FROM OUR ARCHIVES
65 YEARS AGO
On February 5, 1952, The Jerusalem Post reported that the government’s UN policy received a tacit vote of confidence in the Knesset, after a six-hour debate. The opposition motions were defeated by 51 to 32, while the Communist motion of censure got only its own three votes.
Prime minister David Ben-Gurion said in the Knesset that Israel had an affinity with the United States and American Jewry, but would not subjugate itself to the US. It was to the credit of the US government that it had never considered asking Israel to toe the line. But in a hypothetical case that they would request that, the answer would be “No,” he declared.
“I am happy to announce that it is the intention of this government to maintain food supplies in sufficient quantities to assure the public of receiving regularly and on time the food it needs to sustain its health and working capacity,” Dr. Dov Joseph, the commerce and supply minister, announced in his fourth consecutive radio address to the nation.
50 YEARS AGO
On February 5, 1967, The Jerusalem Post reported that foreign minister Abba Eban, referring to the current meetings of the UN Mixed Israeli-Syrian Armistice Commission, said that should it emerge in due course that the other side “had nothing to say, we might suggest to the UN secretary-general that when Syrians have something to say to us we will come and listen. There would be no crisis if the truce would be properly observed,”
In Washington, a high-ranking US State Department official said on behalf of the secretary of state Dean Rusk that the Soviet Union had shown no interest in the US’s approach seeking limitations on arms shipments to the Middle East.
Ellern Bank was put on sale, and there were likely to be willing takers, while Feuchtwanger Bank was to close. The Bank of Israel was reported to be in a quandary over whether it was responsible for the IL 40 million of bills traded by the Ellern and Feuchtwanger banks without a bank guarantee. It was expected that the Bank of Israel governor David Horowitz would decide.
25 YEARS AGO
On February 5, 1992, The Jerusalem Post reported that storms and gusts of wind and rain caused havoc and chaos throughout the country. Scores of people were evacuated from their homes in Jerusalem, Ashdod, Rishon Lezion and parts of Tel Aviv, Nearly 30 roads, including the Ayalon highway, were closed by floods or blocked by snow.
The Knesset passed a bill setting June 23, 1992, as the date for new elections.
Israel had been trying in vain for the past year to find a Western country willing to give political asylum to some 20 Iranian and Sudanese refugees who had smuggled themselves into the country from Jordan and Egypt in a desperate attempt to flee the hangman. Some 20 were held in prison, a few for over a year, under the administrative deportation order issued by the Interior Ministry.
More than three million cubic meters of water burst from a reservoir near Kibbutz Merom Golan on the Golan Heights, forming a huge lake. — Alexander Zvielli