Review 22.4
22 March- 10 April, 1997

Moshe Arens is talkative. Unusual for the gently spoken, reserved and impeccably mannered former Israeli Defence and Foreign Minister, credited with discovering Binyamin Netanyahu and elevating him to Likud leader. As we talk during his brief visit to Australia, Arens recalls the last time he had contact with an Australian official. It was 1992 and Senator Gareth Evans, then Foreign Minister, was on a tour of Israel.

"I was amazed when (as defence minister) I met your Foreign Minister. That kind of discourtesy and arrogance, I've never found in any Foreign Minister that I have ever met. I think that it would be hard to imagine, for example an American Secretary of State behaving that way, because he'd really get into trouble back home if he did. He came into my office [Senator Evans] and he told me what Israel had to do! He didn't ask me what the situation was or what my opinion was or show any courtesy or maybe ven ture a suggestion. He just told me what we had to do, that was it," recalls Arens, who distinguished himself as one of Israel's most successful and respected Ambassadors to Washington.

When Moshe Arens assumed office as Israel's Defence Minister in 1983 the nation was divided, at war, and at odds with the US. For the next nine years he oversaw Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon, the healing of the wounds of the failed adventure, the reinvigorating of the US alliance, and the technological regeneration of the Israeli army and air force. And now his long time protege, Benjamin Netanyahu, the man Arens appointed as Deputy charge de mission in the Israeli embassy in Washington and later Israel's representative at the United Nations and Deputy Foreign Minister is Prime Minister.

Arens has indelibly left his mark on the nation and many within Israel's cabinet still seek his influence and guidance even today.

Just days before we talk former Prime Minister Shimon Peres has told the international media that Australian businessman Joseph Gutnick "spreads evil" and inappropriately interferes in Israeli politics over the Hebron issue. Arens is not amused.

"Gutnick should take that as a compliment coming from Shimon Peres. I'm a very strong supporter of the Jewish community in Hebron and as defence minister during both periods when I was administrator, I did whatever I could to support the Jewish Community there, to build the Jewish Quarter in Hebron. There's great symbolic and historical significance that they continue the existence of the Jewish community in Hebron. Just because in 1929 the Arab population massacred the Jewish population and built anothe r city, is no reason why that should stand as the final verdict of history. So I'm very happy that Mr Gutnick is helping in building in the Jewish Quarter. On the whole I really think Mr Gutnick's done very well.

"Listen, he's not the only Jew in the world that provided support for projects in Israel. In fact, Israel's full of projects that are being supported by Jews throughout the world, including Jews in Australia. And, by the way, Jews throughout the world have contributed to Israeli political campaigns as well. If anybody thinks that's not a good thing, I can give them a long list of people."

With the impending controversial construction of Jewish homes in Har Homa, Arens is confident that Netanyahu has honoured the agreements made by previous governments and that the international community must come to see the strategic, legal and political necessity in undertaking the construction.

"Netanyahu was faced with a very difficult dilemma when he was elected, in that he inherited the Oslo agreement which he had very strongly opposed. And he was faced with the choice of honouring that agreement even though he opposed it, or simply rejecting it. He made the difficult choice, I think the correct choice, that he was going to honour the agreement and I think that probably he is in a position that has no precedent in the modern history of western democracies.

"This is an agreement that ... was passed by a bare one-vote majority in the Knesset - I think that in itself is unprecedented that in any democratic country a government will take a decision of such far reaching importance without a significantly wider consensus in support of it, and nevertheless he concluded that the correct thing to do would be for him to meet the commitments made by the previous government. And he's meeting them. Building in Jerusalem is not part of the Oslo agreement. He's perfectly in his rights to build.

"Previous Labour governments - Mr Rabin's government, Mr Peres' government - never agreed that building within the city limits of Jerusalem would be subject to the Oslo agreement. I don't think any Israeli government would ever agree to this sort of thing - that building which occurs within its capital would require, indeed, be predicated on, the approval of somebody else outside of Israel!

"That's why I think there's no justification at all for all this. Except for the fact that Mr Arafat keeps saying he wants to set up a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital, which is not part of the Oslo agreement, and he therefore feels that this might in some way make it more difficult for him to achieve this aim which is not part of the Oslo agreement, whatsoever.