FROM OUR ARCHIVES
65 YEARS AGO
On September 28, 1951, The Jerusalem Post reported from Bonn that West Germany had offered to negotiate with Israel and with representatives of world Jewry to solve the problem of German reparations to atone for the wrongs done to the Jews. Dr. Konrad Adenauer’s government pledged “to see to it that restitution legislation is implemented.” Parts of the Jewish property which it was possible to identify had been restituted. Further restitutions would follow, the statement said. Commenting on this declaration, the Israeli government spokesman said that the government would study the statement and make its attitude known.
The prolonged Mapai-General Zionists political parties’ negotiations for the formation of a new coalition government were broken at Jerusalem’s General Zionists HQ. David Ben-Gurion, Mapai, said that controls and rationing comprised key points in his party’s election platform, and that it would be a betrayal if they surrendered these powers to General Zionists.
Israel had prepared a draft of a proposed non-aggression pact with each of the four Arab states with whom it had armistice agreement. The draft had been submitted to the Palestine Conciliation Commission in Paris.
The UN Israel-Jordan Mixed Armistice Commission decided, at two consecutive meetings, to shelve, by a mutual agreement, all outstanding problems and complaints by Israel and Jordan to ensure future tranquility in the border area.
50 YEARS AGO
On September 28, 1966, The Jerusalem Post reported that in New York finance minister Pinhas Sapir was reviewing his country’s recent fiscal problems and his program in solving them, in a series of talks with American officials, who were also facing fiscal problems of considerable magnitude. He met treasury secretary Henry Fowler, and the aministrator of the Agency for International Development, William Gaud.
Sapir was scheduled to address the meetings of the World Bank and of the International Monetary Fund, and also to meet US secretary of agriculture Orville Freeman.
In Washington, German chancellor Ludwig Erhard told the National Press Club that he had observed “a substantial improvement” in relations with Israel and the Common Market and that he foresaw a possibility of still closer links in the future.
The Post’s editorial pointed out that there were still differences of opinion with regard to the building of nuclear energy water desalting plan in Israel.
10 YEARS AGO
On September 28, 2006, The Jerusalem Post reported that defense minister Amir Peretz had approved chief of staff Lt.-Gen. Dan Halutz’s recommendation to appoint Maj.-Gen. Gadi Eisenkot as new OC Northern Command.
Peretz told the Post that Israel might decide to escalate its operations against terror infrastructure in the Gaza Strip, including a possible massive invasion, if Kassam attacks continued.
In Kiev, the Hebrew wail of a cantor reciting the mourner’s kaddish pierced the blue sky and clear air of the Babi Yar forest, as thousands of Holocaust survivors, international leaders, diplomats and students commemorated the massacre that ushered in the Nazis’ “Final Solution.” It was a shout of anguish at the pain of more than 33,000 Jewish lives stamped out in two days, but it was also an expression of victory at the survival of the Jewish people.