Abba Eban, Israel’s Ambassador to the United States, has called upon the United States and other great powers to give the Middle East a cushion of time in which to settle its differences rather than impose a “diplomatic” peace on the area.
Ambassador Eben, speaking before 5,500 persons at Brandeis University’s seventh commencement exercises, cautioned against any action that would evolve “a final settlement” from direct diplomatic action. ” A pattern of affirmative relations may evolve gradually out of the sheer compulsion of Israel’s manifest and immovable presence. It will not be produced by a clever formula or by a prodigy of mediation, however generously inspired,” he asserted.
Citing the position of the State of Israel at the end of its first decade, Ambassador Eben continued: “The issue now is not survival but consolidation. Unless there is a general collapse of the international order, our neighbors cannot seriously imagine that the stability and permanence of our nationhood can be destroyed. And if there were such a universal cataclysm they would share the peril with us, and lose the liberty which they have so dearly and lavishly won.
“Time is a crucial factor in diplomacy, as in all processes which depend upon the impulses of thought and emotion. Peace between Israel and her neighbors is more likely to emerge out of a prolonged tranquility than to spring from some spectacular diplomatic initiative or from the class and thunder of public debate. I doubt the wisdom of suggestions that the Great Powers or the United Nations should now drastically insist on a final settlement.”
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
