Washington’s Mideast Envoy Has a New, More Subtle Role to Play

For most of the last three years, the Israelis and Palestinians were so estranged that about the only time their negotiators talked to each other was when U.S. envoy Dennis B. Ross convened the meeting.

Now, with a new Israeli leader in office and the two sides meeting more regularly, Ross is playing a more subtle behind-the-scenes role. He is in Israel this week for talks in advance of a summit next week in Oslo between President Clinton, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat.

And Ross is preparing to mediate between Israel and Syria--despite animosities so deep that face-to-face bargaining is out of the question, at least for the time being.

Since early 1989, during the tenure of two U.S. presidents and three secretaries of State, Ross has been Washington’s Middle East point man, holding together a shaky peace process with a combination of long hours, seemingly boundless energy and his personal relationships with the main players.

Unlike flamboyant diplomats such as Henry A. Kissinger and Richard Holbrooke, the 51-year-old Ross is studiously low-key, shunning the limelight despite his pivotal role in one of the most emotional and closely watched areas of U.S. foreign policy.

In a remarkable feat of political dexterity, the California native retained his Middle East portfolio at the start of the Clinton administration even though he had worked as President Bush’s campaign advisor on foreign policy in the 1992 election. He was the only top official of Bush’s losing campaign to be appointed by Clinton to a senior policymaking position.

“Dennis is quite an unusual bureaucratic animal because he is not bureaucratically minded, not an empire builder,” said Robert Pelletreau, a former assistant secretary of State for Near Eastern affairs who has known Ross since the Carter administration. “He prefers to travel fast and light.”

Over the years, Ross’ nimbleness has helped him record some impressive successes, even if they mostly were credited to the president or secretary of State he was working for at the time. They include a formal peace treaty between Israel and Jordan and a series of interim agreements between Israel and the Palestinians.

But the big prizes--a final settlement between Israel and the Palestinians, and peace between Israel and Syria--have eluded him.

“It’s results that count,” said William B. Quandt, a University of Virginia government professor and Middle East expert. “He has been on the job a long time, and the record is a mixed one, not an unrelieved success.”

At the same time, Quandt said Ross occupies a peculiar position. Although he has been engaged in Middle East negotiations for longer than anybody now in government and has probably done more than anyone else to shape the process, Ross does not have the final word on U.S. policy.

“Dennis is in no position to shift gears,” Quandt said. “That’s up to the president. Dennis may have a view on this, but he is not the one who can make it happen.”

Arguably, Ross’ greatest achievement was averting a total breakdown of the peace process during the three years Benjamin Netanyahu was prime minister of Israel. Netanyahu and Arafat loathed each other.

The personal relationship between Clinton and Netanyahu was dismal too. Clinton had made no secret of his support for Netanyahu’s 1996 election opponent, then-Prime Minister Shimon Peres. Netanyahu returned the favor by cultivating ties to such Clinton adversaries as TV evangelist Jerry Falwell.

Although Ross, like Clinton, had been close to Peres, Netanyahu came to rely on Ross as a buffer in Israeli-Palestinian contacts. It was during Netanyahu’s tenure that Israeli and Palestinian negotiators met only when Ross called the meeting.

Since Barak was sworn in as Netanyahu’s successor in July, Israel and the Palestinians have resumed direct negotiations. But they turned to Ross and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to help them close the interim agreement signed last month at Sharm el Sheik, Egypt. U.S. officials say the deal was all but complete before Albright entered the talks.

Both Israel and Syria have asked Ross to act as go-between in an effort to restart direct talks that broke off in 1995. Ross has told associates that the two sides are so far apart that it would be premature to call for face-to-face meetings.

For Ross, the Israeli-Syrian talks pose a daunting problem. Syrian President Hafez Assad, a wily autocrat, prefers to deal only with other national leaders and seldom delegates real authority to his subordinates.

“If Assad is going to make a grand concession, he is going to want to make it to the president of the United States,” said Robert Satloff, executive director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Clinton is unlikely to jump into the picture unless he is assured of success. So it will be up to Ross to gauge whether Assad is ready to move. And that could be tricky.

“It is difficult because Assad’s English isn’t really good, so there isn’t an opportunity for a daily phone call,” Pelletreau said. “Assad doesn’t delegate, so you can have any number of conversations with people who work for him without learning very much. It is going to be a tough challenge.”

Ever since he left UCLA with a doctorate in Soviet studies, Ross, who did not reply to requests for an interview, has shown remarkable skill in molding his own approach to fit what was needed to achieve his objectives. As a student in 1968, he volunteered in the presidential campaign of Robert F. Kennedy. Four years later, he was on the campaign staff of George S. McGovern.

Yet he has also held senior posts in the administrations of Ronald Reagan and Bush. In the 1988 presidential contest, when Bush defeated Michael Dukakis, Ross’ counterpart in the Democratic camp was Albright.