The Arens Factor

When former Israeli ambassador to the U.S. Moshe Arens returned to Israel early this year to take over as Minister of Defense, some U.S. officials were touting the theory that the differences in his style and temperament from that of his predecessor, General Sharon, might improve the outlook for U.S.-Israeli relations, and consequently for the resolution of the problems of the West Bank and Lebanon. But while the style has, indeed, been different, the substance of policy towards the U.S. and Middle East issues has not changed.

Shortly after his takeover of defense, which has responsibility for security in the West Bank, Mr. Arens told a group of settlers, in the kind of low-keyed tone that General Sharon has never been able or willing to carry off, that the settlers should not take the law into their own hands. That's style. But soon afterwards, in Parliament, he defended the government's record on handling the settlers by saying that any problems "can be corrected only by extending Israeli law to these areas"—i.e., annexing them. That's substance.

Cycles of Violence

Asked on another occasion whether he thought Israeli settlers had been provoking Arabs he answered: "The initiation of the cycle of violence generally, or I would say maybe always, comes from some elements of the Arab population." That's ignorance. Or is it just chutzpah?

On the matter of Lebanon, Mr. Arens' presence behind the scenes undoubtedly helped to make the Israel-Lebanon negotiations more amicable than they might have been—but Gen. Sharon could hardly have extracted more from the Lebanese than Mr. Arens did. Mr Arens was also, surely, more polite than Gen. Sharon would have been in informing the Administration recently that Israel would "redeploy" its troops into southern Lebanon whether the Administration wanted it to or not. But the result was the same.

That U.S. officials could ever have thought that the mere replacement of Sharon by Arens might bring about progress in the Middle East boggles our mind. It seemed to reveal how blissfully unaware the officials must have been of the extent to which the substantive positions of U.S. policy on the Middle East are wide of the mark. Or could it have reflected their fear, deep inside, that the need for Israeli-U.S. relations to appear to be friendly was really more important—for the obvious domestic political reasons—than just about anything else? That thought certainly does not make us feel any better!