FROM OUR ARCHIVES

YEARS AGO on January 6, 1952, The

Jerusalem Post reported that 23 Egyptians were killed in the fighting between British forces and Egyptians around the Suez Canal area.

The first death sentence in a World War II trial was passed by the Tel Aviv District Court, with one of the three judges dissenting. The accused, Yehezkel Ingster, 42, former block warden at the Greinitz Camp in Poland, was found guilty on four charges: crimes against humanity; severe damage to property; causing injuries to persons and assault. He was acquitted on the charge of war crimes, since the court thought “he had not been identified with the enemy, since he himself was a prisoner.” According to the evidence, the accused had clubbed, kicked and cuffed his charges, and at least on two occasions knocked out prisoners’ teeth.

Prime minister David Ben-Gurion denied the right of Hagana veterans as an organization to take any military part in the defense set-up by the state. If the veterans wished to serve the country, they should help in the work of integrating immigrants spiritually and economically, by advice, instruction or example.

50 YEARS AGO on January 6, 1967, The Jerusalem Post reported that Jordanian police had arrested five leaders of the Palestine Liberation Organization, as well as number of infiltrators from Syria. Strict safeguards were enforced both in Amman and in the Old City of Jerusalem [under Jordanian occupation until June 1967], where the PLO said it had set off a series of blasts.

President Zalman Shazar had accepted the invitation of the Governor-General of Canada to visit the country for the centenary of the establishment of the Canadian Federation.

25 YEARS AGO on January 6, 1992, The Jerusalem Post reported that the US was likely to join in a unanimous UN Security Council vote condemning Israel’s expulsion of 12 Palestinian activists. But the government refused to back down on these expulsions. A number of Israeli officials believed that the UN Security Council’s resolution would also pave the way for the Palestinians and Arab states to join the peace talks in Washington, which officially had to begin the following day.

Finance minister Yitzhak Moda’i said that if Israel failed to receive the $10 billion loan guarantee that it had requested from the US, the government would have to look into the possibility of raising taxes or requesting loan guarantees from other countries, and asking Diaspora Jewry to guarantee loans.