(Israel Hayom) Moshe Arens, a prominent Likud member who served in various ministerial positions and as Israel’s ambassador to the United States, died early Monday morning at 93.

Arens was born in Lithuania in 1925 and moved to the United States in 1939. After serving in the U.S. Army, he moved to the Jewish state shortly after its founding in the late 1940s.

He entered the Knesset in 1974, and in 1982, he was tapped for the position of ambassador to the United States, and in 1983 he became defense minister after Ariel Sharon had to step down over his conduct in Operation Peace for the Galilee.