There are two quips by former Israeli Foreign Secretary Abba Eben, that seem appropriate to reflect upon whenever one discusses the Israeli-Arab attempts at peace negotiations "The Arabs" Mr. Eben had famously said "Never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity". The Israeli government, on the other hand "only does the right thing after having exhausted every other possibility"*
"The Missing Peace" is the frustrating but illuminating memoir of Dennis Ross, the Chief American negotiator in the Israeli-Arab peace process. Ross's book is an exhaustive record of Ross's schedule: No meeting is too trivial to recount, no quarrel too tiresome to include, no thought too minor to mention.
Ross's focus is squarely on the Israeli- Arab negotiations, and specifically the Israeli-Palestinian and Israeli-Syrian meetings (with the Jordanians guest starring for one chapter, and the Egyptians, Saudis and Moroccans making sporadic appearances). If you are looking for a comprehensive treatment of Israeli-Arab relationships, or the Peace Process in the 1990s, look elsewhere: This is squarely about the meetings, negotiations, and tactics. Worst still, because the US had only a limited role in the Oslo accords, the very start of the historic process between Israelis and the Palestinian Liberation Organization is under reported.
In his conclusion, Ross concedes that "negotiations do not take place in a vacuum" and that the broader picture, and the Israeli and Palestinian publics have to be considered. But Ross's book fails to include them; We get astonishingly little about some of the major players in this drama: Israeli Refusniks, Palestinian Militants, and Oslo Skeptics generally. Given Ross's friendship with Natan Sheransky, then leader of Israel's Center-right Israel Ba'alyah Party, it's astounding how little insight we get into him, or anyone else not intimately involved in the negotiations. Even events that had major effects on the negotiations, such as the construction in Har Homa, are explained in the context of the negotiations only, and not in a wider context.
Within the process itself, Ross's approach is remarkably free of analysis. The main feature of the Oslo accords was its piecemeal construction - instead of coming up with a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian predicament, the architects of Oslo conceived a series of steps, spreading over years, between the initial signing and the final accords. The idea was to get the Israelis and Palestinians used to working together; In hindsight, that clearly failed. The obvious shortfall was that, if the process was to collapse in some point, a heavily armed Palestinian Authority would inevitably clash with the Israelis, leading to many casualties on both sides. Since that is exactly what happened, some meditation about the original decision is in order. Ross offers none, save for Rabin's assertion that this piecemeal progress was as far as the Israeli public was ready to go at the time.
Sometimes, Ross's narrative demonstrated how utterly incompetent the people who run the world are: Israeli premier Rabin and Syrian President Asad talked past each other regarding the meaning of "Full withdrawal" for about a year. Later, Benjamin Netanyahu's envoy to the Asad, Ron Lauder, actively deceived the following Israeli Premier Ehud Barak, and the Americans, regarding the agreements reached with Asad. Palestinian Chairman Arafat meanwhile, was childish and prune to fantasies; in one of the worst, he insisted that the Ancient Jewish temple was in Nablus, not Jerusalem (p. 718).
To summarize an 800 odd word book in a several paragraphs: the bottom line in the Israeli-Syrian negotiations was that Israelis and Syrians were out of Sync. Barak's mood about a summit meeting with Syrian Foreign Minister Shara swinged sharply. By the time he became committed to a deal, the Syrians were uninterested.
With the Palestinians, the fixing the blame is both simpler and more complicated: Ross clearly sees Arafat as "not up to ending the conflict" (p. 756). It's hard to argue against that position; in the end, Barak went further then anyone could have expected. Saudi Prince Bandar told Ross "If Arafat does not accept what is available now, it won't be a tragedy, it will be a crime" (p. 748).
Reading Ross's account, I became more convinced in my earlier conviction that the main fault in the fall of the Israeli-Palestinian Peace Process lies with Israeli Premier Ehud Barak. Barak went far (one of the surprises I had was that he probably went too far - most Palestinians would have settled for less, p. 719), truly striving for peace, and Clinton accommodated him in bringing all pressure on Arafat to accept or offer a reasonable counter proposal - but since Arafat could not make peace with the Israelis, all this effort was in naught. Although Ross does not necessarily accepts the thesis that Arafat was behind the outbreak of the 2000 al Aqsa Intifada, he clearly did nothing to prevent it. By all accounts, Arafat, feeling the pressure on him, released it in the only was he could: through violence.
But there were those on the Arab Side, principally current President Mahmoud Abbas and Ahmed Qurei, who genuinely strived for peace. Arafat could not have lived for ever - why not wait for the next generation of Palestinian leaders and make the deal with them? Ross argues that the Israelis and the Americans had to find out whether Arafat had it in him to deliver (pp 767-769). Fine, but they needed a contingency plan in case he did not. Alas, Barak and the Americans had none. Instead of probing whether Arafat was capable of making a final deal, they pressured him as hard as they could, forcing him to chose between Peace and War. Arafat, who never liked to be forced to make choices such as these, was forced to make it. Six years and thousands of casualties later, we are still paying the price for Barak's hubris.
*(Feb 2. 2009 correction: One of the comentators below pointed out that Eban's quote was not about Israel, but about "men and nations" generally)
