Thursday, June 5, 1975. Reopening the Suez Canal.

The Suez Canal reopened for the first time since the Six Day War, with the USS Little Rock making the first transit.

Voters in the United Kingdom voted to say in the European Community by  a margin of 17,378,581 to 8,470,073.

Last edition:

Tuesday, June 3, 1975. New rules for boys and girls.

Labels: 1970s, 1975, children, Department of Health, Education, Education and Welfare, Ethiopia, Growing up in the 1970s, Growing up in the 1980s, Marriage, Sex, Teenagers, Uganda

Wednesday, April 16, 1975. Ford denounces Congress.

President Ford publicly denounced Congress for preventing his administration from keeping America’s commitments to Vietnam.

Alexander Shelepin, at one time considered a successor to Leonid Brezhnev as leader of the Soviet Union, was removed from his position on the 16 member Politburo of the Soviet Communist Party as part of Politburo palace intrigue.

He was just back from a trip to the UK, which he cut short due to protests that he blamed on Zionist, even though the protests had nothing to do with Israel and likely didn't contain too many Jewish protesters.  His visit was over Passover, which may be what formed the odd association in his mind.

Egyptian Air Force Marshal Hosni Mubarak was named as Vice President of Egypt by President Anwar Sadat.

Last edition:

Tuesday, April 15, 1975. Xuân Lộc,

Labels: Battle of Xuân Lộc, Death, Portugal, press, Socialism, television, Vietnam War, Walter Cronkite

Saturday, February 24, 1945.

Lt. Roy (Buck) Rogers, of Island Park, MN, inspects a German position. 

 

The Soviet Lower Silesian Offensive ended in a Soviet victory, and the East Pomeranian Offensive commenced.

Colonel Ivan Kojedub, the top scoring Allied) fighter ace of the Second World War shot down a Me262 over Berlin.  He died in 1991 at age 71.

The US 19th Corps took Julich.

The British 17th Indian Division took Taungtha.

The U-713 and U-1208 were sunk by the Royal Navy.

Egyptian Prime Minister Ahmad Mahir Pasha, age 57, was assassinated in parliament immediately after announcing the Egyptian declaration of war on Germany.

"Co. A, 20th Tank Battalion, Cailly. Overall pic of equipment lined up for combat processing. 24 February, 1945."

Last edition:

Friday, February 23, 1945.

Labels: 1940s, 1945, Iwo Jima, Photography, United States Marine Corps, World War Two

Monday, November 6, 1944.. The photo.

"Husband and wife serving in uniform meet for the first time on the continent--Lt. Jane I. Sunderbruch, Army Nurse Corps, assigned to an evacuation hospital, and her husband, Lt. Richard K. Sunderbruch, Davenport, Iowa. Signal Corps photographic officer. He was wounded in the Battle of Aachen, has since returned to duty. 6 November, 1944."  They survived the war. He died in 1992, she in 2006. They are buried together in Scott County, Iowa.

Walter Edward Guinness, 1st Baron Moyne, DSO & Bar, TD, PCk, British minister of state in the Middle East was assassinated by the Jewish terrorist group Lehi in Cairo.

The struggle over post war Palestine had begun.

Well, maybe begun again.  British rule in Palestine had never been particularly easy.

The German garrison at Middleburg in the Netherlands surrendered to the Canadian Army.

The French government repealed Vichy anti Semitic laws, but implementation would prove to be difficult to implement in terms of restoring their possessions and occupations.

Penicillin began production in large scale in Liverpool.

Last edition:

Sunday, November 5, 1944. The air and sea war off of Luzon.

Labels: 1940s, 1944, Armor, Army, boats and ships, British Army, Ethnicities, Greece, Imperial Japanese Navy, Italy, Kamikaze, Luzon, Philippines, U.S. Navy, World War Two

Friday, October 3, 1924. Insulting Kennesaw Mountain.

A conference between the United Kingdom and Egypt on Egyptian independence ended without success.

The New York Giants scandal resulted in American League president Ben Johnson, upset over an inadequate investigation in his view, calling Kenesaw Mountain Landis a "wild-eyed, crazy nut".

Last edition:

Thursday, October 2, 1924. The death of Governor William B. Ross.

Labels: 1920s, 1924, 1928, Death, Diplomacy, Fort Caspar, Frontier Wyoming, Ft Caspar Wyoming, Health, Nellie Tayloe Ross, Personalities, The Frontier West, William B. Ross, Wyoming

Sunday, July 21, 1974. Turkish invasion of Cyprus, Israeli no, Turkish misidentification.

The day prior, July 20, 1974, the Turks invaded Cyprus in response to the July 15, 1974 move by the Greek military junta ruling the country to annex the island to Greece which had seen a coup take place on the island, replacing Archbishop Makarios III with Greek nationalist 

Greek commandos landed on the island on this day.

The USS Harwood, which later became the TCG Kocatepe.

The Turkish Air Force, in a case of mistaken identification, sank the Turkish destroyer TCG Kocatepe, and heavily damaged the Adatepe and Mareşal Fevzi Çakmak off the coast of Paphos at Cyprus.  The vessels were misidentified as Greek vessels.

The Israeli cabinet voted to turn down a proposal to begin discussions with moderate Palestinian representatives to establish an independent Palestinian nation on the West Bank in exchange for Arab recognition of Israel's right to exist.

Egypt gave exclusive oil and gas prospecting rights in the Gulf of Suez to Standard Oil and the same for the Red Sea to Mobil Oil and Union Oil.

Last edition:

Saturday, July 6, 1974. Live from Lake Wobegon.

Labels: 1970s, 1974, Comedians, Garrison Keillor, Minnesota, Music, Radio, the spoken word

A Palestinian Solution (that nobody is going to do).

In this thread, I suggested a solution to the "Palestinian" problem isn't all that hard:

An uncomfortable truth.*

In reality, I'd partially already proposed it:

The Palestinian Problem and its Wilsonian Solution.

Those threads are pretty complete, but let's just set out the basic facts of the problem.

Part One:

• The Palestinian Mandate's Levantines didn't want any sort of Jewish state or any sort of "two-state solution in 1948".  The neighboring Arab states didn't want one either.
• World War Two made it inevitable that Jews would seek refuge in the region they'd held historically and up until 70.
• The British tried and failed to create a two-state solution, and then washed their hands of the matter and left.
• The Israelis won the 1948 war.
• During the 1948 war, a lot of Levantines left out of fear, rational calculation of danger, or were expelled.
• Just would have invited them back in, but the Israeli's were not in the mood for that, and the Arabs largely weren't either.  That is, having fought for it, the Israeli's decided to keep what they had in every sense, and the Arabs were still dedicated to the proposition of pushing them out.
• That's now over 70 years ago and almost everyone involved in the original drama is dead.

Part Two:

• The Arabs have been happy to support a Palestinian diaspora, partially, but not to invite them into their own countries.
• The Palestinians have been unwilling to come up with a new, permanent plan, that doesn't feature, at a bare minimum, the territory that was at least partially in Mandatory Palestine.
• Gaza and to a lesser extent the West Bank were solutions that Israel was willing to put up with, but not the Levantines, even as they took advantage of it.
• The "Palestinians" have been , to a large extent, living on the Arab and Global dole since Gaza and the West Bank were created as entities subject to self rule. They don't have work, and they don't have much to do, other than to do, what people who have an income, but no work, do. . . . fill in the blanks here.

Okay now for the elements of the solution.

Part One

• The Palestinian Levantines need work and need to be taken off the dole.
• In order to do that, the pipe dream of an independent Palestinian state inside the borders of Mandatory Palestine needs to be given up on, unless Jordan, which is a Bedouin state, wishes to become that entity, and it doesn't.

So, what can be done.  There are two, and only two, possibilities.

Solution Number One.

The Palestinian Levantines can be taken in by the Arab states that have work, which would include the Emirates, Dubai, and Saudi Arabia.*

Yes, that's radical, but if they were taken in, taken off the dole, and got to work, within a generation or two, this problem would be over, and they would be better off.

Solution Number Two.

Create a Palestinian state in the Sinai.

That has obvious geoengineering problems, but the Israelis confronted those inside Mandatory Palestine and the states of the Arabian Peninsula have faced them as well.  It's been proven that you can geoengineer these areas productively.  It has been done.

And in that state, Gaza could remain part of it.

This, of course, would require Egypt to give up Sinai, but frankly, it's not making much use of it anyway.

Footnotes:

*And probably Jordan as well, as the West Bank was part of Transjordan and probably ought just go back to Jordan.

Related threads:

An uncomfortable truth.*

1940s, 1948, 70, 70s, Al Nakba, Arabs, British League of Nations Mandates, Hamas, Israel, Israeli Hamas War, Levant, Ottoman Empire, Palestine, Palestinian Revolution, Roman Empire, The Holocaust

The Palestinian Problem and its Wilsonian Solution.

Arabs, British League of Nations Mandates, Israel, Israeli Hamas War, It was because of World War One, It was because of World War Two, Kuwait, MIddle East, Ottoman Empire, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia

Saturday, March 15, 1924. Passing symbols and elections.

Today In Wyoming's History: March 15: 1924  The wreck of the six masted schooner Wyoming was located off of Pollock Rip, Massachusetts.  She went down with all 18 hands.

Maj. Gen. DeRosey Cabell, age 62, Chief of Staff during the Punitive Expedition under Pershing, died.  He had been retired since 1919.

Cabell.

Brig Gen. Richard Henry Pratt, former head of the Carlisle Indian School and advocate for cultural assimilation of Native Americans, died at age 83.  He coined the word "racism", but also advocated for the policy that he expressed as "Kill the Indian...save the man."

An election was held in the Dominican Republic for its president and Congress.

Kenya held a legislative election under its new constitution

King Fuad I opened the initial session of Egypt's first constitutional parliament.

Monday, January 28, 1974. End of the Siege of Suez.

The Israeli siege of the Egyptian city of Suez ended at noon.  The IDF withdrew and the 20,000 encircled Egyptians were able to withdraw across the Suez Canal.

Suez.

Both Time and Newsweek's covers dealt with the Nixon tape. U.S. News & World Report's cover was on inflation.  

Sports Illustrated had a cheesecake photo, although it hadn't crossed over into pornography on the cover yet, for its swimsuit issue. Ann Simonton was the cover model, who was actually relatively covered.

Indonesian President Suharto took control of the country's internal security agency.

Bolivia was declared to be in a state of siege following a peasant uprising at Cochambamba.

Mohammed Ali and Joe Frazier fought for a second time in a non-title fight.  Ali won.

George Foreman was the heavyweight champion at the time.

Friday, January 18, 1974. Disengagement.

Israel and Egypt signed the Israel-Egypt Disengagement Treaty of 1974.

It stated:

A.  Egypt and Israel will scrupulously observe the cease-fire on land, sea, and air called for by the UN Security Council and will refrain from the time of the signing of this document from all military or para-military actions against each other.

B. The military forces of Egypt and Israel will be separated in accordance with the following principles:

1. All Egyptian forces on the east side of the Canal will be deployed west of the line designated as Line A on the attached map. All Israeli forces, including those west of the Suez Canal and the Bitter Lakes, will be deployed east of the line designated as Line B on the attached map.

2. The area between the Egyptian and Israeli lines will be a zone of disengagement in which the United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF) will be stationed. The UNEF will continue to consist of units from countries that are not permanent members of the Security Council.

3. The area between the Egyptian line and the Suez Canal will be limited in armament and forces.

4. The area between the Israeli line (Line B on the attached map) and the line designated as Line C on the attached map, which runs along the western base of the mountains where the Gidi and Mitla Passes are located, will be limited in armament and forces.

5. The limitations referred to in paragraphs 3 and 4 will be inspected by UNEF. Existing procedures of the UNEF, including the attaching of Egyptian and Israeli liaison officers to UNEF, will be continued.

6. Air forces of the two sides will be permitted to operate up to their respective lines without interference from the other side.

C. The detailed implementation of the disengagement of forces will be worked out by military representatives of Egypt and Israel, who will agree on the stages of this process. These representatives will meet no later than 48 hours after the signature of this agreement at Kilometre 101 under the aegis of the United Nations for this purpose. They will complete this task within five days. Disengagement will begin within 48 hours after the completion of the work of the military representatives and in no event later than seven days after the signature of this agreement. The process of disengagement will be completed not later than 40 days after it begins.

D. This agreement is not regarded by Egypt and Israel as a final peace agreement. It constitutes a first step toward a final, just and durable peace according to the provisions of Security Council Resolution 338 and within the framework of the Geneva Conference.

For Egypt: For Israel:

General Abdul Gani al Garnasy Lt. Gen. David Elazar, Chief of Staff of the Israeli Army

The Six Million Dollar Man premiered on television. 

Not to be flippant, but October just sucks in the Middle East.

 

29 October 1956

Saturday, October 27, 1973 Ceasefire.

Israel and Egypt announced a ceasefire in the Yom Kippur War.  Part of the agreement was for the deployment of a UN peacekeeping force.  China declared it would not help pay for the force.

Nixon stated at a press conference; “So long as I can carry out that responsibility for which I was elected, I will continue to do my job."

A 1.4 kg meteorite hit in Fremont County, Colorado.

The largest? The Hamas v. Israel War.

I have now heard over and over in the press that the upcoming Israeli invasion is the "largest" this or that, suggesting that this is the biggest war, or the biggest deployment of troops, in Israel's history.

Is it?

Well, you have to have a sense of history to gauge that.

I've recently been running some items on the Yom Kippur War, which occured 50 years ago, and which brought the United States and the Soviet Union to the brink of war.  That pitted about 400,000 Israeli troops against the armies of Egypt and Syria, plus another 100,000 troops from other regional states.  Right at about 1,000,000 Arab troops contested the Israelis.

Now, in this one, we do hear that 300,000 IDF reservists have been called up, and yes, that's a bunch.  The total number of mass Israeli troops may exceed those that were hastily called up in 1973. We'll see. But the scope of the contest is, so far, smaller.  Indeed, the calling up of the reservists may be in the hopes of keeping it smaller.

In the Six Day War, Israel had 264,000 troops, but only deployed 100,000 of them.  The Arab forces had over 500,000 troops, but only deployed about 250,000 of them.

Israel isn't going to send all of is troops into Gaza.  A lot of those troops were likely called up in order to secure its northern border.  Assuming that it invades Gaza with this model, it certainly will not be Israel's largest war, but it might mean the largest overall manpower size for the IDF in its history.

Not that the threat of this being much larger doesn't exist.  Iran seems intent on making it so.

Wednesday, October 24, 1973. War Powers.

President Nixon vetoed the War Powers Act.  His veto was overridden on November 7.

A second ceasefire between Egypt and Israel went into effect in the Yom Kippur War.  By this point in the war Egyptian gains had been more than reversed.

At the same time, the Soviet Union threatened to deploy its troops to aid Syria, giving a warning to the US to that effect. As a result, the U.S. went to Defcon 3

Kojak premiered.

The day was the first UN World Development Information Day, which coincided with United Nations Day.

People seem shocked to learn that Egypt isn't letting Gazans in.

Which means that they've never been paying attention. Egypt has always strictly controlled access of Palestinians from Gaza.

They don't want Hamas in either.

Wednesday, October 10, 1973. Vice President Agnew resigns.

Vice President Spiro T. Agnew resigned as Vice President and then, on the same day, plead no contest to income tax evasion, this baack in the day when such accusations would doom your position in office.

Angew was the son of a Greek immigrant father and an American mother of English background.  Mixed marriages were unusual for those of Greek ethnicity in the first place and even more unusually, he was raised as an Episcopalian rather than as Greek Orthodox.  He served in the Army during World War Two and entered politics thereafter.

His tax troubles lead Maryland to disbar him as "morally obtuse", back when there was such a thing as a state bar that would disbar somebody for being morally obtuse.  He died in 1996.

The USSR began airlifting military equipment to Egypt and Syria.

The Senate passed the War Powers Act.  It'd be vetoed, but Congress over road the veto.

Famed economist Ludwig Heinrich Edler von Mises died in New York at age 92.

Saturday, October 6, 1973. The October War commences.

Egypt and Syria launched a surprise attack on Israel timed for the Yom Kippur holy day.  The attack oddly commenced at 2:05 p.m.

It would be the largest of the Arab Israeli Wars, and one in which the Israeli Defense Force fared much more poorly than it had previously.  Egypt's goals were limited, involving crossing the Suez Canal, which they succeeded in doing.  Israeli forces would ultimately repulse the invading forces and come very near the Syrian capital of Damascus, but the results allowed the Egyptians to bargain for peace terms with Israel in later years.

Arab forces fared very well at first, catching the IDF off guard.  Syrian advances caused the Israeli government to distribute Israel's small stock of nuclear weapons to is air force in case Arab forces advanced inside Israel itself, making this a non superpower war that came relatively close to becoming a nuclear one.

Thursday, August 26, 1943. War bond baseball.

$800,000,000 worth of War Bonds were sold for an exhibition baseball game that features seven of the then twelve living members of the Baseball Hall of Fame; Babe Ruth, Walter Johnson, Tris Speaker, Honus Wagner, Eddie Collins, George Sisler, and Connie Mack as the manager.

The event also featured entertainment from James Cagney, Ethel Merman, Cab Calloway, Milton Berle, Joe E. Lewis, Carole Landis and Ralph Bellamy.

Babe Ruth hit his last home run during the game, more of which can be read about here:

1943 All Pacific Recreation Fund – Service All-Stars vs Los Angeles & Hollywood

The 800 million dollars was equivalent to over 10.7 billion dollars in current funds.

The Germans occupied the Alpine passes with Italy in anticipation of the Italians surrendering.

The USSR recognized Egypt.

The US, Canada and British governments give limited recognition to the Free French Committee of National Liberation.

Friday, August 3, 1923. Silent Cal awoken, sworn in, and goes back to bed

On this day in 1923, Silent Cal Coolidge, staying on the family homestead in Vermont, was awoken in the early morning hours, and then went back to bed.

Coolidge was a Massachusetts barred lawyer from Vermont, who had entered the profession at the urging of his father after graduating from Amherst.  He practiced commercial law and operated under the maxim that he best served his client's by staying out of court, showing his wisdom.  While practicing law he entered local politics, rose in that field, and had become Governor of Massachusetts prior to becoming Harding's Vice President.

Harding died at 7:30 p.m. on August 2.  He had fallen ill, as we have noted, on his trip sought from a Canadian port of call on his Voyage of Understanding, with his illness first attributed to food poisoning. The exact cause of his death has never really been determined, and there's some speculation that the nature of medical knowledge of the day contributed directly to it.  The Coolidge residence in Vermont lacked electricity or telephones and Coolidge wasn't informed until after 2:00 a.m..  He dressed, said a prayer, went downstairs and took the oath of office from his father, who was a notary.

He then went back to bed.

Coolidge was a wise and practical man.

Later in the day Coolidge would take the train to Washington, D.C.

Kenesaw Mountain Landis suspended baseball for the day.

The Irish Free State passed the Defence Forces (Temporary Provisions) Act", to create "an armed force to be called Oglaigh na hEireann (hereinafter referred to as the Forces) consisting of such number of officers, non-commissioned officers, and men as may from time to time be provided".

Nazir Gayed Roufail (نظير جيد روفائيل, IPA: [nɑˈzˤiːɾ ˈɡæjjed ɾʊfæˈʔiːl]) was born Salaam, Egpyt. He would become Pope Shenouda III (Coptic: Ⲡⲁⲡⲁ Ⲁⲃⲃⲁ Ϣⲉⲛⲟⲩϯ ⲅ̅   Papa Abba Šenoude pimah šoumt; Arabic: بابا الإسكندرية شنودة الثالث Bābā al-Iskandarīyah Shinūdah al-Thālith) of the The Coptic Orthodox Church (Coptic: Ϯⲉⲕ̀ⲕⲗⲏⲥⲓⲁ ⲛ̀ⲣⲉⲙⲛ̀ⲭⲏⲙⲓ ⲛ̀ⲟⲣⲑⲟⲇⲟⲝⲟⲥ, romanized: Ti-eklisia en-remenkimi en-orthodhoxos; Arabic: الكنيسة القبطية الأرثوذكسية, romanized: al-Kanīsa al-Qibṭiyya al-ʾUrṯūḏuksiyya).  He would occupy that position for over 40 years.

The Coptic Church is not in communion with Rome, but is an Apostolic Christian Church with Apostolic Succession.   The Catholic Church and the Coptic Orthodox Church grew closer together during his reign.

Confederate spy Laura Ratcliffe, universally recognized as gracious and cheerful, died after being bedridden following an accident at her home in Virginia. She was 87.

Friday, July 20, 1973. The death of Bruce Lee.

Actor and martial artist Bruce Lee Bruce Lee ( 李小龍) born Lee Jun-fan, (李振藩) 32 years of age, died from an allergic reaction to the meprobamate, the active ingredient in the painkiller Equagesic.

Bruce Lee from publicity photo for Fists of Fury.

Lee retains a cult following today, although I'm not part of it.  He is widely regarded as the greatest martial arts practitioner of all time.

Lee was born in San Francisco, and therefore could claim U.S. citizenship, although his family returned to Hong Kong immediately before the outbreak of the war n the Pacific.  His father was a famous Cantonese opera singer.  He was of mixed Chinese and European ancestry.  He left a wife and two children.  His son Brandon Lee would follow his footsteps and would tragically die when a firearm being used as a prop was loaded with improperly made dummy rounds.  His daughter Shannon is an actress, singer, and businesswoman.

Japan Air Lines Flight 404 was hijacked by the Japanese Red Army and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.  It would eventually be flown to Benghazi were the passengers were released and the 747 blown up.

Muammar Gaddafi announced his resignation as the leader of Libya following the failure of his plans to unite the country with Egypt.  He'd get over the resignation and reverse it three days later, following his cabinet's announcement that they'd also resign.  

Efforts to form a larger Arab republic centered on Egypt have existed since World War One with serval putative efforts to establish it.  Egypt itself was the most powerful and significant Middle Eastern state up until 1973, when the importance of oil, which Egypt has little of, began to eclipse it.