FROM OUR ARCHIVES
65 YEARS AGO
On April 3, 1952, The Jerusalem Post reported from London that David Horowitz, Israeli economic adviser, concluded his series of talks with British oil interests, before taking up discussions with the British Treasury on Israel’s credit requests. Since the previous week the Israel delegation had been concentrating on the immediate task of obtaining an agreement with Shell, Anglo-Iranian and other oil suppliers on a variety of financial and technical questions concerning the sale of oil and expansion of the operations of the Haifa Refinery.
Only after this stage was concluded was the British Treasury to be approached for a detailed discussion on the basis of the original conversation which Horowitz and foreign minister Moshe Sharett and Horowitz had with the chancellor of the exchequer, R.A. Butler. The extent and form whatever credit facilities the British Treasury might eventually grant Israel would largely depend on these preliminary discussions. It was assumed that the London talks would provide credits for oil and arms for Israel.
According to an official West German spokesman, the Jewish-West German restitution conference in The Hague would recess over Easter to fit the Jewish claims into the rest of the world’s financial claims against Germany. The Jewish claims against Germany were likely to be one third of all claims.
A neo-Nazi terrorist organization was believed in high Netherlands official quarters to be responsible for the bomb addressed to the German delegation at The Hague. Israeli police joined the seven-nation team hunting mail-bomb terrorists.
50 YEARS AGO
On April 3, 1967, The Jerusalem
Post reported that Syrian soldiers at the Amrat Azazin post were firing on Israeli tractors of Kibbutz Ha’on, working on “Tract 53” near the Tzemah-Ein Gev highway. A complaint was lodged with the UN Mixed Israeli-Syrian Armistice Commission since “Tract 53” was inside the Israeli demilitarized zone.
The series of Syrian sabotage attempts, all of them regarded as very grave, were reported to the cabinet by prime minister Levi Eshkol. The report included the attempted mining of the vital water pump and installation at Misgav Am.
Finance minister Pinhas Sapir left for Romania at the head of a large delegation to conclude and sign a renewed commercial agreement.
25 YEARS AGO
On April 3, 1992, The Jerusalem
Post reported from Washington that the US State Department had given Israel “a clean bill of health” regarding allegations that it had transferred technology of Patriot missiles to China, and had declared the investigation officially closed. The US State Department expressed regret, but offered no apology.
Israel had officially denied the implicit allegations contained in the State Department inspector-general’s report, which intimated that Israel had illegally transferred US technology and components to third countries.
The semi-annual US-Israel military planning consultations were expected to convene in Israel the following week. The consultation, known as the Joint Political Military Group was scheduled before the clashes between Israel and US over the alleged arms transfers.
The State Department announced that a new venue for the bilateral Middle East peace talks would be announced the following week. – Alexander Zvielli