The Broken Covenant: American Foreign Policy and the Crisis Between the U.S. and Israel.

• Author: Embree, John J.

The Bush administration's efforts to advance the Middle East peace process provide a vivid illustration of the maxim that he who tries to please everyone will ultimately please no one. Despite the undeniable achievement represented by the signing of the Rabin-Arafat agreement in September 1993, parties on both sides seem determined to deny the previous U.S. administration the credit it clearly deserves.

On the Israeli side, U.S. policy comes under attack by former Israeli Foreign and Defense Minister Moshe Arens, whose book The Broken Covenant: American Foreign Policy and the Crisis Between the U.S. and Israel condemns the Bush administration's treatment of Israel before, during and after the Gulf War. From the Palestinian perspective, US. Policy on Palestine from Wilson to Clinton, a collection of academic papers published by the Association of Arab-American University Graduates, seeks to show that U.S. policy since the First World War (including that of the Bush Administration) has been biased against the Palestinians.

Neither book makes any claim to objectivity. Indeed, the colors used on their respective jackets (red, black, green and white for U S. Policy on Palestine, sky blue on a white background for The Broken Covenant) leave little room for confusion as to the agendas pursued within. The tone is set by the authors' respective evaluations of the five-point proposal put forward by Secretary of State James Baker in October 1989. Cheryl A. Rubenberg, in US. Policy on Palestine, declares that, "clearly the American plan was tailored to suit Israel's interests," while Arens asserts that, "I could see the Egyptian hand in the formulation, which deviated significantly from the agreement Baker and I had reached in New York." This stubborn inclination to view a half-filled glass as being half-empty persists

Arens' subjectivity is a strong point when be applies it to drawing character sketches of the main players in the peace process. Perhaps the least inspiring character described by Arens is President Bush, who comes across as a remote, somewhat wooden figure. Even his supposedly redoubtable skills at working the telephone with foreign leaders are a disappointment; an exchange with Arens is limited to, "Mr. Minister, we just wanted to report to you on the Malta Summit. I am behind the Secretary of State's efforts. Please give my best regards to the prime minister."

Arens' complaints with respect to U.S. policy, however, are directed less at Bush than at James Baker, who was Arens' principal American interlocutor through June 1990, when...