Former presidential Mideast adviser and negotiator Dennis Ross autographs a copy of his latest book, Statecraft, at Congregation Neve Shalom in Metuchen June 22.
Photos by Debra Rubin
July 8, 2008
Any Israeli-Palestinian peace plan, said Dennis Ross, is doomed without “meaningful gestures” by both sides.
Ross, a former presidential adviser who participated in both the Camp David and Wye peace summits, laid out some of those gestures in a June 22 talk at Congregation Neve Shalom in Metuchen. They include measures that improve the daily lives of both Palestinians and Israelis and demonstrate a spirit of compromise.
He touched on a broad spectrum of conflicts and issues roiling the Middle East, including American involvement in the Iraq war, the Iranian nuclear threat, and the ongoing effort to reach a workable peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
“You have to have the right objectives and right means,” said Ross. Adding to that mixture is another element that Ross termed “statecraft,” the art of diplomacy, something he noted has been lacking in many efforts in that embattled sector of the world.
Ross spoke before several hundred people at the annual Israel Segal Memorial Lecture, addressing topics from his latest book, Statecraft, and How To Restore America’s Standing in the World. He served as special Middle East coordinator for President Bill Clinton and adviser to President George H.W. Bush and secretaries of state James Baker, Warren Christopher, and Madeleine Albright.
While often critical of the current administration and its performance in Iraq and the Middle East, Ross said a prime opportunity to engage in statecraft was lost at the American-engineered November peace conference in Annapolis, where a two-state solution was reiterated. The conference was attended by dozens of other counties, some of them Arab.
“Maybe if the 50 states that came had agreed in advance on a few principles, maybe agreed on a principle of nonviolence, we’d be calling them right now the ‘Annapolis principles,’” said Ross.
Any peace plan hammered out would face a host of hurdles on all sides, despite good-faith efforts by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minster Ehud Olmert.
“I think Ehud Olmert and Abu Mazen believe in each other,” said Ross using the honorific name of the Palestinian president.
Dennis Ross spoke June 22 at Congregation Neve Shalom in Metuchen.
However, convincing their publics that it’s not all empty rhetoric may be a tougher sell.
“The Israeli public is completely disbelieving there could be peace with the Palestinians,” he explained. “They got out of Lebanon and the territories and got 4,000 rockets for their trouble… It turned out land for peace was land for violence.”
For the Palestinians, Ross said, life is extremely hard, whether it is getting their children to school, moving about freely, or trying to make ends meet.
“They attribute this to Israel never giving up control,” said Ross.
Israel may have to negotiate on Jerusalem, but the Palestinians must make ironclad guarantees on cessation of violence.
For the Palestinians, Ross said, that means not only repudiating terrorism but also “fighting against incitement” of violence.
For Israelis, it could be easing the long and frustrating back-ups for Palestinians caused by a lack of manpower at West Bank security checkpoints.
“They can make those checkpoints much more efficient by privatizing them,” said Ross. “Believe me, if it takes the Palestinians one-fifth the time to get through them they will notice it.”
Security issues should be negotiated between the Israeli Defense Forces and Palestinian security forces, thereby building a relationship that today doesn’t exist.
Moreover, any agreement that has a positively impact on the lives of Palestinians will weaken Hamas, said Ross, who added he works with a number of Palestinian nongovernment organizations on the West Bank.
“They don’t want to be governed by an Islamist state,” said Ross. “They don’t want to be governed by Hamas.”
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