So, did they want him to sing, talk about the NCAA games or discuss the Middle East?
Dennis Ross left the decision up to the audience of nearly 300 attending the Anti-Defamation League’s annual Silicon Valley dinner Sunday, March 23 at the Crown Plaza in Palo Alto. And, apparently, the crowd came to hear the keynote speaker’s thoughts on the turmoil in the Middle East.
“So I’m not going to break out in song — unless I get a request,” joked Ross, former Middle East envoy and peace broker for Presidents Clinton and George H.W. Bush.
Ross now works as the Ziegler Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and serves as the chairman of a new Jerusalem-based think tank, the Institute for Jewish People Policy Planning.
“If we think about the Middle East, we are thinking about an array of problems,” he told the crowd.
He began with Iran, whose president has recently stated publicly that the Holocaust is a myth, Israel should be taken off the map, and the state of Israel should only be allowed to exist in Austria and Germany.
In the last three years, Iran has drawn closer to developing nuclear technology, Ross said, adding that he thinks the anti-Semitic comments by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad were not off the cuff, but carefully calculated. Iran appears to be optimistic about its global position, he added, because it views the military presence in Iraq by the United States as leverage.
Ross suggested two ways the United States might deal with Iran. One is to boycott refined goods — $45 million of Iran’s $53 million export revenue is derived from oil, he said. He also recommended that America place an embargo on cultural events, such as soccer, if Iran does not comply with global nuclear weapon laws.
“We could say, ‘You can’t go to the World Cup if you insist on defying nuclear laws,'” he said.
Transitioning the conversation to Israel and the Palestinians, Ross quipped, “When Hamas was elected, I was very depressed that day. But my wife asked me, ‘Why are you so depressed? You’ve got lifetime employment.'”
The conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, he said, is filled with paradox.
One example: While Israelis are ready to move on with their lives and solve the conflict with the Palestinian people, Ross said, Hamas does not want to have anything to do with the Israelis, which makes it tough when it comes time to negotiate.
Paradox No. 2, he said, is that while Hamas won the election, it has to face the reality that it needs to work with Israel. After all, Palestinians depend on Israel to support their economy.
“If you’re Hamas, you may not like Israel, but the real world says you have to deal with it,” he said.
This leads to the other paradox.
“Hamas said it will create industry, end corruption and encourage trade,” Ross said. “But there’s only one problem with that: Hamas can’t deliver one promise if it doesn’t work with Israel.”
While Hamas may not be the ideal leader, Palestinians need to stop living in a false reality of victimhood, and need to hold themselves, as well as their leaders, accountable for their current state, Ross said.
After the meeting, the former Marin County resident said that on a local level, Bay Area residents should promote dialogue between Jews and Muslims. He credited the ADL, an organization dedicated to fighting anti-Semitism and all forms of hate crimes, as being a leader in continuing to fight the perpetuation of hate.
Palo Alto Mayor Judy Kleinberg was impressed with Ross’ speech.
“I thought he had an interesting perspective,” she said. “It was extremely interesting to couch the conflict with identifying what the [Israelis and Palestinians] have in common.”
Locally, she said that Palo Alto residents have outlets that can help them cope with the conflict. “We’re very lucky in our community to have organizations that provide networks for Jews and Muslims,” she said.