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So Who's Afraid of the Israel Lobby?
Virtually everyone: Republican, Democrat-Conservative, Liberal. The fear factor is non-partisan, you might say, and palpable. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) brags that it is the most influential foreign policy lobbying organization on Capitol Hill, and has demonstrated that time and again-and not only on Capitol Hill.
Seldom has the Lobby's power been as clearly demonstrated as in its ability to suppress the awful truth that on June 8, 1967, during the Six Day War:
- Israel deliberately attacked the intelligence collection ship USS Liberty, in full awareness it was a U.S. Navy ship, and did its best to sink it and leave no survivors;
- The Israelis would have succeeded had they not broken off the attack upon learning, from an intercepted message, that the commander of the U.S. 6th Fleet had launched carrier fighters to the scene; and
- By that time 34 of the Liberty's crew had been killed and over 170 wounded.
Scores of intelligence analysts and senior officials have known this for years. That virtually all of them have kept a forty-year frightened silence is testament to the widespread fear of touching this live wire. Even more telling is the fact that the National Security Agency apparently has destroyed voice tapes and transcripts heard and seen by many intelligence analysts, material that shows beyond doubt that the Israelis knew exactly what they were doing.
The Ugly Truth
But the truth will out-eventually. All it took in this case was for a courageous journalist (of the endangered species kind) to listen to the surviving crew and do a little basic research, not shrinking from naming war crimes and not letting senior U.S. officials, from the president on down, off the hook for suppressing-even destroying-damning evidence from intercepted Israeli communications.
The mainstream media have now published an exposé based largely on interviews with those most intimately involved. A lengthy article by Pulitzer Prize winning investigative reporter John Crewdson appeared in the Chicago Tribune and Baltimore Sun on Oct. 2 titled "New revelations in attack on American spy ship." To the subtitle goes the prize for understatement of the year: "Veterans, documents suggest U.S., Israel didn't tell full story of deadly 1967 incident."
Better 40 years late than never, I suppose. Many of us have known of the incident and cover-up for a very long time and have tried to expose and discuss it for the lessons it holds for today. It has proved far easier, though, to get a very pedestrian Dog-Bites-Man article published than an article with the importance and explosiveness of this sensitive story.
A Marine Stands Up
On the evening of Sept. 26, 2006, I gave a talk on Iraq to an overflow crowd of 400 at National Avenue Church in Springfield, Missouri. A questioner asked what I thought of the study by John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Stephen Walt of Harvard titled "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy." The study had originally been commissioned by The Atlantic Monthly. When the draft arrived, however, shouts of "Leper!" were heard at the Atlantic. The monthly wasted no time in saying thanks-but-no-thanks, and the leper-study then wandered in search of a home, finding none among American publishers. Eventually the London Review of Books published it in March 2006.
I had read that piece carefully and found it an unusual act of courage as well as scholarship. That's what I told the questioner, adding that I did have two problems with the study:
- First, it seemed to me the authors erred in attributing virtually all the motivation for the U.S. attack on Iraq to the Israel Lobby and the so-called "neo-conservatives" running our policy and armed forces. Was Israel an important factor? Indeed. But of equal importance, in my view, was the oil factor and what the Pentagon now calls the "enduring" military bases in Iraq, which the White House and Pentagon decided were needed for the U.S. to dominate that part of the Middle East.
- Second, I was intrigued by the fact that Mearsheimer and Walt made no mention of what I believe to be, if not the most telling, then perhaps the most sensational proof of the power the Lobby knows it can exert over our government and Congress. In sum, in June 1967, after deliberately using fighter-bombers and torpedo boats to attack the USS Liberty for over two hours in an attempt to sink it and kill its entire crew, and then getting the U.S. government, the Navy, and the Congress to cover up what happened, the Israeli government learned that it could-literally-get away with murder.
I found myself looking out at 400 blank stares. The USS Liberty? And so I asked how many in the audience had heard of the attack on the Liberty on June 8, 1967. Three hands went up; I called on the gentleman nearest me.
Ramrod straight he stood:
"Sir, Sergeant Bryce Lockwood, United States Marine Corps, retired. I am a member of the USS Liberty crew, Sir."
Catching my breath, I asked him if he would be willing to tell us what happened.
"Sir, I have not been able to do that. It is hard. But it has been almost 40 years, and I would like to try this evening, Sir."
You could hear a pin drop for the next 15 minutes, as Lockwood gave us his personal account of what happened to him, his colleagues, and his ship on the afternoon of June 8, 1967. He was a linguist assigned to collect communications intelligence from the USS Liberty, which was among the ugliest-and most easily identifiable-ships in the fleet with antennae springing out in all directions.
Lockwood told of the events of that fateful day, beginning with the six-hour naval and air surveillance of the Liberty by the Israeli navy and air force on the morning of June 8. After the air attacks including thousand-pound bombs and napalm, three sixty-ton torpedo boats lined up like a firing squad, pointing their torpedo tubes at the Liberty's starboard hull. Lockwood had been ordered to throw the extremely sensitive cryptological equipment overboard and had just walked beyond the bulwark separating the NSA intelligence unit from the rest of the ship when, he recalled, he sensed a large black object, a tremendous explosion, and sheet of flame. The torpedo had struck dead center in the NSA space.
The cold, oily water brought Lockwood back to consciousness. Around him were 25 dead colleagues; but he heard moaning. Three were still alive; one of Lockwood's shipmates dragged one survivor up the hatch. Lockwood was able to lift the two others, one-by-one, onto his shoulder and carry them up through the hatch. This meant alternatively banging on the hatch for someone to open it and swimming back to fish his shipmate out of the water lest he float out to sea through the 39-foot hole made by the torpedo.
At that Lockwood stopped speaking. It was enough. Hard, very hard-even after almost 40 years.
What Else We Know
John Crewdson's meticulously documented article, together with the 57 pages that James Bamford devotes to the incident in his book "Body of Secrets" and recent confessions by those who played a role in the cover-up, paint a picture that the surviving crew of the USS Liberty can only find infuriating. The evidence, from intercepted communications as well as testimony, of Israeli deliberate intent is unimpeachable, even though the Israelis continue to portray the incident as merely a terrible mistake.
Crewdson refers to U.S. Navy Captain Ward Boston, who was the Navy lawyer appointed as senior counsel to Admiral Isaac C. Kidd, named by Admiral John S. McCain (Sen. John McCain's father) to "inquire into all the facts and circumstances." The fact that they were given only one week to gather evidence and were forbidden to contact the Israelis screams out "cover-up."
Captain Boston, now 84, signed a formal declaration on Jan. 8, 2004 in which he described himself as "outraged at the efforts of the apologists for Israel in this country to claim that this attack was a case of 'mistaken identity.'" Boston continued:
"The evidence was clear. Both Admiral Kidd and I believed with certainty that this attack...was a deliberate effort to sink an American ship and murder its entire crew...Not only did the Israelis attack the ship with napalm, gunfire, and missiles, Israeli torpedo boats machine-gunned three lifeboats that had been launched in an attempt by the crew to save the most seriously wounded-a war crime...I know from personal conversations I had with Admiral Kidd that President Lyndon Johnson and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara ordered him to conclude that the attack was a case of 'mistaken identity' despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary."
Why the Israelis decided to take the draconian measure of sinking a ship of the U.S. Navy is open to speculation. One view is that the Israelis did not want the U.S. to find out they were massing troops to seize the Golan Heights from Syria, and wanted to deprive the U.S. of the opportunity to argue against such a move. Another theory: James Bamford, in "Body of Secrets," adduces evidence, including reporting from an Israeli journalist eyewitness and an Israeli military historian, of wholesale killing of Egyptian prisoners of war at the coastal town of El Arish in the Sinai. The Liberty was patrolling directly opposite El Arish in international waters but within easy range to pick up intelligence on what was going on there. And the Israelis were well aware.
As for the why, well, someone could at least approach the Israelis involved and ask, no? The important thing here is not to confuse what is known (the deliberate nature of the Israeli attack) with the purpose behind it, which remains a matter of speculation.
Other Indignities
Bowing to intense pressure from the Navy, the White House agreed to award the Liberty's skipper, Captain William McGonagle, the Medal of Honor....but not at the White House, and not by the president (as is the custom). Rather, the Secretary of the Navy gave the award at the Washington Navy Yard on the banks of the acrid Anacostia River. A naval officer involved in the awards ceremony told one of the Liberty crew, "The government is pretty jumpy about Israel...the State Department even asked the Israeli ambassador if his government had any objections to McGonagle getting the medal."
Adding insult to injury, those of the Liberty crew who survived well enough to call for an independent investigation have been hit with charges of, you guessed it, anti-Semitism.
Now that some of the truth is emerging more and more, others are showing more courage in speaking out. In a recent email, an associate of mine who has followed Middle East affairs for almost 60 years, shared the following:
"The chief of the intelligence analysts studying the Arab/Israeli region at the time told me about the intercepted messages and said very flatly and firmly that the pilots reported seeing the American flag and repeated their requests for confirmation of the attack order. Whole platoons of Americans saw those intercepts. If NSA now says they do not exist, then someone ordered them destroyed."
Leaving the destruction of evidence without investigation is an open invitation to repetition in the future.
As for the larger picture, visiting Israel this past summer I was constantly told that Egypt forced Israel into war in June 1967. This does not square with the unguarded words of Menachem Begin in 1982, when he was Israel's prime minister. Rather he admitted publicly:
"In June 1967, we had a choice. The Egyptian army concentrations in the Sinai approaches do not prove that [Egyptian President] Nasser was really about to attack us. We must be honest with ourselves. We decided to attack him."
Israel had, in fact, prepared well militarily and mounted provocations against its neighbors, in order to provoke a response that could be used to justify an expansion of its borders. Israel's illegal 40-year control over and confiscation of land in the occupied territories and U.S. enabling support (particularly the one-sided support by the current U.S. administration) go a long way toward explaining why it is that 1.3 billion Muslims "hate us."
Ray McGovern works for Tell the Word, the publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in Washington, DC. He was a CIA analyst for 27 years and is now on the Steering Committee of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS). He spent some time in Israel and the West Bank this summer.
This article was first posted in Consortiumnews.com
93 Comments so far
Show All2 things to quiet the anti-israeli crowd and the blind supporters of our so-called 2 party system ...
1) Get rid of corporate personhood. Outlaw contributions of any kind coming from businesses or PACs. Get the special interests out of politics. Get big money out of politics and maybe the people can get candidates they actually want to vote for.
2) Quit pointing fingers at Israel for holding onto territory it captured in a war ... unless the United States wants to give back all the land it stole from Native Americans, Mexico and Spain. Why should the rules of land acquisition be different for Israel than any other country that has captured land from indigenous populations? Not that it's right ... but you sound so hypocritical in your attacks because it's not YOUR country that has wronged a native population.
Ray,
Once again you speak for me. I have been screaming about this for years. How can a race so effected by genocide become the monster of their near demise? Only things I can think of are pure power, ideological stupidity, or the ignorance that comes from beoming the very thing you claim to hate.
Either we live in the United States Of America, or the United States Of Israel. Personally, I'm tired of living in an occupied country. Is there any other precedent set of an outside country having this much control of another soverign nation...besides the US I mean-lol.
Once again Ray...you rock baby!
Aloha & Peace
Apparently Ray McGovern is no longer afraid of the Israel lobby. Will he be hit with a thunderbolt? Dismissed as a crackpot?
Will he be hailed as a hero, because he's got the guts to say in public what we all know to be true?
When our country turns its back on the mid-East, including oil, the defense feeding trough, and Israel, we'll finally be able to attend to the "existential" issues that had better get our attention, and quickly.
Things like global warming. Overpopulation. Energy alternatives. Repairing the damage to the rule of Law. Finding a use for Religion.
You name it, it can't get done until we get the mid-Eastern monkey off our back. Zionism is one-fourth of the problem, with defense, oil, and the religious Right making up the balance of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
OuterBeltway, I suspect that the Israel Lobby not only will try to brand Ray McGovern a crackpot, but an anit-Semite. The sinking of Liberty is only the tip of the iceberg. What about the fact that Israel was founded on a policy of population removal. While the Jews' ancestors were living in Eastern Europe, the Palestinians' ancestors were living in what is today called Israel. Once Americans overcome the conditioning, it will be all over for Israel.
Damn, Mikey, you play that card awfully well...
Scott Ritter on the Israeli lobby
http://tinyurl.com/33pn74
"Excuse me," the interviewer asked, "what you're trying to say is sometimes a decision of war -- you have to take a decision of war in order to achieve peace."
"That's exactly right," Bush said. Which is why:
"I am very optimistic that we can achieve a two-state solution." After all the other "states" are blowed up real good, he added with his trademark smirk...
What's truly terrifying is the extent to which Hillary Clinton is in bed with this lobby.
As well as the other dem "frontrunners". They may, in fact, be worse than the repubs.
Hillary has said that [ We can't allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon ]
she herself is perfectly comfortable with bombing Iran. That's with Israel in possession of an arsenal of at least 200 tactical nuclear weapons, and the means to deliver them, nearly anywhere, at will. While Iran is five years away from developing even rudimentary
nuclear devices.
I don't know what it will take, but Americans have to start thinking about how all this will be written, historically, and how we're going to look to future generations.
Does anyone dare to take this to the next obvious step and suggest that 9/11 was also an Israeli operation?
Exactly what evidence "proves" the attack was deliberate the other doesn't state, simply saying their are mounds of it...somewhere and he's got it.
For a long time I was wondering exactly how a piece on the USS liberty had to do with progressive politics, and then the last sentence explained it all.
"Israel's illegal 40-year control over and confiscation of land in the occupied territories and U.S. enabling support (particularly the one-sided support by the current U.S. administration) go a long way toward explaining why it is that 1.3 billion Muslims "hate us.""
So that's the big idea, try(and btw i am not convinced by this article that israel deliberately attacked a US ship) to turn public opinion against Israel to appease the "1.3 billion muslims". Which raises an interesting question...how is the world's total muslim population impacted by the occupation of a tiny strip on land in the middle east? Why should a Pakistani muslim, for example, care about the Palestinians more than, say oppressed non-muslims in his own country? Doesn't the answer sound like religious fanatacism?
There is plenty of evidence to suggest that 9/11 was a Saudi operation.
Massud:
No, I'm not trying to appease the Muslims. I'm mainly trying to appease myself. I resent the enormous mis-allocation of scarce resources that are lavished on the economic, military and political defense of Israel's indefensible behavior.
It's stupid. Why pour money down a rathole? Why not redirect those enormous resources toward something much more valuable, like reversing climate change, for example?
The reason we don't do the logical thing is because Zionists, along with the other three horsemen of the Apocalypse (Oil, Defense, Religious Right), are doing everything possible to direct the flow of American public resources into areas which are counterproductive to the interests of the vast majority of Americans.
That's why there's never been a public referendum on our nation's support for Israel. In a popular vote, it would be trashed. Only behind closed doors can it be done successfully, and that's what we're all trying to stop.
I say it's time to relentlessly pressure our lawmakers to report any contact and or money they take from AIPAC, or any other foreign lobbying organization.
massud asked:
"Why should a Pakistani muslim, for example, care about the Palestinians more than, say oppressed non-muslims in his own country? Doesn't the answer sound like religious fanatacism?"
Yes.
iammyself asks:
Why should an American Jew, for example, care about the Israelis more than, say oppressed non-Jews in his own country? Doesn't the answer sound like religious fanaticism?
Yes.
I applaud Ray's courage in bringing up this third rail of American politics. We have got to have the courage to discuss the undue influence Israel has on American policy, and if the USS Liberty is the way to open this discussion, go for it. And it disgusts me how Hillary et al. are so bought and paid for by this group.
As for Israel's involvement in 9/11, that's a lot more speculative, and more difficult to pursue as an opener. The whole issue of what really happened on 9/11 begs a serious investigation apart from the whitewash we've had so far.
Just as we now look at the Treaty of Versailles as a mistake - which levied enormous war reparations on Germany - which helped fuel the rise of Hitler and World War 2, I believe history will not look kindly on the decision to create a separate Jewish state in 1948, given the enormous potential this has created in our time for World War 3. It's not that the Jews didn't deserve a homeland, it's just that no one fully envisioned the enormous tensions this particular homeland would create, just as no one envisioned that Versailles would lead to Hitler would lead to World War 2.
And now we find ourselves married at the hip, America's destiny connected to Israel's. It would be one thing if we all consciously agreed to this, but this decision has been done behind the scenes with money and influence, in effect bribing our officials. I applaud Ray's efforts to expose this.
The battered children of Adolf Hitler have become the batterers in the middle east.
Extremist hard liner decisions have pushed us to the brink. When standing on the edge, you don't want an extremist to stand with you because he'll only just keep saying that "It's too late to go back now, there is nothing left to do but jump."
Extremists love their Rubicons and are never satisfied till everyone has crossed them. There was a Rubicon crossed with the USS Liberty but unsuccessfully. Afterwards, when it wasn't sunk, came the denials that any Rubicon had been crosssed which however were successful. The change of thinking this damage control established allowing other Rubicons to be crossed in the future in the occupied territories (settlements etc.).
Someone must've said that there should be no more USS Liberty(s) but it was in Israel and not in the USA. They had seen their error (when it failed) and the Israeli lobby would do all the pushing for any Rubicons from then on. Damage control had fixed a grave mistake in crossing that Rubicon which had been produced by extremist thinking. Maybe someone had figured to claim the Egyptians had sunk the Liberty?
However Bin Laden has also crossed his Rubicon but there would be no damage control this time, though the Saudis surely ramped up their lobby. Oddly, extremists all seem hell bent on giving their opposite numbers exactly what they want. Al Queda fed the extremist talk of the Israeli lobby and gave it credibility. Equally, extremist suicide bombings have allowed settlements and walls etc.. Like it or not, extremists are deciding policy. They see themselves as tough thinking realists who nevertheless come to a Rubicon and then unrealistically say "Let's see what will happen if we cross it." Sadly they do.
Israel has a right to exist but you won't hear Palestinian extremists and anti-semites say so. Palestine has a right to exist as a free country without occupation but you won't hear settlers or other hard liner Israeli extremists say so. So who feeds who?
The Israeli lobby wants the USA to take down it's enemies in the mid east while doing whatever they feel like which produces those enemies. They see a fifty year 'forever' war as the only solution. Iraq was step one and the plan was always Iran as step two. They wanted the USA involved militarily in the mid-east but it was Osama Bin Laden who made that happen.
His jihad against the west crossed that Rubicon. To the anti-semites who can't see the forest for the trees, who can't see the hard liners and neocons in charge of Israeli politics, who can't see Israel for the jews, was Osama an Israeli agent since he gave the neocon extremists what they wanted more than anybody else? Your anti-semitism prevents criticism of hard liner Israeli policies. Yet you can't see it. You look to find rationalizations for what you want to believe instead of looking for the truth. It's a bitter joke. A poster above suggests that 9/11 was an Israeli operation. Muddled thinking looking to find what he wants to believe. So I ask him... since Osama gave the Israeli extremists what they wanted... was Osama an Israeli agent? Is that an 'obvious step' to take?
Extremists decide policy to everyone's ruin. They cross their Rubicons and feed each other's hate. Ray walks a delicate line between the Rubicons of the extremists. Our only hope is the truth. All else is extremism.
Let me say, as someone who remembers 1967 and the initial reports of the attack on the Liberty, that it faded from the mainstream press extremely quickly. For the next few years, there was the occasional article in a second-tier magazine, but the major news publications got off the subject as quickly as they could. All this should be readily verifiable by visiting a few newspaper morgues or magazine archives.
Most (not all) of the facts now being cited have been available for years. There's no reasonable question that the attack was anything but intentional; there's no reasonable doubt that the press killed coverage as quickly as they possibly could.
So if it's not a question of the influence of the Israel lobby, how else to explain it? How else to explain that Dick Armey, when he was House Majority Leader, could declare on TV that he would regard an attack on Israel as an attack on the USA and (in a separate incident) call for ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians without raising an eyebrow? (This while the US was trying to portray itself as an honest broker in Middle-East peace talks!) How else to explain that Israel gets to bomb Syria and no one in the US press even asks why?
Israel (as McGovern notes) admits that it started the Six-Day war -- satellite photos of Arab troops in clearly defensive positions corroborate this.
Israel kills over ten Palestinians for every Israeli that Palestinians murder, and is currently using food and water as weapons against the residents of the Gaza Strip, yet the US press decline to point out that such treatment is a crime against humanity, and consistently portray Israelis as victims of Palestinian terrorism.
Israel is not the only country to benefit from the US media's (and their wet-nurses, the US government's) blind eyes. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Egypt benefit similarly, if not so obviously. We favor any despot who can help our oil companies profit. We favor any regional military power inclined to help us divide and conquer those who have what we want. We back every royal family in the Middle East, and every tyrant willing to subordinate his own national interests to ours.
Given that we're willing to sacrifice thousands of US troops to protect our Saudi allies, why should our willingness to sacrifice dozens of sailors to protect our Israeli allies surprise anyone? If it had been a hot battlefield, it would have been presented as a case of "friendly fire". Given that there was no battle raging, we decided to forget the incident as quickly as possible.
Nothing to see here. Everyone just move along. Nothing to see here.
http://www.wrmea.com/archives/July_2006/0607016.html
Imagine if we could put that aid to Israel over the years to good use for our children' schools or infrastructure, healthcare or affordable housing. Frankly I am tired of paying through the nose to the Israel lobby and only getting hatred from the world in return.
The lobby has become the new American mafia. It has little to do with Israel, the nation, and everything to do with Israel, the state -- or perhaps it would be more accurate to say the state of ``Likudia.``
If one drew up a list of the politicians and academics whose careers and/or reputations have been ruined by the lobby, one would have the nucleus of an anti-Likudia movement.
I`m suggesting a movement because there seems to be no negotiating with the lobby. It refuses to back off from its mafia search-and-destroy strategies.
Fearmongering appears to be the lobby leadership`s primary tactic. Every Israel foreign policy critic is the new Hitler, every alternative to the Israel-Palestine status quo a plan for the next Holocaust. My message to AIPAC would be this:
``Earth to Israelists: HITLER IS DEAD. You are so busy trivializing Hitler by finding him in every critic of Israel's brutal foreign policy that you wouldn't recognize him if he jumped out of the grave and bit you on the bum. Nor would I. Having grown up a gentile among Jews in the aftermath of WWII, when every new report from Europe disclosed grimmer and grimmer details of Hitler's final solution, I thought I knew what antisemitism was. Today, I'm not so sure. Today, the charge of antisemitism is more about moral blackmail than it is a response to any credible threat to Jews or Israel. You are fearmongering among Jews, many of whom experience residual feelings of unease — understandable, given a 2000-year history of persecution.
``Perhaps you should work at recovering Israel's long forgotten ideal and become "a light unto the nations" of Islam. Maybe then we could look forward to some peace in the Middle East and Central Asia. Or would that put too big a dent in your burgeoning arms industry?``
Good job Mr. McGovern. I also direct this to "Wake Up October 6th" re: Israel and 9/11. In October 2001 I was all over the MidEast producing documentary films. Ask people on the "Arab street" why 9/11 happened. I did. In every case the response was "America's support for Israel's brutal occupation of Palestine" not that exact translation, however, clear enough. and W. tells us that they were "jealous of our freedoms." Nonsense. Go to www.weroy.org and view Arundhati's "Come September." We are fighting Israel's war in Iraq, albeit, the oil junta - the administration is hopeful.
Power to the people.
Excellent article, Ray McGovern. One of the reasons the Zionist lobby is so successful is due to how effectively they control the language. As long as we accept their terms without question, we will lose every time.
For instance, the term "pro-Israel" or "Zionist" doesn't, on the face of it, sound like such a terrible thing. But if we were to identify the lobby as what it intrinsically is, as the anti-Palestinian lobby, then we are making progress. Just because apartheid Israel already exists as an independent nation-state doesn't make it anymore legitimate than Palestine.
Zionists also abuse terms like "terrorist", and "Islamofascists", conflating various Islamic militant factions in the Middle East as if they all share identical goals, desires and political aspirations. Zionist propaganda goes further by attempting to make it look like Arab anti-Israel terrorist groups are irrational fanatics, and bloody-thirsty anti-Semites who want to "drive Israel into the sea". But no, they don't stop there, they further claim that the "real" goal of these terrorists is to create a worldwide Islamic Empire, where they will exterminate all Jews and other infidels. Sometimes I think the anti-Arab Zionist extremists are so delusional that they believe their own propaganda.
More and more Americans are waking up, thanks to Jimmy Carter, Meirsheimer and Walt and others. The realization that Americans may in fact be fighting wars largely for apartheid Israel's benefit is spreading. The ultimate insult is when anti-Palestinian fanatics question the patriotism of Americans("soft on terror") who do not fully back apartheid Israel. Hopefully more of us wake up before apartheid, nuclear-armed, colonialist Israel ignites World War III.
The question of control of the flow of oil will remain after the state of Israel is dissolved, and I anticipate that in 20 years it will be dissolved for lack of interior support & as the world Jewish community severs its own interests from those of the christofascists and zionazis.
Either all Jews have to live in Israel, putting racial descent and citizenship above religious/cultural identity, or Israel has to dissolve and free Jews from the increasing burden of racial, and increasingly racist, identity.
As it is, Israel has become a sort of privileged ghetto maintained as an illusory bastion of Jewish survival, when in fact its existence is a real political liability, although the AIPACkers and ADLers continue to enjoy the temporary advantages of their position within the US's own dying political establishment.
To Bugs BBunny:
Please, when will Jews stop throwing anti-semitism around whenever someone says something negative about Israel or Jews?
I have heard the same story from other navy people;
Israel attacked the Liberty in full knowledge that it was an American ship.
Your solution?
Protect Israel at any cost by crying anti-semitism.
Maelstrom and the other anti-Semites. It's very easy to simply dismiss criticism of your anti-Semitism by claiming it isn't anti-Semitism, but it very clearly is. It's quite obvious. Deny it all you want, you're only fooling yourself.
President Lyndon Johnson, when it was said that he heard of the attack by Israel on the Liberty, he replied that he wanted it kept quiet, because he did not want our allies to be embarrassed.
"The Israelis would have succeeded had they not broken off the attack upon learning, from an intercepted message, that the commander of the U.S. 6th Fleet had launched carrier fighters to the scene".
In another account that I read years ago, when Johnson heard that the commander had launched aircraft in defense of Liberty he was told to immediately recall them and when the commander got the message to recall, he asked for it to be repeated, because he could not believe it..
It amaze me, that they can continue to find men and women to put on uniforms and defend this country, when it is plain to see that our politicians have no respect for their lives.
Well several people on this discussion board just proved McGovern right. Don't be afraid to speak out. They use your fear to stifle dissent and the truth.
Two points: What happens to you is not as important as what you do with what happens to you. Case in point: a child who has been molested can either go no molesting other children when he is an adult, or ..... become a strong advocate against child abuse. Similarly, as a response to what Hilter did to Jews, they could have become an advocate against racism, genocide, war crimes, and wars of agression. But they chose to repeat on other people what was done to them by Hitler.
The second point is Palestine may be the most known Israeli occupied territory. But the most important, and less discussed Israeli occupied territory is the US COngress.
Think about it.
Welcome to USrael.
Have it your way, mikep. Fact is, dichterfreund is quite right. In 20 years there will be no ``Jewish State of Israel.`` And it will have nothing whatsoever to do with whether or not Israel`s critics are antisemitic.
The US is finished in the Middle East. All that remains is the question of when the troops can come home. When that happens, Israel will be faced with the decision it should have made long ago: a multinational state in which all Jews, all Arabs, and all the other ethnic groups will have equal citizenship. That is the BEST that can be hoped for.
However, Israelis may just opt for the worst. But this time, that`s their choice, not Hitler`s.
Why does the state of Israel get to break the law? They are in violation of several UN Security Council resolutions, going back to # 242 in 1967.
Remember, we went to war with Iraq over Security Council resolutions. *
We behave as if they're important sometimes, it seems.
So are we allowed to talk about why the state of Israel gets preferential treatment?
* If you don't believe, here's part of the 'Joint Resolution' 'To authorize the use of United States Armed Forces against Iraq'
(1) strictly enforce through the United Nations Security Council all relevant Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq...
The big joke is that Congress funnels U.S. taxpayers' dollars to Israel in absolutely absurd amounts - the average Israeli receives more U.S. money than the average U.S. citizen. Then, through organizations like AIPAC, a goodly portion of that money is funneled back to members of Congress. Israel is a failed welfare state that would cease to exist if we cut off their funding.
you guys can vote all you want, but the truth is Hillary Clinton will be the first Empress of the United States of Israel.
if you think your "votes" count, well, never mind.
i can't stop laughing.
It's too early to tell, but I'm afraid that the Holocaust may have inflicted a fatal wound in the psyche, soul of the Jewish people.
Violence and hate cannot heal this septic wound.
We must pray for our Jewish brothers. We must pray that God gives the Jewish people the courage and compassion to heal this septic wound.
ArbeitMachtFrei:
That was a good post. No question that the Jewish people took a terrible shot, and yes, it seems as though the reckoning (internal and external) isn't nearly done yet.
As a foil, look at the U.S. What would it take for our society to say to itself "we have enough. We're OK. We don't need to prove anything anymore".
For a person, that realization takes an awfully long time. How long does it take for a society? Are there any studies about this? What conditions must pertain in order for this process to happen?
Now the 9/11 conspiracy doesnt' seem that far fetched.
BugsBBunny III October 6th, 2007 5:21 pm Among other tidbits of wisdom blessed us with this "Israel has a right to exist", by what logic do you come to this declaration? From all the historical facts I have read the modern state of Israel has no more right to exist than the USA has a right to be in Iraq. I guess in your thinking Might makes Right.
McGovern will just be ignored, as he has been so many times. Just like the story of the belated 10th anniversary celebration of the massacre at Qana, and how the day before Israel maintained an artillery barrage on a known UN observation post, essentially admitting it was covering up evidence of war crimes. The MSM spent its time lambasting Mel Gibson instead.
Who has noticed the stories of the Stark and the Liberty are so similar, except for the long term result? It appears B41 was telling Saddam in action, not just mere words, that he could get away with invading and occupying Kuwait.
Conservative US Jews all support the Likud. But what percentage of liberal US Jews does?
Going all the way back to massud and iammyself:
Of course people (Jews, Muslims, etc.) should be expected to care more about other people that share a similar value system and worldview, than about other people who swear allegiance to the same flag...
I care more about the people on this list than I do about my republican next-door neighbor.
fascinating...and infuriating
Clearly Lockwood and all the brownshirts who survived the attack are anti-semites. What other motivation could they have in alleging such a thing?
McGovern, this article should be ranked right up there with Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
For the ironically impaired--I am joking.
And while we are on the subject of Holocausts--as all conversations involving criticisms lead to invoking the only officially sanctioned and recognized Holocaust in history within a few minutes or comments in this case--let's not forget the annual American Holocaust Celebration on Monday. All hail Columbus, brave discover and war criminal. Help celebrate this holiday and show that you are doing your part in the War on Terror by doing what our leaders suggest--shopping! Especially if you use those 20 dollar bills that have the face of a genocidal war criminal on them.
And they send assassins abroad under cover of Canadian passports.
Lets see thirty billion to Israel
Mega millions back to the AIPAC lobby
Millions to select campaign funds.
This has been going on for way to long amigo.
The key to this long term willing extortion now holding (nearly) all parties effectively hamstrung when Israel is mentioned is lucidly examined by Piper in "The Final Judgement". ......and it all makes soooo much sense: JFK reversed his campaign pledge to support Israel, infuriating Ben Gurion. (Now, of course, the ADL is already screaming "anti-semite" so let's scream back (in unison): Israel is a country, Judaism is a religion. period. (Almost understandably, exploiting the victim card was, and is, too effective to resist!)
Kennedy proposed denying nukes, his no. one offense. He also wanted Viet Nam withdrawal. Supporting Algiers--another no no. Add challenging the depletion allowance and we start to get a "big picture". Johnson kept us busy in 'Nam, opening drug channels for Meyer Lansky and necessitating a reliance on a stronger Israel and establishing a foothold in oil country. And the depletion allowance?: upped to 30%.
Now we all know this must be nonsense since intelligence agents and policy makers here and abroad would have had to talk to one another, cook up a plan, "conspire" ...... Which could not have happened less than 5 years before with the good ship Liberty incident....or in Egypt (and Iran) in '53....... "strategic tension" is just another radical theory..... why do they hate us? pray tell
Everybody is afraid of the Israel Lobby. If you ever hear one dissenting voice against Israel's policies, they will be silenced or ridiculed as antisemetic in seconds.
Hey MikeP !!!
One of the most outrageous incidents about the USS Liberty topic is the ongoing harassment of survivors when they attempt to speak out. Even after death.
I know personally of at least 1 funeral where representatives of the Israel embassy got up and started calling the person delivering the eulogy 'anti-semitic' because he started talking about the sinking caused by Israel. All he was doing was what the deceased survivor had asked him to say at his funeral. What hutzpah!
and so it goes.
Thank you, Ray
Much too over zealous and overanxious, they are digging their own graves without noticing it. However, I still admire their intelligence, and I pity the fools that they rule over.
They make up less than 2% of the total US population, but they, and their paid agents, are swarming the State Department, the Congress, the mass media, and other top positions in the government.
They pushed us into the Iraq war, and I pray now that their attempt to push us into another war with Iran for the sake of their "promised land" would be thwarted.
BugsBBunny III said:
"Ray walks a delicate line between the Rubicons of the extremists."
It's obvious what you're trying to defend with your jumble of confused paragraphs. The fact is: Ray is telling the truth.
Treason, that's what the kings of old would have said. Off with their heads. This would mean war. Iraq and Vietnam have been fried for less.
The question is how did the US government and the israeli's manage to later kiss and make up? Possibly there was no need. Of course the Liberty was a "foriegn power" (the US Navy) spying at a time of war and atrocities. But the US government and Israeli at the high level are seamless, sharing the same delusions. There are no overt disagreements at the high level.
The USI (United States of Israel) government did not want the Liberty to gain or promulgate sensitive information that would embarass its holy oneness.
The destruction of Liberty is the least of the rewards that that the shreds of US independence and freedom will get, from the merciless military USI.
The power and geopolitics of the USI have intensified even more since. The USI scorns its brief exposure in the marginal media. Even in Australia, the main Opposition candidate and Prime Minister must make love to the USI.
Read your Bible within the archaeological facts. There were Canaanites of many stripes living and thriving in the Middle East for thousands of years before the first definite and agreed-upon sign of "Israelites" appeared on an Egyptian monument circa 1212 BCE. The "experts" used to tell us that wars of extermination, such as those told of so proudly in The Old Testament, were "the way it was done back then" when one people conquered another---and that was a lie. Now (see for ex. Israel Finkelstein's "The Bible Unearthed") we are told that the exterminations, burnings of cities etc. never happened, that Israelites were simply "an indigenous people" who happened to still be there when all the others virtually fell apart and disappeared. How, why, since there was nothing about Jewish material culture or religion that was going to attract anybody already living there? This they still cannot explain---and Zionist zealots don't bother trying. The land is theirs, period. And yet, if The Bible itself says it was NOT theirs before some kind of takeover, then Israel's right to the land is nothing more than a "right" of conquest---and when you do that, you open the door to the next conquerors and THEIR right of conquest. They lost what they had conquered from others---tough historical luck. And yet here we are forcing the Palestinians (as Ahmedinijad said) to pay for the European Holocaust. Why? Because the very idea, ideology, philosophy that says you can "righteously exterminate" those in the way of what you want (living space, resources etc.) became the most powerful engine of what we call "history," and you can ask any African or Native American, for starters, what that has meant and still means....That's why "it doesn't matter" how many people in Iraqistan get killed, because "we" (in desperate need of their resources) know what's best for them. In choosing their first king, Saul, the Hebrews chose WAR as the central reason for cultural existence. That was not even remotely "the way it was done" before. Now, JUDEOCHRISTIANITY HAS RUN ITS COURSE, but the flame burns hot and bright just before one's delusions burn out. We need to understand afresh the principles that fed The West's LONGEST CONTINUOUS PERIOD OF PEACE AND PROGRESS---namely, the archaeologically-documented facts of Minoan Crete: not a utopia, but a place where women were the focal points of power, where interrelation through intermarriage and exchange supported understandings in times of conflict, and where men found ways of feeling important without violence. IT WORKED, and for as long as we have turned away from and continue to ignore these FACTS, we are going to suffer. ECOLOGICAL SENSE, ECONOMIC JUSTICE, EGALITARIAN CULTURE---We will wander in the "wilderness" until we decide to come home to Planet Earth: which is where we came from, where we are, and where we're going. http://ancientgreece-earlyamerica.com
That the attack was deliberate is beyond question; what really matters is WHY. The investigative film generated by the Liberty survivors, "Dead in the Water", suggests, and gives witnesses' testimony, that it was intended to be a false flag operation to be blamed on the Egyptians. In the film, government witnesses claim certain knowledge of two aircraft ordered from the Mediterranean fleet with atomic weapons to bomb Cairo. They were stopped, and the attack on the Liberty was stopped, when the whole operation's secrecy was blown, perhaps by Russian recon aircraft. Again, former Navy personnel claim knowledge of atom bombs heading for Cairo, apparently to destabilize the Nasser government.
Tony Vodvarka, Hartly DE
I think one of the distinctions that has to be made in these types of discussions is that between Israel, as any entire country and people, and the right-wing policies of Likud. Those of us appalled when all Americans all lumped together with Bush's neo-fascists know this. We really need to target our arguments at Likud and at special actions, ideology and behavior. This is not about "the Jews", this is about the bare-knuckle world of international politics, where ALL countries sin, America perhaps worst of all (in the 21st century at least).