The Palestine Chronology

Likud and Labor accuse each other of trying to bribe rabbis from small religious parties who control deciding votes in attempts to form gov't. [WT 3/29].

Customs officials in London discover 40 American-made trigger devices for nuclear weapons that were being smuggled into Iraq [NYT, WP, LAT, WT 3/29]; U.S. intelligence sources report Baghdad is installing Soviet-built medium-range ballistic missiles [WT 3/29].

Yasir Arafat meets with Nobel laureate Mother Teresa in Calcutta, India. Mother Teresa says she will try to visit Jerusalem and Bethlehem this year [LAT 3/29].

U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee approves provision to Israel's request for $400 million loan for Soviet Jewish housing. Provision reduces loan origination fee from usual 1% of loan to .25% of loan, saving Israel $3 million. Other legislation reduces annual service charges [WT 3/30].

Hungarian official says the national airline, Malev, soon will resume flying Soviet Jews to Tel Aviv from Budapest on its regular flights. Hungary suspended direct and charter flights of emigrant Jews on 3/ 21; the official says the charter flights will not be resumed (cf. 4/1) [WT 3/29; NYT 3/30].