UN General Assembly
1967

170. This question of security and national existence has proved to be the most potent weapon in Israel’s propaganda arsenal. We are all familiar with the picture that Israel propaganda has presented to the world — of a small country whose very existence is threatened by predatory neighbours — and with the endless repetition of stories about its vulnerability, the danger of its imminent destruction and strangulation, a word which Mr. Eban seems to be particularly fond of using. One who was unaware of the facts would think that Israel had always been in the region and that suddenly and out of sheer malice the Arabs plotted and prepared for its destruction. 171. I think the time has come to explode, once and for all, that myth, which gave Israel so much undeserved world-wide sympathy and made the Arabs, who have for years been the victims of aggression, appear as the aggressors. Mr. Eban read to us copious quotations of warlike statements from various Arab