Exposing the role that Islamic jihad theology and ideology play in the modern global conflicts

The Scorpion Pass Massacre: A Brief History

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The Palestinians like to justify their terrorism against Israelis as being prompted by the Jewish state’s control of the “occupied West Bank.” But before Israel came into possession of the West Bank (the name that Jordanians gave to those parts of Judea and Samaria they had seized in the 1948 war) in 1967, when tiny Israel was even tinier than it is today, with a nine-mile-wide waist from Qalqilya to the sea, there were hundreds of terror attacks on the Jewish state, from Jordan in the east, from Egypt in the south, and from Syria in the north between 1949 and 1967. Most ended with Israelis being wounded; 55 of those attacks resulted in dead Israelis. The “occupied West Bank” did not exist, but there was plenty of terrorism. A recent posting by a Canadian doctor about a particularly atrocious attack, the Scorpion Pass Massacre in 1954, which was launched from Jordan’s “West Bank,” merits reprinting. The world needs to be reminded of what life was like for Israelis before they acquired, after the Six-Day War, a minimum of strategic depth that they have no intention of relinquishing. The original article can be found here: “Remembering The Scorpion Pass Massacre of 1954,” by Jacob Sivak, Algemeiner, March 7, 2023:

…The attack was carried out in the middle of the day on an Egged bus (Israel’s largest bus company) containing 14 passengers plus a driver. The attackers shot at the bus as it was travelling very slowly around one of the hairpin bends, killing the driver. They then boarded the bus and shot most of the passengers. Eleven riders (ten passengers and the driver) were killed and three passengers were injured. One of the injured a nine year-old boy, Chaim Fuerstenberg, survived in a semi-conscious and paralysed state for 32 years, dying in 1986.

Ephraim Fuerstenberg had been on vacation in Eilat with his wife Hannah and two children, Chaim, nine and Miri, five. Ephraim was killed first, then Hannah, who was raped and then killed. The two children were protected by the body of an Israeli soldier who threw himself on them as the attack began. When Chaim asked his sister if the attackers had gone, he was overheard and one of the assailants came back and shot him.

The tracks left by the assailants indicated that they came from Jordan, but the perpetrators were never identified. A safer more central route to Eilat was built as a result of the attack and today the pass is used for recreational purposes such as bicycle races

While the 1949 armistice agreements between Israel and her Arab neighbors ended the active shooting war between them, it didn’t stop cross-border attacks on Israelis from Gaza and the West Bank. Until 1967 and the Six Day War, Gaza was administered by Egypt and the West Bank, including the old city of Jerusalem, was governed by Jordan. For 19 years there was no occupation (and there was no Palestine). The Scorpion Pass Massacre was one of many attacks on Israelis that took place before the occupation. The Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs lists 55 deadly attacks between 1953 and 1966, refuting the charge that terror attacks by Palestinians are a result of the occupation.

Hundreds of other Arab attacks resulted in wounded, but not dead, Israelis. Were Israel to allow itself to be squeezed back within the 1949 armistice lines, in exchange for a peace treaty with a newly-created Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, it would again be in a state of maximum vulnerability, without the slightest strategic depth. The Palestinians have already broken the solemn undertakings they agreed to in the Oslo Accords. Their model of treaty-making is the agreement – a “truce treaty” — that Muhammad made with the Meccans at Hudaibiyya in 628 A.D., which was to have lasted for 10 years. But within 18 months, sensing that his forces had grown strong enough, Muhammad broke the treaty and attacked the Meccans. Given that Al-Hudaibiyya is the model for all subsequent treaty-making by Muslims, why should Israel give up its current defensible borders for the sake of a peace treaty that the Palestinians will be certain to break whenever they feel sufficiently strong?

 

Comments

  1. Good article, Hugh. A question: we often hear how “some” Israeli settlers usurp the properties of Palestinian Arabs (who are not Israeli citizens) by taking over (for example) their houses, or small sheep farms or olive groves.

    Is there any truth at all to that? If so, does the Israeli government do anything to rein in those settlers? I’m not denying that Israel needs to keep control of the West Bank, and I’m not saying that the heinous crimes of Oct. 7th were in any way justified, but I’m just wondering about that. Thanks.

  2. Wipe out Hamas, its supporters, enablers and sympathizers and the problem is over. Anything else will result in recurring attacks by the Muzzies.

    Put Ben Gavir in charge for a few weeks, and this Hamas skirmish will be relegated to the bins of history.

  3. Funny how western media has adopted the terrorist-supporter’s narrative and has us talking about civilian causalities being too much…to get Israel to back down.

    But articles like this are great reminders of the enemy that not just Israel faces but the rest of us. It’s not an issue over land but beliefs/ideology.

    Palis/Arabs/Muslims don’t care about land, they want Jews to be wiped out because that’s what their holy book Quran tells them to do. They’re a bunch of low IQ thugs and morons who blindly follow what they’re told by their Imams.

    So this war isn’t just a local skirmish, it’s global. The same zombies that want dead Jews also want dead Americans, Europeans, Indians, British, etc…their goal is global conquest and Islamification.

    We should treat them like the invaders they are and work to deport all of them from western nations and gave Israel all the latitude and support (including money/arms) it needs to win its battle with these barbarians.

    They see that we’re weak, civilized and reluctant to fight them and that’s why they’re pressing their advantage. People better wake up soon because every street is going to be Palestine for them and they will take them if we do nothing.

    • This is all correct. I am praying for the day when the expulsion of Muslims will be considered and act of self-defense, justifying all means necessary.

    • I so agree with everything you say here. They are realizing their goal because of our blindness and stupidity. It’s not just Israel’s war, it’s everyone’s war. Wake up everybody!!

      • TOTALLY agree, and I think wiping the Palestinians/Arabs/Muslims out is the only answer to the crime/terrorism that they are causing us all!!

  4. the facts are that no Arab nation likes the Palestinians, it’s just they hate the Israelis more than they dislike the Palestinians……If it weren’t for Israel, the Jordanians and Egyptians would be fighting the Palestinians

  5. Everybody is talking about Israeli “occupation”. This might or might not be the case, as this had been Jewish heartland, Judea and Samaria, that often suffered occupation from: The Romans, the Ottomans (Muslim), the British and so on. Now the Jews are back, claiming a small stretch of a few km width to live in, a tiny pack of 14 millions. For the Muslims, they claim it is a disaster. This, right there, shows a lack of empathy towards a tiny people seeking safety. But not enough, let’s now talk about Muslim “occupation”:
    Afghanistan was Buddhist, India was Hindu, Muslim armies invaded and slaughtered wherever they went, with one fifth of the booty going to “allah and his messenger”, as the Qur’an says. In the beginning, it was the Arabian Peninsula only, then followed Afghanistan, Albania, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Benin, Burkina Faso, Algeria, Djibouti, Chad, Indonesia, Morocco, Cote d’Ivoire, Palestine, Gabon, Gambia, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Guyana, Iraq, Iran, Cameroon, Qatar, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, the Comoros, and so on and on and on , .) 49 countries subjugated altogether, if I am correctly informed. Most of them are “judenrein”, void of Jewish life that had been there before.
    It makes me sick that, by their sheer numbers, Muslim injustice and murderous greed for land and power has gained such a loud voice.

      • We have a pile of driftwood called the Liberal West and Islam has most certainly touched their skulls.

  6. “.. Judea and Samaria, that often suffered occupation from: The Romans, the Ottomans (Muslim), the British and so on.”
    —————————————————————————————————————————–
    Bit of a reflection, isn’t it? At the end of World War One, the victors naturally took over the administration of the territories previously controlled by the German and Ottoman (Turkish) Empires.

    Had they wished, the British could have taken Palestine into the British Empire – (and the world might now be a lot more secure if it had…) – but they administered Palestine under the auspices of the League of Nations, with the aim of dividing it into self-ruling nation states and returning it to it’s inhabitants, including a state for the Jews.

    It may have been done in a rough-and-ready fashion, but overall, returning the Ottoman Empire to it’s subject peoples, was surely a great humanitarian act akin to the campaign to end slavery – rather than “an occupation” to be suffered?

  7. On all the talk show there is always one ‘sympathiser’ talking about the occupation and the oppression, sometimes the open air prison. (I do not kow what all those buildings are for if it is open air)They never mentiuon even on the Israel support side, the the reason for the wall and check points which is because the palestinians constantly came into Israel to murder Jews. Name me one country that would tolerate that being done to its people. Ironically the reason for 7/10 is usually ascribed to the things Israel did to stop its citizens being murdered! If the palistinians stopped murdering Jews there would be no need for walls and check points beyond the normal checks countries have; except the current USA which lets anybody walk across its southern border!
    Dire results will be seen from that I fear..

    • Robert Spencer, among other experts, has said that it’s not a question of “if” the United States suffers another major terrorist (perhaps even rivalling the one on 9/11), it’s WHEN.

      Moreover, the lax border and immigration policies have been vastly increasing the danger.

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