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WASHINGTON — Dennis Ross is no stranger to personal attacks.

Whenever the peace process hits a bump in the road, it seems someone beats up verbally on the U.S. Middle East envoy.

During the late 1980s, when Israel came under U.S. pressure, some American Jews called Ross a traitor to the Jewish people.

When Benjamin Netanyahu, as opposition leader in Israel, battled the Israeli-Palestinian peace accords, he attacked Ross for leading Israel down a path to doom.

Now, as Israeli-Palestinian relations remain in a deep freeze, the point man for U.S. peace process policy is again facing fierce criticism.

The criticism comes as questions abound over the direction that Clinton will take in Arab-Israeli peacemaking, and over how new U.S. diplomatic players may shape policy.

The most public attack on Ross came from Palestinian Authority chairman Yasser Arafat, who wrote to President Clinton last week to complain about Ross.

Other senior Palestinian officials argued this week with renewed vigor that Ross favors Israel, and some now say that perhaps he is too Jewish to lead the negotiations.

The attacks come after the seasoned diplomat failed in his latest attempt to break a two-month impasse in Israeli-Palestinian talks.

Both the White House and the State Department are standing firmly behind Ross, who has toiled almost 10 years for Middle East peace.

After Arafat initially refused to meet with Ross Friday of last week at the end of Ross's two-week shuttle mission, the U.S. consul general in Jerusalem told reporters that Arafat was in essence refusing to meet with President Clinton.

The Palestinian leader hastily reversed course and received Ross, who had already left for Ben-Gurion airport to return home.

To make sure that the Palestinians got the message, Clinton and U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright issued statements backing Ross. They also plan to return him to the region as early as next week.

Bringing the Israelis and Palestinians back together for face-to-face talks continues to dominate the United States' agenda for the Middle East.

Talks stalled after Israel began constructing Jewish housing at Har Homa in southeastern Jerusalem, and a Palestinian suicide bomber killed three Israeli women at a Tel Aviv cafe on Purim.

But as the United States seeks the elusive formula required to rebuild trust between Israelis and Palestinians, pressure is mounting, often in competing directions, from the Palestinian Authority and Israel — and even from Washington.

One view, backed by Arafat and Israeli supporters of the Oslo Accords, calls for greater U.S. involvement.

But U.S. officials have already dimmed the chances of Clinton stepping up his personal role to break the impasse.

In an unusually blunt speech Sunday, Martin Indyk, the U.S. ambassador to Israel, said, "The core bargain of Oslo has broken down." There is no "trust" between Israelis and Palestinians, he said.

Labor opposition leader Shimon Peres, meanwhile, accused Netanyahu of deliberately killing the Oslo process.

"One cannot say that the peace process is frozen. There is no peace process," Peres said.

Netanyahu, for his part, is blaming the Palestinians for the current crisis — and the Palestinians are blaming the Americans.

"The Palestinian side has begun expecting in the past few years that they would get everything they demanded," Netanyahu said Monday. "But they won't. We will stand firm on our demands."

U.S. diplomats say Palestinians and Israelis must recommit themselves to peace talks before the United States gets more involved.

"They've got to want progress in the negotiations more than we do," said State Department spokesman Nicholas Burns.

If the impasse continues, with all of its attendant risks of renewed Israeli-Palestinian violence, some rethinking in the U.S. approach may come, especially after Albright fills out her team.

American activists point to upcoming staff changes that will bring Stuart Eizenstat and Thomas Pickering into Albright's inner circle of top State Department officials.

Eizenstat is the undersecretary of commerce who just completed a searing report on Switzerland's dealings with Nazi Germany. Veteran Middle East expert Thomas Pickering has served as U.S. ambassador to Israel, Jordan and the United Nations.

While neither official will have direct responsibility for Middle East policy, both bring considerable experience and fresh thinking to policymaking.

Indyk, who has worked with Ross for months to secure a package of Israeli concessions and Palestinian understandings aimed at rebuilding trust, is set to return to Washington to head the Near East office at the State Department.

Whether these officials advocate a more activist role for Albright, who has so far shied away from direct day-to-day Middle East problems, will likely depend as much on the parties to the talks as on White House thinking.

Rumors that Vice President Al Gore asked Clinton to refrain from pressuring Israel in order to avoid alienating potential Jewish voters for his anticipated presidential campaign in the year 2000 were denied by White House officials.

However, one political operative said, "If we're going to do it, do it now" instead of two years from now when Gore is in a primary battle.

Meanwhile, the United States is seeking proof that the Israelis and Palestinians are serious about moving forward, said one official.

The formula has been on the table for months, he said, referring to the package of concessions that Israel is prepared to offer the Palestinians if security cooperation resumes and Arafat stems terrorism.

But the Palestinians also want an Israeli pledge to stop West Bank settlement. Netanyahu has refused and so far Clinton, who has expressed concern about settlements, has not pressed Israel on the issue.

The United States is not about to walk away from the peace process.

"Solutions will not always arrive through dramatic gestures. More often they will arrive from patient, steady, determined diplomacy," Gore told the Anti-Defamation League in Washington this week.