If there were an election today, Netanyahu would win. Yet, his standing in the polls is also a reflection of the weakness of Ehud Olmert, the current prime minister - who stands at 2 percent in a recent poll - and the enduring weaknesses of the Labor Party.

Ross returned briefly to academia in the 1980s serving as executive director of the Berkeley-Stanford program on Soviet International Behavior from 1984-1986. His Jewish mother and Catholic stepfather raised him in a non-religious atmosphere. intervention in "the Persian Gulf Region because of our need for Persian Gulf oil and because events in the Persian Gulf affect the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Ross (born November 26 1948) is an American diplomat and author. Bush the special Middle East coordinator under President Bill Clinton and was a special adviser for the Persian Gulf and Southwest Asia (which includes Iran) to the former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. He has served as the Director of Policy Planning in the State Department under President George H.