Abba Eban

Israeli diplomat and statesman

• Born: February 2, 1915
• Birthplace: Cape Town, South Africa
• Died: November 17, 2002
• Place of death: Tel Aviv, Israel

Eban was Israel’s permanent representative to the United Nations, ambassador to the United States, and foreign minister. He played an influential role in the negotiations leading to the creation of the state of Israel and in securing its membership in the United Nations. His diplomatic and oratorical talents, used in the service of Israel, gained for him worldwide recognition.

Early Life

Abba Eban (EE-buhn) was born Aubrey Solomon, the second of four children of Abraham Meir and Alida Solomon. His father, a merchant, had fled from the persecution of Jews in Russian-controlled Lithuania in the late nineteenth century. When he was six months old, the family moved to London (the home of his mother’s family), as his father was seriously ill. Abraham Solomon died shortly after their arrival, and some years later, his mother married Isaac Eban, a specialist in radiology. The boy adopted his stepfather’s surname and was known as Aubrey S. Eban until the independence of Israel when, like many Israeli citizens, he began using the Hebrew version of his first name.

Eban was a disciplined, studious, and witty boy, but somewhat shy and introspective. At age seven, he was enrolled at St. Olave’s Grammar School for Boys, which was regarded as one of the best grammar schools in London. There he was immersed in a classical education: Greek, Latin, English poetry, and the Bible. He spent his weekends with his maternal grandfather, who supervised his study of Hebrew. It was during his grandfather’s tutelage, according to Eban, that he became captivated by Zionism. He also, however, was greatly influenced by his mother, who was an archivist at the Zionist Organization. He joined a Zionist society for youths called Heatid, meaning “the future” in Hebrew, where his oratorical gifts soon became evident.

In 1934, Eban won a scholarship and entered Queens’ College, Cambridge, where he read classics and Oriental languages, concentrating on Arabic literature and history. He was elected president of the Cambridge Union (the university debating society) and president of the Zionist Society, and he served on the executive committees of the League of Nations Union and the Socialist Club. Eban sharpened his ability for public speaking during university debates and enjoyed the challenge of defending the unpopular or minority position. After graduating with a triple first class honors degree, he became a research fellow and tutor in Oriental languages at Pembroke College, Cambridge.

Eban’s university career ended with the outbreak of World War II. In December, 1939, he began working for Chaim Weizmann of the World Zionist Organization in London. A few months later, he enlisted in the British army, eventually rising to the rank of major. His initial assignment was as a censor for Arabic and Hebrew in Cairo. He later served as a liaison officer between the Allied headquarters in Cairo and the Jewish population in Jerusalem. Eban also trained Jewish volunteers for resistance against a possible German invasion. It was during the war that he met Suzan Ambache, the daughter of an Egyptian Jewish engineer, who at the time was a student at American University in Cairo. They were married on March 18, 1945. At the end of the war, Eban made Jerusalem his home and was appointed the chief instructor at the Middle East Center for Arab Studies. He became fluent in ten languages.

Life’s Work

In 1946, Eban joined the Jewish Agency as a political information officer and worked with the British government before the establishment of the state of Israel. When the United Nations became involved in the Middle East problem, Eban became one of two liaison officers with the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP), and as a member of the Jewish Agency delegation to the General Assembly, he played an important role in the debate about the future of Palestine. Thanks to determined lobbying by Eban and his Jewish Agency colleagues, the committee narrowly approved partition, and in the process Eban became a well-respected figure and the agency’s principal spokesperson. Despite the opposition of Israel’s Herut party and the skepticism of Moshe Shertok, the foreign minister, Eban worked to secure Israel’s admission to the United Nations. When Israel was admitted in 1949, Eban, still in his early thirties, was appointed its permanent representative.

From 1950 to 1959, Eban served concurrently as ambassador to the United States. In this dual role, his main objectives were to strengthen the bonds of cooperation between Israel and the United States, to gain the support of the American Jewish community, and to articulate and defend Israel’s policies in the international environment of the United Nations. Additionally, in 1952 he was elected vice president of the General Assembly. He soon became a well-known figure not only in the United States but also in the rest of the world, as he defended with passion and eloquence the interests of his country. After the Sinai campaign of October, 1956, Eban worked to maintain negotiations between Israel, the United Nations, and the United States, and to prevent the imposition of economic and military sanctions on Israel by the United Nations. He conferred closely with U.N. Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld and U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles before the announcement of Israel’s withdrawal by Foreign Minister Golda Meir in March, 1957.

On his return to Israel in 1959, Eban was elected to the Knesset (Israel’s parliament) as a member of the Mapai (labor) Party. During the election campaign, he got his first experience of the rough-and-tumble of domestic politics. Although his first appointment to David Ben-Gurion’s cabinet was as minister without portfolio, Eban also served on the cabinet committee for foreign affairs. Nevertheless, after eleven years in New York and Washington, during which he had been at the center of Israeli diplomatic activity, often making many important decisions himself, to be suddenly without any formal responsibilities proved frustrating. When he was appointed minister of education and culture in 1960, Eban welcomed the opportunity to formulate and implement Israel’s educational policies, which he regarded as the key to Israeli security. He soon established an educational television network and appointed an arts council, which was given a third of a million dollars to further the development of the creative arts. Yet his initial enthusiasm over his new ministerial appointment soon waned, as he had to cope with the many practical demands of his position, which included submitting even the most minor issues to the Knesset for approval, dealing with recurring debates and strikes over the salaries of teachers, and meeting with parents and children who had grievances and demanded his personal attention.

From 1959 to 1966, Eban was also the president of the Weizmann Institute of Science and initiated the International Rehovot Conferences on science and the development of new states. The first conference, which was held in August, 1960, was attended by representatives of forty states and numerous leading international scientists. The Conference of Hope, as it was dubbed by the Israeli media, focused attention on the economic and social problems confronting developing nations and marked a turning point in Israel’s diplomatic relations with many of those countries.

Eban served as deputy prime minister in the administration of Levi Eshkol and in 1966 was appointed foreign minister. His appointment was a cause of concern for Israeli hard-liners, for Eban was generally regarded as a dove in Israeli politics who preferred accommodation to confrontation with Israel’s Arab neighbors. During the Middle East crisis in May, 1967, Eban embarked on a shuttle diplomatic mission to Paris, London, and Washington to win support for Israel’s position. During and after the Six-Day War , he led Israel’s diplomatic campaign in the United Nations. Eban, “the Voice of Israel” as he was now known, eloquently defended Israel’s actions before the Security Council and the General Assembly. The council later ordered an unconditional cease-fire and in November, 1967, adopted Resolution 242. During the next two years, Eban was preoccupied with the efforts of Gunnar Jarring, the United Nations’ special representative for the Middle East, to promote a peace agreement. Although Jarring had numerous meetings with Israeli and Arab leaders, his mission proved unsuccessful.

When the Yom Kippur War erupted in October, 1973, Eban was again involved in a frenzy of diplomatic activity at the United Nations and in Washington. Two months later, he led the Israeli delegation to the Geneva Peace Conference and helped to create a framework for subsequent negotiations. As foreign minister, Eban also worked to develop an association with the European Economic Community and to improve Israel’s bilateral relations with European countries. He initiated reciprocal ministerial visits and strengthened the capacity of Israel’s foreign ministry in this area by establishing a special European community department.

In the domestic power struggle following the resignation of Prime Minister Golda Meir in 1974, Eban supported Shimon Peres for the leadership of the Labor Party. The other candidate, Yitzhak Rabin, won the leadership contest, and when Rabin formed his cabinet, Eban was relieved of his post as foreign minister. Eban later accepted an invitation from Columbia University to spend the 1974 fall semester teaching international relations. In Eban’s words, the period he spent at Columbia was “a welcome relief from the tensions of the political arena.” After returning to Israel in 1975, he remained active in the Labor Party and in the Knesset.

However, Eban increasingly found himself out of step with his homeland. Many in the Knesset regarded him suspiciously as a dove, even though during military crises he had lobbied tirelessly on Israel’s behalf. In fact, Eban viewed the 1967 Six-Day War as pivotal, and he worried about the direction Israel took thereafter. He considered it the end to “utopian” Israel. The subsequent Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza and particularly the 1982 invasion of Lebanon deeply disillusioned him.

Eban declined the status of minister without portfolio in the 1984 unity government and took himself out of running for speaker of the Knesset, quipping that his strength lay in polemics and not in consensus. He contented himself with service as chairman of the Foreign Affairs and Security Committee, where he championed diplomatic solutions to crises. In 1987 the end of his political career began when, as a Labor party delegate, he gave his approval to a report criticizing Labor leaders Peres and Rabin for their involvement in the Jonathan Pollard spy scandal. Eban was left off the Labor list of candidates for the Knesset the next year, and he resigned.

Thereafter, Eban devoted himself to lecturing and writing. Already the author of a dozen books, he produced two more about his country and its future, Personal Witness: Israel Through My Eyes (1992) and Diplomacy for a New Century (1998). He also was a visiting scholar at Princeton University and Columbia University and helped produce and narrate television documentaries, including On the Brink of Peace (1997) for the Public Broadcasting Service. Additionally, in 1992 he opened the Abba Eban Centre for Israeli Diplomacy, a resource for scholars that is part of the Harry S. Truman Institute for the Advancement of Peace.

Eban’s government service and eloquence brought him many honors. He was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and in 1982 he was elected to the International Platform Association, founded by Daniel Webster in 1830, an exclusive organization that has included such famous orators as Winston Churchill and Martin Luther King, Jr. Eban was awarded his nation’s highest civilian honor, the Israel Prize, in 2001; however, because of failing health, he could not attend the award ceremony. He died on November 17, 2002, at Rabin Medical Center in Petah Tikva and was buried in Kfar Shmaryahu, near Tel Aviv. He was survived by his wife, son Eli, and daughter Gila.

Significance

Abba Eban possessed certain qualities that served him well throughout his life: a sharp analytical mind, a formidable intellect, and a refined and persuasive eloquence. A multilingual diplomat, he could “mobilize several languages and send them into battle.” Moreover, he was famed for his biting wit. He once said of Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat, “He never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity.” Of humanity in general, he observed, “History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all other alternatives.”

As the United Nations often played a crucial role in the destiny of Israel, Eban’s tenure as the top Israeli diplomat to the world body was of great importance. He was often asked to deliver the address on behalf of Israel in the opening sessions of the General Assembly, which is customarily the responsibility of the head of state or foreign minister. During his years as a diplomat in New York and Washington, D.C., the historical circumstances of his position required him to be not only a diplomat but a political figure as well. In advancing the cause of his country, he carved an international reputation for himself and enhanced the stature of the diplomatic profession. The consummate communicator, Eban was also adept at using the media.

When Eban entered domestic politics, he had no political base or band of loyal followers. He maintained his position in the party and cabinet by his intellectual ability and superior talents. As foreign minister he was directly involved in the formulation of Israel’s foreign policy and continued his role as a major participant in its international battles and accordingly was widely regarded as the founder of Israeli diplomacy. During the final cabinet session that Eban attended, Shimon Peres summed up Eban’s contribution in the following way: “The Jewish people have had many voices in its history but . . . never had a voice that reverberated from one end of the world to another with such resonance as this.”

Bibliography

Brecher, Michael. Decisions in Crisis: Israel, 1967 and 1973. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980. An engaging study of Israeli decision making in the 1967 and 1973 crises. Particularly useful because of its focus on the psychology and character of the key decision makers, including Eban.

Eban, Abba. Abba Eban: An Autobiography. New York: Random House, 1977. A lively account by Eban of his life, in his characteristic polished style. It is also a useful historical account of major political and diplomatic events in the Middle East.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. Diplomacy for the Next Century. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1998. With wit and elegant prose, Eban reminisces about his role in Israeli history, discusses the nature of post-Cold War diplomacy, and gives his views on ethics and power and on the prospects for peace in the Middle East.

Raviv, Moshe. Israel at Fifty: Five Decades of Struggle for Peace. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1998. A former ambassador to the United Kingdom, Raviv recounts Israel’s diplomatic and political history, focusing on military and political crises. He makes frequent, extended references to his friend and colleague, Eban. With photographs.

Safran, Nadav. Israel: The Embattled Ally. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, 1978. A comprehensive introduction to the complex history of Israel. It is well written and contains an excellent bibliography, an index, and maps.