Whatever happened to Dennis Ross?

UPDATES

9:00 am Israel time, Monday, June 29 2015

**A foreboding of things to come?

Yesterday saw in miniature, one of Israel’s worst nightmares. In the morning we had a missile fired from Palestinian terrorists in Gaza at southern Israel. In the afternoon, we had a female Hamas terrorist try to jump the separation fence at Qalqilya armed with a gun and on a mission to murder Israelis. In the late afternoon, we had a missile (or mortar) fired by terrorists in Syria at northern Israel.

Just imagine what would happen if Israel had to wage war on three fronts? Can you even begin to think what the situation would be if the terrorists in Gaza were launching hundreds of missiles at southern Israel, the terrorists in Lebanon and Syria were launching thousands of missiles at northern and central Israel, and thousands of PLO and Hamas terrorists suddenly attacked in the heart of the country?

It would not be a pretty sight–and Israel’s ability to defend itself against such an onslaught would be problematical to say the least.

**What has happened to the “Passengers for Freedom Flotilla Bound for Gaza III”?

It has quickly fallen by the wayside. 

As predicted, at about 5 am this morning, the Israeli Navy intercepted the fauxtilla headed by the ship “Marianne” which was carrying 47 passengers on a fun-ride bound for Gaza.

The ship is now under control of navy personnel and is being brought to the port here in Ashdod.  The boats accompanying the Marianne agreed to return to Europe.

The takeover of the tiny ship took place without any violence whatsoever. All 47 on board will be arrested upon arrival in Ashdod–and undoubtedly released in short order to return from whence they came.

PM Netanyahu released this statement a few hours ago which reads in part: 

“We are not prepared to accept the entry of war materiel to the terrorist organizations in Gaza as has been done by sea in the past. Just last year we foiled an attempt to smuggle by sea hundreds of weapons that were destined for use in attacks against Israel’s citizens.

There is no siege on Gaza. Israel assists in transferring goods and humanitarian equipment to Gaza – approximately 800 trucks a day that have recently brought into Gaza more than 1.6 million tons of goods. Moreover, Israel assists in hundreds of humanitarian projects, through international organizations, including the building of clinics and hospitals.

Israel is a state that seeks peace and acts in accordance with international law so that the residents of Gaza might have safe lives and their children may grow up in peace and quiet.”

All of what Netanyahu says is true, but nobody in the world cares.

**By the way, some of what Netanyahu says is “unfortunately true”:

Especially the part about the “approximately 800 trucks a day that have recently brought into Gaza more than 1.6 million tons of goods”. Last night Israeli TV showed a segment that first appeared on Palestinian TV in which Hamas revealed a brand-new 3.8 km long tunnel that has been dug under the border into the Israel.

Right under the noses of the IDF which has done nothing, and a tunnel undoubtedly built with some of those “goods” that Israel is trucking into Gaza.

**In the neighborhood:

In an unusually candid and detailed admission of casualties, the Iranian official news agency Fars gave an accounting today of the recent fighting in Syria. According to Fars, “at least” 400 Iranian and Afghan fighters have been killed.

Fars says that the Iranian province which has suffered the most casualties is Khorasan Province in the northeastern part of Iran.  More than 79 Afghan immigrants to the city of Mashhad in Khorasan who had joined (or were conscripted) into the Iranian army are among the dead. Regular readers of israelstreet may recall that several months ago, we reported that Iran was flying in Afghans to shore up its own forces in Syria.

This Fars news comes in the wake of numerous funerals which took place in Iran last week.

Meanwhile, Iran’s proxy Hezbollah suffered another significant loss in Syria yesterday when fighters of the IS-affiliated Jabhat al Nucera targeted a car full of Hezbollah commanders and sub-commanders who were driving in the Qalamoun Mountains. All of the Hezbollah officers were killed.

A little further south, al Nucera has apparently brought in heavy artillery to pound the surrounded Druze town of Khader. Whether the residents can hold out against the barrage remains to be seen.

TODAY’S BLOG:

Whatever happened to Dennis Ross?

How did he go from being a respected diplomat to being a shill for the Obama Administration?

Back in the 1980s, he and Martin Indyk (another person who in later years has become little more than a shill) co-founded the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Your humble servant remembers listening to Ross on numerous occasions and being impressed by his salient and often prescient observations.

But something began to go wrong in the 1990s as Ross fell into the sphere of Bill Clinton. Intimately involved in constructing what proved to be nightmarish agreements between Israel and the Palestinians, Ross himself drew up the so-called Clinton Parameters in 2000 which would have given away even more of Israel had they been followed (fortunately, they were dismissed by Yasser Arafat).

Those parameters are in themselves exemplary of how Ross became grossly inconsistent in regard to Israel. Ross himself has written in his book The Missing Piece that he personally pushed Ehud Barak to accept Palestinian sovereignty over eastern Jerusalem in 2000. Yet eight years later Ross had apparently reversed course and was responsible for Obama’s infamous AIPAC speech in which the president proclaimed that Jerusalem is “Israel’s capital” and “should not be divided again.” This speech was infamous because Obama disavowed it the next day.
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More recently, in February of this year, Ross came out strongly against PM Netanyahu’s speech before Congress. In an interview with the editor of Israel’s Haaretz newspaper, he blasted Netanyahu:  “You don’t do business that way. And when you make a mistake, admit it.” A month later, Ross had flipped again, declaring that Netanyahu had made a strong speech that must be answered by Obama.

Three weeks after that, on March 30, 2015, Ross was at it again this time appearing as the lead author of an article in Politico Magazine, inflammatorially titled “Israel’s Drive Toward Self-Destruction”. The gist of that article is that the onus is now on Israel to take the first step toward initiating yet another new “peace process” with the Palestinians. 

And what might those steps be? According to the article, they would be greatly restricting construction of Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria and allowing Palestinians to build in Area C of Judea and Samaria. In other words, Ross would have us return to the discredited Oslo Accords and Clinton Parameters as the way forward toward peace. And what would Israel get in return? Hilariously, Ross suggests that Israel should not expect much more than a Palestinian promise “to commit anew to a negotiated outcome.”

Simply unbelievable.

All of which brings me to why I am writing about Ross today–who was in Jerusalem yesterday on a whirlwind 24 hour stop.

In what has to be one of the greatest “spins” of all time, Ross explained how a further delay of three to six months in the Iranian nuclear talks would be “a good thing”:

“The good news is that the [Obama] Administration is sending the Iranians a signal that it will not be pressed by an artificial deadline into making adjustments that don’t fit into what the Administration thinks is necessary for an agreement.”

Say what?

The Obama Administration is sending the Iranians a signal that it will not be pressed by an artificial deadline?

The Iranians have been playing the West for fools by extending deadlines for over a decade. Extending the deadline yet again is certainly no sign of Obama strength; it is yet another sign of Obama weakness. With each deadline that passes, the Iranians wring more concessions out of a pusillanimous American president.

Not be pressed into making adjustments?

All the Obama Adminstration does is make adjustments. Every red line has been crossed. New promises are made to the Iranians by the day. As was noted in this blog yesterday, the agreement as we now know it would leave the Iranian nuclear weapons program intact, relieve economic sanctions, reveal nothing about Iran’s previous and current nuclear-military program, pay Iran more than a hundred million dollars, and build Iran two nuclear reactors.  

That don’t fit into what the Administration thinks is necessary for an agreement?

Isn’t this the real problem? Almost nothing is necessary for Obama Administration, and we undoubtedly would have had an agreement long before now were it not for the French who refused to go along (at least initially) with John Kerry and his minions.

In sum, those salient anaylses of Ross back in the 1980s have become partisan shills for Obama in 2015. The diminution of Dennis Ross has been a sad thing to watch.