Abba Eban Career Ends as Party Deserts Him

The political career of veteran Israeli leader Abba Eban came to a sudden end today when the Labor Party denied the prominent dove a top spot on its list for November general elections.

“One of the most important chapters of his life has ended. It’s the end of his political activity in Israel,” said Minister for Immigrant Absorption Yaacov Tsur.

Asked if he felt any bitterness, the 73-year-old Eban said: “No, because if you study long and distinguished careers, you’ll find such episodes there, both during careers and after careers. I don’t want to flatter myself by giving examples.”

The South African-born, Cambridge-educated Eban was Israel’s first ambassador to the United States and the United Nations and was foreign minister from 1966 to 1974.

More Popular Abroad

For 40 years, he had been a champion worldwide for Israel and the Jewish people. Delegates said he was more popular abroad than in Israel itself, but the election results still caught many Israelis off guard.

Eban was badly beaten in his bid to win any of the first 28 slots on the list of the Labor Party, a partner with the rightist Likud Bloc in Israel’s coalition government.

Eban, who first entered the Knesset, or Parliament, in 1959 at the height of a long diplomatic career, declined to run for a lower slot.

He became internationally known for his spirited defense of Israel at the United Nations during the 1967 Six-Day War.

Despite international fame, Eban long suffered in Israel from an image of being aloof. He was fifth on the Labor list in the last elections in 1984, but there was a different, less popularly based party voting system then.

No ‘Strong Power Base’

Economic Planning Minister Gad Yaacobi, an Eban ally, said today’s defeat was “because Mr. Eban did not have a strong power base in the party.”