With the Middle East in a state of chaos and protests erupting all over the world because of it, the divisions caused by it are deep and perhaps irreparable. But there was a time when things were different – this interview conducted by Mike Wallace with Israel’s Ambassador to the U.S. Abba Eban from April 12, 1958, during the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the founding of the State of Israel, sheds some light on the Israel during its formative stages and the crises which developed during that first decade.
During his career, Abba Eban served as Foreign Affairs Minister, Education Minister, and Deputy Prime Minister of Israel. He was the second ambassador to the United States and the first Permanent Representative of Israel to the United Nations. He was also vice president of the United Nations General Assembly and president of the Weizmann Institute of Science. Eban famously remarked of the Palestinians, “The Arabs never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.”
Eban left the United States in 1959 and returned to Israel, where he was elected to the Knesset (the Israeli parliament) as a member of Mapai. He served under David Ben-Gurion as Minister of Education and Culture from 1960 to 1963, then as deputy to Prime Minister Levi Eshkol until 1966. Through this period (1959–66), he also served as president of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot.
From 1966 to 1974, Eban served as Israel’s foreign minister. He defended the country’s reputation after the Six-Day War by asserting, in a speech to the United Nations General Assembly, that Israel acted in response to an imminent threat: “So on the fateful morning of 5 June, when Egyptian forces moved by air and land against Israel’s western coast and southern territory, our country’s choice was plain.” Nonetheless, he was a strong supporter of trading parts of the territories occupied in the war in exchange for peace. While serving as foreign minister, he remained in contact with Israel’s Ambassador to the US Avraham Harman during the war. Five days after the USS Liberty incident took place, Harman cabled from Washington D.C. to Eban in Tel Aviv that one of their sources was reporting that the Americans had “clear proof that from a certain stage the pilot discovered the identity of the ship and continued the attack anyway.” Three days later, Harman repeated the warning to Eban that the White House was “very angry” and “the reason for this is that the Americans probably have findings showing that our pilots indeed knew that the ship was American.” Eban also played an important part in the shaping of UN Security Council Resolution 242 in 1967, as well as Resolution 338 in 1973. Among his other high level contacts, he was received by Pope Paul VI in 1969.
Abba Eban was at times criticized for not voicing his opinions in Israel’s internal debate. However, he was generally known to be on the “dovish” side of Israeli politics and was increasingly outspoken after leaving the cabinet. In 1977 and 1981, it was widely understood that Shimon Peres intended to name him Foreign Minister, had the Labor Party won those elections. Eban was offered the chance to serve as minister without portfolio in the 1984 national unity government, but instead he chose to serve as chair of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee from 1984 to 1988.
Here is that interview with Mike Wallace as it was broadcast on April 12, 1958.
