FROM OUR ARCHIVES
50 YEARS AGO
On March 29, 1967, The Jerusalem Post reported that foreign minister Abba Eban was very satisfied upon his return from a seven-country tour of Eastern Asia and Oceania. “The very fact that my visit took place was a proof that Israel’s friends in Asia were standing firm in the fact of the Arab pressure,” he said, and added that “the strengthening of Israel’s position in those countries was important for itself, but also was an indication that we are becoming more rooted in their consciousness – a trend particularly vital in the face of pressures aimed at wooing Asia away from us.”
Sir Stanley Unwin, the noted British publisher, spoke on behalf of the foreign publishers at the opening of the Third International Book Fair in Jerusalem. “A nation without books is a mentally starved nation,” Unwin said in his address at the opening ceremony of the fair, which was opened in the presence of president Zalman Shazar, the Diplomatic Corps, government ministers, Knesset members, Nobel laureate S.Y. Agnon, the author André SchwarzBart, publishers from overseas and Israel, and many invited guests.
Authoritative sources in Bonn denied accepting any “conditions” on Arab ties, in an effort to persuade the Arab League members to restore the recently severed diplomatic relations of several Arab states with West Germany, for being ready to compensate the Jewish people.
Two thousand Jews, including many young people, jammed the Central Synagogue in Moscow, when the Megila was read on the eve of Purim.
25 YEARS AGO
On March 29, 1992, The Jerusalem Post reported that the US fact-finding mission probing alleged Israeli unauthorized transfer of Patriot technology to China had completed its task, but gave no indication of its findings. Defense Ministry officials and other sources said that the Americans had found nothing wrong.
In Washington, president George H.W. Bush sent an emotional letter to a prominent Jewish Republican expressing “anguish” over the disturbed state of the US-Israel relationship, but reaffirming that he would not grant Israel the requested loan guarantees unless there was a settlement freeze. The White House denials came at a time when the Bush administration was also actively lobbying European Community countries against granting Israel credit, until it slowed or froze settlements.
Foreign minister David Levy was under increasing pressure in his camp to quit the Likud, and a source close to him said that he had “entered a tight corner from which there’s no way out to come out the winner.”
10 YEARS AGO
On March 29, 2007, The Jerusalem Post reported that Israel had adopted a low-key wait-and-see approach to the Arab League’s unanimous decision to repeat without changes its land and refugees for peace initiative from March 2002.
The Education Ministry announced that it would invest over NIS 17 million in significantly improving English teaching in Israeli schools. This new initiative primarily revolved around teacher training, but would also see the purchase of some 30,000 English-language reading books for Israeli schools.
For the first time in four months, the IDF struck a Kassam missile launching squad in Gaza. Three terrorists were killed during the previous few days in Jenin.
– Alexander Zvielli