FROM OUR ARCHIVES
65 YEARS AGO
On May 18, 1952, The Jerusalem Post reported that the West German Parliament’s Foreign Policy Committee called upon Konrad Adenauer’s government to give “priority satisfaction” to the restitution claims of Israel. The committee heard Prof. Franz Boehm, leader of the German delegation to the restitution talks at The Hague. Talks with the representatives of the Jewish organizations were to be continued soon, but those with Israel were suspended until West Germany makes a concrete offer of payment.
Dina Michael, 25, mother of a three-year-old girl, was murdered in her home in a moshav near the border in the Samaria District after midnight. Hearing suspicious noises, she went into kitchen, switched on the light and was shot at a close range by marauders armed with Sten guns. She was survived by her husband and daughter.
An infiltrator was killed in an engagement between Nazareth police and a gang of 10 men from Jordan who entered Galilee during the night.
50 YEARS AGO
On May 18, 1967, The Jerusalem Post reported that the “dangerous implications” for Israel of Egyptian troops movement in the Sinai peninsula and the steps which Israel would have to take in their wake were discussed at a special meeting of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Security Committee with prime minister Levi Eshkol and chief-ofstaff Lt.-Gen. Yitzhak Rabin. Eshkol explained the government’s policy under the present circumstances, stressing the dangerous implications of the posting of Egyptian army units in Sinai.
Egypt moved troops and equipment to Israel’s border and demanded that the UN Emergency Force withdraw troops from there. Authoritative sources said the Egyptian military preparations were taking place close to the Israeli border and in the Suez Canal area. Israeli sources said that Egypt was moving at least one armored division close to its border.
UN secretary-general U Thant sought to clarify the Egyptian demand that UNEF withdraw from Sinai and the Israeli-Egyptian border as the situation there could become “very grave”. He confirmed that the UN had received a formal Egyptian request for the immediate withdrawal of the UN Emergency Force, which since 1956 had stood on guard on the Egyptian side of the land border with Israel and at Sharm e-Sheikh, watching over Israel’s freedom of shipping in the Red Sea.
Lebanon requested the postponement of a scheduled visit by the US Sixth Fleet, because the conditions were “unsuitable for such visit.”
25 YEARS AGO
On May 18, 1992, The Jerusalem Post reported that a farmer, David Cohen, 64, of Te’ashur, a moshav near Beersheba, was shot in the head and murdered while leaving the Gaza Strip after selling sheep in Beit Lahiya near Jabaliya refugee camp. Friends were puzzled why the father of 14 went there alone and unarmed.
Archeologists and geologists had uncovered near Eilat Israel’s first and only known gold mine, a spokesman for the Antiquities Authority told the press.
Finance minister Yitzhak Moda’i said he would defy a cabinet decision to eliminate employers’ tax, saying the decision broke the law.
—Alexander Zvielli