The Lost Steps (Page 3)

Ross's involvement in the story began with the peace conference that James Baker convened in Madrid in the wake of the Gulf War. It was the mother of all Middle East peace conferences and a real landmark. Prior to Madrid the question was: Could negotiations ever take place? Afterward, it was: Could the negotiations ever produce peace? The conference itself was in fact more significant at the symbolic than at the practical level. It ended the taboo on direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. It also established the ground rules: bilateral negotiations on the basis of UN Resolutions 242 and 338 and the principle of land for peace that they incorporated. After the conference, as always, the slow coach was Israel. Yitzhak Shamir was dragged to Madrid kicking and screaming, and as long as he remained prime minister, the bilateral talks went nowhere slowly.

With the rise to power of Yitzhak Rabin's Labor government in June 1992, the American peace team was back in business. Within a matter of months, Bill Clinton was firmly ensconced in the White House. Both leaders tended to favor a "Syria-first" strategy, believing that a deal with Syria would change the entire strategic landscape of the region in a way that a deal with the Palestinians could not. Rabin was prepared to contemplate a complete withdrawal from the Golan Heights in return for complete peace and security. This conditional offer became known as "the pocket," as it was placed in Warren Christopher's pocket. Christopher embarked on a shuttle between Jerusalem and Damascus that brought the two sides to the brink of peace. But the final terms that Assad offered fell short of Rabin's expectations, so he accelerated the secret talks with the PLO that culminated in the Oslo Accord.

The implicit bargain was statehood for security. A historic threshold had been crossed. Having been upstaged by the Norwegians, the American peace processors did not sulk in their tents; they immediately rallied round to promote the PLO-Israel accord, to elevate it and to generate momentum behind it. Clinton succeeded brilliantly in turning the signing ceremony of the Declaration of Principles into the most spectacular diplomatic event of the 1990s. A year later, Rabin surprised Clinton again by presenting him with a peace agreement with Jordan on a silver platter. But a year after that an Israeli extremist, Yigal Amir, assassinated Rabin, dealing a body blow to the peace process.

Benjamin Netanyahu's victory over Shimon Peres at the polls in May 1996 was most unwelcome to the Americans. Clinton had told Rabin that if the prime minister ran risks for peace, the United States would act to minimize those risks. Now that Rabin was dead, Clinton felt responsible for preserving his legacy. Netanyahu posed an unmistakable threat to this legacy. As prime minister, Netanyahu was not as bad as people had expected--he was much, much worse. In his first meeting with the President, at which Ross was present, "Netanyahu was nearly insufferable, lecturing and telling us how to deal with the Arabs. He would respect the Oslo agreement because a democratically elected government in Israel had adopted it, but there would have to be adjustments and new negotiations over parts of it." After Netanyahu left the room, Clinton observed, "He thinks he is the superpower and we are here to do whatever he requires." No one, according to Ross, disagreed with that assessment.

Following Netanyahu's visit, Ross traveled to the region to brief Arab leaders. "My visits with both Assad and Arafat were successful," he writes, "but Netanyahu--believing that his policy of talking tough but not doing anything was working--squandered what I delivered." Netanyahu also strained relations with Jordan to the breaking point for no apparent reason, provoking an uncharacteristically emotional and personal attack from King Hussein. In a meeting at the White House, the King accused Netanyahu of threatening the hopes for peace of Arabs and Israelis alike with his refusal to respect agreements, immaturity and poor judgment.

Ehud Barak's 1999 victory over Netanyahu raised expectations sky-high in Israel, among the Palestinians and within the Clinton Administration. Whereas Netanyahu only scored points, Barak promised to solve problems. Clinton said that he waited for Barak's arrival in Washington like a child waiting for a new toy. The American peace processors were back in business. Clinton hoped that Barak would fulfill all of Israel's outstanding commitments to further troop withdrawals from the West Bank and then proceed without delay to negotiations on a permanent-status agreement with the Palestinians. But he yielded to Barak's insistence on aiming for a deal with Syria first. Barak and Assad were realists. They knew that what mattered to the Syrians was the land, and that what mattered most to the Israelis was security and water. There was thus a basis for a deal, for "a peace of the brave," as Assad liked to call it. Barak's initial approach to the Syrians, however, was based on a faulty premise: that he did not have to reaffirm Rabin's conditional commitment to withdraw to the lines of June 4, 1967, which would place Syria on the northeastern shore of the Sea of Galilee. Barak wanted Israeli sovereignty over the lake and a strip of about 400 yards to the east of it.

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