FROM OUR ARCHIVES
65 YEARS AGO
On March 9, 1950, The Palestine Post reported that the plebiscite among immigrants in the transit camps on schooling for their children which was to start three days later had been postponed. Dr. B. Ben Yehuda, director-general of the Education Ministry, had told the Parliamentary Education Committee that he had been instructed by the government to begin the registration on the same date. The Knesset was expected to reconvene on March 13, 1950, in its third home, the Froumine building in King George Avenue. At the same time, a closed architects’ competition was being planned for the permanent Knesset building, which was to be built in Jerusalem’s new Kirya. Authority to sell abandoned property to a projected State Development Authority was vested by the Knesset in the Council for the Custody of Absentees’ Property to be appointed by the finance minister. Bruce Obermitter, European director of Transocean Air Lines, which had so far brought more than 7,000 immigrants from Iran to Israel, arrived in Tel Aviv on behalf of Iran Air Lines in order to plan a new air line from Bombay to the US, via Israel.
50 YEARS AGO
On March 9, 1965, The Jerusalem Post reported that Israeli forces again silenced Syrian positions north of Lake Kinneret, using cannon, mortars and machineguns. Some of the Syrian positions [liquidated in 1967], which were damaged two days earlier had been repaired by Syrians during the night. The Syrian fire, directed from the “Dika” position, was directed at two tractors from Moshav Almagor engaged in clearing boulders northeast of Korazin. The tractors continued their work, except for a short break in the morning. Two armed infiltrators from Sinai, believed to have been smugglers, were shot dead in an encounter with an Army patrol. They carried Czech (Mauser-type) rifles. West German chancellor Ludwig Erhard’s special envoy, Dr. Kurt Birenbach, told the Post that “the negotiations with Israeli government [on establishing diplomatic relations] have just begun, and I don’t quite know yet how to conclude them.” Birenbach had already met premier Levi Eshkol and foreign minister Golda Meir. Deputy prime minister Abba Eban “personally” favored a positive reply to Bonn. Gamal Abdul Nasser of Egypt made a bitter attack on West Germany, but said that he would not yet announce his reaction to this move. Arab diplomats were expected to meet in Cairo today to discuss the matter.
25 YEARS AGO
On March 9, 1990, The Jerusalem Post reported that IDF troops killed five Hezbollah gunmen in a nighttime clash at the Zommarya crossing linking the Israeli South Lebanese security zone with the rest of Lebanon. Defense minister Yitzhak Rabin (Labor) continued to resist the attempt of his party’s political bureau which could result in a walk-out from the national unity government and insisted that the present coalition “constituted Israel’s best alternative.” During a closed meeting with American Jewish leaders, US vice-president Dan Quayle repeatedly differed with president George Bush and his secretary of state James Baker on the sensitive issue of the PLO’s continued involvement in terrorism. Quayle said that “no one is oblivious to the fact that the PLO is still involved in terrorism”. Security forces firing rubber bullets and tear-gas broke up marches by women marking International Women’s Day in east Jerusalem and the West Bank, injuring 28 demonstrators. Israeli police lacked the tools to fight the war on drugs, the head of police intelligence told this newspaper.