FROM OUR ARCHIVES
65 YEARS AGO
The slim navy-blue Israeli passport was finally unveiled by interior minister Moshe Shapiro. He said that 95% of the population had Israeli citizenship. Some 25,000 declined Israeli nationality, mostly for reasons connected with property abroad. The minister announced that a broader Arab family reunification program would soon be set in motion. In addition to requests by separated families, the ministry would consider requests from engaged couples. Over 3,000 cases had already been dealt with, and 2,965 requests implemented.
“Israel might be the pioneer in the use of a new method of desalinating sea water for irrigation purposes,” according to Dr. J. Russell Smith, professor of economic geography at Columbia University. He spoke on the newly developed permionic membrane demineralization process at a Geographical Union general assembly. He told the group that “it is more than possible that the hungry and already overpopulated little Israel will lead the way in the development of desalinated desert agriculture… Israel is a nation driven by the triple urge of land hunger, physical hunger and an idea.”
Israel’s first “flying saucer” was reported by a Haifa resident, who preferred to remain as anonymous as the object he saw. It was greenish, he said, elliptical, and had a broad, rapidly revolving belt around its middle. It flew over Mount Carmel from the northwest and disappeared out over the sea, according to the report.
50 YEARS AGO
Four judges of the West Bank Court of Appeals would be asked to return to their posts and reconstitute the court, which would sit in Ramallah. A Ramallah magistrate would be named to replace a fifth Appeals Court judge who fled to Jordan during the war. An attorney general would also be appointed for the newly occupied West Bank. Practically no legislation had been adopted by the Jordanian parliament during the previous 20 years, and West Bank courts still based their decisions mainly on Ottoman and British Mandatory law. Another difficulty in the West Bank legal system was the absence of a law school in Jordan. While most lawyers in east Jerusalem had not yet resumed their duties, several claims had been filed by local residents in the courts through Israeli-Arab and Jewish advocates. One claim had been filed by the Arab bus companies against the Egged cooperative for “occupying” the premises of the central bus station in east Jerusalem.
Construction of the new central bus station in Tel Aviv would begin within a few weeks in the Levinsky Street area.
25 YEARS AGO
Prime minister Yitzhak Rabin spoke out against a $5 billion arms sale to Saudi Arabia which president George H.W. Bush would reportedly recommend to Congress. Since the 72 F15-E fighter jets that were to be sold were more advanced than those that Israel possessed, Rabin said the sale could not take place if the US was “committed to maintaining Israel’s qualitative edge.”
Government funding for the purchase and renovation of apartments in the Muslim Quarter and other areas of east Jerusalem were suspended by housing minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer. He also ordered that newly purchased apartments which had been renovated but not yet occupied remain empty until a study of public funding of such projects was completed.