The 25th anniversary of the state of Israel was celebrated in Jerusalem on Monday (May 7) with the largest military parade ever seen in the country.

Mr. David Ben-Gurion, Israel's elder statesman and the nation's founder and first Prime Minister was on the main reviewing stand as a fanfare of trumpets marked the opening of the ceremony.

The first plane in the fly-past was a Phantom Interceptor flown by the commander of the Israeli Air Force, General Mordechai Hod.

Hundreds of planes which ranged from Fouga Magister trainers to Mirages and Super-Mysteries flew over the city watched by hundreds of thousands of Israelis and visiting tourists.

It was the first military parade in Israel for five years and it came at a time when war threats are coming from Arab capitals.

But the Prime Minister Mrs. Golda Meir, who also reviewed the parade, broadcasting to the nation on Sunday, (May 6) called on the Egyptian President Anwar Sadat to send "some-one authoritative to meet with one of us."
Mrs. Meir also said she had recently sent a peace message to Egypt through a "very important person" but there had been no reply.

The military parade came after a night of singing and dancing through-out Israel. But security was tight and reports say that in East Jerusalem and the Old City several hundred people have been placed under detention until the end of the festivities.

On the ground columns of the armoured corps followed farmer - soldiers from the new para-military settlements recently established in the occupied Golan Heights, the Jordan Valley and Sinai.

Crowds also saw Russian made tanks captured from Egypt in the war of 1967 and now improved - and Israel's most modern tanks - the M-60.

Arab residents of East Jerusalem watched the events from balconies and rooftops and some were also in the streets.