Free Republic

It was the USS Liberty controversy that introduced me to the brusque art of Israel-bashing. More than a decade ago, at the height of the conflict during Yitzhak Shamir’s tenure as prime minister, I was at a laundromat in Lebanon, Pennsylvania, when a young and rather strange city councilman approached me. I knew him through my job as a reporter at the local newspaper in this small central Pennsylvania city. He abruptly launched into a screed against Israel. He opened by recalling how the Israeli military attacked an American ship, the USS Liberty, in 1967 and then proclaimed that the...

Another Anti-Semitic Canard DiesBy Nathan GuttmanHa'aretz | July 10, 2003 New documents released this week by America's National Security Agency support Israel's version of a long-festering controversy between the two countries: Israel's sinking of an American spy ship, the USS Liberty, off the coast of Gaza during the1967 Six-Day War. Israel has always said it had no idea the ship was American, but conspiracy theorists and anti-Israel propagandists still claim Israel sank the ship in the full knowledge that it was American. The documents, originally defined as top secret, were made public by Florida Judge Jay Cristol, who has been...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Reviewing documents covering 36 years, the State Department concluded Monday that Israel's attack on the U.S. spy ship Liberty during the 1967 Six Day War was an act of Israeli negligence. The United States also was negligent, a State Department official said, for failing to notify Israel that the electronic intelligence-gathering ship was cruising international waters off the Egyptian coast and for failing to withdraw the Liberty from the war zone. A daylong conference that studied fresh documents as well as the established record failed to produce a consensus for any of three views voiced most often:...

New documents released by the State Department relating to the period of the 1967 Six Day War include CIA memos that say Israel did not know it was striking an American vessel when it attacked the USS Liberty off the coast of the Gaza Strip on June 8, 1967, killing 34 American sailors and injuring 172. The memos say the attack was carried out "by mistake, representing gross negligence." Along with the release of the documents, the historian for the top-secret National Security Agency said Monday he believed available evidence "strongly suggested" Israel did not know it was bombarding an...

U.S. agency confirms sinking of USS Liberty was accident By Nathan Guttman, Haaretz Correspondent WASHINGTON - New documents released this week by America's National Security Agency support Israel's version of a long-festering controversy between the two countries: Israel's sinking of an American spy ship, the USS Liberty, off the coast of Gaza during the 1967 Six-Day War. Israel has always said it had no idea the ship was American, but conspiracy theorists and anti-Israel propagandists still claim Israel sank the ship in the full knowledge that it was American. The documents, originally defined as top secret, were made public by...

On 02 July 2003, the National Security Agency (NSA) released additional information relative to the 08 June 1967 attack on the U.S.S. Liberty. This release includes three audio recordings, transcripts (in English), three follow-up reports, and a U.S. Cryptologic History Report entitled "Attack on a Sigint Collector, the U.S.S. Liberty." The recordings are in Hebrew and contain time counts in English that were added by the intercept operator. The follow-up reports are summaries of the three transcripts with non-substantive chatter omitted and a compiled report that summarizes the activity and contains the text of the transcripts. The U.S. Cryptologic History...

Transcripts of tapes released by the US National Security Agency appear to confirm Israel's contention once and for all that the sinking of the USS Liberty off the coast of the Gaza Strip by Israeli jets in June 1967 was an accident. Thirty-four Americans were killed and 171 injured in the attack on the US naval ship. Israel has always said it attacked what it thought was an Egyptian supply ship bringing supplies to Egyptian troops that Israel was battling. But Israel's detractors have continued to insist over the years that Israel deliberately targeted the ship, fearing the Americans were...

JERUSALEM -- Newly declassified transcripts back up Israel's claim that its sinking of a U.S. spy ship during the 1967 Middle East war was an accident, a Florida judge who has been investigating the case for 16 years said Wednesday. Israel has always maintained it thought the USS Liberty was an Egyptian military supply ship when it ordered its forces to attack on June 8, 1967, killing 34 American sailors and wounding 171. But critics charge Israel knew the ship was American. Questions about the case have long dogged U.S.-Israel relations.

At 1:58 pm on June 8, 1967, Capt. Yiftach Spector lined up his Mirage IIICJ fighter jet above the USS Liberty and raked it from bow to stern with his armored-piercing bullets from his 30 mm guns. Even now, 37 years later, the attack by the Air Force on the American spy ship on the fourth day of the Six Days' War fuels the fire of intrigue, conspiracy and cover-up theories. Nevertheless, what follows is powerful evidence that the attack was a tragic mistake. The Israel Air Force archives have audiotapes of the radio transmissions made prior, during and after...

NSA tapes offer clues in '67 attack on U.S. spy ship 34 crewmen died, 171 hurt in 'mistaken' Israeli strike By Scott Shane Sun Staff July 16, 2003 For 36 years, the fate of the Navy spy ship USS Liberty, attacked by Israeli fighters and torpedo boats during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, has been a painful question mark in the history of U.S.-Israeli relations. Was the attack a tragic mistake, as Israel has always contended, resulting from the attackers' belief that the ship in their sights was Egyptian, despite its U.S. flag, U.S. markings and odd array of antennas? Or...

State Rep. Marlin Schneider has been raving for years to his fellow legislators about an attack on the unprotected American spy ship USS Liberty in 1967 by Israeli fighter jets and torpedo boats that killed 34 and injured 171.The Wisconsin Rapids Democrat has repeatedly tried to get a resolution through the Assembly asking Congress for an investigation of the attack. But Israel says the attack was a case of mistaken identity during the Six-Day War against several Arab states, and Schneider has been met with boredom and occasional sneers from his colleagues. Some say the Wisconsin Legislature has no business...

McCain and the U.S.S. Liberty By Tony Wicher - Jun 12th, 2008 at 12:11 pm EDT Also listed in: 5 groups LIKE FATHER LIKE SON. THE COVER-UP CONTINUES ON THE USS LIBERTY April 12, 2008 — crescentandcross When Admiral John S. McCain, Jr., Commander in Chief, United States Naval Forces, Europe, ordered the cover-up on the attack of the USS LIBERTY GTR-5 it was a sure act of treason perpetrated on the American people and the crew of the LIBERTY to hide the true facts surrounding the unprovoked attack by the Government of Israel on our ship, the USS LIBERTY....As...

As a political junkie, one the most baffling aspects of national elections is the Jewish vote. American Jews vote overwhelmingly for Democrat candidates in national elections. 2008 was no exception, as reported in an editorial at HAARETZ.com immediately following the election: Despite the tense rift between Republican and Democratic Jews over the course of the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign, exit polls on Tuesday showed that Barack Obama received about 77 percent of the Jewish vote. These numbers were higher even than the 2004 election, when Democratic candidate John Kerry received 74 percent of the Jewish vote. Al Gore received the...

In a little noticed interview with the Daily Beast (presumably little noticed because serious people don't read the Daily Beast), Zbigniew Brzezinski suggests that Barack Obama do more than just refuse to support an Israeli strike on Iran's nuclear sites -- the American president must give the order to shoot down Israeli aircraft as they cross Iraqi airspace: DB: How aggressive can Obama be in insisting to the Israelis that a military strike might be in America’s worst interest? Brzezinski: We are not exactly impotent little babies. They have to fly over our airspace in Iraq. Are we just going...

DB: How aggressive can Obama be in insisting to the Israelis that a military strike might be in America’s worst interest? Brzezinski: We are not exactly impotent little babies. They have to fly over our airspace in Iraq. Are we just going to sit there and watch? DB: What if they fly over anyway? Brzezinski: Well, we have to be serious about denying them that right. That means a denial where you aren’t just saying it. If they fly over, you go up and confront them. They have the choice of turning back or not. No one wishes for this...

This blood libel of Israel, Jews, and John McCain’s father is sanctioned by Barack Obama’s official campaign It has been established [http://husaria.wordpress.com/2008/06/29/obama-campaign-sanctioned-anti-semitic-and-other-hate-speech/] that Barack Obama’s official campaign site exercises editorial control over the content of my.barackobama.com, and is capable of finding and removing “offensive” and “disrespectful” material within two days. The following has been online for almost three weeks. It accuses Israel of deliberatly murdering the crew of the U.S.S. Liberty, American Jews with divided loyalties of complicity, and John McCain’s father of complicity in a cover up. The following entry is sanctioned (tolerated) by Barack Obama’s official campaign... Now,...

Last June, I had written a post here commemorating the 45th anniversary of the attack on the USS Liberty. The post, in which I argued (in defiance of every conspiracy theory), that the Israeli attack on the American ship was a mistake, has been giving me considerable heartburn as of late. In the last several days, my e-mail and facebook page have been flooded with the harshest condemnations concerning the article, tarring me as being a “hack,” a “traitor,” and nothing less than a running dog for the “Jewish/Zionist/apartheid” lobby. My article, which scored a modest few dozen Facebook recommendations...

http://www.nsa.gov/liberty/ U.S.S. Liberty What’s new? On 08 June 2007, the National Security Agency (NSA) finalized the review of all material relative to the 08 June 1967 attack on the USS Liberty. This additional release adds to the collection of documents and audio recordings and transcripts previously posted to the site on 02 July 2003. The attack on the USS Liberty, like others in our nation's history, has become the center of considerable controversy and debate. It is not NSA's intention to prove or disprove any one set of conclusions, many of which can be drawn from a thorough review of...

New documents released this week by the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) prove that Israel's 1967 attack on the USS Liberty was accidental. The Israeli attack on the American surveillance ship during the Six Day War, which killed 34 U.S. servicemen and wounded 172, has been a controversial and disputed chapter in Israel's relations with the United States. Last week, the NSA released additional information relative to the June 8, 1967 attack on the U.S.S. Liberty. The information included three audio recordings, transcripts (in English), three follow-up reports, and a U.S. Cryptologic History Report entitled "Attack on a Sigint Collector,...

Balfour Hakak, former chairman of the Hebrew Writers Association, told Arutz Sheva that Mifal Hapayis’ (Israel’s official state lottery) decision to award the Landau Prize for Arts and Sciences in the poetry category to radical leftist poet Yitzhak Laor is “surprising.” Laor, a controversial figure and writer, has expressed vitriolically anti-Zionist stances both in his poetry and prose work. In a 2011 essay for leftist newspaper Haaretz, Laor called to get rid of Zionism, writing, “Liberation from Zionism is not a dirty word. In any case, what lies behind Zionism nowadays are interests related to water, real estate, strategic relations...