Ideas travel. A couple months ago I saw Jerry Haber going on about Daniel Kurtzer's book Negotiating Middle East Peace. An amazing book, it calls for presidents to ignore the Israel lobby and have diverse negotiating teams. Well now here is Rami Khouri the Lebanese-Palestinian columnist late of the Wilson Center going on about the book's great lessons. Khouri is a very diplomatic guy. He singles out one name from the book: "Dennis Ross was one of the envoys mentioned by name as not being seen as credible by all sides." Ross of the rightwing thinktank WINEP, Ross who served to undercut his boss Bush on the settlements in '91, who then campaigned for the settlements in '92, led a team that was "Israel's lawyer" at Camp David in '00, and who argued that there is no Israel lobby in '06. He is the living body of the Israel lobby. And lo, he is now back with Obama. I hope Obama's deal with him is strictly tactical.
