FROM OUR ARCHIVES
25 YEARS AGO
On May 1, 1992, The Jerusalem Post reported that Syrian peace negotiator Muwaffaq Allaf announced in Washington that Syria would present Israel with a written proposal containing “practical steps” for implementing UN Resolution 242 at the opening of the sixth round of the bilateral Middle Eastern peace talks in Rome.
No Syrian Jews had traveled to the US since reports began circulating of a change in Damascus’s travel policy for its Jews, a source in the US announced.
David Ovitz, an Israeli businessman held in an Egyptian jail for almost three months on suspicion of espionage, was to be freed within a week, according to a senior Egyptian official..
Israel was one of 20 nations involved in espionage activities against American companies, according to a US official testifying before a congressional subcommittee.
Research found that it cost a five-member American family at least $18,000 a year to lead a full and active Jewish life.
15 YEARS AGO
On May 1, 2002, The Jerusalem Post reported that the United Nations was considering dropping the Jenin fact-finding mission, following Israel’s security cabinet decision not to cooperate with such mission. The Israeli security cabinet, after hearing senior defense officials warn of the danger of accepting such fact-finding committee under its current mandate, had decided once again to put off its arrival.
Following the meeting, the Prime Minister’s Office issued a statement explaining: “Israel had raised essential issues before the UN for a fair examination. As long as these terms had not been met, it will not be possible for the clarification process to begin.”
Twenty-six Palestinians left the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem in a move coordinated between Israel and the Palestinian Authority officials in an attempt to end the four-week standoff.
The Norwegian Foreign Ministry was considering how to reprimand its ambassador to Israel Mons Juul for not informing it of a $100,000 prize that she and her husband, Terje Roed Larsen, received from the Peres Peace Center in 1999.
10 YEARS AGO
On May 1, 2007, The Jerusalem Post reported that the Kadima political party was in ferment as its head, prime minister Ehud Olmert, vowed he would survive the interim report of the Winograd Committee which laid the primary blame for “heavy failures” of the Second Lebanese War on him, on defense minister Amir Peretz and on the former chief of staff Lt.-Gen. Dan Halutz. The Winograd Committee’s verdict was that the decision to respond with an immediate, intensive military strike was not based on a detailed, comprehensive and authorized military plan, or a careful study of the complex characteristics of the Lebanon area, while the government had not considered the whole range of options. Some of the declared goals of the war were not clear and could not be achieved.
Both Olmert and Peretz vowed to remain in office despite calls from across the political spectrum for them to resign for their “failures” in handling the Second Lebanon War. Olmert, in a taped message, said that lessons had to be learned and pledged to fix the failures.