peace |
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The Missing Peace: The Inside Story of the Fight for Middle East Peace, by Dennis Ross. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2004. 840 pages, with appendix, notes and index. $35.00, hardcover. For a printable version of this book review, click here.
Michael Rubner
Professor of international relations, James Madison College, Michigan State University
No one is more qualified to recount and examine the on-again, off-again Middle East peace process than Dennis Ross, who served as Middle East envoy and the chief peace negotiator under both George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton. In these roles, Ross was directly and deeply involved in almost all the negotiations that took place between Israel and the Palestinians, Jordan and Syria, beginning with the Madrid Conference in 1991 and culminating in President Clinton's failed attempt to broker an Israeli-Palestinian settlement during the last days of his administration in January 2001. Ross must have taken voluminous personal notes of his conversations with the major dramatis personae on all sides because The Missing Peace covers the tortuous path of the decade-long negotiations in meticulous, some would say excruciating, detail.
While going over some familiar ground, Ross's work contains several startling revelations. For example, contrary to previously published accounts, Ross makes it clear that American officials were aware as early as March 1993 of the secret negotiations then taking place between Israel and the Palestinians in Oslo. In November 1995, Ross was told by Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi ambassador to the United States, that King Fahd was ready to normalize relations with Israel following conclusion of an Israeli-Syrian peace agreement. We are also told that in a meeting at the White House on January 20, 1998, President Clinton offered Prime Minister Benjamin (Bibi) Netanyahu a formal defense treaty with the United States were Israel to agree to a second, relatively small redeployment in the West Bank without having to commit to yet a third withdrawal that had been contemplated in the September 1995 Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement. A few months later, despite the threatened resignation of CIA Director George Tenet, President Clinton was inclined to release Jonathan Pollard, an American Jew imprisoned since 1985 for spying for Israel, in order to make it easier for Netanyahu to accept the American proposals that were presented during the Wye River summit with the Palestinians.
Such nuggets notwithstanding, by far the most revealing portions of The Missing Peace recount Ross's futile efforts over several years to help attain a peace agreement between Israel and Syria. In July 1993, several weeks before the conclusion of the Oslo negotiations, Ross volunteered to serve as an intermediary between Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Syrian President Hafiz al-Asad. A few months earlier, Rabin had announced a willingness to withdraw from the Golan Heights with the provision that "the depth of withdrawal will reflect the depth of peace" with Syria. When Ross asked Asad how he understood Rabin's proposal, Asad offered his "full peace for full withdrawal" formula. In response, Rabin asked Ross and Secretary of State Warren Christopher to convey to Asad that Israel would withdraw fully from the Golan provided that the withdrawal would span five years, that full diplomatic relations and an exchange of ambassadors would occur after the initial phase of withdrawal, that Israel's water needs must be protected, that Syria's agreement was not contingent on any other accord, and that the United States would man early-warning stations on the Heights. Because it was communicated to Asad indirectly through the American interlocutors, Rabin's conditional offer became known as the "pocket."
The Syrian counterproposal was conveyed to Ross and Christopher in May 1994. It envisioned the establishment of full diplomatic ties only after a complete Israeli withdrawal from the Golan, which was expected to occur over six months and not five years, and only after Israel reached agreements with Jordan and Lebanon. Asad further clarified that by "full withdrawal" he meant an Israeli retreat to the June 4, 1967, lines and not Rabin's preferred withdrawal to the 1923 international border that was part of the French and British mandates. Although the actual difference between the two lines totaled only sixty-six square kilometers, the more western June 4 lines would have given Syria full control of the disputed DMZs, including the eastern shoreline of the Sea of Galilee, Israel's sole natural freshwater reservoir.
In the ensuing discussions that were held under American auspices during the summer and fall of 1994, both sides adopted more flexible positions that narrowed the gap between them. Most significantly, Rabin conveyed to Asad through Christopher that Israel was willing to withdraw to the June 4 lines if an agreement on all remaining issues could be reached and if Israel's security needs were met. The Syrians, in turn, agreed to extend the timetable for Israel's withdrawal from six to 16 months and indicated a willingness to allow an Israeli diplomatic presence in Damascus four months before the completion of Israel's withdrawal. Unfortunately, by July 1995, the negotiations that were chaired by Ross between Itamar Rabinovich, the Israeli ambassador to the United States, and Walid al-Moualem, the Syrian ambassador to the United States, ended in a deadlock over security arrangements.
Following Rabin's assassination, Prime Minister Shimon Peres reaffirmed his predecessor's contingent offer to withdraw to the June 4 lines on the Golan. The renewed Syrian-Israeli negotiations then took place at the Wye River plantation from late December 1995 until the end of February 1996. Ross attributes the failure of the talks to four suicide bombings that killed 59 Israelis over a nine-day period and to Asad's unwillingness to condemn the attacks or to clamp down on Islamic Jihad, which claimed credit for them. The Syrian-Israeli track remained moribund during Netanyahu's premiership, May 1996-99. Ross is convinced that, had Peres been elected in 1996, the two sides would have been able to conclude a deal within a year's time.
The negotiations eventually resumed in Shepherdstown, West Virginia, in early January 2000. During eight days of intensive talks, the Syrian delegation (led by Foreign Minister Farouk Shara) and the Israeli team (headed by Prime Minister Ehud Barak) were presented with an American-drafted peace treaty. Ross laments that, while the Syrians demonstrated unusual flexibility on each of the three sets of issues in dispute (location of the border, ensuring adequate water supplies, and normalization), they received nothing in return from the Israelis. In a strange reversal of positions, it was now Barak who upped the ante by insisting on linking the Syrian agreement with an accord on Lebanon.
In a last-ditch effort to resuscitate the peace process, Bill Clinton met President Asad in Geneva on March 26, 2000. Despite the fact that Barak had in the meantime moved closer to the Syrian position, Asad made it clear that he was no longer interested in a deal. Ross speculates that Asad, in failing health at that point, was preoccupied with succession. The once-promising prospects for a Syrian-Israeli peace vanished with Asad's death on June 10, 2000.
In his extended discussion of the ups and downs of the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, Ross has no kind words for Bibi Netanyahu. He recalls that in his first meeting with President Clinton in July 1996, "Netanyahu was nearly insufferable, lecturing and telling us how to deal with the Arabs." Ross notes that on those rare occasions when Bibi "sought to reach out to the Palestinians, he would seek to offset his action with steps that would appease his right-wing constituency." That pattern became manifest in several instances. For example, the conclusion of the Hebron Agreement in early 1997, which stipulated an eventual Israeli withdrawal from 80 percent of the city, led a few weeks later to Bibi's decision (against Ross's pleadings) to order the bulldozers to begin construction of the controversial Har Homa housing project in East Jerusalem. Likewise, the negotiations that culminated in the Hebron accord were preceded by the ominous decision to open the Hasmonean Tunnel just outside the perimeter of the Haram al- Sharif, or Temple Mount. That shortsighted move resulted in a wave of violence that ended with scores of dead and injured on both sides. Other moves designed to mollify the Right included the feverish expansion of settlements in the West Bank and the botched assassination attempt of Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal in Amman.
Ross attributes the absence of significant progress on the Israeli-Palestinian track during Netanyahu's tenure to his political ineptness. He notes that "Bibi rarely seemed to know how to act on his ideas -- how to present them, to whom, and even when to do so." Ross adds that "it was not a lack of intelligence; few are more intelligent than Bibi Netanyahu. It was an impulsive lack of judgment, a lack of a feel for the Arabs in general." Ross believes that Bibi contributed to his own political difficulties and eventual downfall when he hesitated to seek immediate cabinet approval for the Wye accord in late October 1998. Failing to exploit the post-Wye Summit momentum by acting quickly and decisively, Netanyahu "created an opening for both the right and the left to go after him." Accused by the Right of being willing to give away part of the ancient Land of Israel, and by the Left of failing to deliver on the promise of peace and security, Netanyahu lost the May 17, 1999, election to Ehud Barak.
Ross presents considerable evidence that the July 2000 Camp David summit was doomed to fail before it even began. He argues that Barak fueled Arafat's mistrust by failing to fulfill several commitments previously made by Israel, including the return to the Palestinians of three villages in East Jerusalem as part of the third redeployment agreed to in the Hebron accord, the release of some Palestinian prisoners, and the transfer to the Palestinian Authority of previously withheld tax revenues. Furthermore, the timing of the summit was not propitious, with deep gaps separating the two sides on the four core issues: borders, security, Jerusalem and refugees. Ross notes that Barak rejected Arafat's preference for a two-week postponement of the summit mainly due to fears that his coalition would collapse. As it turned out, Barak came to Camp David in charge of a government that commanded less than a majority of the Knesset votes as a result of the withdrawal of three parties, including SHAS and the National Religious party, from the coalition.
While it has been widely believed heretofore that the summit broke down over the disputed right of return of the Palestinian refugees, Ross's account barely touches on this issue, suggesting instead that the main bone of contention revolved around the status of Jerusalem. On that issue, it is clear that Barak offered unprecedented Israeli concessions: Palestinian sovereignty in the neighborhoods outside the walls of the Old City, Palestinian autonomy in the Muslim and Christian Quarters of the city, and custodial responsibility for the Haram/Temple Mount. Barak also agreed to Israel's withdrawal from 91 percent of the West Bank, in addition to a one-percent swap of West Bank territory for land within Israel, inside the so-called Green Line. The Palestinians, however, insisted on getting 100 percent of the West Bank. In addition, Ross notes, Arafat could accept neither Israeli sovereignty, no matter how disguised, on the Temple Mount nor the American proposal to try to seal a final agreement on all other core issues while deferring the question of sovereignty over the Temple Mount to subsequent negotiations.
The unfortunate collapse of the Camp David summit was followed by the inopportune and provocative visit to the Temple Mount by Ariel Sharon and a large contingent of Israeli police on September 28, 2000, amidst a three-day Israeli-Palestinian negotiation session in Washington. According to Ross, despite giving assurance to Secretary of State Albright that he would do his best to prevent Palestinian violence, Arafat "did not lift a finger to stop the demonstrations, which produced the second Intifada, the next day or in succeeding days." While rejecting the claim that the intifada had been planned, Ross suggests that Arafat "always kept open the option of violence, believing he might need it at some point if the Israelis would not satisfy him." Accordingly, allowing the violence to erupt enabled Arafat to make credible his claim that when it came to the issue of the Haram, his hands were tied. Ross also hypothesizes that Arafat used the intifada to counteract the widespread impression that he had been responsible for the failure of the Camp David summit. The intifada, so Ross's argument goes, enabled Arafat to portray the Palestinians as victims, a status that "required the Israelis to make concessions, not the Palestinians."
The dramatic denouement occurred during the last month of Bill Clinton's second term.
On December 23, 2000, Clinton presented his suggestions for a comprehensive solution to Palestinian and Israeli negotiators. Building on the ideas that had been discussed at the Camp David summit, the president proposed a return to the Palestinians of 94 to 96 percent of the West Bank, with an additional land swap of 1 to 3 percent to enhance security. Clinton envisioned an Israeli withdrawal phased over three years, during which an international force would gradually replace the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). Some Israeli forces were to remain in the Jordan Valley for a period not to exceed six years, and Israel was to maintain three early-warning stations with a Palestinian liaison presence. The Palestinian state would be non-militarized, but it would have adequate forces to ensure internal security. With respect to the thorny issue of the Palestinian refugees, Clinton suggested that the right of return be granted only to those wishing to enter the new Palestinian state. Israel, however, could admit refugees at its own discretion. Lastly, Clinton proposed that the status of Jerusalem be altered to reflect the principle that "what is Arab in the City should be Palestinian and what is Jewish should be Israeli," with the same principle applied to the Old City. Consistent with such a framework, Clinton outlined two possible scenarios: (1) The Palestinians would have sovereignty over the Haram, and Israel would have sovereignty over the Western Wall, with a mutual commitment by both sides not to excavate beneath the Haram or behind the Wall; (2) Sovereignty over the two holy sites would remain divided, as described above, with the proviso that mutual consent would be required before any excavation occurred in these sites.
The two delegations were asked to take this package to their respective governments and respond within five days as to whether their leaders were prepared to wrap up the negotiations on the basis of the outlined ideas. Stipulating the need for a "yes" or "no" answer, Clinton added that if either side could not accept further negotiations within the proposed parameters, the proposal would be withdrawn from the table and no longer exist after he left office.
On December 27, 2000, the Israeli security cabinet approved the Clinton package, albeit with reservations that were within the Clinton parameters. Ross correctly hails this vote as a historic moment, noting that "the Barak government had now formally accepted ideas that would effectively divide East Jerusalem, end the IDF's presence in the Jordan Valley, and produce a Palestinian state in roughly 97 percent of the West Bank and 100 percent of Gaza." Two days after the official answers were due from both sides, the Palestinians sent Ahmed Qurei (Abu Ala) to Washington for further clarifications. In a private meeting on December 29, Ross was brutally frank and remarkably prescient when he warned Qurei that failure to accept the Clinton package would have dire consequences for the Palestinians:
Clinton is going to be gone, . . . replaced by a new President who lost the popular vote. . . . He has no interest in this issue. . . . The people around him . . . want nothing to do with Arafat. . . . They will disengage from the issue and they will do so at a time when you will have Sharon as Prime Minister. He will be elected for sure if there is no deal, and your 97 percent will become 40 to 45 percent; your capital in East Jerusalem will be gone; the IDF out of the Jordan Valley will be gone; unlimited right of return for refugees to your state will be gone. Abu Ala, you know I am telling you the truth.
Unfortunately, Ross's dire warning fell on deaf ears. In a last-ditch effort to salvage the peace process, Clinton met with Arafat at the White House on January 2, 2001. To Ross, who attended the meeting, it became quickly clear that Arafat "was not up to ending the conflict."
Ross notes ruefully that Arafat's reservations "were deal-killers, involving his actual rejection of the Western Wall part of the formula on the Haram, his rejection of the most basic elements of the Israeli security needs, and his dismissal of our refugee formula. All were deal-killers." Arafat also rejected Clinton's offer to fly to the Middle East in yet another last-minute effort to help the parties reach an agreement.
Ross's verdict that Arafat was primarily responsible for the breakdown of the peace process in January 2001 has been challenged by one of his top aides. In a recently published review of The Missing Peace (The New York Review of Books, October 7, 2004), Robert Malley, who served as special assistant to the president and director for Near Eastern Affairs on the National Security Council between 1999 and 2001, criticizes Ross for his unfair fixation on Arafat as the party most guilty for the abrupt end of the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations in early 2001. In response to Ross's claim that Arafat had committed a huge blunder by walking away from "the best deal he could ever get," Malley argues that it may have made sense for Arafat to wait for another day and for a more attractive offer.
Malley identifies four major factors that may have influenced Arafat's tactical calculations.
First, Arafat was fully aware that he was confronted by "a rushed deadline from a departing U.S. president and a departing -- and despised -- Israeli prime minister to accept an interesting and imperfect deal." Second, because the package that was presented in December 2000 was more favorable for the Palestinians than the proposals that were on the table at Camp David a few months earlier, Arafat may have had a good reason to suspect that he could extract an even more attractive deal from Clinton by continuing to play hardball. Third, there was no strong pressure on Arafat from the Arab world to accept Clinton's parameters. Lastly, and relatedly, Malley notes that "despite Ross's claim that the other Palestinian negotiators would have accepted the deal, there is ample evidence that the most influential among them were either passive or actively lobbied against it."
Malley's alternative and considerably more benign interpretation of Arafat's behavior, however, remains problematic for various reasons. First, the claim that Arafat could not regard Barak as a reliable negotiating partner due to the latter's imminent downfall as prime minister ignores Ross's argument, conveyed to Arafat on several occasions, that his rejection of Clinton's parameters would ensure Barak's replacement by a new government "with a mandate not to make Barak-style concessions but to prove to the Palestinians and Arafat the futility of violence and terror." Second, Malley fails to explain why Arafat could have reasonably expected an even more favorable deal when Clinton, in marked contrast to the open-ended negotiations at Camp David in July 2000, imposed on both parties a clear and unequivocal deadline for acceptance of his parameter proposals in late December 2000.
Third, Malley's contention that Arafat lacked incentive to accept Clinton's last offer in the absence of strong Arab pressure completely ignores Ross's claim that the Palestinian leader "had the backing for accepting the Clinton proposal from nearly every significant Arab leader, President Mubarak of Egypt, Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, King Abdullah of Jordan, President Ben Ali of Tunisia, King Muhammad of Morocco." Ross notes further that before the decisive meeting with President Clinton at the White House on January 2, 2001, Arafat was urged by Saudi Ambassador Bandar and by Egyptian Ambassador Nabil Fahmy to accept the president's ideas because "this was the best deal he was going to get." Fourth, despite his claim that "there is ample evidence" that the most influential Palestinian negotiators were opposed to Clinton's package, Malley does not reveal such alleged evidence and ignores ample contrary evidence presented by Ross. In that regard, it is worthy to note that after being warned by Ross that rejection of Clinton's parameters would bring about dire consequences for the Palestinians, Abu Ala responded with utter resignation, "I am afraid it may take another fifty years to settle this now."
On the basis of his direct personal involvement in negotiations that spanned over a decade, Ross identifies several factors that have continued to make peace between Arabs and Israelis an elusive commodity. First, the various antagonists were often out of sync; for example, when Rabin and Peres were willing to move at a faster pace on the track with Syria, Asad preferred a much slower tempo. Later on, when Asad was eager for a deal, it was Barak who hesitated.
Likewise, when Barak was ready to accept Clinton's parameters, Arafat balked. A second factor related to timing concerns the occurrence of unanticipated events that have consistently undermined opportunities. In that regard, Ross speculates that without the four suicide bombings in 1996, the considerably more moderate Peres and not the hawkish Netanyahu would have been in charge of managing the Israeli side of the negotiations.
The peace process has been further complicated by the tendency of Arab leaders to avoid taking risks because they frequently lack political legitimacy. Israeli leaders, on the other hand, have been compelled to act within constraints imposed by coalition governments. But the most fundamental obstacle to peace, according to Ross, has been the failure of both Arabs and Israelis to undergo basic psychological transformations. Specifically, the Arabs have yet to acknowledge that Israel has legitimate security needs, and the Israelis must accept the need to surrender control over Palestinian lives and be willing to embrace genuine independence for the Palestinians. Ross believes that without such transformations, neither side would be willing or able to level with their respective publics about the difficult compromises that are needed.
Ross believes that future negotiations between the parties are likely to fail unless each side abandons deeply held myths. He calls on the Israelis to give up the myths that Israel must remain in the Jordan Valley for security reasons, that it needs to control the basic powers of the Palestinian state, and that all of Jerusalem must remain under Israeli sovereignty "lest the division of East Jerusalem rob Israel of its link to its Jewish heritage." The Palestinians, on the other hand, must reject the myths that they do not have to compromise on the core issues of territory, Jerusalem and the refugees, and that only others are to blame for their ongoing predicament. "In the end," Ross maintains, "peace will not be possible until the Palestinians decide that being victims only guarantees that they will remain victims."
In the Epilogue which covers developments in the post-Clinton years, Ross laments the American disengagement from the Arab-Israeli conflict since 9/11. He attributes the Bush administration's passive stance to a mistaken assumption that "if the conflict could not be ended, there was nothing to be done." He is particularly critical of the American failure to assist the parties to reach an agreement on the specific steps needed to implement the solutions recommended in the May 2001 Mitchell Report, as well as the failure to help implement the Tenet Security Work Plan. Ross concludes that without active American engagement, the Arab-Israeli impasse will persist.
Ross ought to be commended for producing a remarkably comprehensive, authoritative and thoughtful account of America's critical role in the elusive quest for a Middle East peace in the post-Oslo era. His own indefatigable efforts to help the antagonists to resolve their disputes through diplomatic negotiations are brought to sharp relief on each page of this voluminous work. Equally evident is Ross's treatment of a complex and emotionally volatile topic with compassion and empathy for all parties, irrespective of his agreement or disagreement with their stances. But The Missing Peace is much more than a mere chronicle of recent diplomatic history. Throughout the book, Ross provides useful maxims for conducting effective negotiations between contending parties divided by seemingly irreconcilable historical grievances. Hence, this volume ought to be required reading not only for students of the Arab-Israeli conflict, but for practitioners of diplomacy as well.
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