Web Exclusive: Dennis Ross - Middle East Peace Negotiating
A veteran diplomat and negotiator, Ambassador Dennis Ross spoke with surprising candor and passion during his March appearance at HBS. In light of the recent violence between Israelis and Palestinians, he was clearly dismayed to recall how close the two sides had come to reaching a comprehensive accord in December 2000. But even in the aftermath of that disappointment and failure, he said, leaders on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict could hardly have predicted the gravity of the situation in which they would find themselves in March 2002.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was swept into office, Ross said, “believing that he could function on principle: He would not negotiate under violence and there would be no reward for violence. But he would at the same time let it be known that he was open to negotiation at the right time and under the right circumstances.” According to Ross, Sharon underscored this by sending his son to visit Arafat secretly on six occasions. (“In the Middle East,” Ross explained, “by sending someone close to you, you indicate how seriously you take something.”)
For his part, embattled PLO chairman Yasser Arafat decided to play a waiting game, Ross said, with a new administration in Washington that was reluctant to get involved and a government in Tel Aviv that needed to learn that its hard-line approach wouldn't work. Such a passive stance suits Arafat, who, Ross said, “operates on the premise that ‘I don't have to do anything because someone will come along and rescue me.' He waits until the very last second to make any decision.”
As he has done publicly in opinion columns in leading U.S. newspapers (www.washingtoninstitute.org/media/ross.htm), Ross openly expressed his frustration with Arafat, as a leader who has repeatedly failed his people and not kept his word. He noted that Arafat can make a sweeping call for a cease-fire, as he did last December, even as he arranges to receive a shipment of weapons from Iran. (“Arafat has to sign off on everything, down to airline tickets,” Ross said. “There is no way he did not know about the Karine A,” the ship that was seized in January carrying 50 tons of arms allegedly destined for the Palestinian Authority.)
Eighteen months after the near-miss deal, after an eruption of hostilities, the two leaders found their political fortunes reversed. Sharon's poll numbers were way down (due to suicide bombers and insecurity inside Israel) while Arafat's were way up (as Israeli tanks entered Palestinian refugee camps and Arafat was confined by the Israelis to Ramallah). And as the violence continues to escalate, the terms of dialogue are increasingly jeopardized, Ross noted. There is, he said, a tendency for “the legitimization of ideas that today we might consider lunatic to become part of the mainstream, in a climate where fear and anger and frustration dominate the horizon.”
Concluded Ross, “Negotiations are about what's achievable, not impossible. They are about identifying an objective that makes sense given the circumstances. Sometimes what makes sense is refusing a very bad situation and working to recreate a situation where peaceful coexistence becomes thinkable again — right now, it's not.”
