You can watch Ambassador Ross’ talk just below. It is also available on Youtube. Thanks to Ron Duncan-Hart and Gaon Video for recording and editing the evening.
[Please note that this recording works well on a computer, iPad, TV, or other device that has dual-channel (stereo) sound capability. You will not be able to hear the sound on a mono-channel cell phone, for example. We hope to fix this sometime in the near future.]
Many thanks to our sponsors and hosts (listed below), and to our many volunteers, for helping to make this event so successful – over 310 people attended, including approximately 93 high school students and their teachers.
Amb. Ross was on Dave Marash’s Here and There on KSFR 101.1 FM that aired on Feb. 14, 2017. You can listen to that interview by clicking here.
Santa Fe Middle East Watch Presents
Ambassador Dennis Ross
“The US-Israel Relationship from Truman to Trump”
Location: James A. Little Theater, 1060 Cerrillos Road, Santa Fe
Ambassador Dennis Ross is counselor and William Davidson Distinguished Fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy. From 2009-2011 he served as special assistant to President Obama and National Security Council senior director for the Central Region, and a year as special advisor to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.
A highly skilled diplomat, Ambassador Ross was U.S. point man on the peace process in both the George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton administrations. He was instrumental in assisting Israelis and Palestinians to reach the 1995 Interim Agreement, successfully brokered the 1997 Hebron Accord, facilitated the 1994 Israel-Jordan peace treaty, and intensively worked to bring Israel and Syria together.
A scholar and diplomat with more than two decades of experience in Soviet and Middle East policy, Ambassador Ross worked closely with Secretaries of State James Baker, Warren Christopher, and Madeleine Albright. Prior to his service as special Middle East coordinator under President Clinton, Ambassador Ross served as director of the State Department’s Policy Planning Staff in the first Bush administration, playing a prominent role in U.S. policy toward the former Soviet Union, the unification of Germany and its integration into NATO, arms control negotiations, and the 1991 Gulf War coalition.
During the Reagan administration, Ambassador Ross served as director of Near East and South Asian affairs on the National Security Council staff and deputy director of the Pentagon’s Office of Net Assessment. Ambassador Ross was awarded the Presidential Medal for Distinguished Federal Civilian Service by President Clinton, and Secretaries Baker and Albright presented him with the State Department’s highest award.
A 1970 graduate of UCLA, Ambassador Ross wrote his doctoral dissertation on Soviet decisionmaking, and from 1984 to 1986 served as executive director of the Berkeley-Stanford program on Soviet International Behavior. He received UCLA’s highest medal and has been named UCLA alumnus of the year. He has also received honorary doctorates from Brandeis, Amherst, Jewish Theological Seminary, and Syracuse University. Ambassador Ross was named a 2016-2017 senior fellow by Yale University’s Jackson Institute for Global Affairs.
Ambassador Ross has published extensively on the former Soviet Union, arms control, and the greater Middle East, contributing numerous chapters to anthologies. In the 1970s and 1980s, his articles appeared in World Politics, Political Science Quarterly, Orbis, International Security, Survival, and Journal of Strategic Studies. Since leaving government at the end of 2011, he has authored many op-eds in the New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal.
Ross is the author of many scholarly papers and chapters in anthologies in the areas of the former Soviet Union, arms control, and the greater Middle East, and of several influential books on the Middle East peace process:
Doomed to Succeed: The U.S.-Israel Relationship from Truman to Obama (2015), awarded the 2015 National Jewish Book Award for history;
Myths, Illusions, and Peace: Finding a New Direction for America in the Middle East (2009) with Washington Institute peace process expert David Makovsky;
Statecraft, And How to Restore America’s Standing in the World (2007), which the NY Times called “important and illuminating;”
The Missing Peace: The Inside Story of the Fight for Middle East Peace (2004), offering comprehensive analytical and personal insight into the Middle East peace process.
Copies of Ross’ Doomed to Succeed will be available for purchase and to be personally signed by the Ambassador after the talk.
Thanks to our Major Sponsors ($750+) for this event:
Halley & Ruth Anne Faust
Gottstein Family Foundation
Jewish Federation of New Mexico
Bonnie Kohl & John Liebman
Marcia Torobin in memory of Len Torobin
Thanks to our Hosts ($180) for the evening:
Lance & Julia Bell
Eva & Edward Borins
Jean & George Callaghan
Abigail Davidson & Paddy Rawal
Jeff Diamond, Esq.
Robert & Jeana Efroymson
Drs. Joseph & Janet Eigner
Drs. Bonnie Ellinger & Paul Golding
Doris Francis-Erhard
Robert B. Geller, MD
Drs. Todd Goldblum & Barbara Einhorn
Dr. Steven & Susan Goldstein
Phil Goldstone & Heidi Hahn
Daniel & Naomi Israel
Drs. Susan & Gary Katz
Reggie Klein
Dr and Mrs Lee Levin
Rabbi Martin Levy & Kaycee Cantor
Dr. Richard Lieberman
Rita & Michael Linder
Santa Fe Jewish Center – Chabad
Marvin Schneider
Dr. Dirk Wassner & Janie Siskin
Phillip & Leslie Stern
Nate & Bina Thompkins
Norman & Marcell Wallace
Kudos to our Speakers Committee:
Lance Bell, Chairman
Julia Bell, schools liaison
Ron Duncan-Hart, videorecording
Halley Faust, ticket sales
Phil Goldstone, moderator
Kristina Krenzel, reception/food
Janie Siskin, design of printed materials
Dirk Wassner, security
Ambassador Ross also spoke in Albuquerque on Thursday, February 16, 7:30 pm at the Hotel Andaluz, sponsored by the Jewish Federation of New Mexico.
We’d like to thank Son Broadcasting, and station KCHF (channel 11) for advertising Ambassador Ross’ events in both Santa Fe and Albuquerque, and for John Sandager’s excellent interview of Ambassador Ross. This interview was taped on February 16, and first aired on February 18 on the program “Israel in Focus.” It will be replayed Saturday night, March 18, at 8:00 pm. and periodically thereafter.
Santa Fe Middle East Watch is a beneficiary organization of the Jewish Federation of New Mexico.