Over the course of the first year following the Six Day War, the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee discussed current affairs and strategic questions both in the committee forum itself, as well as with guest speakers, including government ministers and top military and police officials.

Part 3: Transcripts of May-June 1968 sessions.

Among the topics discussed by the committee were the war itself, the establishment of settlements and policy in the OPT. Committee members heard briefings about the state of Jewish communities in Arab countries and the relationship between Israel and the USA, and discussed issues such as the disappearance of the Dakar submarine and the IDF operation in Karameh.

The transcripts of the committee’s classified sessions held between June 1967 and June 1968 are kept in six files at the Israel State Archive reading room in Jerusalem. One of the files seems to have been lost. It contains transcripts of 11 out of 61 meetings the committee held during that time: sessions no. 88-98. According to the former director of the Israel State Archive reading room, attempts to locate the file, A-8161/9 have been unsuccessful. In place of Transcript No. 79, the file contains a notice reading “missing”. Forty-nine transcripts remain. Segments of some were censored at the time of declassification and a few others were censored ahead of this release. All are available here.

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May 28, 1968
Transcript No. 121

Briefing from foreign affairs minister; Discussion of foreign affairs minister briefing

May 29, 1968
Transcript no. 122

Briefing from Ambassador Rabin; Discussion of foreign minister’s briefing in previous session

June 11, 1968
Transcript No. 123

Dakar; Gen. Weizman in incidents with Jordan; Hasbara; Settlement in the new territories.

June 18, 1968
Transcript No. 124

(Missing first pages)

June 21, 1968
Transcript No. 125

Foreign minister briefing; Discussion on Hasbara

June 25, 1968
Transcript no. 126

Prime minister briefing on contacts with Palestinian dignitaries; Discussion of settlement in new territories