FROM OUR ARCHIVES
50 YEARS AGO
April 17, 1968
The Jordanian authorities began prohibiting the exit from the country of young men liable for military service. A number of students studying abroad had to deposit up to 1,000 dinars as guarantees that they would return for army service. The Jordanian authorities were said to be encountering difficulties in implementing the new conscription law since many youths claimed membership in Fatah and other organizations, while others reportedly avoided registering by paying bribes. On the other hand, older persons traveling from Jordan through Syria, mainly to Lebanon, were being subjected to strict border control. Syrian intelligence was reported to be searching for “Jordanian passports forged by Israel.” All travelers, especially those of Palestinian origin, underwent intensive interrogations by Syrian intelligence officials.
15 YEARS AGO
April 17, 2003
Hamas said it was planning to kidnap soldiers to demand the release of thousands of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli prisons. The threat came as Palestinians marked “Prisoners’ Day” with demonstrations calling for the release of all prisoners held in Israel. A senior Hamas leader in the Gaza Strip told supporters, “The prisoners and detainees will be released only if the resistance continues and Zionist soldiers are kidnapped. [A 2011 agreement between Israel and Hamas led to the release of Israeli soldier Gilad Schalit in exchange for 1,027 prisoners.]
“My work is done,” Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal said, announcing he was retiring after nearly 50 years of tracking down the perpetrators of the Holocaust. “I found the mass murderers I was looking for, and I have outlived all of them. If there’s a few I didn’t look for, they are now too old and fragile to stand trial,” the 94-year-old said. Wiesenthal tracked down more than 1,000 Nazi war criminals and helped in the capture of Hitler’s close associate Adolf Eichmann.
10 YEARS AGO
April 17, 2008
Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu told reporters that Israel would ultimately have to “bring down” the Hamas regime in Gaza, which could be done in a way that did not necessitate a permanent return to the Strip. Netanyahu accused the Olmert government of failing the people of Israel by tolerating the relentless attacks out of Gaza, and said the IDF knew exactly how to counter the violence but was being prevented from doing so by “a failure of the political leadership.”
In an unprecedented initiative, numerous leading rabbinical arbiters warned the public in signs posted in haredi neighborhoods that cigarettes and cigars “contain essences that are hametz and that they should not be smoked during Passover.
After two years of sparring between the Jewish Agency and Nefesh B’Nefesh over the sharing of funds and publicity, the two organizations entered into arbitration negotiations. Sources said that the agreement would likely see Nefesh B’Nefesh integrated closely into Jewish Agency aliya operations in North America. In the past, Nefesh B’Nefesh sought to obtain some of the special powers granted to the Jewish Agency by the government, including the right to open official immigration files and to recommend Interior Ministry visas for potential immigrants.
A Tel Aviv Magistrate’s Court judge threw an assault case out of court after it emerged that a complaint filed by the suspect never reached the Police Investigation Department due to a shortage of photocopy paper.