Moshe Arens And Mohammed Bassiouni Editorial Image

Moshe Arens of Israel dialogues with Mohammed Bassiouni, Egyptian Ambassador to Israel at a diplomatic reception in Jerusalem in 1988. Arens had an extraordinarily diverse background and experiences. Born in Kaunas, Lithuania in 1925, he moved to Riga, Latvia with his family the following year, and at the age of 14 to the USA, settling in New York City. He served in WW2 in the US Army Corps of Engineers. He emigrated to Israel in 1948. In the 1950s he studied aeronautical engineering at MIT and Cal Tech and returned to Israel to assume a professorship at the prestigious Technion in Haifa in 1957. Arens entered politics as a Member of the Knesset for the right-wing, hawkish Likud Party in 1973. He served in such cabinet capacities as Defense and Foreign Affairs. Arens was Israel Ambassador to the U.S. in 1982. He retired from politics in 2003, and died on January 7, 2019 at the age of 93. Bassiouni, died on Sept. 11, 2011 at 74.