FLOTILLA ATTACK MIRRORS USS LIBERTY
By Harmony Grant Daws
17 June 10
Thanks to the internet, Israel’s terrorist attack on the
Free Gaza ship, Mavi Marmara, could hardly be less publicized.
Yet on June 8, 1967—43 years ago—Israeli air and sea forces
attacked another ship in international waters. It was the USS Liberty, conspicuously
flying its American flag in clear weather; Israel used bombs, napalm
and torpedoes against it. The attack on the Liberty remains
the only maritime incident involving fatalities
in US history which was never investigated by Congress. The attack
occurred in international waters, and reports by eyewitnesses flatly
contradict the Israel-excusing narrative to which the US agreed.
This article examines stunning parallels between the Liberty attack
and the recent brutal takeover of the Gaza-bound flotilla. Both attacks
occurred in international waters. In both, Israel heavy-handedly silenced
eyewitnesses, discredited survivors, controlled a biased investigation—after
having ordered the attacks to protect an even greater crime.
Joe Meadors survived both attacks. He was aboard the Liberty in
1967 and also an activist passenger on the flotilla this June. Meadors
says international waters were violated both times.
The Israelis, he says, “ think they can do no wrong. Every time
they speak they say they don’t break any laws, they always abide
by international laws. But, they break them with impunity and the US
Government is not going to hold them accountable, nobody is.”
Is such pessimism warranted? It certainly is.
Forty-three years have passed since 34 servicemen were killed by
Israel in international waters. The truth seems just as sinkable today.
Silencing Witnesses, Jamming Communication Devices
During the flotilla attack, one journalist was able to broadcast
90
seconds of live coverage to Al Jazeera,
and then communication was cut off, as the Israelis jammed the activists’ communication
devices. This is exactly what happened on board the Liberty.
Communication
devices were jammed with what survivors described as
a “buzzsaw sound.”
The brief video dispatched to Al Jazeera reports civilian activists
attacked with live fire by the IDF even while waving the white flag
of surrender—dozens injured and several killed in international
waters, while bearing aid to try to break the Gaza blockade. A Brazilian
filmmaker was also able to smuggle out 60
minutes of tape in her underwear.
The rest of the physical evidence—cameras and film—were
seized by Israel and have still not been returned.
As the news about the flotilla attack was first surfacing, Israel
dominated the information flow; the eyewitness survivors were being “quietly
herded to Ashdod without means of communication to the outside world.”
Similarly, when the wounded were finally being evacuated from the Liberty, they
were commanded not to speak to the press about what had happened. Thirty-four
US soldiers were dead and 174 were wounded—yet eyewitnesses were
not able to tell what they had seen and heard.
Discrediting and Silencing Survivors
After the flotilla event and continuing today, ADL/Israel has focused
on discrediting the flotilla passengers by linking them to international
terrorist groups. New
York officials are asking the State Department
to look into the visa applications of flotilla survivors who want to
share their testimony in Brooklyn.
Jewish Senator Chuck Schumer—who recently said Gaza should be
economically strangled until it admits Israel’s right to exist—is
forcefully insinuating
that the flotilla activists are linked to Al
Qaeda.
Thus, flotilla survivors who raise their heads are threatened with
personal investigations and public slander, pressuring them to keep
their mouths shut.
Survivors of the Liberty who
knew Israel had purposefully
attacked their vessel were also silenced. Richard Larry Weaver, a seaman
aboard the Liberty, says he was visited in the hospital by
a three-star admiral. The admiral asked what had happened on the Liberty; and
when Weaver stated his testimony, the admiral said, “ “If
you tell anyone what happened you will be put in prison and we’ll
lose the key.”
Investigation by Biased Parties
The investigation of the U.S.S. Liberty was conducted by
the US Navy, which forbade eyewitnesses from reporting their testimony. “Within
three weeks, the Navy put out a 700-page report, exonerating the Israelis,
claiming the attack had been accidental and that the Israelis had pulled
back as soon as they realized their mistake. Defense Secretary Robert
McNamara suggested the whole affair should be forgotten. ‘These
errors do occur,’ McNamara concluded.”
The attack on the Liberty remains
the only maritime incident in US history, involving
fatalities, which was never investigated by Congress. The Liberty
Veterans Association, composed of survivors, says the inquiry didn’t
even examine Israeli culpability but only focused on American miscommunications.
No Israelis were questioned. All known survivors agree the attack
was deliberate. But then, as today, the USA colluded with Israel
to cover up the attacks and slaying of American citizens.
A Turkish-American was killed during the raid of the flotilla yet
is receiving no justice from his country -- just the opposite: A senator
has called for the arrest and prosecution of any Americans on board
the vessels! The “inquiry” into the flotilla attack
will be as much a sham as the Navy’s 700-page report on the U.S.S.
Liberty. The
US has agreed that an independent Israeli committee
should look into the attack!
The Jewish Forward admits there will be no real investigation
of the Israeli military’s attack on the flotilla; only policy
decisions will be examined. There will be a virtual “firewall” between
the inquiry and the military.
“The panel
will not be able to investigate firsthand the events
on the ship and will not be able to judge between the two contradicting
narratives — the Israeli storyline that depicts an encounter
between lightly armed commandos and bloodthirsty terrorists, and the
Turkish one that talks of peace activists on their way to a humanitarian
relief mission brutally attacked by the Israeli navy. Furthermore,
preferring an Israeli committee to an international panel means that
investigators would likely have little to no access to the activists
who were on board the ships.”
Violence Protects an Even Greater Crime
It is certain that Israel attacked the Liberty to cover
up even more sinister crimes. In 1995, two shallow mass graves of Egyptian
soldiers were discovered outside the Sinai city of El Arish; they were
prisoners
of war slaughtered by the Israeli army. James Bamford, in
his 2001 Body of Secrets, suggests the Liberty, an
intelligence ship, may have been attacked to prevent its discovery
of these slaughters, to which Israeli veterans have admitted. A retired
Israeli general personally admitted to murdering 49 surrendered and
unarmed Egyptian POWs with submachine gunfire during the 1967 war.
George Ball, Undersecretary of State under Johnson and Kennedy, authored
a 1992 book, The Passionate Attachment: America’s Involvement
with Israel, 1947 to the Present. Ball’s book presents
his conviction that the Liberty was attacked to prevent it
from interfering with Israel’s plan to violate any ceasefire
until it had completely seized the Golan Heights.
Ball reports, “Yet the ultimate lesson of the Liberty attack
had far more effect on policy in Israel than in America. Israel’s
leaders concluded that nothing they might do would offend the Americans
to the point of reprisal. If America’s leaders did not have the
courage to punish Israel for the blatant murder of American citizens,
it seemed clear that their American friends would let them get away
with almost anything.”
This has certainly been proven true in 2010. While the world gasps
in horror, the United States stands with Israel’s “right
to self-defense,” regardless of the cost in innocent life and
the violation of international law.
Just as the Liberty was attacked to protect even greater
crimes, so the Gaza-bound flotillas were attacked to prevent their
interference with the continued blockade of Gaza—an atrocity
that keeps 1.5 million people crowded into an open air prison. An Israeli
Arab MK has told the European Parliament that Israeli leaders should
be tried at The Hague for their crimes; in preventing medical supplies
and medicine into Gaza, Israel has caused at
least 700 Palestinian deaths at its border crossings, he said.
Incredibly, pro-Israel America, particularly Christian conservatives,
will not face the truth about these even darker realities.
History has shown that if we ignore dark realities in the present,
darker ones are sure to come.
Rev. Ted Pike is director of the National Prayer Network, a Christian/conservative
watchdog organization.
Aaron and Harmony Daws are staff researchers and writers for the
National Prayer Network.
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