dennis ross

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry greets Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif on March 20, 2015, in Lausanne, Switzerland, before their advisers resumed negotiations about the future of Iran's nuclear program. (State Department photo)

One year on: The Iran deal has fulfilled its promise

Despite what Israel’s prime minister may have you believe, the Iran nuclear deal has succeeded in doing exactly what it set out to do: significantly decreasing the threat of a nuclear-armed Islamic Republic. By Shemuel Meir The annual Herzliya Conference made headlines a few weeks back simply due to the fact that former Defense Minister Moshe…

By +972 Magazine July 9, 2016

American diplomat Dennis Ross (Nrbelex/ CC-BY 2.5)

Stop giving Israelis a pass: What Dennis Ross could have said

Former U.S. ambassador and Mideast peace process envoy Dennis Ross penned a ‘New York Times’ op-ed titled, ‘Stop Giving Palestinians a Pass.’ In it, he calls out European diplomats for supporting international efforts to end the occupation while not demanding more of the Palestinians. Below is a duplication of Ross’s op-ed, almost word for word,…

By Michael Schaeffer Omer-Man January 5, 2015

A construction worker at Rawabi. (Photo by Yotam Ronen/Activestills.org)

The dehydration of economic peace

The irony of Rawabi is that everyone, in both Israel and Palestine, seems to want it to happen. Nevertheless, Palestine’s first planned city still lacks a stable water connection, its continued cash flow is threatened and despite their best intentions, interested parties the globe-over cannot bring the project any farther forward. Officials involved in the project say…

By +972 Magazine October 2, 2014

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New member of the U.S. delegation to Israeli-Palestinian peace talks David Makovsky (Photo: Screenshot from Washington Institute)

A pro-Israel hawk to draft Kerry’s peace plan?

That one must be a pro-Israeli Zionist in order to be eligible for the State Department’s Israel-Palestine team is indicative of the problem with U.S. policy in the region. You’ll never see an analyst from a PLO-affiliated advocacy organization or Palestinian think-tank become a senior member of the U.S. Mideast peace team. Middle East analyst David Makovsky…

By Noam Sheizaf November 19, 2013

American diplomat Dennis Ross (Nrbelex/ CC-BY 2.5)

Dennis Ross: Netanyahu’s attorney in Washington

Dennis Ross presents a framework for renewing the peace process, which he apparently lifted directly from the Israeli PM’s hard disk – including de facto recognition of permanent Israeli control over eight percent of the West Bank. Veteran U.S. diplomat Dennis Ross had a full page op-ed in The New York Times this weekend, in which he presents a 14-step program…

By Noam Sheizaf March 4, 2013

Would another Obama term be better for Israel/Palestine than Romney?

The answer: Not necessarily. In a side note to my post on Newt Gingrich yesterday, I wrote that as far as the Israeli-Palestinian issue is concerned, I don’t see a big difference between a second Obama term and a Romney presidency. This remark got more attention than my comments on Gingrich, which were at the…

By Noam Sheizaf January 23, 2012

US top envoy leaving, and so should his politics

Dennis Ross was the architect of a policy that centered on shielding the Israeli government from pressure while hoping that it would decide to end the occupation on their own. The result was an epic, two-decade long failure Dennis Ross, president Obama’s top adviser on Israel-Palestine, is leaving the White House by December. Ross, a…

By Noam Sheizaf November 11, 2011

Haaretz’s pundit takes on US envoy Ross for aiding Netanyahu

Akiva Eldar, an expert on the peace process, avid supporter of the two-states solution and author of “Lords of the Land,” a history of the Israeli settlement project, harshly criticizes the White House’s envoy to the Middle East, Dennis Ross, for backing the demands of an extreme rightwing Israeli government. In an Haaretz article, Eldar…

By Noam Sheizaf July 4, 2011

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US Envoy Dennis Ross says a mouthful

Papers are reporting that Dennis Ross, President Obama’s special advisor on the Middle East, said at the President’s Conference in Jerusalem on Thursday that Israel cannot sit idly by and wait for things to happen. According to Haaretz: bold steps need to be taken to make sure that Israel remains a Jewish and democratic state.…

By Mairav Zonszein June 22, 2011

Obama finally confronts Netanyahu, but to what end?

Even as the two leaders reveal their differences, the White House continues to oppose both the Fatah-Hamas reconciliation and the Palestinian Authority’s moves at the UN – without getting anything from Jerusalem in return UPDATE: I reevaluated some of the issues discussed in this post. Check out my new post here. Daily papers are not…

By Noam Sheizaf May 21, 2011

American-Israeli bluffs and the success of Palestinian unilateralism (UPDATED)

Mahmoud Abbas has told Newsweek he is disappointed with Obama, but the US President has actually done a nice job of revealing the American double-standards with regards to Israel. Meanwhile, Jerusalem’s hawks are suggesting that in response to a Palestinian declaration of independence, Israel should annex the West Bank. Not such a bad idea UPDATE: See…

By Noam Sheizaf April 26, 2011

The J street conference: An “A” for effort, “F” for results

From this Israeli’s perspective, the J Street conference looked like a pretty sleek production. Too bad that’s all it amounted to. Now that the folks at JStreet are finished patting each other on the back for a job well done, I’d like to give them a perspective on the conference from one who did not…

By Ami Kaufman March 9, 2011

Graffiti "Wall=Landgrab," Abu Dis, September 2005 (Photo: Bright Tal (Political)/Flickr)

At J-Street, new terms describe Israeli reality

It's time to start calling things by their real name, and finding the language to describe Israel as it is today - and how we'd like it to be in the future.

By Dahlia Scheindlin March 2, 2011