World: In Defense of Israel

• Share

ISRAEL'S most articulate advocate is Abba S. Eban, who as Foreign Minister has the task of explaining his country's actions to the world. Last week, in an exclusive interview with TIME Correspondent John Shaw, Eban reflected on the reasons and possible solutions for Israel's present plight:

Will the adverse international reaction to the Beirut raid affect Israel's policy of retaliation?

We have no policy of retaliation. We have a policy of survival. If retaliation helps survival, we are for it. If someone could prove we could survive by giving Arab violence a free rein, then we would do so. But nobody has proved this.

The Israeli press has been invoking the history of the persecution of Jews in claiming that there is international discrimination against Israel. Do you think this attitude is justified?

The international attitude toward Israel cannot be entirely detached from traditional relationships between Jews and non-Jews. There is a stereotype of the Jews as passive victims of others' violence. Israel gives another picture, the picture of the Jews suffering but also resisting. World consciousness has not fully absorbed this change. I have no other explanation for the fact that the Soviet Union, which invaded Czechoslovakia, can condemn alleged Israeli "aggression" at the U.N. without the public gallery bursting into laughter.

Does Israel still believe in international order, or have you decided to go it alone?

The concept of international order is a Jewish idea we have been trying for 4,000 years to transmit to the rest of the world. It is an idea that works with great strength on the Jewish imagination. It is, however, an idea, not a reality. The U.N. does not express that idea with any effectiveness in its present composition. My view after 20 years of U.N. experience is not far different from that of General Assembly President Emilio Arenales of Guatemala: he recently referred to the "frivolity" and "irresponsibility" of certain majority decisions at the U.N.

There is talk of the big powers imposing a settlement. What do you consider are the prospects for such a solution?

A settlement can only grow from within the region, we believe. Powers outside this region have surprisingly little capacity to make the states here act against what they consider to be their interests. But the big powers can do two things here. They can force Israel and the Arabs to turn to each other by excluding the possibility of an imposed settlement. And if the adversaries make an agreement, the big powers can support such a settlement.

Some of the reaction to the Beirut raid was caused by fear that it might lead to another war. How dangerous is the situation here now? If the danger of war has increased, it is because of what happened in Athens, not in Beirut. World War II was not caused by Anglo-French reaction, but by Hitler's initial violence. I do not think the sequence of Arab violence and Israeli reaction, however drastic, necessarily means general war. Nations do not get drawn into war; they make general war only by cold decision. In May 1967, President Nasser decided to have a war. I don't think he has made that decision again yet.