Former Israeli defense minister Moshe Arens, speaks at a press conference in Tel Aviv Monday. (AP)

By Lee Hockstader
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, January 12, 1999; Page A11

JERUSALEM, Jan. 11 – Moshe Arens, an elder statesman of Israeli politics who plucked Binyamin Netanyahu from obscurity 17 years ago and tirelessly promoted his career, announced today he will try to topple his old protege as the Likud Party's nominee for prime minister in the spring elections.

The declaration by Arens, who quit public life in 1992 after serving as foreign minister, defense minister and ambassador to Washington, stunned the conservative Likud Party, already in turmoil after the resignation of two prominent members and fearful of further defections. And it injected an atmosphere verging on Greek tragedy into a political season already packed with drama and suspense.

"I have been friendly with Binyamin Netanyahu for many years . . . and it is true my relations with him, because of the age gap, were in many ways like those of father to son," Arens, 73, told a Tel Aviv news conference. "But that doesn't change the situation the Likud is in now."

"If we do not manage to cure the present crisis in the Likud and stop the hemorrhaging of our top people from the party, our chances for winning the elections are not good," Arens said.

Lacking money and a political organization, the hawkish Arens is given little chance of unseating Netanyahu as Likud's leader and nominee for prime minister in the Jan. 25 party primaries. Nonetheless, his announcement reinforced an impression within the party that Netanyahu is in a weak position as the campaign unfolds for the May 17 elections.

Arens, unlike some major figures in the party, has refrained from criticizing Netanyahu's performance as prime minister since he was elected in 1996, and he avoided personal attacks today. Similarly, Netanyahu, who was a furniture salesman in 1982 when Arens hired him to be political counselor in the Israeli Embassy in Washington, shied away from the sort of slashing attacks he has used against other adversaries.

"I can assure you that I have no doubt that I will receive the overwhelming support of the Likud voters in the Likud primaries and indeed of the citizens of Israel," said the premier. He said Israelis "know that when it comes to protecting Jerusalem, protecting our security and negotiating the best arrangement for Israel, the person who will do it is me."

Arens is the third prominent figure within Likud to challenge Netanyahu for the party leadership. The others are Uzi Landau, a lawmaker who bitterly opposed Netanyahu's decision to sign the land-for-security peace accord brokered by President Clinton in October, and Rafael Eitan, the agriculture minister.

In addition, two so-called "princes" of Likud – former finance minister Dan Meridor and former science minister Binyamin Begin, son of the late prime minister Menachem Begin – resigned from the party last month to announce they would run for prime minister. Meridor, a moderate, and Begin, a hard-liner, both feud bitterly with Netanyahu.

Even before Arens's bombshell today, Likud members were on tenterhooks as they awaited the decision of Yitzhak Mordechai, the popular defense minister who is openly toying with the idea of joining another party. If Mordechai backs Arens or defects from Likud, perhaps taking with him the votes of working class and Sephardic Jews who are a crucial component of the party's constituency, it would strike a severe blow to Netanyahu's prospects, some observers believe.

Netanyahu remains more popular with the Likud rank and file, and possibly with the Israeli electorate, than he is with the party elite, and few analysts are ready to write him off altogether.

Still, the challenge by Arens has unusually personal undertones for the Israeli leader. Not only did Arens launch Netanyahu's political career by recruiting him to a critical diplomatic job in Washington, but he consistently pushed the younger man forward into the limelight.

Impressed by Netanyahu's abilities as a telegenic defender of Israeli policies to the American audience, Arens used his influence in 1984 to have him appointed as ambassador to the United Nations, bypassing far more experienced candidates.

Following Likud's election victory in 1988, Arens, by then foreign minister, intervened again to bring Netanyahu into the government as deputy foreign minister, in charge of relations with the U.S. Congress.

After Likud's defeat by the Labor Party in 1992, Arens, a senior Likud figure, resigned abruptly from public life rather than seek the party leadership. At 67, he said, he was too old to manage the party's renewal. That cleared the way for Netanyahu to seize control of Likud and, four years later, lead it to victory.