Tony Karon writes:
It is time someone in the mainstream media (besides my hard-working friend Scott MacLeod, here and here) took to task Dennis Ross, the AIPAC man who served the first Bush Adminsitration and then Clinton as a Middle East mediator, before returning to the AIPAC fold — but who is treated by the U.S. media as some sort of yoda figure, the fount of jedi wisdom in managing the Middle East.
Having presided over the failure of the U.S. to secure an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement, he now puts himself forward as a sage among sages (lately by writing a book about “statecraft” in which he introduces some of the .101s of diplomacy as if these were prophetic revelations, and always evading the policy failures he helped author). More insidious, however, are his efforts to shape the U.S. response to the current situation in the Palestinian territories.
That the U.S. should be talking to Hamas is blindingly obvious to anyone who believes in settling conflicts peacefully, and there are plenty of reasons to believe Hamas is open to a pragmatic dialogue — not least the fact that it's leaders keep stressing the fact that they want to talk — . But Ross exposes the hardline gatkes he has on beneath that pragmatic suit in his latest contribution to the New Republic (where Likudnik gatkes are something of a uniform, I suppose.)
These aren't disputes I've much insight on, but given Ross's reputation as a wise man on all things peace process related, Karon's criticisms deserve to be aired. His demolition of Ross's argument against talking to Hamas is particularly useful.
