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The Attack on Liberty 40 Years Ago

The Israelis attacked the U.S.S. Liberty in the Mediterranean Sea 40 years ago on June 8, 1967 in a blatant attempt to sink an American surveillance ship during the Six-Day War. Thirty-four sailors were killed and 172 wounded in the two-hour attack. They had full knowledge of what they were doing, and did it so that Americans would not know what they were doing and could operate in secret.

The first American flag on the ship was shot down, and a second one raised. The second was later shown to be full of bullet holes. Likewise, its name was in clear English: "Liberty." It was clearly seen to be an American ship. Later, the Israeli Court of Inquiry claimed that it had been mistaken for an Egyptian supply ship! I suppose next they'll claim "blindness in part."

But the American government refused to do anything about it and publicly accepted the explanation that it was a case of mistaken identity. I wonder what we would have done if the Egyptians had done the deed, or the Syrians--or anyone else for that matter.

I find this incident interesting from a prophetic standpoint. American Liberty itself came under attack by our support of the Israeli state. This government policy has brought us to where we are today. We are hated and despised by much of the world for our double standards and for our support of oppression and slavery for the Palestinians. And as time passes, we are acting more and more like a nation under siege--much like the Israeli mindset--with its natural consequence: LOSS OF LIBERTY.

Even as "security" is the overriding value of the Israeli state, so now are we coming to that same position. The need for "security" first encroaches upon and finally replaces Liberty. To read an interesting article on the U.S.S. Liberty cover-up, go to:

http://www.rense.com/general76/wwlib.htm

MORE BACKGROUND from Alfred Lilienthal's The Zionist Connection II, page 568, 569.

"After President Nasser exposed an illegal American arms deal to Israel in 1965, James Angleton and several Mossad officers decided to oust Nasser by forcing Egypt to confront Israel. The fiery threats of the ill-starred Palestinian leader Ahmed Shukiary helped them. Following a series of secret meetings in Tel Aviv and Washington, CIA officers, the Israeli general staff, certain Israeli politicians, and inner members of Johnson's administration agreed to promote a contained war between Israel and Egypt, which would not affect territorial lines between Israel, Syria, and Jordan . . .

"The Israelis assured the Americans that the ensuing war would be fought to the predesigned American plan of containment. . .

"Knowing that American intelligence from Israel came through the Mossad, Evron believed that he could tell the American government what he wished, and he assured all his Washington contacts right up to the outbreak of war that Israeli troop movements were simply precautionary. Evron did not know about the Liberty, but as the war began, the spy ship's listening devices tuned in to transmissions from both the Arabs and the Israelis. Its presence off the battle zone was to make sure that Israel did not overstep the objectives of the containment plan.

"The observers on the Liberty discovered that while the Arabs failed to crack Israeli codes, the Israelis had penetrated Egyptian and Jordanian codes as soon as the war began. Somewhere between Amman and Cairo, according to Pearson, the messages between King Hussein and President Nasser were intercepted, reconstructed, and passed on by the Israelis without detection, a process called 'cooking'.

Lilienthal goes on to say that the false information being passed on was that the war was going badly for the Israelis, making the Arab leaders think things were going well for them. This emboldened them to continue the war.

"The Egyptians were likewise misled; thinking that the Jordanians had made a successful attack in Hebron, they counterattacked during the early hours of June 8, ignoring a U.N. call for a cease-fire. Thus, the Israelis gained enough time to seize all of the West Bank they wanted, to consolidate their gains in Sinai, and to move their troops right up to the east bank of the Suez Canal.

"On June 7 Eugene Rostow called Avraham Harman to the State Department and warned him that the Israeli attack must stop immediately; he informed Harmon that the Americans knew about the 'cooking' of communications. Four hours later in Tel Aviv the Minister of Defense and the Commander of the air force's offices ordered surveillance of the American communications ship operating off Sinai. Four hours after that, the same sources ordered that the ship be sunk."

Lilienthal then concludes on page 570:

"Alternatively, if indeed the U.S. had been party to a conspiracy to unseat Nasser, the Liberty had gathered definite proof that Washington had been double-crossed and that Jordan, whose territories were to remain untouched, had been sucked into the war through Israel's code-breaking and 'cooking' of false messages."

On page 572 Lilienthal makes the following statement as well:

"The congressional hearings remained secret, but one or two small leaks revealed that two of the pilots in the attack were Americans. Doubtlessly, Washington had connived with the Israelis to hush things up. . . All reference to the nationality of the attackers was deleted." [Since many have dual citizenship, it is likely that these were American-Jewish pilots, trained in America, who participated in the attack on the Liberty.]

Finally, Lilienthal states on page 574,

"UPI reported on September 18, 1977, that the American Palestine Committee had obtained CIA documents through the Freedom of Information Act revealing that Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Dayan had himself ordered the attack on the Liberty."

Well, that dispelled for all time the myth of mistaken identity. But because of President Johnson’s complicity in the plot, there was no way he could come forth with the truth, because then the public would discover his own role in planning the war! So here we are, 40 years later, still paying the price for the Johnson Administration's belief that the Israeli government could be trusted.