FROM OUR ARCHIVES

65

YEARS AGO on May 12, 1952, The Jerusalem Post reported from Washington that the House Foreign Affairs Committee warned the Arab States and Israel that the US did not intend to go on indefinitely giving help for refugees and immigrants in that area. The committee called on both to show constructive accomplishments that year.

Israel and Germany had been asked by the US to renew reparations negotiations, a Foreign Ministry spokesman stated in Jerusalem. He said, however, that he knew nothing of a US communication containing concrete proposals which could serve as a basis for renewed conversations.

Eleven registration stations in various parts of the country and in Israeli consulates abroad were to be set up to accept written declarations of foreign nationals not wishing to become Israeli citizens when the Nationality Law was to go into effect on July 14, 1952. All residents – including foreign nationals, both Jews and non-Jews – who did not submit such a declaration in person by this date would become Israeli citizens automatically.

50

YEARS AGO on May 12, 1967, The Jerusalem Post reported that premier Levi Eshkol emphasized the gravity with which the government regarded the recent wave of infiltration and sabotage, and said that Israel might adopt measures more drastic than those of April 9, 1967, a reference to the bombing by Israel of Syrian gun emplacements.

Syria’s ruling Ba’ath Socialist Party warned of what it described as “the growing possibility of a new Israeli aggression against Syria.”

At the UN, secretary-general U Thant deplored the recent increase of terrorist activities in Israeli border areas with Lebanon and Syria, especially the “specialized” Fatah attacks. Israel accused Syria of carrying out new armed attacks on Israeli territory and warned that it was entitled to act in self-defense.

Some 50 nets belonging to Kinneret fishermen had been stolen from the northern part of Lake Kinneret [the Israeli-Syrian border ran close to the Kinneret shore until 1967]. A complaint had been lodged with the joint UN Israeli-Syrian Armistice Commission.