Abba Solomon Eban
(1915- )
Israel statesman and diplomat, and his country’s foreign minister from 1966, was born in Cape Town, South Africa, and brought up in England. He studied oriental languages and classics at Cambridge University, England, where he was a lecturer in Arabic from 1938 to 1940. During World War II he was an intelligence officer in Jerusalem and trained volunteers for resistance in the event of a German invasion. In 1946 the Jewish Agency appointed him political information officer in London, where he participated in the negotiations with the British government concerning the establishment of the State of Israel. When Israel became independent in 1948, he was appointed its representative at the UN.
From 1950 until 1959 Eban was both Israel’s ambassador in Washington, D.C., and chief delegate to the UN. On his return to Israel in 1959 Eban was elected to the Knesset as a member of the Mapai party, and served under David Ben-Gurion as minister of education and culture from 1960 to 1963. From 1963 to 1966 he was deputy to Prime Minister Levi Eshkol. He was also president of the Weizmann Institute at Rehovot from 1959 to 1966. As Israel’s foreign minister from February 1966, Eban tried to strengthen relations with the United States and to associate Israel with the European Economic Community. During and after the Six-Day War of June 1967 he led the political struggle in the UN.
Following the Yom Kippur War of October 1973, he helped bring about a disengagement of Egyptian and Israel forces in Sinai. Eban was widely admired for his brilliant oratory and statesmanship at the UN, and for his mastery of several languages. His books include Voice of Israel (1957); My People (1969); My Country (1972), and Personal Witness (1992).
Abba Eban looks back
(From U.S. News and World Report - May 4, 1998)
He became Israel’s most eloquent voice. Now, at 83, former Foreign Minister Abba Eban has published his eighth book: Diplomacy for the Next Century. He spoke with Senior Correspondent Richard Z. Chesnoff.
On Israel’s birth. I was in America with [Zionist leader Chaim] Weizmann, who was the only one who had any access to [President Harry] Truman. I don’t know what seized hold of Truman. Everyone was against establishing the State of Israel: George Marshall, the State Department. But you had this rather wondrous character saying, "That’s not the way it’s going to be. I’m going to recognize the State of Israel." That recognition sent its repercussions throughout the world . . . and everything flows from it.
On the Arab world. I doubt the Arab world will ever say, "Israel is a fine idea." But reluctantly they now say, "Israel is very strong and deeply entrenched in the area." There was a period when Israel asked the Arab world for nothing but rhetorical concessions. Today they no longer deny our legality . . . and Arab leaders say they want to live in peace with us.
On Israel’s survival. It goes beyond an achievement. We are a colossal success: the solid growth of a population from 600,000 in those early, embattled days and now more than 5 million Jews in a citizenry of 6 million. Then we have economic achievement; Israel now claims with justification to live on a level with countries of the European Union. And we have strategic predominance in the region. For a once fragile, lonely country, it’s a very impressive story.
On the peace process. Yasser Arafat may be as decisive as he can be—which is not the same as being as decisive as he might be. The most dramatic peace process decision taken by Yitzhak Rabin was to regard Arafat as the partner. It was based on the assumption that Arafat is so weak he has no alternative. Perhaps not enough weight was given to the alternative he does have: terrorism.
Some of us wish Israel were making more use of diplomacy. Israel has made one extremely serious mistake. We had a recent opportunity for an alliance with the United States [to move the peace process forward]. I regard [Prime Minister Binyamin] Netanyahu’s refusal to seize that opportunity as Israel’s greatest error. David Ben-Gurion would have pounced on it. . . . There are risks for Israel. But the risks are counterbalanced by a disparity in power almost unparalleled in the history of modern conflicts.
Challenges. There is really a crisis of identity within Israel. The symbol of it is the idea of a direct election of a prime minister: It is a colossal deceit. What has happened is that all the viable powers are concentrated now in one person who appoints and disappoints and makes alliances as he wishes. There’s nothing like that in the democratic world outside Israel. It’s statutory despotism, and if it continues, Israel can work itself out of the democratic family.
On language. The Hebrew language is the cement that keeps us together. It’s a triumph of a people which could consolidate its forces and now speaks the same language it spoke 3,000 years ago.