Amir: Israel Has Made Major Concessions to Achieve Mideast Peace

Rebeaveam Amir, the Israeli Consul General in New York City, accepted the Brith Abraham World Peace Award here and denied that Israel has been “intransigent and inflexible” in her Middle East policy. “We have already made major concessions,” Amir advised the Brith Abraham convention. “But we owe it to our children and to the Jewish people not to make concessions which will endanger the security of Israel and the very survival of its people for the sake of any illusory arrangements which have proved useless in the past.” Amir emphasized that “the peace we so ardently strive for must be more than just a piece of paper.” Rather, he said, it must be “real and lasting,” based on “defensible, agreed and recognized borders,” and there must be “a public Arab commitment to live in peace with Israel.” Amir stressed that Israel “will continue to take all the measures necessary for the defense of its citizens, its territory and its economic lifelines.”