Moshe Arens

Template:MKs Professor Moshe Arens (Hebrew: משה ארנס, born 27 December 1925 in Kaunas, Lithuania) is an Israeli politician. He was a member of the Likud party, and served as Minister of Defense three times.

Arens immigrated to the United States with his family in 1939 and became an American citizen. As a youth, Arens became a leader in the Betar Zionist youth movement. In 1948, when Israel declared its independence, Arens immigrated to Israel and joined the Irgun militant group, then led by Menachem Begin. After the war he entered politics and was elected to the Knesset as a member of Likud in 1973. Arens eventually became chairman of the Knesset's committee on foreign affairs and defense.

In 1981, Begin, who was prime minister at that time, appointed Arens to be the ambassador to the United States. He left that position in 1983 when he became defense minister for the first time, replacing Ariel Sharon. In 1984 he became minister without portfolio in the national unity government. In December 1988, in the government of Yitzhak Shamir, Arens was appointed foreign minister and held that position until June 1990, when Shamir appointed him defense minister again. He held that position until 1992, when Likud lost the national elections. Arens continued to be seen as a hardliner in Israel's relations with the Arabs.

Following the 1992 electoral defeat, Arens retired from politics until 1999, when he challenged his protege Benjamin Netanyahu for leadership of Likud. Though he received only 18% of the vote, Netanyahu brought him into the government as defense minister in January 1999, sacking Yitzhak Mordechai. Arens retired from politics permanently later in 1999 when Likud lost the election.

Today, Prof. Moshe Arens is Chairman of the International Board of Governors of the Ariel University Center of Samaria and writes for the newspaper Haaretz.

Significance in the State and Likud

Moshe Arens is considered by many to have been the Likud's ideological anchor on the right. One of the founding members of Begin's Herut ("Freedom") Party in 1948, Arens helped Begin seize the mantle and inheritance of the founder of Revisionist Zionism, Vladimir Jabotinsky, who had died in 1940 unexpectedly and without a clear heir. Arens had been the representative in North America in the 1940s for the movement's youth organization Betar. He voted against the Camp David Accords, and was one of the chief opponents of the Wye Plantation Agreement.

When Begin resigned in 1983 from his position as premier of the State of Israel, a clear rivalry immediately took hold between Yitzhak Shamir and Arens, then still serving as ambassador in Washington. Shamir had always been considered the more seasoned political boss, whereas Arens had played the dignified statesman. Arens hoped to follow in the footsteps of another ambassador to the US who had jumped into the prime minister's seat, Yitzhak Rabin (1974-77, 1992-95). The fact that Rabin had pole vaulted over Shimon Peres, the Alignment's equivalent of Shamir, also strengthened his chances.

But as chairman of the Knesset Shamir automatically was elected by the body to succeed Begin until the May 1984 elections. This gave Shamir a leg up that he used to cement his already massive influence among Likud party bosses in the nation's party branches, leading to his sweeping defeat of Arens in the party's primary vote. The Likud failed to retain complete control in the Knesset that year and was forced to share power with Peres' Alignment.

Throughout the next year and a half Arens served as Minister of Defense. His work was impeded by continued problems resulting from Israel's occupation of southern Lebanon. He also met opposition to his work in revamping the Israeli Air Force by introducing the new IAI Lavi fighter jet, a project he had personally led since 1980. Then-Deputy Chief of Staff Ehud Barak of Israel's armed forces, appointed in 1987, opposed the project. By that time the Lavi had cost the Defense Ministry 6.4 billion dollars in funding for a development that had yet to bear fruit. Eventually others in the political establishment were swayed to back the view, including Chief of Staff Dan Shomron.

In 1984 Arens' power shrank significantly while that of other grassroots and populist Likud bosses like David Levy and Moshe Katzav rose. This was partly due to their support of Shamir in the showdown for the Likud nomination. In both the Peres-led national unity coalition (1984-86) and the Shamir-led one (1986-88) Arens was a Minister without Portfolio.

In 1988 Arens once again failed in his challenge to Shamir. Nevertheless he was boosted by the election of his protege Netanyahu to the Knesset. Netanyahu had been one of Arens' most valuable assets in the embassy in Washington, and Arens had rewarded this by arranging the appointment of the young diplomat in 1983 as Israel's UN delegate.

Though always viewed as a more principled alternative to Shamir, Arens never materialized as a worthy opponent of his nemesis. Shamir still recognized him as a threat, and in fact responded to Netanyahu's entrance into politics by backing his own young protege Tzahi Hanegbi. Arens was threatened by the reputation he had as a hardliner, whereas many Likud voters felt that the settlement movement and other rightist enterprises could be better advanced by the more seasoned and pragmatic Shamir.

In 1988 Shamir won the election to become the uncontested prime minister, having rotated with Peres in the previous Knesset term. For Arens this meant becoming foreign minister, a position that he excelled at, though the challenge of fending off criticism of Israel's policies in the First Intifadeh proved too challenging even for him. Arens also was harassed by the embarrassing Jonathan Pollard espionage fiasco, which steepened the already steady decline in relations between Israel and the US that had begun during the invasion of Lebanon in 1982.

In 1990, Arens was thrust into the spotlight again when Minister of Finance Peres and Defence Minister Yitzhak Rabin both resigned, intending to organize a majority in the Knesset for the election of Peres as premier. Arens occupied Rabin's chair, a move that almost led to the retirement of Ehud Barak from the armed forces. Barak feared that Arens held a grudge against him for the Lavi affair, and would pass him over for chief of staff. Arens instead defied predictions and appointed Barak over his main competitor Yitzhak Mordechai. Relations between the two soon became excellent, despite their contrasting politics and Barak's clear preference for the Labour Party. In 1992 this successful period as Defence Minister came to an end when Rabin swept Labour into power in the election and reoccupied the Defence Ministry. Arens' periods in the ministry can be remembered mostly for continuing Rabin's policies of revamping IDF combat units for urban warfare during the First Intifada.

Long Retirement

Shamir's defeat in 1992 also spelled the end of Arens' as a potential Likud chairman. Immediately following the election a series of financial crises were discovered within the party organization, all of which were spurred by fifteen years of uncontrolled corruption by members of the party's leadership. Younger Likud members were calling for the throne, hoping that they could reform the party and mould it into a better seat of opposition. Arens therefore backed Netanyahu, who had served as deputy foreign minister under Shamir, in the race for the leadership against the leader of the Likud's war hawks Ariel Sharon, and the populist messages of David Levy. To the surprise of the press and public Netanyahu won in a landslide, partly as a result of his excellent television personality and knowledge that his connections in the US could pay off for the Israeli Right.

Arens's last challenge for the party leadership was in 1999, against then-Prime Minister Netanyahu. The failed candidacy nevertheless gained him the Defence Ministry portfolio again. He occupied that position from January to May of that year, when Ehud Barak of Labour/One Israel crushed Netanyahu, and Arens' returned to retirement. Since then he has continued to be a part of the Likud's ideological camp that opposed the Gaza Withdrawal of 2005, and backed the policies of the "Rebels" faction led by MK Dr. Uzi Landau.

Arens has supported calls for a state committee of inquiry into the 2006 Lebanon War. On September 12, he spoke on Israel Radio of "the defeat of Israel". Asked what questions he thought should be addressed, he said, "Well first of all we lost, and we lost to a very small group of people, 5000 Hizbullah fighters which should have been no match at all for the IDF. The civilian population was abandoned. Over a million people were in shelters and had to leave their homes. Half of the north of the country was destroyed. It's incomprehensible, it's unimaginable and it could have some very fateful consequences for the future."

External links

Moshe Arens on the Knesset website