FROM OUR ARCHIVES
65 YEARS AGO
Opium and hashish for medical and scientific purposes were to be grown in Israel in order to save foreign currency spent purchasing the substances from abroad. The first step was taken when the Knesset passed an amendment to the Habit-forming Drugs Act, allowing the cultivation of these plants for medical and scientific uses. Both drugs had been grown experimentally at the Weizmann Institute in Rehovot and on a farm in the Hadera district. The government was preparing for large-scale cultivation of these plants.
While the population of Israel had risen by only 6% in one year, the crime rate for the first six months of 1952 compared to the year before had risen by 24%, according to the Police Headquarters Statistical Department. Most increases occurred in manslaughter (214.3%), thefts (54.1%), willful damage to property (41.5%), housebreaking (33%), assault (28.6%), and sexual offenses (27.3%)
Construction of a 40-unit adobe (earthen) housing complex for new immigrants was started in the Beit She’an Valley, the first of its kind in the modern state. The apartments would need only one-third of the foreign currency outlay of the usual concrete structures.
50 YEARS AGO
The cabinet decided to make the Israeli pound legal tender in the West Bank, Gaza, Sinai and the Golan Heights. The Jordanian dinar would still remain legal tender in the West Bank. The Egyptian pound would be removed from circulation and residents would have a month to exchange the Egyptian currency for Israeli pounds. The splurge of Israeli spending in the territories and the fact that Arabs accepted Israeli money had created a situation in which Arabs could not legally change their Israeli pounds for dinars, and a black market was beginning to thrive.
Posts minister Yisrael Yeshayahu inaugurated the new phone exchange linking east Jerusalem’s 1,900 subscribers to the country’s inter-urban automatic dialing system. In the first ceremonial phone call, president Zalman Shazar told Yeshayahu, “From this city may there go forth words of peace, truth, and friendship.” Many thousands of phone lines that had been damaged in the Six Day War had already been repaired.
15 YEARS AGO
Israel transferred NIS 70 million in withheld tax revenues to the cashstrapped Palestinian Authority in a move meant to ease economic conditions in the poverty-stricken West Bank and Gaza Strip. The transfer took place despite PA Finance Minister Salaam Fayed’s rejection of Israeli conditions that the money be used for humanitarian purposes only. A senior PA official said Israel agreed to the transfer of the money following strong international pressure and quiet US criticism of its air raid on the home of a Hamas military wing leader the week before, in which 14 civilians were killed.
The Council for Cable and Satellite TV would soon discuss a request by the multi-channel broadcasters to remove CNN from their subscriber packages. The cable and satellite companies said that CNN’s anti-Israeli news coverage warranted it being blacked out locally and replaced by Fox News. Eason Jordan, CNN’s chief news executive and news gathering president, visited Israel to try and smooth things out. However, the cables then submitted a formal request to the council to have CNN removed from their line-up. – Daniel Kra