FROM OUR ARCHIVES
65 YEARS AGO
On April 18, 1951, The Jerusalem Post reported that the UN Security Council invited UN chief of staff General Riley, “an expert on Palestine affairs,” to give the council his opinion on the Israel-Syria Hula dispute and adjourned until his opinion could be heard. The Israeli representative, Abba Eban asked the council to reserve action, while the UN Mixed Israeli-Syrian Armistice Commission continued to deal with the problem.
Eban accused Col. B. de Ridder, UN.acting chief of staff, of exceeding his terms of reference on the Hula drainage question and presented this accusation to the members of the UN Security Council. Referring to Ridder’s report of March 21, 1951, Eban declared that the UN acceptance of this report would produce “the absurdity that the area’s inhabitants should be in a legal vacuum” and that Hula would be “an island of anarchy dedicated to the maintenance of a swamp.”
The UN observers proceeded with the marking of the border in the Beit Guvrin area. The border incidents there were being discussed at the meeting of the UN Mixed Israeli-Jordanian Armistice Commission. The Legion promised to return an Israeli soldier who was captured at Beit Guvrin a week earlier.
An annual police report indicated a sharp rise of acts of violence by Arab infiltrators during 1950, compared to 1949. Furthermore most infiltrators, whose number jumped to over 500, were heavily armed. The amount of property stolen by the infiltrators was IL 78,406,568, of which only 41 percent was recovered.
50 YEARS AGO
On April 18, 1966, The Jerusalem Post reported that Syria’s head of state, Dr. Nueddin al-Atassi, warned that no peace and stability would be maintained in the Middle East as long as Israel existed. Atassi was making an opening speech at a military parade marking the 21st anniversary of the French evacuation from Syria.
In New York, ambassador Abba Eban declared that Israel “had not initiated and will not initiate the introduction of new arms or any sort of new weapons into the Middle East, conventional or non-conventional.” He noted that “Egypt through the Soviet Union had been responsible for initiating every new stage in the arms race.”
The nation paid tribute to the six million Jews who perished in the Holocaust. The 23rd anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto revolt was observed in New York at a large open-air rally in Times Square, renamed for the day as “Warsaw Ghetto Square.”
10 YEARS AGO
On April 18, 2006, The Jerusalem Post reported that less than two hours after the 17th Knesset was sworn in, terror struck in southern Tel Aviv’s Naveh Sha’anan neighborhood, as a suicide bomber blew himself up in a crowd at the entrance to a fastfood stand, killing nine people and wounding close to 70. Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the bombing which ripped the Rosh Ha’ir shwarma stand on Salome Street. The same restaurant was hit by a similar suicide attack three months earlier, injuring 20 people.
This most “successful” suicide bombing since Hamas formally took control of the Palestinian Authority was seen by the Prime Minister’s Office as having created a new situation since this attack was different from previous ones. The officials said: “We now face a Hamas government that not only does not stop terrorism, but condones it, encourages it and gives comfort to its perpetrators. Israel and the world see the attack differently, therefore we have no choice but to take matters into our own hands.” It was pointed out that PA interior minister Said Salam said that Palestinian security forces would not interfere with Palestinian strikes against Israel.