Car bomb history not quite accurate

Last month, a book by Mike Davis called Buda's Wagon was released, on the history of the car bomb.

While the book itself does not seem to be particularly partisan (a much-shortened version of the book can be read here), one of the author's points is that the first modern car bomb was exploded by the Stern Gang in 1947 (and was immediately copied by the Arabs later that year.) Some Israel-bashers latched onto this fact as evidence of Jewish immorality.

Well, Mr. Davis may have missed some.

I found this in the Palestine Post, July 25, 1938:

Although the attack was not fatal, an Arab apparently purchased the car for the purposes of blowing it up among Jews in 1938.

Notice that the bomb included "screws, bolts, spikes and other iron scraps" - the same recipe that today's Arab terrorist suicide bombers use.

My apologies to those who thought they had another reason to demonize Jews, but it seems that Arabs took the initiative at least this time, and may have been the inventors of an entirely new terror weapon.