The Missing Peace

"The definitive and gripping account of the sometimes exhilarating, often tortured twists and turns in the Middle East peace process, viewed from the front row by one of its major players."--Bill Clinton
"The Missing Peace," published to great acclaim last year, is the most candid inside account of the Middle East peace process ever written. Dennis Ross, the chief Middle East peace negotiator in the presidential administrations of George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton, is that rare figure who is respected by all parties: Democrats and Republicans, Palestinians and Israelis, presidents and people on the street in Jerusalem, Ramallah, and Washington, D.C.
Ross recounts the peace process in detail from 1988 to the breakdown of talks in early 2001 that prompted the so-called second Intifada-and takes account of recent developments in a new afterword written for this edition. It's all here: Camp David, Oslo, Geneva, Egypt, and other summits; the assassination of Yitzak Rabin; the rise and fall of Benjamin Netanyahu; the very different characters and strategies of Rabin, Yasir Arafat, and Bill Clinton; and the first steps of the Palestinian Authority. For the first time, the backroom negotiations, the dramatic and often secretive nature of the process, and the reasons for its faltering are on display for all to see." The Missing Peace" explains, as no other book has, why Middle East peace remains so elusive.
Dennis Ross, Middle East envoy and the chief peace negotiator in the presidential administrations of George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton, is now a counselor and distinguished fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. He lives in Bethesda, Maryland. A "New York Times" Notable BookWinner of the Society for History in the Federal Government's Henry Adams Prize
In "The Missing Peace," his provocative inside story of the Middle East peace process, Dennis Ross recounts the search for enduring peace in that troubled region with unprecedented vividness, candor, and insight.
As the chief Middle East peace negotiator for both George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton, Ross came to be the lone figure respected by all parties to the negotiations: Democrats and Republicans, Palestinians and Israelis, prime ministers and ordinary people on the streets of Jerusalem, Ramallah, and Washington, D.C.
In these pages Ross tells the story of the peace process from 1998, when he joined the State Department under James Baker, up to the collapse of negotiations in the last days of the Clinton administration--an outcome that led Palestinians to commence a grisly "second Intifada" and Israelis to wage a punishing military offensive in the West Bank and Gaza. Along the way, Ross dramatizes all the crucial aspects of the search for peace: the summits at Madrid, Oslo, Geneva, and Camp David; the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin; the rise and fall of Binyamin Netanyahu; the distinct personalities and strategies of Rabin, Shimon Peres, Yasir Arafat, Hafez al-Asad, and Bill Clinton; and the awkward first steps of the Palestinian Authority. He takes us behind the scenes to see high-stakes diplomacy as it is actually conducted, recounting the round-the-clock summit meetings and secret negotiations, the stalemates and broken promises. And he explains the issues at the heart of the struggle for peace: border disputes, Israeli security, the Palestinian "right of return," and the status of Jerusalem. To conclude the story, he offers a series of lessons we might learn from the failure of the process and an epilogue in which he portrays the high costs of the Bush administration's decision to disengage from Middle East peacemaking.
"The Missing Peace" explains, in a way that no other book has done, why Middle East peace remains so elusive. It is the most engaging book to date on the most complex and involving conflict in the world today. A "New York Times" Notable Book
Winner of the Society for History in the Federal Government's Henry Adams Prize "Ross tells the story well and with admirable objectivity . . . The book's greatest contribution is its detailed rendering of the story of the efforts to reach an Arab-Israeli settlement from 1988 to the end of 2000 . . . There is much to praise in this book."--William B. Quandt, "Middle East Journal" "With his day-by-day chronicle of American diplomacy in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, one might expect cynicism and disillusionment from Ross, but he insistently details improvements in the political landscape of the Middle East others may not see and the progress that Israelis and Palestinians have made toward peace."--Michael Parks," Los Angeles Times" "
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"Profuse detail, keen insight, and barely concealed passion characterize this] extremely important corrective. This book] will serve scholars of the Arab-Israeli conflict as a major source of information and analysis. It is certainly the most detailed and comprehensive exposition of the course of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, starting with the Madrid Conference of 1991 and ending with the stalemate in which we now find ourselves . . . The most innovative and revealing part of Ross's book is] the blow-by-blow descriptions of the successive rounds, during the 1990s and 2000, of negotiations between Israel and Syria . . . Ross presents useful sketches of the protagonists of the peace process and offers critical insights into their performances."--Benny Morris, "The New Republic"
"Without a doubt this is] an invaluable resource on the peace process that] belongs on the shelf of any serious scholar of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict."--"The Jerusalem Post"
"Ross tells the story well and with admirable objectivity . . . The book's greatest contribution is its detailed rendering of the story of the efforts to reach an Arab-Israeli settlement from 1988 to the end of 2000 . . . There is much to praise in this book."--William B. Quandt, "Middle East Journal"
"A cogent and compe