Event Summary
With tensions running high in the Middle East, Dennis Ross, America''s most experienced negotiator on the Middle East, brought more than a decade''s worth of experience to share with BCSIA''s Board and Kennedy School students on March 20-21. Just after his retirement as Special Coordinator for the Middle East, he discussed the many issues of personality and substance that affected his 12 years as a peacemaker in one of the world''s most troubled regions. Ross will join the Center as a Senior Fellow and will teach a seminar at the Kennedy School on negotiations next spring.
Despite the current violence in the region, Ross described a series of opportunities in which seemingly small moves by the leaders on one side or the other might have produced agreements between Israel and Syria, or Israel and the Palestinians. However, he then demonstrated why two presidents and three secretaries of state have entrusted him with this most delicate task, by providing a glimpse of the intricate mosaic of personalities, history, and specific issues that shaped the negotiations.
Among the most difficult issues which plagued America''s peace efforts and which will continue to limit progress, Ross highlighted the capacity of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, and Palestinian Chairman Yasser Arafat (and their successors) to make concessions and conclude final agreements. While their goals were not necessarily mutually incompatible, the intricacies of timing mutual concessions and of recognizing the limits of the other side continued to evade the participants.
Conceding that the pieces he tried so hard to align are momentarily asunder as a result of the climate of violence and new administrations setting their respective courses in Syria, Israel, and the U.S., Ross insisted that the Middle East will not easily surrender its place as a central issue in American foreign policy. The need to resolve the tensions in the Middle East and for international involvement are certain to force the new American administration to be engaged.