Arab attitudes to Ross, however, merit a more serious consideration than he allows. His relations with Yasir Arafat were always very strained. Arafat saw Ross as an arrogant man who was too close to the Israelis. In his bad moments Arafat considered Ross to be a real enemy and at one point went as far as to refuse to meet with him. Hafez al-Assad criticized Ross rather more obliquely for not being positive enough in his attitude toward Syria. The Arab media habitually portrays American policy toward the region as biased in favor of Israel as a result of the influence of the Jewish lobby and Jewish officials, and Ross was held out as a prime example. Other factors, such as the democratic nature of Israel and the lack of democracy in the Arab world, are conveniently forgotten. Nevertheless, Arab leaders' perception of Ross as partial to Israel complicated America's task as the manager of the peace process.

Since Ross was the architect of the first Bush Administration's policy toward the Arab-Israeli conflict and the chief peace negotiator of the Clinton Administration, his assumptions were important. Ross's entire approach to peacemaking is premised on a strong US-Israeli relationship. Given Israel's small size and vulnerability, he argues, it must feel secure if it is to make concessions for peace. Israel would not feel safe enough to give up territory if it doubted the American commitment to its security. Similarly, the Arab world would not accommodate itself to Israel's existence if it had reason to question the staying power of the American commitment to Israel. While peace must ultimately be between the two parties and must therefore be directly negotiated by them, Israel must feel secure if it is to take risks for peace. This, in a nutshell, is Ross's philosophy of peacemaking.

There are three main problems with this approach to peacemaking. In the first place, it puts all the emphasis on Israel's concern for security and overlooks the Arab concern for justice. Given this approach, it is hardly surprising that the Arabs felt Ross was too sympathetic to Israel's needs and insufficiently attuned to theirs. Second, the Israeli concept of security is so inflated and one-sided that it amounts to a denial of the legitimate security concerns of the other side. Third, the approach advocated by Ross is wide open to abuse by Israel. Israel can absorb any amount of American aid without reciprocating with concessions to the Arabs. In short, Ross's mistake lies in assuming that a confident Israel would embark on the road to peace. History does not support this conclusion.

No one was more confident of Israel's military power than Moshe Dayan, who served as defense minister from 1967 to 1974. Yet he was unwilling to assume risks for the sake of peace. Dayan frankly admitted that he would rather have "Sharm el-Sheikh without peace than peace without Sharm el-Sheikh" (a strategic point in the Sinai Peninsula, captured from Egypt in the 1967 war and later returned to Egypt in the Camp David I agreement). Opportunities for peace during that period were missed not because Israel felt insecure but because America did not lean hard enough on its ally to return the territories it had conquered in 1967. Dayan used to say: "Our American friends offer us money, arms, and advice. We take the money, we take the arms, and we decline the advice." The lesson for peacemaking is obvious: support for Israel should be made conditional on heeding American advice.

Before embarking on the detailed narrative of the peace process, Ross outlines the context and the contours of the conflict. This takes the form of a long chapter on "Why Israelis, Arabs, and Palestinians See the World the Way They Do." Ross's account of the Israeli narrative is predictably better informed and more sympathetic than his account of the Arab and Palestinian narratives. He repeats, for example, the hoary claim that on the morrow of its spectacular military victory in June 1967, Israel offered to withdraw from the Sinai Peninsula and the Golan Heights in return for peace with Egypt and Syria, only to be confronted with the "three no's" of the Arab League summit at Khartoum: no recognition, no negotiation and no peace with the State of Israel. In fact, no offer was ever made, and the process of colonization quickly got under way. Ever since then, Jewish settlements on occupied Arab land have been the main obstacle to peace in the Middle East. The three no's of Khartoum were the excuse, not the cause, for Israel's relentless intransigence in the post-1967 era.

Ross is right to stress that the two sides have a fundamentally different approach to peace negotiations. The Israeli mindset focused on practical, highly detailed matters, and on the security dimensions. By contrast, the Arab and Palestinian mindsets were drawn to principles, generalities and their broad claims: Return their land, and peace--or at least the absence of war--would result. The onus to start the process was on Israel, not on them, because it was Israel that had occupied their land. From these very different starting points stemmed the different ideas about peace negotiations, their purpose and the tactics that should be employed.

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