Moshe Arens

Moshe, also known as Misha, Arens was born on December 27, 1925, in Kovno, Lithuania.[1][8] His father was an industrialist and his mother a dentist, and the family moved to Riga, Latvia, when he was a small child.[8] In 1939, they emigrated to the United States, where Arens continued his education.[3] He grew up in New York before beginning the engineering studies that preceded his work in Israel’s aircraft industry.[3]

Arens attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology but interrupted his studies in 1944 to serve in the United States Army Corps of Engineers.[3] His army service lasted from 1944 to 1946, and he reached the rank of technical sergeant.[9] After World War II, he completed his mechanical-engineering studies, graduating from MIT in 1947.[9][5] His education and wartime service thus gave him experience in engineering before his immigration to Israel and subsequent involvement in aircraft development.[9][5]

Alongside his engineering studies, Arens became active in the Revisionist Zionist movement.[4] He served as Betar commissioner in the United States in 1947–1948 and subsequently worked as an Irgun emissary in Europe and North Africa in 1948–1949.[4] He immigrated to Israel in 1948, during the War of Independence, and joined the Irgun, led by Menachem Begin.[3][9] The organization sent him to Jewish communities in North Africa and Europe to help organize self-defense groups.[3] These assignments connected his early Zionist activity with practical efforts to protect Jewish communities outside Israel.[3][9]

Arens also participated in the settlement group associated with Mevo Beitar, where he lived before returning to the United States for further study.[4] In 1949, he became a founding member of Herut, the Revisionist Zionist party that grew out of the Irgun.[3] His association with Begin therefore preceded his parliamentary career by decades, encompassing the Irgun, the establishment of Herut, and later service within Likud.[3][4]

In 1951, Arens returned to the United States to study aeronautical engineering at the California Institute of Technology.[3] He received a master’s degree in 1953 and worked in jet-engine development at Wright Corporation during his years in the United States.[9] His technical training combined mechanical engineering at MIT with advanced study of aviation and propulsion at Caltech, subjects that became central to his later academic and industrial work in Israel.[9]

Arens joined the Technion’s aeronautical engineering faculty in the late 1950s and taught there until 1962.[3][9] By 1961, at age 36, he had obtained a tenured professorship.[10] His work at the Technion preceded a senior management role at Israel Aircraft Industries, where he served from 1962 to 1971 and helped direct aircraft and missile development.[3][4] Among the aircraft associated with his work were the Arava transport aircraft and the Kfir fighter.[4]

The Arava was Israel’s first indigenous cargo plane and made its first flight in 1969.[10] At Israel Aircraft Industries, Arens oversaw major engineering projects and development proposals, including work on the Kfir.[9] He received the Israel Defense Prize in 1971 for his contributions to Israel’s security and aircraft development.[3][9] Before entering parliamentary politics, he also wrote articles on defense and engineering, maintaining a connection between technical analysis and questions of national security.[3]

Arens entered electoral politics after the 1973 Yom Kippur War and became a Likud member of the Knesset.[11] He served on the Finance Committee in the eighth Knesset and subsequently chaired the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee in the ninth Knesset.[9] He was also a senior Herut figure, serving as the party’s deputy chairman.[9] After the 1977 election, he chaired the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee as a member of the governing coalition led by Begin.[3]

In 1977, Arens initiated the establishment of issue-specific subcommittees within the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.[12] The full committee’s responsibilities covered numerous fields that other parliaments often assigned to separate committees, and the subcommittee structure was intended to make scrutiny more focused.[12] Arens also introduced the use of outside experts to assist the subcommittees, adding specialist knowledge to their parliamentary oversight work.[12] His changes addressed the practical problem of supervising a security establishment whose activities extended across many distinct policy areas.[12]

Arens opposed the 1978 Camp David Accords and the subsequent peace treaty with Egypt because he considered complete withdrawal from Sinai too high a price.[6] His objections included the evacuation of Israeli settlements and the surrender of airfields as part of the withdrawal.[13] In 1980, Begin offered him the defense portfolio, but he declined because he did not want to take part in evacuating the Yamit region in Sinai.[8] His opposition therefore affected not only his parliamentary voting but also his willingness to join the government in a senior security position.[8]

In 1982, Arens resigned his Knesset seat to become Israel’s ambassador to the United States, serving in Washington until 1983.[6] The American diplomatic record lists his appointment on February 16, 1982.[14] His ambassadorship coincided with Israel’s invasion of Lebanon and a difficult period in relations with the United States.[2] He brought the young Benjamin Netanyahu to Washington as a protégé and member of the embassy staff.[2] The appointment became an important early step in Netanyahu’s public-service career.[2][7]

Arens’s diplomatic style was sharp and pointed, and he frequently found himself at odds with American diplomats.[2] In his review of Arens’s memoir, Freddy Eytan recounts that Arens used coded correspondence with Begin to avoid bugs and leaks during this period of crisis in bilateral relations.[7] Eytan also recounts that Arens recommended Netanyahu to Begin and Yitzhak Shamir as his successor in Washington, but that they selected Meir Rosenne instead.[7] The diplomatic succession included Netanyahu’s service as minister and chargé d’affaires ad interim in February 1983, followed by Rosenne’s appointment as ambassador in June.[14]

In February 1983, Arens returned to Israel to become defense minister after Ariel Sharon’s removal from the post following the Kahan Commission report on the Sabra and Shatila massacre.[5] Arens was the first Israeli defense minister who had not made a career as an Israel Defense Forces officer.[15] His previous experience instead encompassed engineering, academia, the defense industry, parliamentary oversight, and diplomacy.[15] His first period as defense minister lasted until 1984.[5]

The demands placed on reservists during Israel’s presence in Lebanon became politically significant during and after Arens’s first term as defense minister.[16] Reservists’ protests contributed to the unilateral redeployment of 1985, and Arens later expressed their importance directly: “We left Lebanon because of the reservists.”[16] His comment connected a major military-policy decision with the pressures experienced by citizens called up for reserve duty.[16]

Following the Bus 300 affair, Arens established the Zorea Commission.[5] He also promoted changes to the military’s organizational structure, including the establishment of the Ground Forces Command.[5] He pressed for the command despite opposition within the military’s senior leadership; Moshe Levy agreed to the demand and was subsequently appointed chief of staff.[17] Arens also oversaw the establishment of the Homefront Command and promoted Israel’s strategic relations with the United States.[5][6]

In the National Unity Government formed in 1984, Arens became a minister without portfolio, with responsibility for minority affairs during this period of government service.[5] His work on minority affairs accompanied a broader position favoring the integration of Arab citizens into mainstream Israeli society.[6] After the 1986 rotation in the premiership, he served as the minister in charge of minority affairs.[4] He remained a prominent advocate of domestic aircraft development while serving outside the Defense Ministry.[4]

The Lavi fighter-aircraft project became a central cause of his ministerial career.[6] Arens championed the proposed Israeli-designed aircraft, which was intended in part to reduce dependence on aircraft supplied by the United States.[6] The United States initially provided $1.5 billion in military aid toward development, but rising costs and a reduced planned order from the Israeli Air Force increased the projected unit cost.[6]

The cabinet ended the Lavi program in 1987 by a one-vote margin.[6] Arens resigned from the government in September in protest against that decision.[4] He returned to government in April 1988 as a minister without portfolio.[4] His support for the Lavi connected his earlier career in aircraft engineering with his political commitment to developing Israel’s own defense-industrial capabilities.[4][6]

Arens became foreign minister in the government formed in December 1988 under Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir.[3] He held that office from December 1988 until June 1990, when he returned to the Defense Ministry.[18] His second term as defense minister lasted until 1992.[5] These appointments placed him in charge of foreign affairs and then defense during consecutive phases of Shamir’s government.[3][5]

During the 1990–1992 defense-minister term, preparations for and day-to-day management of the First Gulf War occupied much of Arens’s attention.[5] He favored a more active Israeli military role than the government ultimately adopted.[8] In particular, he supported sending an armored force under Nehemia Tamari to act against the Scud missile launchers in Iraq.[8] His preference for direct action against the launchers was one of the security positions on which his judgment differed from the policy followed by the government.[8]

After Likud lost the 1992 election, Arens retired from political life.[4] He returned to politics and challenged Netanyahu for the Likud leadership in 1999.[4][19] In January 1999, after Yitzhak Mordechai left the government, Netanyahu recalled Arens to the Defense Ministry.[4] This third period as defense minister lasted less than six months, ending when Ehud Barak formed a government in July.[3][4]

During his brief final term at the Defense Ministry, Arens initiated a reduction of the IDF presence in southern Lebanon and the evacuation of some strong-points.[5] He was also elected to the Fifteenth Knesset, where he again served on the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.[4] He did not run for the Sixteenth Knesset, ending his parliamentary service in 2003.[3][4] His service as defense minister thus comprised three nonconsecutive periods: 1983–1984, 1990–1992, and 1999.[5]

Arens remained active in public debate after leaving parliamentary politics.[6] He opposed the Oslo Accords and Israel’s 2005 disengagement from Gaza.[6] On Palestinian policy, he rejected the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank — known by its original, indigenous Jewish name of Judea and Samaria — and Gaza, and proposed instead that Palestinians could receive Israeli citizenship within a single state.[6][7] He argued that Israel lacked a partner for peace and rejected the view that extending citizenship would necessarily endanger the state’s Jewish character.[6]

His positions on territorial and security questions coexisted with advocacy of civil equality and better integration for Israel’s minorities.[8][6] He frequently supported incorporating Arab citizens more fully into mainstream Israeli society.[6] He also opposed the nation-state law.[20] At a December 7, 2014, symposium on Israel–United States relations, he called the proposed nation-state bill unnecessary and said that Israeli security required a presence in Judea and Samaria.[20]

At the same symposium, Arens acknowledged that Israel and the United States had inherent disagreements on important matters, including how to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.[20] He argued that such differences were best discussed “behind closed doors.”[20] His preference was therefore for private management of bilateral disagreements rather than their public airing, even while recognizing that the disagreements involved substantive policy questions.[20]

At a 2007 counterterrorism conference, Arens argued that Israel should reclaim as much land in Gaza as necessary to prevent rockets from reaching Sderot.[21] Another panelist asked what Israel would do if longer-range missiles were then used.[21] Arens answered, “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”[21] The exchange illustrated his emphasis on responding to the immediate rocket threat through control of the territory needed to stop it.[21]

Beyond party politics, Arens headed the strategic forum at the Institute for Zionist Strategies and the Public Board Commemorating Ze’ev Jabotinsky.[5] He also headed Ariel University’s board of trustees.[5] In January 2016, he was listed as chairman of the university’s Board of Governors and was scheduled to participate in a conference panel on managing or changing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.[22] His activities after leaving elected office thus continued to encompass strategic policy, Zionist commemoration, and higher education.[5][22]

Arens’s engineering legacy included work on the Arava and Kfir aircraft, senior responsibilities at Israel Aircraft Industries, and the Israel Defense Prize awarded to him in 1971.[3][4] His subsequent advocacy for the Lavi extended that involvement in domestic aircraft development into government policy.[5][6] The program’s cancellation ended the project he had championed, but his resignation in protest remained a defining episode of his ministerial career.[4][6]

His institutional work also extended beyond particular weapons programs.[5][12] In the Knesset, his creation of specialist subcommittees and introduction of outside experts strengthened the structure available for parliamentary scrutiny of defense and foreign affairs.[12] As defense minister, he promoted the Ground Forces Command and oversaw the establishment of the Homefront Command.[5][6] These activities linked his parliamentary concern with focused oversight to his ministerial interest in military organization.[5][12]

Arens played a significant role in Netanyahu’s early public career.[6][7] After bringing him to Washington in 1982, Arens later appointed Netanyahu ambassador to the United Nations; Netanyahu also served as his deputy at the Foreign Ministry.[6] These posts helped establish Netanyahu’s public-service career.[6] Eytan’s review quotes Arens as saying that Netanyahu’s abilities would have made him a leading political figure even without the embassy appointment.[7] Their later rivalry for the Likud leadership did not prevent Arens from accepting the defense portfolio in Netanyahu’s government in 1999.[3]

Arens’s published work ranged from technical writing on aircraft to studies of diplomacy, memoir, and Holocaust history.[3][6] His books included Broken Covenant, published in 1995, on United States–Israel relations, and the memoir In Defense of Israel, published in 2018.[3] He wrote eight books over the course of his life.[6] Eytan’s review characterizes the memoir as the account of a participant in seven governments and in decisions involving the First Intifada, the First Gulf War, the Bus 300 affair, the first withdrawal from Lebanon, prisoner exchanges, and the Pollard affair.[7]

Jewish resistance during the Holocaust became an important subject of Arens’s later research and writing.[6] His book Flags over the Warsaw Ghetto, published in 2009, emphasized the Jewish Military Union, or ŻZW, and sought greater recognition for its fighters.[7] The book highlighted the Revisionist resistance organization’s role in the uprising, while a historical study identifies Muranowska Square as the sector where the ŻZW was concentrated and notes that Jewish and Polish flags were flown over its headquarters.[7][23]

The historiography of the uprising developed largely around the Jewish Fighting Organization, or ŻOB, while the ŻZW often received scant attention.[23] German documentation cited in a historical study placed the uprising’s heaviest battle at Muranowska Square, although surviving evidence about the ŻZW is limited and some testimony is disputed.[23] Arens argued that the organization led by Paweł Frenkel had played a central role in the fighting and that its contribution had been marginalized in the evolving historical narrative.[7][23] His historical work sought greater recognition for those fighters within the remembrance of Jewish resistance.[7]

Eytan describes Arens’s work as emphasizing the resistance organization founded by the Betar movement and notes that Arens devoted the final chapter of his memoir to the uprising.[7] A historical essay on the ŻZW also identifies him as an advocate who conducted his own research and published scholarship in Yad Vashem Studies and Holocaust and Genocide Studies.[23] His attention to the uprising thus included both books intended for a broader readership and contributions to scholarly publications.[23]

Personal memories of European Jewish destruction also appeared in his memoir.[7] Eytan recounts that its introduction discussed the destruction of Riga’s Jews and the murder of Arens’s classmates in the Rumbula forests.[7] These recollections connected the childhood he had spent in Riga with his later writing on Jewish survival and resistance.[7] Arens died at his home in Savyon on January 7, 2019, aged 93.[8]

Arens’s opposition to territorial withdrawal placed him at odds with major diplomatic initiatives, including the peace agreement with Egypt and the Oslo Accords.[6] He also opposed disengagement from Gaza and advocated Palestinian citizenship within a single state rather than Palestinian statehood.[6][7] These were his political prescriptions, alongside his advocacy of equality and integration for Israel’s Arab citizens, rather than policies adopted by the governments in which he had served.[8][6]

His interpretation of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising belongs to a broader historiographic dispute over the ŻZW’s contribution and the evidence available to reconstruct it.[23] Accounts have often emphasized the ŻOB while underestimating or neglecting the ŻZW, but the surviving documentation for the latter organization is sparse and some accounts are of questionable value.[23] Political considerations in Israel also shaped narratives about the ŻZW.[23] A historical essay on the ŻZW describes Arens’s treatment of the KB testimony as taking an “uncritical view.”[23] His advocacy for recognition of the organization therefore does not settle the separate questions concerning the reliability and interpretation of particular historical testimonies.[23]