Jordan celebrates attacking Jewish communities in 1920 as "defending Palestine" ~ Elder Of Ziyon

Tuesday, February 25, 2025

Jordan celebrates attacking Jewish communities in 1920 as "defending Palestine"

Ammon News writes that "The first bullet of (Palestinian) resistance was Jordanian:"

It refers to a conference that is unknown to Western sources and a subsequent attack near the Sea of Galilee:

105 years ago, Sheikh Naji Pasha Al-Azzam called on the leaders of Jordan and Palestine to hold a conference in Qom to confront the Jewish threat to the land of Palestine. If we were to call today to confront it, we would not have come up with stronger decisions than its decisions.

At that conference on resistance and the protection of Palestine, leader Naji Pasha Al-Azzam gave a speech in which he said:

“We must come up with decisions that include a rapid response to the enemies, provided that the response is by attacking the Jewish settlements and the determination of our clans and men. And God is with us.”

The Palestinians were not alone, and they will not be!

The first armed resistance organization and movement against Jewish settlement in Palestine was the East Jordanian Movement led by Sheikh Kayed Al-Mufleh Al-Obeidat, who fought the Battle of Tel Al-Tha'aleb with the Jewish settlers and was martyred with a group of northern knights:

Bilal Salem Al-Hajjat, Saeed Yousef Al-Quraan, Zatam Al-Quraan, Sultan Obeidat, Qaftan Obeidat, Muhammad Al-Azzam, and three mujahideen from Hauran.

They were the first bullets and the first martyrs on the land of Arab Palestine.

I cite the words of His Excellency Abdul Raouf Rawabdeh: “We are Palestine, and Palestine is us." No one has given Palestine and Gaza more than Jordan has given.

The Jordanian government Petra site describes the events in mostly the same way, having Jordan taking credit for attacking the British and the Jews. The History of Jordan page also describes the conference as Jordan supporting the "Palestinian people's revolution."

This is an obvious falsehood. It is anachronistic, since even Transjordan didn't exist at the time. This all occurred was during a short time period when the "Arab Kingdom of Syria" was declared, encompassing today's Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Israel. It only lasted a few months from March to July 1920. The "Jordanians" were attacking as Syrians, defending part of Syria. They were not defending Palestine as Jordanian sources now characterize the events; Palestine was considered part of the same Syria as the area of Transjordan was.

The battle they are referring to is the Samakh Raid, summarized by Wikipedia this way:

At the beginning of the Franco-Syrian War, the Upper Galilee was populated by several semi-nomadic Bedouin Arab tribes, the largest residing in Halasa, and four tiny Jewish settlements, including Metula, Kfar Giladi, Tel Hai and Hamra. While the Arab villages and Bedouin allied with the Arab Kingdom of Syria, the Jewish residents chose to remain neutral during the Arab conflict with the French.
Just prior to the French occupation of Damascus, the instability in Transjordan threatened to spill over into Palestine.[1] The sedentary clans of Bani Kananah, perhaps encouraged by members of the Istiqlal native to the Hawran, including such radical nationalists as Ahmad Muraywid and Ali Khulqi raided Jewish settlements in Galilee.[1] Early in the war, a Kfar Giladi resident was killed by armed Bedouin, greatly increasing tension in the region. Jewish villages were regularly pillaged by the pro-Syrian Bedouin on the pretext of searching for French spies and soldiers.
In April 1920, the Arab militants engaged British Army at Samakh and suffered a number of casualties as RAF planes strafed them on their way back across the Jordan river.[1] The event took place as some 2,000 armed Bedouins mostly from Transjordan attempted to attack the Samakh train station aiming to prevent the arrival of British reinforcements from Haifa.[3]

This raid appears to have been timed to coincide with the San Remo Conference, perhaps to foil the colonial plans of the British and French.

The official Jordanian government site that describes the raid says that the intent was to attack the Jewish settlements in Samakh, Beisan, and Tiberias, and it characterizes the Jews as panicking and fleeing.

While the details of the Samakh attack differ greatly between Arab and Western sources (one seemingly fair analysis in Arabic can be seen here,) we see here that Jordan not only takes credit for "defending Palestine" but for planning and attacking Jewish villages. At the time there was no organized Jewish defense force.

The official Jordanian government, today, celebrates attacks on unarmed Jewish civilians.

What normal people call "terrorism."