![Israeli Defence Minister Moshe Arens and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a news conference in Tel Aviv February 28. Arens said fighter planes had already raided key Hizbollah targets in Lebanon. The Israeli assault came in response to a roadside bomb that went off near an Israeli convoy in the south Lebanon occupation zone killing [Brigadier-General Erez Gerstein,] and a Radio Journalist and two soldiers.
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Former Defense Minister Moshe Arens is not at all perturbed over the forecasts of a third intifada knocking on our door, and rejects commentary that views the recent riots in the territories as the result of the diplomatic stagnation of the last four years.
Arens was viewed in the past as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s patron in the Likud movement. Arens was the one to recommend Netanyahu’s appointment as Deputy Chief of Mission in Washington (1982), and subsequently recruited him into the party’s ranks. Today, Arens believes that Netanyahu could not have advanced a significant diplomatic process with the Palestinians in the last four years, for the simple reason that he had no one with whom to negotiate. According to Arens, Palestinian Authority Chairman Abu Mazen does not rule over his nation and therefore is not a [negotiating] partner.
