FROM OUR ARCHIVES
65 YEARS AGO
On December 20, 1951, The Jerusalem Post reported that a national insurance bill, covering old age, accidents, maternity and death, had been presented in the Knesset by labor minister Golda Myerson [Meir].
The floods in all ma’barot (immigrant transit camps) were reported by the Jewish Agency to have ebbed, and all residents with the exception of those in Nahariya and 150 persons from the Hirya ma’bara, near Tel Aviv, returned to their homes. Rehabilitation work in the ma’barot was in full swing and was being carried out by the IDF, the Jewish Agency Rehabilitation Department and Solel Boneh. Four hundred canvas huts were sent to various ma’barot to replace damaged ones and to provide new ones where necessary.
A half-a-ton of bread was dropped at new immigrant settlements in the South, cut off by flood waters, by the Israel Flying Club in reply to the Jewish Agency’s alarm that Bitanya Dromit, a new settlement between Yavne and Ashdod,was without food supplies. Three of the club’s bright yellow Piper Cubs made numerous sorties to provide food.
The Knesset extended for another year the Emergency Regulations permitting the Defense Ministry to establish a security zone within 10 km. from the border north of the 21st parallel and 25 km. south of the line. During the budget debate, finance minister Eliezer Kaplan disclosed that the recent fall of the Israeli pound on the Zurich market to 50 cents resulted from the panic sale of “hot money.” The holders, he explained, had learned of the plan to issue new currency notes. The panic had nothing to do with the purchasing power of the Israeli pound.
50 YEARS AGO
On December 20, 1966, The Jerusalem Post reported that incessant rains severed traffic, phone links and power throughout the country. Scores of families were evacuated from Petah Tikva and Lod after their homes were flooded.
In London, the British foreign secretary George Brown said he supported the UN efforts to maintain peace between Israel and Arab states.
The Post’s editorial was devoted to US president Lyndon Johnson’s persistence to put the world’s water problem high on its list of priorities and his vision of water desalination in Israel. It was in this context that Johnson was fired by the possibilities of a joint pioneering venture with Israel to harness nuclear power to the task of desalination of water. Since February 1964, when the US president first announced that explorative talks were being held on this scheme, the project had moved consistently forward. No doubt, the editorial concluded, such a huge cooperative venture would be another link in the vast and intimate relationship that had been established between the US and Israel.
25 YEARS AGO
On December 20, 1991, The Jerusalem Post reported that Israeli negotiators returned home from Washington reporting little substantive progress in Middle East peace talks, but claiming a victory in the public relations struggle. Delegation spokesman Benjamin Netanyahu said Arab attempts to bring US pressure on Israel had failed and the Arabs knew they had no choice but to negotiate peace directly with Israel.
In Washington, president George H.W. Bush said he was “disappointed” and “frustrated” that the bilateral talks between Arabs and Israelis had not moved into substantive discussion, but he reiterated a continuing US commitment to keep the parties in the Middle East peace process at the negotiating table. In Amman, King Hussein of Jordan accused Israel’s “fanatic leaders” of trying to abort peace process.
The IDF, through the soon-to-be established Civil Defense Command, was to launch a country-wide maintenance and replacement operation for an anti-chemical protection kits.