Dennis Ross, who was the American envoy to the Middle East during the Clinton administration, said that he did not regret his efforts to promote a peace agreement between Israel and Syria in retrospect, even after seeing what is going on in Syria today. Ross revealed at an Arava Institute conference at the southern Israeli Kibbutz of Ketura that understandings were reached in negotiations with the late Syrian President Hafez Assad, father of the current Syrian President Bashar Assad, that Israeli citizens would be able to travel by vehicle to Syria and from there to Turkey and Europe. Hafez Assad also agreed to turn the Golan Heights into an economic zone in which Israel would be able to operate.
With regard to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Dennis Ross declared that he did not believe a solution was viable, other than the internationally-aspired two-state solution, which would provide the Palestinians with a state of their own in exchange for security assurances for Jerusalem, that would practically guarantee a Jewish majority in Israel.