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Dennis B. Ross is an American author and political figure who served as an envoy and negotiator under Democratic President Bill Clinton. During his tenure, Ross was integral in shaping U.S. involvement in the Middle East Peace Process. For more than twelve years, Ross played a leading role in shaping U.S. involvement in the Middle East peace process and in dealing directly with the negotiations. A skilled diplomat, Ross was responsible in both the G.H.W. Bush and Clinton administrations for exploring all avenues and approaches to settling the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. As an architect of the peace process, he helped the Israelis and Palestinians in reaching the 1995 Interim Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and brokered the Protocol Concerning the Redeployment in Hebron in 1997. He facilitated the Israel-Jordan Treaty of Peace and also worked on talks between Israel and Syria. Ross's memoir, The Missing Peace. The Inside Story of the Fight for Middle East Peace tells the inside story of efforts to negotiate peace over the 1990s and outlines the key lessons to be drawn from that experience.
Life and Career According to his book, Ross was raised in Marin County, California by his Jewish mother and Catholic stepfather, who maintained a non-religious household atmosphere. Ross received a Ph.D. from UCLA in 1970. A scholar and diplomat with more than two decades of experience in Soviet and Middle Eastern policy, Ross worked closely with Secretaries of State James Baker, Warren Christopher and Madeleine Albright. Prior to his service as Special Middle East Coordinator under President Clinton, Ross served as Director of the State Department's Policy Planning office during the G.H.W Bush administration. In that position, he played a prominent role in US policy toward the former Soviet Union, the unification of Germany and its integration into NATO, arms control negotiations, and the development of the Gulf War coalition. He served as director of Near East and South Asian Affairs on the National Security Council staff during the Reagan administration, and as Deputy Director of the Pentagon's Office of Net Assessment. In 1981, following the election of President Ronald Reagan, the newly appointed U.S. National Security Advisor Richard V. Allen was put in charge of assembling the Reagan administration's foreign policy advisory team. Allen offered Paul Wolfowitz the position of Director of Policy Planning at the U.S. State Department. In this position Wolfowitz and his newly selected staff, that included Lewis Libby, Francis Fukuyama, Ross, Alan Keyes, Zalmay Khalilzad, Stephen Sestanovich and James Roche, were responsible for defining the Reagan administration's long-term foreign policy goals. Ross wrote his doctoral dissertation on Soviet decision-making and served as executive director of the Berkeley-Stanford program on Soviet International Behavior from 1984-1986. President Clinton awarded Ross the Presidential medal for "Distinguished Federal Civilian Service" and Secretaries Baker and Albright presented him with the State Department’s highest award. Ross has received the UCLA Medal, the university's highest honor. He has also received honorary doctorates from the Jewish Theological Seminary, Syracuse University and Amherst College. During his years of trying to broker Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations he was criticized by people on both sides of the conflict. Palestinians made repeated references to the fact that he is Jewish, and Zionists branded him "self-hating" — each questioning his ability to be unbiased. ** Currently, Ross is Director and Ziegler distinguished fellow of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. He is the first chairman of a new Jerusalem based think tank, the Institute for Jewish People Policy Planning, funded and founded by the Jewish Agency. In the Fall of 2006, he will teach a class in Mid-East Peace at Georgetown University. He taught the same course at Brandeis University in the Fall of 2005. Ross is a Foreign Affairs Analyst for the Fox News Channel in addition to being a frequent commentator in The Washington Post, The New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times. He is on the Advisory Committee of Scooter Libby's Legal Defense Trust *. Bibliography | ||||||||
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