This episode, which as far as I can tell has never before been made public, is recounted by Dennis Ross in ''The Missing Peace,'' his important, voluminous and keenly balanced memoir of 12 years as the central figure of American Middle East peace policies. The anecdote and its aftermath are a useful illustration of several themes that Ross develops. First, he is persuaded that at a certain moment, Assad was genuinely trying to make a deal with Israel. This is not widely accepted outside the Arab world. Second, Israel and its negotiating partners, both Syrians and Palestinians, were perpetually out of sync with one another. When Ross reported Assad's enthusiasm to the Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Barak, Barak came back with a new set of demands. And third, Barak did hope to make a far-reaching deal with Syrians and Palestinians, but ambitions for accomplishing both made the attainment of either more difficult. Barak wanted two years to withdraw settlers from the Golan Heights, to be returned to Syria as part of the deal. Why so long? He could not confront settlers from both the Golan Heights and the West Bank simultaneously.

Both deals failed, of course, the victims of numerous missteps on all sides. Explaining the collapse of Middle East peace efforts of recent years is the focus of a small and growing library. But no one has the broad perspective of Dennis Ross, who began his service under the first George Bush and continued it through eight years of Clinton and several Israeli governments. For that reason alone, this is a work of historical significance.

To the question of what went wrong, Ross offers two answers, one simple and one messy but no less true or important. The simple answer is that in the end Yasir Arafat, the Palestinian leader, was the principal cause of the failure. Ross illustrates this in numerous ways. The most important and dramatic is an account of late December 2000, when, with only a few weeks left in his administration, President Clinton suggested a set of guidelines to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Israeli cabinet accepted the framework with several reservations that were within the guidelines laid out by the president. Arafat did not. Ross recounts watching Clinton tell Arafat that by not responding to the American ideas, ''he was killing Barak and the peace camp in Israel.'' Arafat did not budge. As Ross puts it: ''A comprehensive deal was not possible with Arafat. . . . He could live with a process, but not with a conclusion.''

The second explanation, the messier one, is that neither side had taken sufficient steps to grasp the needs and neuroses of the other. Ross says ''the Israelis acted as if all decisions should be informed by their needs, not by possible Palestinian needs or reactions.'' Regarding the Arabs, he writes, ''The kind of transformation that would make it possible for the Arab world to acknowledge that Israel has needs has yet to take place.'' As for the American role, Ross puts it this way: ''Our great failing was not in misreading Arafat. Our great failing was in not creating the earlier tests that would have either exposed Arafat's inability to ultimately make peace or forced him to prepare his people for compromise.''

In truth, another realization emerges from these pages: Israel and the Arabs were always close to abandoning their negotiations. Behind ceremonies that from a distance seemed to indicate reconciliation lay walkouts and shouting matches. The most famous moment of Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking was the 1993 handshake between Rabin and Arafat on the South Lawn of the White House, yet until the very end both sides were threatening to stay away. Fifteen minutes before the ceremony, Ross was on one phone shouting at the Palestinians while on the other phone Martin Indyk, a top American official at the time, was shouting at the Israelis.

Ross's analysis of the peace process is astute, but the real service he performs in this book is less in explaining the meaning of events than in setting the record straight. There has been much dispute over what was offered to the Palestinians in the 2000 Camp David meeting and in the months that followed. This book should end that discussion. The final deal, made orally to the Palestinians and Israelis by Clinton, is laid out in the appendix. Broadly, the ideas were these:

Territory: The Palestinians would get all of Gaza and between 94 and 96 percent of the West Bank. In exchange for what they would not get of the West Bank, Israel would be required to give up between 1 percent and 3 percent of its own land.

Security: Israel would withdraw from the West Bank over 36 months with an international force gradually introduced into the area. A small Israeli presence in fixed locations would remain in the Jordan Valley under the authority of the international force for another 36 months. Palestine would be defined as a ''nonmilitarized state'' with a strong internal security force and an international presence for border and deterrence purposes.                           Continue>

Refugees: Palestinian refugees would either move to the new state of Palestine, be rehabilitated in their host country, resettle in a third country or be admitted to Israel if Israel so chose. None would have the right to return to Israel against Israel's will.

One of the reasons there has been so little clarity regarding this offer is that it evolved over eight months. The first offer made by Israel to the Palestinians in preparation for the July 2000 Camp David summit was for nearly 60 percent of the West Bank. Over time it could grow to 80 percent. The Palestinians walked out, and the next offer was for 87 percent. At Camp David itself, the offer was for 91 percent plus a 1 percent swap. In other words, the Palestinians were right to say no with such consistency. The deal kept improving. What they did not know was when to say yes.

Jerusalem: What is Arab in the city would be Palestinian and what is Jewish Israeli. Palestinians would have sovereignty over the plaza of the mosques and Israelis over the Western Wall.

Refugees: Palestinian refugees would either move to the new state of Palestine, be rehabilitated in their host country, resettle in a third country or be admitted to Israel if Israel so chose. None would have the right to return to Israel against Israel's will.

One of the reasons there has been so little clarity regarding this offer is that it evolved over eight months. The first offer made by Israel to the Palestinians in preparation for the July 2000 Camp David summit was for nearly 60 percent of the West Bank. Over time it could grow to 80 percent. The Palestinians walked out, and the next offer was for 87 percent. At Camp David itself, the offer was for 91 percent plus a 1 percent swap. In other words, the Palestinians were right to say no with such consistency. The deal kept improving. What they did not know was when to say yes.

As important as this work is to history, I am sorry to report that it makes little contribution to the art of storytelling. It is overly long and frequently dull. In 800-plus pages, Ross offers a landscape virtually devoid of humanity. We do not really get to know any of the leaders or any of Ross's close colleagues. What was it like to negotiate with Assad? We aren't told. Instead, we are treated to endless talk of the need for sleep and a shower.

There are a few spots where Ross lets his hair down. He clearly views Benjamin Netanyahu, the Likud politician and former prime minister, with contempt, and he says so. And as the Lewinsky and impeachment scandals start to overtake Clinton in late 1998, Ross observes him during a negotiation writing on his yellow legal pad, ''Focus on your job, focus on your job, focus on your job.''

There is also one exceptionally poignant and prescient moment near the book's end. It is Dec. 29, 2000, and Arafat still will not say yes. Ahmed Qurei, known as Abu Ala, a top Palestinian negotiator (later he became prime minister), has come to see Ross, who tells him the new president, George W. Bush, will want to have nothing to do with Arafat after Clinton's experience.

''Mark my words,'' Ross reports telling Abu Ala, ''they will disengage from the issue and . . . you will have Sharon as prime minister. He will be elected for sure if there is no deal, and your 97 percent will become 40 to 45 percent; your capital in East Jerusalem will be gone. . . .

''He looked at me sadly and with a note of complete resignation, replied, 'I am afraid it may take another 50 years to settle this now.' ''           End

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