The Truth about the USS Liberty

In response to the presentation on Tuesday October 30th 2002 of the documentary “The Loss of Liberty” by the Council for the National Interest Connecticut, it is my duty to present the real facts concerning the Liberty incident.

The first question one should ask is who exactly are these documentary sponsors? Well after researching the organization on their website (http://www.cnionline.org/) I concluded that the Council for the National Interest is nothing more than an anti-Israeli organization which also shows tendencies of being anti-Semitic. Here are some excerpts from different Middle East articles, written by them, on their website:

1) "The State of Israel was founded 54 years ago to provide a "home" for a people who had been rejected, uprooted, tortured, maimed and expelled by Europe. Did any of us living then think that the Jews would do the same to their hosts in the "homeland," and reject, uproot, torture, maim and expel their Palestinian neighbors? Whole Palestinian villages have been destroyed without a trace -- so that those villagers who left them in 1948 would never have a village to return to at a later date. Why does this sound familiar? Victims have become victimizers?" http://rescuemideastpolicy.com/ads/ad_1.html

2) "ISRAEL AND PALESTINE: WHOSE EXISTENCE IS REALLY IN DANGER?" http://rescuemideastpolicy.com/ads/ad_2.html

3) "The State of Israel was founded 54 years ago to provide a “home” for a people who had been rejected, uprooted, tortured, maimed and expelled by Europe. Did anyone think that Jews would do the same to the Palestinian people who were already living there?" "From 1947-1949, Israel rejected, uprooted, tortured, maimed and expelled the Palestinian population. Israel destroyed over 415 Palestinian villages, along with their churches and mosques, so that the Palestinian villagers could not return. Once Jews were victims of these atrocities, but it is clear that the Jewish victims in Israel have become victimizers of the Palestinians." "In 1967, Israel invaded the rest of historical Palestine: the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza. The UN has repeatedly voted that Israel leave the Palestinian land and let the Palestinian people be free. Israel has refused, constantly violating international" "Discrimination and apartheid in Israel are striking. Christians and Muslims are not allowed to rent, buy or lease in 92% of Israel. Israel prohibits Palestinian Christians and Muslims from living in Jewish-only colonies." http://rescuemideastpolicy.com/ads/ad_3.html

4) "We the people of the United States challenge our Congress to confront Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his apartheid policy in the occupied Palestinian territories" http://rescuemideastpolicy.com/ads/ad_4.html Everyone already knows my views concerning Israel so there is really no need for me to bring up counter-points to combat these lies above.

But wait a minute, their website states that their organization is “striving for a balanced Middle East Policy.” Do the excerpts above show this?

As you can see, a biased and anti-Israeli organization presented this video. It was no surprise that an anti-Israeli documentary regarding the USS Liberty was aired, subsequently.

…dramatically proves, beyond any doubt, that the attack by Israel on June 8, 1967 against the U.S. naval intelligence gathering ship USS Liberty, in which 34 Americans were killed and 171 wounded, was deliberate…

… “Loss of Liberty” makes clear that then-President Lyndon Johnson conspired with Israel and its Israel-First supporters inside the U.S. government to support the “tragic accident” scheme.

In order to understand this issue one must understand the background information regarding this incident. In June 1967, a United States Ship, the Liberty, came too close to the coast of Israel. During those days Israel was in a state of war, warding off attacks of surrounding Arab states who were trying to destroy it. The US ambassador declared in the United Nations that no American ships were in the range of 400 miles from Israel. The National Security Agency, part of the ship’s command, was supposed to give timely orders to the USS Liberty to leave, however, these orders arrived days after the attack.

Eight days later, Israeli Air Force planes and boats attacked the ship, killing 34 and wounding 177. The ship did not sink, and slowly moved crippled to a nearby port. After the incident voices were heard: “Did Israel deliberately attack the USS Liberty?”

Here are the facts: Israel’s understanding was that there were no American ships less than 400 miles off its coast, and as she was at war with Egypt, enemy warships were the only ones thought to be off the coast of Israel. At the time the USS Liberty was bombed, there were explosions on the coast and Israeli command thought it was a naval bombardment from Egypt. It was then that Israel moved to attack what they believed to be an Egyptian ship.

In a bid to attack the ship, Israeli jets were scrambled to the area. The Israeli jets that attacked the Liberty were diverted from other targets, and consequently were armed with napalm rather than iron bombs. In a premeditated and deliberate attack meant to sink a ship, no aviator in the world would choose napalm over iron bombs. In the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor, for example, iron bombs sunk US battleships in minutes, and the Liberty, a converted freighter, was no battleship.

There were ten official US investigations (including five congressional investigations) that concluded there was never any evidence that the attack was made with knowledge that the target was a US ship. Furthermore they concluded that there was substantial evidence the attack was a tragic mistake caused by blunders of both the US and Israel. Seven US presidents, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, and Clinton, have each accepted the conclusion that the attack was a tragic case of mistaken identity. Since the incident the haters of Israel have tried to use this event to try to pull America and Israel apart. This is nonetheless what this Council for the National Interest has tried to do with this presentation. Fortunately this conspiracy theory that this documentary presented on Tuesday at Cummings Center had few takers.

As you can see this documentary didn’t bring forward (1) the fact Israel mistakenly saw this ship as enemy, due to the state of war it was in and bombs shot out from the same area, (2) the US, days earlier, stated there were no ships within 400-miles radius which the Liberty was in, (3) the type of weapon Israel used to attack the ship was napalm, the wrong kind of weapon to use if one wanted to sink the ship(4) there were 10, including 5 congressional investigations, into the incident all concluding that the attack on the USS Liberty by Israel was a tragic mistake.

This incident should serve as a lesson to the Connecticut College administration and related offices in that it should be more vigilant in who it allows to rent its rooms. Making money is ok, but making money off these kinds of organizations is wrong. What’s next? A National Alliance meeting?

I am not here to discuss the activities of the Irgun (which by the way in Hebrew means organization or group). Frankly, I do not know much about that.

That much is patently obvious. I would suggest you read up about Irgun. It later became Israel Defense Forces.

I already provided my conclusions regarding anti-Semitism by showing excepts from the various articles concerning Israel.

And none of the excerpts were anti-Semitic. So much for your conclusions.

It helped by providing various "facts" and its own assumptions.

Let's stop right there. You are wasting everyone's time here. When you can explain the above statement and provide a source for your assertion that the organization "helped" with the making of this documentary, come back and post your evidence.

In no article on that middle east section do they condone Palestinian terorrism.

Exactly. Such would be tantamount to supporting terrorists. Since they didn't do that, and you are acknowledging this is so, perhaps you can explain why you mention it?

There has been 5 congressional investigations.

As has been already pointed out, this statement is a blatant falsehood.

"And none of the excerpts were anti-Semitic. So much for your conclusions. "

What about the conclusion that these excepts show anti-Israel tone?

It helped in not an apperent direct way. But the fact this organization 1. sponsored the event 2. helped publicize the documentary shows that they were strongly in agreement with its content. Furthermore, as I have stated, this organization's middle east policy papers relate to the way this documentary presents Israeli history.

In no article on that middle east section do they condone Palestinian terorrism.

"Exactly. Such would be tantamount to supporting terrorists. Since they didn't do that, and you are acknowledging this is so, perhaps you can explain why you mention it? "

Why I mention this? Because this group claims its purpose is for the US to act upon its middle east policy in a BALANCED WAY. These examples prove otherwise and hurt this organization's reputation further as a trusted source for gaining real, inpartial, information.

All I am trying to show is that by reading about the sponsors of the documentary you have a feel to what the documentary's content and tone will be again - and that is Israel.

And by the way I didn't tell you guys that I talked with an Anti-Defamation League assistant-director of connecticut and they told me that they aware of this group and that it is publicly anti-Israel, however, they thanked me cause they didn't know they had a chapter in this state.

And you continue to read off the script written by the "Death to Israel" crowd.

I'll certainly consider their material as excellent examples of self-serving propaganda, just as the Israeli versions of the U.S.S. Liberty attack events are. The Israelis at least have the reasonable excuse of attempting to balance the scales against the output of the former, certainly not the case in the earliest days of the birth of the State of Israel, when Israeli socialist David Ben-Gurion, having established his position of power by having previously betrayed Irgun and Lehi leaders to the British, who helpfully hanged the political adversaries of their Judas goat. Or are you not familiar with the Altalena? If B.G. couldn't be the leader of the new Israeli state, he was quite willing to let the Arabs take it, knowing what the cost in others' blood would have been. There are still those of his sort in Israel, just as there were in the death camps who did the Nazi's bidding for a bit of extra bread.

But though I'm quite capable of writing my own *Death-to-Israel* material, when necessary, as when they threaten to destroy the entire world in a terrorist act of global suicide, it's certainly more effective to more precisely target deserving individual Israelis, such as Israeli Mossad operative and narcotics trafficer Mike Harari, former adviser to Manuel Noriega, murderer of a Moroccon waiter in a blundered Mossad assassination, and the probable murder of a US Colonel in the Phillipines. Is your appreciation of Israel such that you would help their operatives murder American military officers? I'd certainly not be surprised.

my father spent 30 years of his life working on various aspects of the program, BTW.)

Good thing for you he wasn't aboard the U.S.S. Liberty. There were some Navy orphans not so lucky- too many.

-archy-/-

In other words, just when the Liberty was crippled and utterly defenseless, the Israelis pulled back.
Odd move. They could have sunk the ship with ease, they didn't.
Is it possible that the US goivernment finally informed Israel of the Liberty and the Israelis pulled back?

I don't see any other logical reason for them to have done so at that point.

I know you have spent the last 35 years on this issue.

I wrote:
"the Israeli government had asked that the US keep ship out of the area"
JMeadors responded
They did? Can you direct me to the US document that supports that position?

The failure of the Israeli navy's attacks on Egyptian and Syrian ports early in the war did little to assuage Israel's fears. Consequently, the IDF Chief of Staff, Gen. Yitzhak Rabin, informed the U.S. Naval Attaché in Tel Aviv, Cmdr. Ernest Carl Castle, that Israel would defend its coast with every means at its disposal. Unidentified vessels would be sunk, Rabin advised; the United States should either acknowledge its ships in the area or remove them.
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/liberty1.html
British Public Record Office, FCO17/498, Israel - Political Affairs: Tel Aviv to Foreign Office, June 5, 1967. See also Yitzhak Rabin, The Rabin Memoirs (Berkeley: University of California, 1996), pp. 100, 110; Hirsh Goodman and Ze'ev Schiff, "The Attack on the Liberty," The Atlantic Monthly, September 1984, p. 81.

"The issue has been investigated 4 times."

It has? Can you direct me to those investigations? OK.
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/liberty2.html

You hold that these inquiries were incomplete. You are probably correct. However, show some intellectual honesty and admitt that they have been investigated.

"anti-Zionist groups"

With apologies (and I hope you don't take this wrong, but) I am not about to accept such a characterization from an anonymous poster in a little-used conference who is a total stranger to me.

With all due respect Mr. Meadors, I am hardly anonymous to Freepers. Look up me history and/or my personal page on FR.

I wrote:
Communist want to destroy Israel.
Demidog responded
Why? Israel is a socialist democracy, one step away from communism.

Yes. The Communist attempts to destroy the Jewish nature of Israel (and hence its existance) or to discredit it through the UN and Soviet funding of anti-Israel terrorist was all a giant plot to confuse American Patriots!

Demiidog, you are predisposed to hate Israel and all facts are irrelevent. Go join Joe Sobran.

Rabin, who headed Irgun, received a Nobel Peace Prize and did in fact the become the Leader of Israel. To say that Israel didn't condone what he did, is to ignore all facts.

Stop trying to show everyone your ignorance. Rabin was a socialist and in the Haganah. The Irgun (http://www.etzel.org.il/english) was a conservative nationalist group. In fact, the socialist considered it such a threat that they ordered a supply ship carrying immigrant soldiers and weapons to be sunk rather than allow the Irgun to save Jerusalem.
The person who made his career sinking the Altelena and killing 16 members of the Irgun was Yitzk Rabin!
http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/History/Altalena.html

Stop trying to tell us about the truth when you can't get basic facts straight!

What about the conclusion that these excepts show anti-Israel tone?

A bogus conclusion. Being critical of the actions of Israel is no more "anti-Israel" than it is to be "anti-American" when calling Clinton, Janet Reno and Lon Horiuchi murderers for their activities regarding Waco. The group in question wants Israel to remain and the Palestinians to have their own state. It is nothing short of a lie to claim that this stance is "anti-Israel.

Why I mention this? Because this group claims its purpose is for the US to act upon its middle east policy in a BALANCED WAY.

And you think that they should condone terrorism? Perhaps you should make a quick trip to dictionary.com. I think you might be confused about the word "condone" since you have used it twice now and think that it is a bad thing not to condone terrorism.

By the way...shooting sailors who have abandoned ship is not a new thing for Israel. It is apparently SOP.

http://www.jdl.org/israel/insider.shtml
During the War of Independence, there were two factions vying for leadership in Israel--the Irgun and the Palmach (part of the Hagana). The Irgun was able to get munitions supplies and a ship, the Altalena, for the war effort. When the Altalena neared the place it could have its cargo unloaded, Hagana leader David Ben-Gurion (later to become the first prime minister of modern-day Israel) ordered his men to sink the ship. As the ship was being fired on, it raised a white flag to mark its surrender; some of the wounded men and women jumped into the water to escape the gunfire and explosions--some in lifeboats, some not. The young officer in charge of the Hagana unit ordered his men to shoot the men struggling in the water. Eighteen innocent Jewish sailors--all members of the Irgun--were slaughtered.
Who was the officer who gave those orders?

Yitzhak Rabin

Your ham-handed attempt to deflect the question is noted. Why would communists want to destroy Israel? What about the socialist nation of Israel is a threat to communism?
Pointing out that they have done so is established fact. Res ipsa loquator.
I'll explain. Israel was fine when the idea was to have a socialist homeland for ethnic Jews. Hwoever, this quickly ended. The Religious, revisionist, and non-Ashkenasi groups all opposed it. The Labour party could only consolidate power by bribing the Orthodox Parties, and the Arabs and new Jewish immigrants. This meant that the economy became fairly socialist (although less so than pre-Thatcher England), but the society was not secularised completely. The unifying factor was nationalism. This particularism is antithetical to communism.
Opposition to Israel is also useful for communists in their goal of taking over arab countries. They frame the issue in anti-colonialism. Finally, during the Cold War, the Soviets allied themselves with most Arab states.

It has been well established that communists will try to subvert or overthrow Democratic-socialist countries. Perhaps you have forgotten the Cold War? The commies wanted to conquer Western Europe.

The Socialists were perfectly willing to kill Jewish nationalist. The nationalists were in their way of making Israel a little socialist utopia and turned off outsiders.
It was always Labour policy to have Israel ally herself with other countries. First it was the Soviets and Czechs. Then it was the French. In 1967, de Gaulle sold out Israel and Israel began to take a more pro-US stance. Attacking the USS Liberty was completely againt Israeli foreign policy and the socialists viewpoint that Israel needed outside help.

It has been well established that communists will try to subvert or overthrow Democratic-socialist countries.

Really? I believe that the "domino" theory has been dispelled for quite some time. The Soviet Union was expanding (ironically) in much the same manner as the Russian Empire was. That part of the equation is antithetical to communism rather than a proof that communists attempt to subvert their neighbors. China has remained stationary for quite some time and its invasion of Tibet was largely based on historical territorial claims rather than some inherent need to turn the world into communists.

The unifying factor was nationalism. This particularism is antithetical to communism.

Communists and Nationalists don't like each other much. Nationalist Socialists are generally referred to as Fascists. You're not really saying that Israel is Fascist are you?

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