FROM OUR ARCHIVES
65 YEARS AGO
On February 25, 1948, The Palestine Post reported that the UN Security Council had opened the long-awaited Palestine debate. The US representative, Warren Austin, declared that his country favored the creation of an international force to maintain peace in Palestine, though not necessarily to enforce partition.
The thud of explosions and the clatter of machine-gun and rifle fire were heard constantly all day in the streets of Jerusalem, beginning about 7 a.m. when a land mine exploded under a Jewish bus in the Mekor Haim neighborhood. Bus passengers who sought shelter came under Arab fire, wounding seriously Ya’acov Hamami, 18. The Hagana later opened fire, killing an Arab. A Jewish woman was killed and five passersby were wounded by British forces’ fire in the center of the city and bullets hit the Jewish Agency’s compound in King George Street.
The Jewish Agency declared that there was no doubt that British persons perpetrated the Ben-Yehuda Street outrage in which 40 persons were killed and some 139 wounded. But in London both Houses had again disclaimed any British responsibility. Asked if Abdul Kader el Husseini, the purported signer of an Arab leaflet admission of the bombing and commander of Arab forces in Jerusalem was being sought, Colonial under-secretary David Rees-Williams, colonial under-secretary said that Kader was difficult to catch.
Senator Vicente Francisco, the Philippine delegate, had resigned from the UN Palestine Commission due to the difference of opinion with a number of his colleagues.
50 YEARS AGO
On February 25, 1963, The Jerusalem Post reported that the German Committee of Friends for the Upbuilding of Israel had already sold $4 million worth of Israel Development Bonds, thus attaining half of the $8m. target figure for 1963.
The new computer at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot could memorize 32,000 words, perform 40 simultaneous multiplication operations a second, print 100 lines in a minute, and hum “Hatikva.”
Two members of a BOAC air crew were ordered out of Israel following an anti-Semitic incident at the Avia hotel.
Israel expected a “stream of requests” from developing countries for technical aid following the recent UN Science and Technology conference in Geneva.
25 YEARS AGO
On February 25, 1988, The Jerusalem Post reported that US secretary of state George Shultz had arrived in Israel on a five-day Middle East mission to face the Israeli leadership split in the middle on the peace process and highly skeptical of the prospects of his new peace initiative. It was also reported that Shultz had received a skeptical go-ahead from the Soviet Union in his diplomatic effort to revive ArabIsraeli peace negotiations.
Katyushas hit Galilee as terrorists stepped up their activities in Lebanon.
Alexei Magarik, who in September 1987 had become the last Prisoner of Zion to be released from Soviet prison, arrived here from Vienna together with his wife, Natasha, and their son, Hayim.