Dennis Ross

Dennis B. Ross was born on November 26, 1948, in San Francisco, California, and raised in Belvedere, California. He attended the University of California, Los Angeles, graduating in 1970 and completing graduate work with a doctoral dissertation focused on Soviet decision-making. Ross’s early career in government began during President Jimmy Carter’s administration, where he worked under Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz at the Pentagon. In the Reagan administration, he held roles as director of Near East and South Asian affairs in the U.S. National Security Council and as Deputy Director of the Pentagon’s Office of Net Assessment from 1982 to 1984. During this period, he also spent time in academia, serving as executive director of the Berkeley-Stanford program on Soviet international behavior from 1984 to 1986.

Under President George H. W. Bush, Ross was the Director of the State Department’s Policy Planning Staff, contributing to U.S. policy on the former Soviet Union, German reunification, NATO integration, arms control, and the 1991 Gulf War. He played a key role in bringing Arab and Israeli leaders to the 1991 Middle East peace conference in Madrid. Ross continued his crucial work in foreign policy as the Middle East envoy under President Bill Clinton. In this capacity, he was instrumental in facilitating the 1995 Interim Agreement between Israelis and Palestinians and brokered the 1997 Protocol Concerning the Redeployment in Hebron. He also supported the Israel-Jordan peace treaty and worked on negotiations between Israel and Syria. His efforts in diplomacy were recognized with the Presidential Medal for Distinguished Federal Civilian Service by President Clinton.

After his tenure as envoy, Ross became a fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy and chaired the Jewish People Policy Planning Institute. He shared his expertise as an adjunct professor at Georgetown University, Marquette University, Brandeis University, and Harvard University’s Kennedy School. He also contributed frequently to major publications such as The Washington Post and The New York Times, and served as a foreign affairs analyst for Fox News. In the Obama administration, from 2009 to 2011, Ross served as Special Advisor for the Persian Gulf and Southwest Asia to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and later as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for the Central Region.