FROM OUR ARCHIVES
65 YEARS AGO
On July 20, 1951, The Jerusalem Post reported that finance minister Eliezer Kaplan disclosed at a press conference in Jerusalem that about $30 million in cash had so far been received from Israel Independence Bond sales in the US and pledges for a further $45m. had been made. Kaplan also reported on the final figures of the previous year’s budget, on sales of government lands, current budgetary income and expenditure, problems with the increased oil prospecting in Israel, and on the activities of the Development Authority.
David Horowitz, economic adviser to the government, disclosed that the government was considering the possibility of operating the Haifa refineries at full capacity with a view to exporting part of the output.
Egypt revealed that it was prepared to allow the passage of Haifa-bound crude oil through the Suez Canal – if it received guarantees that Israel would not use the refined oil for aggressive purposes against any Arab country.
Prime minister David Ben-Gurion was greeted with cheers and cries of “Long live Ben-Gurion” by almost 20,000 persons from the immigrant camp at Pardess Hanna, the largest in the country. Representatives of the Romanian and Iraqi immigrants welcomed the prime minister separately, and he answered them in Hebrew and Yiddish. Later. at the Ein Shemer immigrant camp, he was greeted with similar enthusiasm. 50 YEARS AGO
On July 20, 1966, The Jerusalem Post reported that deputy development minister Yehuda Sha’ari called the action of a group of workers at the Ashdod power station, who were deliberately causing sporadic electricity cuts to press their demands for higher wages, “more serious as a strike and worse as a breach of discipline”. Sha’ari, who was chairman of the board of the Electric Corporation, said that the government and the corporation would not give in to pressure of this nature. If the cuts would not stop immediately, “all measures would be taken to ensure regular supply of the current.” A Histadrut spokesman said that he had “no official knowledge of the strike.”
Marauders from the Gaza Strip kidnapped Erwin (Dudi) Owitz, 17, who was driving a tractor in the vineyard of Moshav Ami-Oz. Owitz and his 18-year-old friend Ami Sommer were dusting the vines, each taking a turn. Israel applied to the UN Secretariat in New York and the UNEF representative in Tel Aviv to secure Owitz’s immediate release. The tractor was discovered abandoned. The purpose of the kidnapping was believed to be the training of Egyptian Army personnel in infiltrating and bringing back prisoners and documents. Erwin’s father, moshav committee chairman Peretz Owitz went to Jerusalem to urge prime minister Levi Eshkol to make every effort to see his son safely home.
Finance minister Pinhas Sapir rejected prime minister David Ben-Gurion’s claim that Negev development was the focal issue in his talks with former West German chancellor Konrad Adenauer in the Waldorf Astoria in 1960. Sapir said that minutes of the meeting showed clearly that Negev had only been mentioned by Ben-Gurion in a general context. When the German loan was received, no conditions were posed that it should go to the Negev, Sapir said. 10 YEARS AGO
On July 20, 2006, The Jerusalem Post reported that two soldiers from the elite IDF paratroopers unit Maglan were killed in a clash with Hezbollah, while senior IDF officers said they would continue with pinpoint ground incursions into Lebanon and admitted that they had trouble stopping Katyusha rocket fire with their incessant air strikes on guerrilla targets.
A terrorist suspect was nabbed in Hod Hasharon and the IDF killed 12 Palestinians in Gaza and Nablus raids. Police arrested a Palestinian carrying five kilograms of explosives in downtown Jerusalem. Two brothers, aged nine and three, were killed when Katyusha rockets hit Nazareth.