The Missing Peace: The Missing Peace By Dennis Ross

There are two clever remarks by former Israeli Foreign Secretary Abba Eben, that seem accurate to reflect upon whenever one discusses the Israeli-Arab attempts at peace negotiations, "The Arabs never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity". The Israelis and their government, on the other hand "only do the right thing after having exhausted every other possibility”. The Missing Peace is the infuriating but enlightening account of Dennis Ross, the Chief American negotiator in the Israeli-Arab peace process. Ross's book is an extensive record of Ross's schedule in which no meeting is too trivial to recount, no quarrel too tiresome to include, no thought too minor to mention.
Ross's focus is directly on the Israeli- Arab negotiations, and specifically the Israeli-Palestinian and Israeli-Syrian meetings (with the Jordanians making an appearance as well as the Egyptians, Saudis and Moroccans making some intermittent appearances as well). If you are looking for a complete listing of the Israeli-Arab relationships, or the Peace Process, look somewhere else. This book is primarily about the meetings, negotiations, and tactics. What makes it worse, because the United States …show more content…
Ross acknowledges that "negotiations do not take place in a vacuum" and that the broader picture and the Israeli and Palestinian issues must to be considered. But this book fails to include them and we get astonishingly little about some of the other major players in this drama such as the Israeli Refusniks, Palestinian Militants, and Oslo Skeptics generally. Given Mr. Ross's friendship with Natan Sheransky, the then leader of Israel's Center-right Israel Ba'alyah Party, it is amazing what little insight he lets us have as well as anyone else not intimately involved in the negotiations. Even events that had serious impacts on the negotiations, such as the construction in Har Homa, are explained about the negotiations it does not put in into to context for the

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The Missing Peace: The Missing Peace By Dennis Ross

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