Some Past December Highs and Lows

General Allenby Enters Jerusalem in December 1917 – Public Domain

For Israel and Jews; Decembers past have seen moments of hope and moments of sadness. Moments of war-making and moments of peace-making. Over the decades; there have obviously been hundreds of key moments. Just a few such, enumerated below.

In 1917: Just a few weeks after the Balfour Declaration; That seminal moment as Turkey surrendered the Old City of Jerusalem to British General Allenby Enters Jerusalem’s Old City.

Two of Israel’s founding “Fathers” and former Prime Ministers, who embodied Israel to Jews and non-Jews alike around the World, died during December: David Ben-Gurion in 1973, just weeks after the end of the Yom Kippur War. And former Prime Minister Golda Meir in 1978 – less than a year after her warm meeting with Anwar Sadat during his 1977 visit to Jerusalem.

December saw the start of conflicts: In 1987: What became know as the (“First”) Intifada began. In 2008: The beginning of Operation “Cast Lead.”

But December also saw Nobel Peace Prizes awarded for Arab-Israel Peacemaking. To American UN Mediator, Ralph Bunche in 1950. To Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin in 1978. To Yitzhak Rabin, Simon Peres and Yasser Arafat in 1994. And in 1991, in a rare positive action by the UN, vis-a-vis Israel (propelled by the Bush Administration); the United Nations repealed its infamous 1975 “Zionism is Racism” resolution.

Regarding US-Israel relations: In 1969: The (First) “Rogers Plan” was put forward in 1969 by President Nixon’s Secretary of State, William Rogers. In 1981: Just two weeks after the  US and Israel signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU); the US suspended the Strategic Cooperation agreement. And in 1988: The US opened direct talks with the PLO after the PLO ostensibly recognized Israel.

In the World of Antisemitism: In 1862: Union General Ulysses S. Grant infamously issued “General Order 11” ordering the expulsion of all Jews in his military district – an order which was rescinded by President Abraham Lincoln.

In 1894: The Dreyfus Affair: A French Military Court convicted French Jewish Colonel Alfred Dreyfus of treason.

In 1942: The Joint “Allied” British-US and “United Nations” Statement re the Nazi “Extermination of Jews. ”

In 1961: Adolf Eichmann was found guilty by a court in Jerusalem, and sentenced to death for his role in the “Final Solution”

Other December events include:

In 1947: In the aftermath of the UN Partition Vote – Arab riots against Jews in Arab countries (and the subsequent de-facto expulsion of most Jews from Arab lands)

In 1976: Israeli Prime Minister, Yitzhak Rabin Submitted his Resignation as Prime Minister and called for New Elections ( Five months later Menachem Begin and the Likud stormed to victory against Caretaker Prime Minister, Shimon Peres).

Finally in this December compilation: A flashback to Christmas Eve in 1969: The not-strategically-significant but morale-boosting and exemplifying Israeli “moxie:” The ”Boats of Cherbourg” – as Israel took some of its paid-for, but not-delivered, boats from France.