| January:
President Eisenhower
selects former Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert B. Anderson
to secretly mediate with David
Ben Gurion and Gamal
Abdel Nasser in an effort to resolve the Israeli-Egyptian
dispute.
January
19 : The UN Security Council unanimously adopts a US,
French and British resolution condemning Israel for its December
attack on Syrian positions near the Sea of Galilee.
January
23 : The new Socialist government in France headed
by Guy
Mollet establishes strong ties to Israel and informs the
United States that Mystère fighters will be sent to Israel.
UN Secretary General Dag
Hammarskjold visits Israel. Due to Arab pressure he refrains
from attending official events in Jerusalem.
January:
Former U. S. president Harry
S. Truman, Eleanor
Roosevelt and Labor leader Walter
Reuther issue a statement urging the United States provision
of arms to Israel to help it protect itself from the introduction
of Communist arms to Arab Countries.
February
11 : The U. S. makes it known that it would not object
to the sale of arms to Israel by France or Britain, while continuing
to defer action on Israel's request for U. S. arms.
February
13: The Soviet Union announces that it will protect
its interests in the Middle East and warns the Western powers
not to act unilaterally in the region.
March
1: King Hussein
of Jordan deposes General
Glubb, the British commander of the Jordanian Legion.
March
7: Volunteers assist border settlements with fortification
work, especially in the south, in the light of the mounting
tension in the region.
March
29: The railroad between Tel Aviv and Beersheva is
completed.
March:
Fedayeen raiders from Gaza wound 11 Israeli settlers near Gevulot.
The Syrians fire on the Sea of Galilee, killing four Israelis.
April
4: The UN Security Council sends UN Secretary General
Dag
Hammarskjold to the Middle East in an attempt to dispel
the tension along Israel's borders.
April
5: Egyptian artillery opens fire from the Gaza Strip,
bombarding settlements in the Negev. Later, mortar fire is directed
against the regular Israeli army patrols at the border. Israel
returns fire. 66 Arab civilians and three Israeli soldiers are
killed.
April
15: Eighth Independence Day. Members of the British
Parliament present a menorah
sculpture by Benno
Elkan (1877-1960) to the Knesset. The reliefs depict the
history of the Jewish people.
Nehama
Leibowitz is awarded the Israel Prize for her decades of
teaching Bible to teachers and lay adults
April:
U. S. Secretary of State John
Foster Dulles requests Canada to provide Israel with a squadron
of American-licensed jet fighters.
April:
The U. S. announces that in the event of an Arab-Israeli war
it would act through the UN, an approach that would involve
the Soviet threat of the use of a Security Council veto. This
is a retreat from the Tripartite
Declaration of 1950.
May
1: In
his eulogy for the 21 year old soldier Roi Roitberg, who was
killed during a clash with infiltrators, Moshe
Dayan expresses his understanding for the Arab perspective.
May
10: The new development town of Netivot is founded
in the Negev.
June,
10: The National
Religious Party (Mafdal) is founded.
June
13: The British complete their evacutation of the forces
from Suez.
June
18 : Golda
Meir replaces Moshe
Sharett as foreign minister.
June
24-26: The Vermars conference: France guarantees Israel's
military superiority over Egypt.
June:
The chief rabbinate issues a formal prohibition against the
establishment of the Reform movement in Israel.
July
1: The Soviet Union soccer team beats the Israeli team
5:0 in an Olympics qualification game in Moscow attended by
thousands of Jews. On 31 July the rematch will take place in
Ramat Gan. Israel will improve its performance but lose 2:1.
July
17: An agreement is signed for the supply of Soviet
oil to Israel is signed in Moscow.
July
20: Two destroyers acquired by the Israeli navy from
Britain arrive at Haifa port.
July
26: Egypt nationalizes the Suez Canal as a reaction
to the Western powers refusal to finance the Aswan dam. France
and Britain are shareholders in the canal. They begin planning
a military action against Egypt to protect their strategic interests,
taking Israel as an alley in view of the confluence of interests
between the three.
July:
President Eisenhower
reports
on the Johnston negotiations on the water rights.
August:
Attacks from Jordan continue.
August:
The Jerusalem municipal approves the construction of the Reform-sponsored
American School
for Archaeology, which will contain a synagogue in its library.
August:
The French minister of defense, Maurice Bourges-Maunoury, asks
Shimon
Peres, who is in France on an arms supply mission, "If
we make war on Egypt, would Israel be prepared to fight alongside
us?" Peres replies: "Yes."
August:
The U. S. Democratic party national convention adopts its platform,
which attacks the Republican Middle East policy and supports
arms shipments to Israel "to redress the dangerous imbalance
of arms in the area", as well as the conclusion of security
guarantees.
August:
The Republican party national convention adopts a platform that
avoids a commitment of arms shipments to Israel. It declares,
"We shall support the independence of Israel against armed
aggression."
September
1 : Rabbi Amram Blau, leader of Neturei Karta, and
some of his followers are arrested in Jerusalem in a demonstration
against Shabbat road traffic. It is reported that he had been
arrested 153 times since 1934 for disrupting Shabbat traffic.
September
11-12: The IDF attacks a Jordanian army post at Qariya,
killing 16 Arab Legionnaires in response to a fedayeen attack
that killed 6 Israeli soldiers.
Infiltrators from Jordan kill 3 Druze guards in the Aravah.
September
23: A Jordanian soldiers fires at Kibbutz Ramat Rachel,
where an archaeologists' conference is being held. Four are
killed.
A woman is killed outside her home in the Jerusalem Corridor
and a tractor driver in the Bet Shean Valley.
The same day Shimon
Peres talks to the French minister of defense, Maurice Bourges-Maunoury.
Britain and France are in the last stage of preparing "Operation
Musketeer" to land in Egypt and seize the Suez Canal.
September
25-26: An IDF retaliatory operation in Bethlehem results
in dozens of Jordanian fatalities and 6 Israeli soldiers killed.
September
28 : Moshe
Dayan, Golda
Meir, Shimon
Peres and transport minister Moshe
Carmel fly to Paris to seek additional weapons. The French
agree and begin shipping half-tracks, transport planes, and
other arms immediately.
September:
The U. S. announces that it has no objection to the sale of
24 jet fighters by Canada to Israel.
October:
Infiltrations from Jordan and Israeli retaliatory operations
continue.
October
11: Israel uses tanks, artillery, and planes in a retaliatory
attack against a Jordanian police fortress at Qalqilia. Jordan
invokes the Anglo-Jordanian treaty of 1948, obliging Britain
to come to Jordan's aid. The British advise Israel that the
Iraqi army would enter Jordan to protect it.
October
13: Situation created by the unilateral action of the
Egyptian Government in bringing to an end the system of international
operation of the Suez Canal which was confirmed and completed
by the Suez Canal Convention of 1888. Security
Council Resolution S/3675.
The
Story of a Blockade, Statement
to the Security Council by Ambassador Abba
Eban.
October
15: The Iraqi army is poised to enter Jordan. Israel
calls up reserve forces. Tension mounts along the border.
The same day, Prime Minister David Ben Gurion states in the
Knesset: "Israel reserves to herself freedom of action."
October
22-24: Prime Minister David Ben Gurion, Shimon Peres
and Moshe Dayan participate in a secret meeting in France with
British foreign secretary Selwyn Lloyd, French Prime Minister
Guy
Mollet, French Foreign Minister Christian Pineau and French
Defense Minister Maurice Bourges-Manoury. The objective is to
coordinate a triple military attack on Egypt.
October
24: Egypt, Syria and Jordan establish a joint military
command in response to the growing tension.
October
25: Israel calls up the reserve.
October
28: Israel heightens security preparedness. The Cabinet
agrees that Israel will cross the border into Sinai.
President Eisenhower appeals for restraint on the part of Israel
and the Arab states.
October
29 - November 6:
Israel mounts a preventive attack against Egypt - the Sinai
Campaign .
A massacre at the Arab village of Kafr
Kassem in Israeli territory east of Petah Tikvah is perpetrated
by an Israeli border police unit. After placing a curfew on
the village, the unit opens fire on villagers returning home.
November
7: Ben Gurion announces that Israel will not return
to the armistice lines with Egypt and will not permit the entry
of foreign troops in Israeli territory or territory it holds.
UN Resolution 1001
and 1002.
November
8: The Soviet Union threatens to strike Israel with
long-range missiles and to dispatch Muslim volunteers to attack
Israel.
Ben Gurion states that Israel will withdraw from the Sinai following
the arrival of an international UN force.
November
14: The Knesset agrees to and Israeli withdrawal from
the territory captured in the Sinai Campaign. The Israeli understanding
is that Egypt will not return into the Gaza Strip, which had
been conquered by Egypt in the War of Independence, but had
been part of Mandate Palestine. The withdrawal will start in
the last week of November and continue during the first week
of December.
December
5: Foreign Minister Golda
Meir addresses the UN General Assembly.
December
16: British and French forces leave the Suez Canal
area.
|
April:
Romania releases all 200 Jews jailed for Zionist activities.
May:
The Czechs free Mordechai Oren, Israeli citizen and Mapam member
of the Knesset, who was arrested in Czechoslovakia in 1952.
However, they do not exonerate him.
May:
The Duke of Edinburgh and the Prime Minister attend a banquet
in celebration of the 300th anniversary of the resettlement
of Jews in England. It is the first time that a Jewish gathering
is addressed by both a member of the royal family and a prime
minister.
July:
A West German information agency begins distribution of "Night
and Fog", a French documentary film directed by Alain
Resnais that depicts the horrors of the Nazi concentration
camps.
September:
A stage adaptation of "The Diary of Anne Frank" has
a simultaneous premiere in about a dozen West German cities.
Frederick
Loewe (1901-1988) composes the music and Alan
Jay Lerner (1918-1986) writes the lyrics for "My
Fair Lady", a Broadway musical based on George Bernard
Shaw's play "Pygmalion".
The
Victoria and Albert Museum holds an exhibition of Anglo-Jewish
art and history in commemoration of the 300th anniversary of
Jews in Great Britain.
A
Bible illustrated with 105 etchings by Marc Chagall is published
in Paris.
The
Romanian Jewish community begins publication of "The Jewish
Religious Review" by Chief Rabbi Moses
Rosen. Published bi-weekly in Romanian, Yiddish and Hebrew,
it is the only Eastern European periodical with a Hebrew section.
An
ancient Aramaic translation, or "targum" of the Torah
deriving from the Galilee is discovered in the Vatican library
by a Spanish scholar, Alejandro Diez-Macho. The targum, called
"Neophyti I", had been mislabeled and untouched for
centuries.
Jerry
Lieber and Mike Stoller write "Hound
Dog", which becomes an international hit as a recording
by Elvis Presley. The song heralds the birth of rock and roll.
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