The Dissembling of Dennis Ross

A Very Good Piece
By Tony Karon

"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.....More insidious, however, are his efforts to shape the U.S. response to the current situation in the Palestinian territories......

Ross opens thus: “It may be fashionable among some in Washington or even Tel Aviv to believe that it is time to talk to Hamas. But to the members of Fatah and the Palestinian independents in the West Bank with whom I have been meeting, it surely is not. What you hear from them is that Hamas is made up of killers; that they want to be part of a larger Islamist empire; that they are already trying to bring Iran to Gaza; and that the worse thing to do now is to reward Hamas with recognition.”

Do you think we were born yesterday, Dennis? Have you bothered to ask yourself what the agenda of these Fatah members and Palestinian independents you are taking to might be? And why it is that they’re sounding like they’re running for office in the U.S. and seeking AIPAC endorsement? Could it be, Dennis, that you’ve managed to unearth a Palestinian Chalabi or two? Mazeltov, it took you long enough… “Hamas is made up of killers…” That’s straight out of Bush’s mouth. And what of Fatah, Dennis? No killers in Fatah? And does this mean that the Palestinian electorate has opted to be ruled by killers? (I guess that would be a convenient propaganda line for the purposes of those, like yourself, Dennis, who have now deemed it necessary to shut down Palestinian democracy.)......

Hamas’s number 2, Abu Marzook, recently explained its position in an L.A. Times Op Ed.......

Ross even falls into the crudest Likudnik habit of linking Qaeda-style jihadism and Iranian ambitions. Hamas, he warns us, via his Palestinian sources, “has already begun to bring Iran into Gaza.” Right, and al-Qaeda, too, according to Abbas, crying wolf in the hope of getting what he wants out of Washington.....

Dennis’s sources, who I can only imagine must be from that handful of corrupted Fatah chaps who have thrown in their lot with the U.S. — but who are increasingly beleaguered even within Fatah as more and more of the leadership looks to distance itself from Washington and reconcile with Hamas, must be getting a little desperate.....

The Saudis and Egyptians hate Hamas, and are threatened by it, but they’re not stupid, Dennis. They’re pressing for rapprochement between Fatah and Hamas because they know that Hamas is currently more representative than Fatah of the Palestinian people, and that there is neither peace nor stability to be achieved by maintaining the fiction that Mahmoud Abbas can speak on behalf of the Palestinians without the consent their elected government. If there was any other way to make Hamas disappear, Dennis, you can be sure the Saudis and particularly the Egyptians would jump at it.....

...But what Dennis the Sage appears to avoid is to ask the question why are Palestinians alienated from Fatah? Yes, Dennis, I know, you’ll tell yourself that the answer is corruption, even as the Administration continues to coddle the most corrupt element in Fatah. But the true answer is simply that Fatah lost its way; the Palestinian electorate could see that its path of negotiation, much of it under Ross’s stewardship, had only brought the Palestinians more settlements and checkpoints. They could see that Sharon had no intention of ending the occupation. And frankly, I think many of their leaders tacitly recognized that Fatah had abandoned its national goals, which accelerated the onset of an “every man for himself” ethos of corruption.....

...Prime Minister Fayyad may be quite the favorite in Washington, but he has a little problem — his government has not been, nor will it be approved by the Palestinian legislature. It is not really a legal government, Dennis. You either build democratic institutions, or you build Fatah — how on earth can you even suggest that the two are interchangeable?

.....Good idea, Dennis. Except that the next generation of Fatah leaders, led by Marwan Barghouti from his Israeli prison cell, are advocating the exact opposite of your Fatah sources — they want Fatah to distance itself from the disastrous U.S. positions and reconcile with Hamas.

...Sooner or later, the U.S. and Israel will be forced to reckon with the political choices of the Palestinians, which will mean, among other things, talking to Hamas....."