Gideon Rafael

Gideon Rafael was born in Berlin in 1913 and immigrated to Palestine in 1934.[2] Before entering diplomacy, he served with the Haganah and, during World War II, the British Army.[4][1]

After the war, Rafael worked in the Jewish Agency's Political Department, where he lobbied at the United Nations in support of the November 1947 Palestine partition vote.[4] When the State of Israel was declared in 1948, he joined Moshe Sharett and others in establishing Israel's Foreign Ministry, making him part of the institution's founding generation.[4]

Rafael served as a member of Israel's delegation to the United Nations until 1953.[2] A Jerusalem Center article cites a February 19, 1951, communication identifying him with the delegation in the context of possible Israeli representation in China, contingent on the absence of a U.S. State Department objection.[5]

Rafael's career unfolded across a succession of increasingly senior postings. He headed Israel's delegation at the 1949–1950 Lausanne Conference, one of the early postwar efforts to negotiate Arab-Israeli arrangements.[6] A March 17, 1952, communication from Rafael to Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett was cited in connection with Arab League Secretary-General Azzam Pasha's dismissal of the prospect of Arab-Israeli peace.[7]

On April 7, 1952, Rafael accompanied Abba Eban — then Israel's Permanent Representative to the UN and simultaneously its ambassador in Washington — to a meeting with Pakistani representative A. S. Bokhari, in which Rafael served as political counselor.[7] The following January, he and Eban met Pakistani Foreign Minister Sir Zafrulla Khan to discuss Pakistani recognition of Israel; Khan indicated that his government had retreated from the more favorable approach of its predecessor.[7]

In September 1953, Rafael returned to Jerusalem after being appointed head of the Foreign Ministry's Department of the Middle East and United Nations Affairs, a post he held until 1957.[2] During this period he conducted secret meetings with Arab officials and managed sensitive regional files.[4] The Israel State Archives' published volume on Israel's 1955 foreign policy identifies him as "Counsellor in charge of Middle East and U.N. political affairs" and includes his telegrams on Egypt, the United Nations, and relations with the United States.[8]

Among his 1955 assignments, Rafael was called from Jerusalem to Paris on January 1 to brief Maurice Orbach before Orbach's urgent departure for Cairo, as part of efforts to help Jewish defendants facing sentences in the Cairo trials.[8] On January 2, he and Shmuel Divon cabled Foreign Minister Sharett with Egyptian positions on the Cairo trial, the ship Bat Galim, Suez Canal oil transit, the border situation, and the possibility of high-level Israel-Egypt talks, comparing what Orbach had heard with information from Egyptian emissary Abd al-Rahman Sadiq.[8] Orbach reported that Nasser had said there would be no "inflammatory sentences."[8]

In March 1955, Rafael requested via telegram that Eban submit an Israeli complaint to the UN Security Council concerning Egyptian breaches of the armistice agreement.[8] An April message to Eban assessed prospects for an Israel-U.S. defense agreement as poor, citing Secretary of State John Foster Dulles's insistence that regional problems be resolved first.[8] In July, responding to mediator Ira Hirschmann's attempt to facilitate Israel-Egypt contacts, Rafael argued that it was not yet the moment to address central issues such as refugees, and instead suggested focusing on practical matters including the Gaza border, ending incitement, and renewing direct contact.[8] By September, he was relaying mediator Elmore Jackson's assessment that Nasser sincerely wanted to stabilize the border and that release of prisoners from the Cairo affair might be obtainable.[8]

In the immediate aftermath of the October 1953 Qibya operation, Rafael sent Foreign Minister Sharett a letter marked "personal confidential" warning of the operation's diplomatic damage. He argued that the Foreign Ministry should have been consulted beforehand because of the consequences for Israel's international relations and its relations with Arab states.[9]

Rafael was appointed ambassador to Belgium and Luxembourg in 1957. The American Jewish Year Book records that he replaced Joseph Ariel as Israel's ambassador to Belgium in September of that year.[2][10] He served as deputy director-general of the Foreign Office from 1960 to 1965 and represented Israel at the European Office of the United Nations in Geneva from September 1965 to April 1966.[2] In February 1967, he was appointed Israel's Permanent Representative to the United Nations in New York.[2]

Rafael's appointment as Permanent Representative came just months before the June 1967 war, placing him at the center of an intense period of Israeli diplomacy. In late May, after the removal of the UN Emergency Force from Sinai, Rafael confronted UN official Ralph Bunche and pleaded for the forces to be restored, seeking to ease the mounting military confrontation.[4]

On June 3, 1967 — two days before the war began — Rafael addressed the UN Security Council. He argued that Egypt's request to remove the UN Emergency Force and the subsequent movement of Egyptian forces into its positions had escalated the crisis. Presenting Israel's military posture as defensive, he called for mutual withdrawal of forces to their previous positions.[11] His speech included the declaration, "An armistice with built-in belligerence is no armistice," expressing his argument that the armistice framework required the parties to renounce belligerence.[11]

Following the war, on June 14, 1967, Rafael provided a diplomatic briefing to the Israeli cabinet during a five-hour session on the U.S. position ahead of UN discussions concerning territories captured by Israel.[12] The cabinet was weighing how to address the future of those territories and their Palestinian residents.[12] Rafael also worked on Security Council Resolution 242, which emerged from the postwar diplomacy.[1]

Rafael's term as Permanent Representative lasted from May 1967 to November 1968, when he returned to Jerusalem as Director-General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.[3][13]

Rafael served as Director-General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs from 1968 to 1972. He then became senior adviser to the foreign minister, a role he held until January 1974.[4][2]

Rafael was subsequently appointed Israel's ambassador to the United Kingdom, succeeding Michael Comay. A January 1973 Jewish Telegraphic Agency report had anticipated the appointment, describing him at that time as a senior Foreign Ministry adviser.[14] He simultaneously served as Israel's first non-resident ambassador to Ireland.[2] Sources differ slightly on when his London posting ended: the Encyclopaedia Judaica gives his return to Israel as 1977, while the Center for Israel Education places the end of the ambassadorship in 1978.[2][4] After returning to Israel, he served as political adviser to the foreign minister and retired in 1978.[2]

In his post-retirement years, Rafael remained publicly engaged with Israeli foreign policy questions. At the Carter Center Middle East Consultation in Atlanta in November 1983, he presented the Israeli perspective as a retired diplomat and former director-general, explicitly noting that he was not an official government spokesman.[15] He argued that regional turmoil often arose from local disputes separate from the Arab-Israeli conflict, expressed support for peace and compromise in negotiations, backed Lebanon's territorial integrity and independence, and proposed a regional nuclear-free zone and arms-control discussions.[15]

During an exchange with Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk al-Sharaa over Syria's presence in Lebanon and Israeli reconnaissance flights, Rafael stated that Syria had assured Israel in 1976 that its forces were entering Lebanon as peacekeepers and would not interfere with Israeli aerial reconnaissance. He said, "I know, because I was the recipient of President Assad's message."[15]

Rafael also argued that the root cause of the Palestinians' plight was their refusal to negotiate and quoted Abba Eban's observation that "the Palestinians have never missed a chance to lose an opportunity."[15] These were Rafael's own attributed positions, not neutral findings.

In a 1992 interview, Rafael discussed his recollections of the 1930s, the end of the War of Independence, and events before the June 1967 war. He also criticized his government's response to Anwar Sadat's negotiating overtures before the 1973 War, and his lifelong conclusion was characterized as a hope that diplomacy would have worked better.[16]

A recurring theme in Rafael's career was the question of Palestinian refugees. In a 1966 discussion with U.S. Secretary of State Dean Rusk, he presented proposals that he described as tentative and on which the Israeli government had not yet made a decision.[17] He argued that rehabilitation and resettlement, rather than repatriation, could offer a basis for progress and described the proposal as Israel's "constructive approach to problem."[17]

The proposals included preparing for an internationally financed rehabilitation program and addressing UNRWA reform and the role of host states. The U.S. side did not reject the idea outright but urged Israel to sound out Arab governments itself.[17] The exchange records Rafael advocating a policy that emphasized rehabilitation and resettlement while excluding repatriation at that stage.

Gideon Rafael's career spanned much of the formative era of Israeli diplomacy — from lobbying at the United Nations for the 1947 partition resolution and helping establish the Foreign Ministry to representing Israel during the 1967 crisis and working on Resolution 242.[4][1] A Globes profile based on his son's account described him as one of the founders of Israel's Foreign Ministry and one of its senior figures during thirty years of professional public service.[18]

He gave a United Nations oral-history interview on April 17, 1991, about his diplomatic experiences and the relationships among the parties involved.[6] His memoirs, Destination Peace, published in 1981, provide his personal account of Israeli diplomacy.[2] Rafael died in 1999.[1]

Several positions associated with Rafael concern politically and historically contested questions. His 1966 refugee proposal favored rehabilitation and resettlement over repatriation, although the State Department record makes clear that the ideas were tentative and had not been adopted as an Israeli government decision.[17] His 1983 statements about Palestinian responsibility and Syrian assurances concerning Lebanon were his own attributed positions rather than independently established findings.[15]

After the 1953 Qibya operation, Rafael took a critical institutional position, warning Sharett of the diplomatic damage and arguing that the Foreign Ministry should have been consulted before an operation with significant international consequences.[9]