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News and views on Israel, Zionism and the war on terrorism.

November 17, 2002

Rest In Peace

Eban, Abba , 1915–2002, Israeli statesman, b. Cape Town, South Africa. He was educated at Cambridge Univ., where he became (1938) a lecturer in Oriental literature. During World War II he rose to the rank of major in the British army. In the years preceding Israel's independence, Eban was chief instructor (1944–46) at the Middle Eastern Center for Arab Studies in Jerusalem and worked at the Jewish Agency for Palestine before commencing (1947) his diplomatic career as liaison officer to the UN Special Committee on Palestine. In 1948 he became Israel's UN representative and served concurrently as ambassador to the United States from 1950 until his election to the Knesset (Israeli parliament) in 1959. He held various cabinet positions before becoming foreign minister in 1966–74. In that office he strove for closer ties with the United States and Western Europe. He has written Personal Witness (1992) and Diplomacy for the Next Century (1998).