Posted on 11/12/2023 6:56:10 AM PST by MtnClimber
In 1954, on the Jewish holiday of Purim, a bus carrying passengers from the Red Sea beach town of Eilat entered Scorpions Pass.
A decade before there was any ‘Palestinian’ cause, Muslim terrorists ambushed the bus. Ephraim Fuerstenberg, the driver, was shot dead, and his wife Hannah was taken out and raped and murdered. Men had thrown themselves in their dying moments on his two children to hide them. But his 9-year-old boy, Haim, raised his head to call for his sister, the Jihadist lifted up the body on top of him and shot him in the head, he would lie in a coma for 32 years before finally passing away. His sister Miri, who wrote the story in her book, ‘The Girl From Scorpions Pass’, survived only by hiding under the man who had thrown his body on top of hers to save her life.
The PLO would not be founded until 1964. An account in Time Magazine made no mention of ‘Palestinians’ because no such people had been invented yet. The West Bank and Gaza, the territories at the heart of the two-state solution and the ‘Palestinian’ cause, had been seized by Jordan and Egypt, and were being used as the bases from which the Islamic terrorists operated.
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Nor had Islamic terrorism entered the popular jargon. These Jihadis were known as the ‘Fedayeen’ or those who die for Allah. Their style of attacks closely resembled those perpetrated by Hamas on Oct 7. And the Israelis had no high tech, no border wall and not nearly enough manpower to come to grips with the constant Islamic Jihadist raids across the border.
The Islamic attacks escalated under the cowardly leadership of Moshe Sharett, Israel’s second prime minister, who had put all his faith in international diplomacy and the United Nations.
After the Scorpions Pass massacre, Sharett had refused to respond, arguing that, “an act in reaction to the bloodbath would only blur the horrifying effect and would place us on the same level as the murderers on the other side.” Israeli commandos, who had little respect for Sharett, a leftist hack with no understanding of the battlefield, began to go rogue against the Jihadis.
Long before drones, Israel responded with a more personal form of targeted killings. Small commando units tracked down terrorists inside Gaza and the West Bank and killed them. They also came after the Egyptian officers who, like the Soleimanis of today, were organizing them.
Throughout the early 50s, Jihadis raided Israel from Gaza, killed and raped those they could, including Leah Festinger, a young Holocaust survivor, threw a grenade into a room where a family was sleeping, killing the children, including a 3-year-old girl. Meir Har Zion, a war hero who excelled at penetrating enemy territory, responded to the murder of his sister by making his way to the West Bank with a few friends and hunting down the men he believed were the killers.
Finally a murder near Nahal Oz, one of the communities targeted by Hamas in the Oct 7 massacre, brought the situation into clear focus. Roi Rotberg, a young man who was patrolling the fields, was ambushed, had his eyes gouged out and his mutilated body left on display....
“The capitals of civilization have all been blinded. They hold up signs welcoming refugees and wonder why bombs go off.”
Daniel Greenfield ping
Great article!
I read an account of this 1954 massacre. From what I could tell, the Israelis on the bus were unarmed.
Evidently the Israelis learned nothing from this. Or they forgot what they had learned. Because as we all know, it happened again in 2023. Unarmed Israelis - men, women, and children - were massacred. Again.
After the Scorpions Pass massacre, Sharett had refused to respond, arguing that, “an act in reaction to the bloodbath would only blur the horrifying effect and would place us on the same level as the murderers on the other side.” Israeli commandos, who had little respect for Sharett, a leftist hack with no understanding of the battlefield, began to go rogue against the Jihadis.
I suppose that is why I have never heard of Sharett.
Bump to the top ...
Wow! Imagine what they would have done if Islam wasn’t the religion of peace!
What this article demonstrates is that the Arabs cannot bring themselves to live in peace with Israel, whether it is the original and small Israel, or a somewhat enlarged Israel. The idea of the Jews owning as much as 10 square feet in the Middle East is too much for them to deal with. The simple fact is that you cannot deal with someone who’s only position is that you must die. The lesson to be learned is that there can be no compromise with the Arabs whatsoever. Perhaps with certain countries, such as Egypt and Jordan, who have been brought into the western orbit, and benefit greatly from relative peace with Israel, and perhaps the Saudis who see a bigger and common enemy in Iran than in Israel, but otherwise it is pretty hopeless. Israel should take whatever territory it needs to defend its population, and not make any apologies for doing so.
An eye opening history lesson, for sure. Thanks for posting this…
And it isn’t just Hamas-it’s the muslin way…
... The Eisenhower administration had turned over its foreign policy to the oil industry and Arabists like Assistant Secretary of State Henry Byroade whose true allegiance was to Arab Muslim states.
And that was the setting for what was just another funeral, until IDF Chief of Staff Moshe Dayan, who knew Rotberg personally, delivered a famous eulogy that defined the new state of affairs.
Invoking the story of the biblical figure Samson, who had carried away the gates of Gaza on his shoulders from the Philistines, Dayan spoke of the small community of Nahal Oz which “carries on its shoulders the heavy gates of Gaza, beyond which hundreds of thousands of eyes and arms huddle together and pray for the onset of our weakness so that they may tear us to pieces”.
Moshe Dayan's Eulogy for Roi Rotberg
Very powerful article from Mr Greenfield. Please read ...
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Daniel Greenfield's website: The Sultan Knish blog
Yesterday with daybreak, Roi was murdered. The quiet of a spring morning blinded him, and he did not see the stalkers of his soul on the furrow. Let us not hurl blame at the murderers. Why should we complain of their hatred for us? Eight years have they sat in the refugee camps of Gaza, and seen, with their own eyes, how we have made a homeland of the soil and the villages where they and their forebears once dwelt.
Not from the Arabs of Gaza must we demand the blood of Roi, but from ourselves. How our eyes are closed to the reality of our fate, unwilling to see the destiny of our generation in its full cruelty. Have we forgotten that this small band of youths, settled in Nahal Oz, carries on its shoulders the heavy gates of Gaza, beyond which hundreds of thousands of eyes and arms huddle together and pray for the onset of our weakness so that they may tear us to pieces — has this been forgotten? For we know that if the hope of our destruction is to perish, we must be, morning and evening, armed and ready.
A generation of settlement are we, and without the steel helmet and the maw of the cannon we shall not plant a tree, nor build a house. Our children shall not have lives to live if we do not dig shelters; and without the barbed wire fence and the machine gun, we shall not pave a path nor drill for water. The millions of Jews, annihilated without a land, peer out at us from the ashes of Israeli history and command us to settle and rebuild a land for our people. But beyond the furrow that marks the border, lies a surging sea of hatred and vengeance, yearning for the day that the tranquility blunts our alertness, for the day that we heed the ambassadors of conspiring hypocrisy, who call for us to lay down our arms.
It is to us that the blood of Roi calls from his shredded body. Although we have vowed a thousand vows that our blood will never again be shed in vain — yesterday we were once again seduced, brought to listen, to believe. Our reckoning with ourselves, we shall make today. We mustn’t flinch from the hatred that accompanies and fills the lives of hundreds of thousands of Arabs, who live around us and are waiting for the moment when their hands may claim our blood. We mustn’t avert our eyes, lest our hands be weakened. That is the decree of our generation. That is the choice of our lives — to be willing and armed, strong and unyielding, lest the sword be knocked from our fists, and our lives severed.
Roi Rotberg, the thin blond lad who left Tel Aviv in order to build his home alongside the gates of Gaza, to serve as our wall. Roi — the light in his heart blinded his eyes and he saw not the flash of the blade. The longing for peace deafened his ears and he heard not the sound of the coiled murderers. The gates of Gaza were too heavy for his shoulders, and they crushed him.
There have been two synagogues in Gaza, dating back to the ca. 3rd century.
On Israel’s 50th anniversary, almost a quarter of a century ago, Ariel Sharon wrote a column in which he summarized Moshe Dayan’s worldview, with which we conclude this column:
"We cannot secure every water pipe from vandalism, or prevent the uprooting of every tree. We do not have the capacity to prevent the murder of workers toiling in vineyard, or families when they are asleep.
But we do have the power to exact a very high price for our blood."
Despite the anger, the fear and the grief, that makes all the difference. (Ariel Sharon)
correct
if hamas is eradicated
the jihadis will just come up with a new name
they will not stop
I am trying to find, online, any other information on this incident and I’m coming up short. Are there any others you know of?
“...who had put all his faith in international diplomacy and the United Nations.”
YUGE mistake for anyone.
Amen.
Ok, I did find some more info -
https://www.algemeiner.com/2023/03/07/remembering-the-scorpion-pass-massacre-of-1954/
https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/the-girl-who-survived-the-massacre-at-scorpions-pass/
https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,819663,00.html
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