FROM OUR ARCHIVES
65 YEARS AGO
On September 29, 1951, The Jerusalem Post reported that the Syrian Army revolt against joining Egyptian armed forces under Col. Abdul Nasser was in full force, after the rebel officers in Damascus declared “null and void” an earlier announcement over their radio that a settlement had been reached and that the bloodless insurrection was over. Syrian troops in Aleppo had also joined the anti-Nasser revolt. The Syrian military uprising came as no surprise to Israel that knew the extent of the deep dissatisfaction among the Syrian officers over the control of their armed forces by Egyptians.
The army reported that a number of hostile aircraft penetrated Israeli air space for photographic reconnaissance. They were driven off by Israeli aircraft.
Justice minister Pinhas Rosen and Dahomey foreign minister Assogba Oke signed a treaty of friendship and mutual technical assistance pact between the two nations.
A meeting held at the UN between foreign minister Golda Meir and Adlai Stevenson, US chief delegate to the UN, halted the bandwagon for the election of Tunisia’s Mongi Slim, president of the General Assembly, as interim UN secretary-general marked to succeed the late Dag Hammarskjold, who was killed in a plane crash and was given a very solemn state funeral in Sweden, unmatched in pomp.
A Jewish school, Beit Rivka, in the vicinity of Paris, was heavily damaged in an attempt to burn it down, when unknown vandals placed jerry-cans with petrol in one of the classrooms and ignited it.
25 YEARS AGO
On September 29, 1991, The Jerusalem Post reported that Israel had decided to ignore the supportive declaration of the PLO’s Palestine National Council backing Palestinian attendance at the Middle East peace conference. In addition, prime minister Yitzhak Shamir ruled out a role in peace talks for two east Jerusalem Palestinians who could be prosecuted for attending an Algiers session of the PNC a week earlier.
In Algiers, the Palestine National Council dropped key conditions for participating in the peace conference, but did not commit itself to attending it. In Washington, US secretary of state James Baker said the PNC vote on regional peace talks had demonstrated that the current peace process was “an opportunity for all, but particularly an opportunity for the Palestinians.”
Soviet foreign minister Boris Pankin said that the Soviet Union would reestablish diplomatic relations with Israel before the Middle East peace conference, in the very near future.
10 YEARS AGO
On September 29, 2006, The Jerusalem Post reported that Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas was expected to hold talks in Qatar with Hamas chief Khaled Mashaal on a proposed Hamas-Fatah government and on the release of kidnapped Cpl. Gilad Schalit. Qatar was exerting heavy pressure on Abbas and Mashaal to patch up their differences and to join forces in a national unity Palestinian government.
The Post’s special correspondent Seth Weiss reported on his meeting with Iranian Jews at the synagogue at Yosefabad. He found the sanctuary packed and inside the main gate were advertisements for Hebrew lessons and family activities sponsored by the Jewish Association. Excepting Israel, Iran boasted the Middle East’s largest Jewish community. The capital, Tehran, contained around 10,000 Jews, as well as Jewish schools that served around 2,000 pupils. Tehran also had a Jewish retirement home with 50 residents, and the Jewish Association owned a number of buildings, and a large library, used by Jews and non-Jews alike. There was an Iranian policeman on guard there. Weiss felt free to talk politics, religion and Israel with the Jews of Iran.