Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger last night suggested that the climate was not ripe in the Middle East for a solution to the Arab-Israeli dispute despite the recent flurry of “procedural” suggestions aimed to activate the peace process.
“I do not believe this is the moment a comprehensive solution can be achieved,” Kissinger told some 1,500 persons attending an Israel Bond dinner. While acknowledging the need for negotiations, he added that “peace must have content. It is not a process… It must reflect an attitude.”
Kissinger was the principal speaker at a dinner honoring author Elie Wiesel. The dinner at the Waldorf Astoria also marked the 40th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi concentration camps. A total of $21.3 million in cash and commitments for purchases of Israel Bonds was realized from the event.
The dais included 40 Holocaust survivors, each of whom enrolled as members of the Israel Bond President’s Club by purchasing $100,000 or more in Israel Bonds. Wiesel, chairman of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council, became the first recipient of Israel Bonds’ International Remembrance Award.
SEARCHING FOR AN ANSWER
In an emotional and philosophical speech, Wiesel expressed his pride in the survivors of the Holocaust and what they have accomplished, saying, “you chose to turn your anger into something creative.”
Wiesel said he continues in search for an “answer” to how the Holocaust could have happened. “There are no answers,” he said he has concluded. “I have studied theology and I have no answer.
“I have studied psychology and psychiatry and I have no answer. As a man of literature I have no answer. The only response must be a moral response. We are the response and our children are the response. I am very proud of our children.”
The International Remembrance Award presented to Wiesel is a bronze sculpture entitled “Isaiah” by Chaim Gross, which contains the following inscription on its base:
“Presented to Elie Wiesel, witness and chronicler who gives voice to Jewish agony and heroism during the Holocaust, who awakens the conscience of humanity for all generations to come.” The base also contains a quotation from Isaiah 58:1.
Kissinger, who lost 30 members of his family in the Holocaust, was presented with a rare edition of Josephus’ “History of the Jewish War,” printed in Germany in 1574.
PERES, HERZOG PRAISE WIESEL
Israeli Premier Shimon Peres, in a filmed message from Jerusalem projected on a screen for the dinner guests, praised Wiesel. “I can’t think of anybody who could have put into words better than Eli Wiesel did the greatest tragedy that the the Jewish nation has experienced,” Peres said.
Israeli President Chaim Herzog also sent a congratulatory message to Wiesel, saying, “If any single individual has given unforgettable expression to this saga of Jewish suffering and survival it is Elie Wiesel…. He has served as the great witness and imprinted on the conscience of humanity the agony of those who perished.”
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