FROM OUR ARCHIVES
65 YEARS AGO
On February 28, 1952, The Jerusalem Post reported that prime minister David Ben-Gurion read to the Knesset the text of a note to the Soviet Union, assuring that Israel would not join any aggressive pact against Russia, or any other peace-loving country, and calling upon Moscow to permit Soviet Jews to leave for Israel.
Justice minister Dr. Dov Joseph acknowledged in the Knesset that his description of “lenient” penalties for persons convicted of assaulting policemen as “an insult to the law” might have been “too sharp.” He also admitted that his statement that “judges have no wings” had been “perhaps too picturesque.” Joseph had sharply attacked the president of the Supreme Court, Moshe Smoira, for sending a letter of protest to the Knesset speaker without first giving him a chance to explain his former statements.
The first US grant-in-aid to Israel, involving the release of $50 million “for specific refugee relief and resettlement projects,” was signed at the Kirya by foreign minister Moshe Sharett and US ambassador Monnett B. Davis, bringing to a close the discussions which lasted for over a week.
The Polish government had decided to re-examine appeals of Polish Jews whose requests for exit permits had been rejected, if reunion with their families in Israel was involved. It was hoped that emigration would now be accompanied by a more charitable interpretation of the term “family.”
50 YEARS AGO
On February 28, 1967, The Jerusalem Post reported that the unemployment relief payment which would begin on April 1, 1967, would range from IL 100 a month for a single person to IL 234 a month for heads of large families. Details of the grants – eligibility and conditions of payment and how they would be graded in accordance with the size of the family – were stated in a special publication, part of the annual report of the Labor Ministry.
Syrian shepherds had resumed grazing their flocks in Israeli territory in the Almagor area, since the rains stopped a week earlier. Some of the intruders wore khaki uniforms and the grazing was in the demilitarized zone.
UN efforts to bring the Syrians back to the conference table with Israel on the agreed agenda on borderland cultivation had still proved unfruitful. This evidently emerged at the meeting at the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem with Gen. Odd Bull, UNTSO chief of staff. According to well-informed sources Bull did not suggest that Israel should yield any ground, but in Damascus he was confronted with the Syrian “Demilitarized Zone” proposals.
25 YEARS AGO
On February 28, 1992, The Jerusalem Post reported that Transport Minister Moshe Katsav headed the Likud’s popularity slate. Benjamin Netanyahu was second and Bennie Begin third.
Prime minister Yitzhak Shamir accused the Bush administration of doing Israel an “injustice,” and said US secretary of state James Baker’s position on loan guarantees was a “blatant attempt to exploit humanitarian assistance.”
The vast gap between Israel and the Palestinians on the approach to autonomy clouded the atmosphere in Washington, as the first week of the latest round of bilateral peace talks came to an end.
Four hundred and fifty families surveyed their flood-damaged homes in Kiryat Bialik, after the water subsided sufficiently to enable them to return for a visit.