FROM OUR ARCHIVES
65 YEARS AGO
On April 17, 1951, The Jerusalem Post reported that Israel had protested to the UN Mixed Israel-Syrian Armistice Commission on a recent statement by the Syrian deputy chief of staff that the whole Syrian army was concentrated on Israel’s border, and asked Col. Bennet L. de Ridder, acting UN chief of staff, to include this on the agenda of the MAC as violation of the Armistice Agreement.
There was satisfaction in Israeli government and diplomatic circles at the decision of the Syrian government to accept the four conditions for the resumption of the Israeli-Syrian MAC, accepted by Israel the previous week. It was felt that this should ease the task of the UN Security Council which was expected to meet to consider the latest Hula incidents. Foreign minister Abba Eban briefed the UN Security Council on the value and importance of the Hula draining for Israel.
In London, the House of Commons discussed the Egyptian blockade of the Suez Canal for Israeli shipping. Gerard Williams, MP, suggested that British tankers going to Haifa should be escorted by destroyers, “or even a number of gunboats.”
The Baghdad Chamber of Commerce met twice with the custodian of Jewish property to discuss the best means of exploiting the property and funds confiscated from the Jews.
The Rimon, a new Zim ship, was launched in Rotterdam. Pedigree Hereford cattle bought for £15,000 were on their way to establish beef herds in Israel.
50 YEARS AGO
On April 17, 1966, The Jerusalem Post reported that a blast of sirens was sounded throughout the country on the annual Holocaust and Heroes Remembrance Day. Some 10,000 Tel Avivians converged on Dizengoff Circus in the evening to pay tribute to the memory of the six million Jewish victims of the Nazis.
In New York, the Coca-Cola Company had reversed an earlier decision and granted a franchise for a bottling plant in Israel. The franchise was granted to Abraham Feinberg, a New York banker and president of the Israel Development Corporation, the agency for the sale of Israel Bonds. This announcement ended a controversy that began in Washington two weeks earlier when a company spokesman admitted that the franchise had been denied to the Tempo beverages company in Israel. The new decision was welcomed by the American Jewish community, which had earlier planned a boycott of Coca-Cola, charging that the company had given in to Arab boycott pressure.
The cost-of-living index went up by 1.9 points. The increase became unavoidable, after rises in both prices and salaries, according to the Central Bureau of Statistics.
25 YEARS AGO
On April 17, 1991, The Jerusalem Post reported that on the eve of the third Middle East swing in six weeks to press for a peace parley, US secretary of state James Baker expressed muted US reaction to the establishment of the Revava settlement in Samaria, for fear it could damage hopes for progress. While a White House official reiterated the traditional US view that settlements are an “obstacle to peace,” US officials had been cautious and had so far refused to hold the Israeli government accountable for the Gush Emunim settlement.
Establishment of Revava was hotly debated in the Knesset, with opposition parties branding it an attempt to sabotage the peace process.
A lone infiltrator shot and seriously wounded St- Sgt. Doron Brauner of Kisufim, of a Nahal paratroop unit, before being killed in a clash with soldiers, along the border, near the Jordan Valley Kibbutz of Neveh Ur. The gunman, a Jordanian citizen, was believed to be a member of Hamas. – Alexander Zvielli