Broken Covenant: American Foreign Policy and the Crisis Between the U.S. and Israel (review)

BookReviews 139 Broken Covenant: American Foreign Policy and the Crisis Between the U.S. and Israel, by Moshe Arens. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995. 320 pp. $25.00. It must be nice to be perfect. This book presents a portrait of one of the most omniscient, perceptive, and not always adequately appreciated statesmen ofmodem times. The book shares with us his perception of many of the historical roots of the current situation in the Middle East, his suggestions for how to solve virtually all extant problems, and the way these problems got worse when his advice was not followed. That is, ofcourse, ifthe reader accepts the perspective ofthe author. Moshe Arens shows us in this volume that he offered advice to a substantial number of significant actors in relation to matters dealing with the modern Middle East, including virtually all Israeli political leaders during a period from the early eighties through the early nineties. His advice, according to him, was always correct, but, unfortunately for modem civilization, was not always followed: It must be noted, ofcourse, that many ofthe above observations might apply to most political autobiography/personal account narratives that appear on the bookshelves of scholars in any field, not just those who write about Israeli politics and government. Politicians want to be remembered as being perceptive, sensitive, insightful, and most of all, correct, and when they write autobiographies they'want it made clear that they were correct in their perceptions, and that those who did not agree with them were incorrect. In many respects, then, Arens is no different from this large number ofpoliticians who try to put their own "spin" on the political world within which they lived. What is difficult about this particular book is the, for want of a better term, heavyhanded way that Arens goes about this. The book is not written in the form of a diary, but it is certainly a personal perspective. The reader will have a hint ofthis when (s)he looks at almost any page in the volume and sees the blatant overuse ofthe personal pronoun "I" throughout. On one randomly opened page this reader found "I heard," "I thought," "I was shocked," "I knew," "I assumed," "I concluded," "I decided," and "I said," all giving us insights into Arens' thinking (or Arens' perceptions in 1995 about what his thinking was in 1988). Throughout the book we get Arens' speeches-a few in full text-so there is little doubt about what Arens said or did (again, what Arens in 1995 remembers that Arens said or did years previously). To take just one example, the reader has the opportunity to read what appears to be the full text ofArens' speech to Shimon Peres when he took over the Foreign Ministry portfolio from him in 1988, followed by his perception that "I had no illusions that Peres was going to take my advice seriously" (p. 33). The advantage of this kind of book is that it gives the reader a "fly on the wall" perspective of events that would simply not be possible from any other source. The disadvantage ofthis kind ofbook is that the "fly" has a clear agenda ofits own, and it is up to the reader to determine the credibility ofthe observer. When Arens tells us that he met with James Baker on a certain date and their conversation followed one path, but James Baker "leaked" an account of that meeting to the New York Times that bore "little 140 SHOFAR Spring 1997 Vol. 15, No.3 resemblance to what had actually taken place," who is the reader to believe? All that one can do is to read the entire book, make a general conclusion about Arens' general credibility, and go from there. . There certainly are a number ofinteresting topics covered in this volume. Arens begins with "his" electoral strategy in 1988 that apparently saved the Likud from an otherwise unavoidable loss. We read about his taking actions and giving interviews that Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir didn't like. We read about his pathbreaking policies with the Druze that were responsible for Druze support for Likud, which in turn was responsible for Likud's election victory. We...