Ross (The Missing Peace
) and Makovsky (Making Peace with the PLO
) contend that if the U.S. wants to broker peace in the Middle East, it must cease operating from ideological assumptions and “see the world as it is.” Ross, now an adviser to Hillary Clinton, was chief negotiator for the Clinton administration, and Makovsky is with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy; their call comes with real bona fides. “Context matters,” they write—but they, too, fail to consider the entire context in question: Israel is all but denied agency, as the authors fail to address the impact of its occupation of Palestinian lands. What may be the crux of the book is found in a mention of This Much Too Promised Land
by Ross’s former deputy, Aaron David Miller, which examines American negotiating mistakes, including the efforts of his and Ross’s team. Ross and Makovsky’s open antagonism to Miller suggest they may be less interested in learning from errors than in explaining why everyone else is wrong. (June)
