FROM OUR ARCHIVES
65 YEARS AGO
On December 11, 1951, The Jerusalem Post reported on the exact terms of the agreement on the Dead Sea Works, granting the government 51% of the voting rights in the new company, Palestine Potash Ltd. 25%, and local investors 24%. This agreement was to be put before the British shareholders for approval.
The four-week-old dispute between the Seamen’s Union and the Histadrut came up for a debate in the Knesset and developed into a conflict between the coalition parties and the opposition. The principal point was the Government’s contention that the dispute and strike was the work of disloyal elements who sought to gain control of the Israeli merchant marine. This view was put forward by the Mapai and Hapoel Hamizrahi political parties. A view by the Mapam political party was that the seamen’s struggle was a straightforward demand of the sailors to organize and fight for better conditions.
The Histadrut Executive denied the report that the International Federation of Labor had supported the Israeli seamen’s strike.
By 52 votes to 37, the Knesset had backed the government in its stand on the report of the Parliamentary Inquiry Committee, finding that police had mistreated religious zealots detained in Jalameh Camp the previous June, following the alleged plot to bomb the Knesset. The government had instructed the police inspector-general to prosecute the policemen responsible for the irregularities, and said that the Jalameh Camp chapter was closed.
50 YEARS AGO
On December 11, 1966, The Jerusalem Post reported from Stockholm that scientists and writers from four countries, including Israel’s Shmuel Yosef Agnon, were honored at a glittering ceremony at which they received Nobel Prizes in their respective fields. Sweden’s King Gustav Adolf presented them with checks worth a total of about IL 675,000, gold medals and diplomas bound in red leather at a ceremony in the columned flower-decked Stockholm concert hall.
At the Fifth Asian Games Israeli hoopsters beat the Iranians 87-55.
The cabinet had discussed the political and security situation, including the current meeting of the Arab League Defense Council in Cairo and Abba Eban’s report on the recent promise made by the UN Secretary-General U Thant to widen the scope of the UN Truce Supervision Organization.
In New York, US vice president Hubert Humphrey said that among the major objectives sought by the US in its “long search for peace” was a honorable ending of the Vietnam conflict and the maintenance of peace in the Middle East.
25 YEARS AGO
On December 11, 1991, The Jerusalem Post reported from Washington that the heads of the Israeli, Palestinian and Jordanian delegations were meeting at the US State Department in an effort to resolve the dispute that blocked the start of talks between their delegations and overshadowed the first round of separate peace talks between Israel and the Syrians and Lebanese.
Israel wanted the Jordanians and Palestinians to hold joint talks together, before they broke down in two separate “subcommittees”, deputy minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the press conference. The Palestinians, however, insisting that Israel was attempting to denigrate their national identity, said that they would not meet Israel together with Jordanians, and stalled the talks because of this Israeli demand.