Eban Says No Israeli Withdrawal Without Prior Peace Settlement

Abba Eban, Israel's Foreign Minister, addressed a crowd of more than 2200 at Harvard yesterday and vowed that his country would not abandon the current Mideast cease-fire lines until a permanent peace with the Arab nations has been achieved.

"The cold horror of the ordeal that faced us in June, 1967 has not lost its impact on our minds," Eban said to an enthusiastic audience in Sanders Theatre.

"From a sense of peril narrowly escaped, Israel deduces the central theme of its policy: never to return to the situation of vulnerability and peril," he said. The crowd, including an overflow of 1000 in Memorial Hall, broke into heavy applause.

No Withdrawal

"This idea of withdrawal without peace is so eccentric... and irrational that I am surprised to hear it put for ward at all," he added.

Eban said that "denial of Israel's statehood falls within the distinct line-age of anti-Semitism... Those who raise the cry of nationalism and parochialism do so only when the nationalism is Israeli."

"In the whole international controversy of our age, there's no other example of a nation's statehood not being axiomatic," he said. "Israel's existence as a nation has to be proclaimed as an inexorable reality."

There are 40 countries with a population smaller than Israel's, 60 countries that are younger, and 80 countries less economically and technically advanced, Eban said.

"Some people do like mountains. But to say the Himalayas don't exist would be an intellectual absurdity," he added.

Eban proposed that the Middle East be settled with "open frontiers." He said he hoped for civil airlines and railways routed between Arab and Israeli cities, in addition to the "coordinated development of ports." "If a boundary is free in both directions," he explained, "the question of boundaries is less acute."

Eban said that there should also be scientific and educational cooperation between Arabs and Israelis, for example, "to share the lessons of Israel's cotton fertility."

In an interview following his talk at Harvard, Eban and the Israeli consul said they were elated by the friendly response they received.

As a state department car sped Eban to a fundraising dinner at the Statler Hilton, he said "It is more difficult to project Israeli policy to younger people" because they were not alive during the World War II holocaust and subsequent establishment of the State of Israel.

Eban was optimistic. "At the moment, we're very high in American opinion. The fluctuation of opinion since 1967 has been marginal," he said.

Eban predicted that "in a year, we'll be exactly where we are or we'll have peace." He called 1971 the "year of negotiation" because "certain obstacles to negotiation" have been recently removed.

He criticized the late Abdul Gamal Nasser for "uniting the Arab world on the basis of Israeli's non-legitimacy." Nasser, he said, encouraged Arab nations "to live with a fantasy."

With regard to the refugee problem, Eban said, "We are improving the conditions of the refugees, by creating more employment opportunities. It's employment, not relief, that's the answer. But it can't be done on a massive scale without peace."

Arab Representation

Eban pointed out that Arabs have representation in the police, judicial system, and parliament of Israel. "We're the only country in the Middle East except Lebanon where Arab women can vote."

The Eban talk was sponsored by the Harvard-Radcliffe Hillel Society. Eban will return to New York today.