By Fatma Abu Asbitan

JERUSALEM

Former Israeli defense minister Moshe Arens passed away on Monday at the age of 93, according to the official Israeli Broadcasting Corporation.

Arens, a senior leader of the right-wing Likud party, served three times as defense minister in 1983, 1990 and 1999.

Arens was known for his hard-line positions against the Arabs and Palestinians. He rejected the 1978 Camp David peace accord between Israel and Egypt and opposed the creation of an independent state for the Palestinians.

Born in Lithuania in 1925, Arens migrated to the United States with his family in 1939. He obtained the U.S. citizenship and served in the army between 1944 and 1946.

In 1948, after the creation of Israel -- known as the Palestinian Nakba (catastrophe) -- he migrated to Israel and joined the Zionist militia of Irgun.

He began his political career as a member of Knesset (Israel’s parliament) for the Likud since 1973, where he served as chairman of the Knesset's committee of foreign affairs and security before being appointed as ambassador to the U.S. in 1982.

He retired from the political life in 2003 to serve as chairman of an association devoted to commemorate the famed Zionist leader Zeev Jabotinsky, who died in 1940.