Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Arens flatly denied yesterday that Israel has been supplying Iran with arms or with spare parts for the weapons that country received from the United States under the Shah.
Arens, answering questions from reporters at a press conference, also denied that there are any flights between Israel and Tehean carrying weapons to Iran directly or through a third country. He repeated the denial when asked the same question in Hebrew by Israeli reporters.
Arens, who met for 45 minutes earlier in the day with Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger at the Pentagon, said he expressed Israel’s opposition to President Reagan’s decision to send 400 Stinger anti-aircraft missiles to Saudi Arabia.
“Our concern is that these missiles could fall in the hands of terrorist groups,” he explained. He said Israel feared the terrorists would use the easily affordable weapon against civilian aircraft and this “could be a danger to us, but not only to us.”
SAUDIS NOT ‘EFFECTIVE’ DEFENDERS OF GULF
But Arens also stressed that in the “escalating” situation in the Persian Gulf in which ships are under attack from Iran and Iraq the shoulder fired Stinger would not be effective since its range is only three miles.
The Israeli official suggested that the Saudis will not be “effective” in defending the Gulf as the U.S. is counting on them to do. He noted that the Iran-Iraq war has been going on for nearly four years and while the Saudis have a great deal of American equipment, they don’t have the “capability, the desire or maybe the motivation” to use them.
Arens, however, ruled out any Israeli military involvement in the Gulf. This is “not at all being considered,” he said.
In another matter Arens said that while he was on the scene April 13 when Israeli troops killed two Palestinian bus hijackers, and captured two others, he did not know that the two captured Palestinians had been beaten to death.
“I was in the area during the entire night while the bus and passengers were held hostage,” he said. “I was in the area when the bus was taken over by the Israeli armed forces and I left the area thereafter.” He added that just before he left he told reporters that two Palestinians had been killed and two captured.
Arens reportedly believed that the two captured terrorists had died on the way to the hospital, according to an Israeli official.
A special Israeli investigating commission set up by the Defense Ministry ruled Monday that the two captured terrorists had been beaten to death with blunt instruments. Arens, who said yesterday “the report does not make pleasant reading,” said the incident was a “clear deviation from Israeli rules, regulations and standards.” He stressed that those responsible will face criminal charges. Some in Israel have charged that Arens bears some responsibility, too.
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