By Alison Weir
The Forward, which claims to be “America’s leading voice in Jewish journalism,” has just published a hit piece on Congressman Thomas Massie, American veterans, and those who support them.
The article is entitled: ‘‘Remember the Liberty’ has become code for ‘Israel Is Evil,’’’ with the subhead: “Rep. Massie’s call for a new investigation of the tragic 1967 attack on a U.S. ship isn’t about the truth.”
In reality, the article by Forward columnist Rob Eshman repeats a litany of false Israeli claims combined with ad hominem attacks on people he dislikes.
Below is his text, and the facts he ignores.
Eshman: The first tragedy of the U.S.S. Liberty attack is that it happened at all.
Many people would consider the tragedy the 34 fathers, sons, husbands, and brothers who were killed.
Eshman: The second is that Israel’s critics have weaponized it to spread hate.
In reality, people are commemorating and honoring the Americans who served on the Liberty, providing facts on reputedly the most decorated crew since World War II, who suffered the highest casualty rate ever inflicted upon a U.S. naval vessel that remained afloat after an attack. Massie and others who are talking about the Liberty are doing so because its story has been hidden for decades.
Eshman: When Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky stood on the House floor on June 8, the 59th anniversary of the attack, and called for a Congressional probe into the incident, he wasn’t seriously trying to bring the truth of some long-buried historical secret to light.
This is an attack on Massie’s character rather than a response to the issues he raised. Eshman, whose specialty is food writing, cannot know Massie’s private motivations and offers no evidence for his assertion.
Massie’s opening sentence made clear his intention: “it’s my great honor, maybe one of the biggest honors of my lifetime, to stand here on the floor and do something that’s 59 years overdue to recognize the survivors and those who gave their lives on the USS Liberty 59 years ago today when they were viciously attacked by IDF jets and also after that by torpedo boats. I’m going to tell you a little bit of their story…
Eshman: Massie, who in 14 years never once brought up the U.S.S. Liberty on the House floor…
The implication is that Massie’s concern cannot be genuine because he had not previously spoken about the USS Liberty. By that logic, no member of Congress could ever address a neglected issue for the first time. The significant fact is not that Massie hadn’t spoken about the Liberty before, but that he became the first member of Congress to honor the USS Liberty veterans on the House floor in nearly six decades.
Eshman: …was using the latest cudgel in the Israel-haters’ arsenal to level one last official blow at a country he loathes.
This is another unsupported attack on Massie’s character. Eshman provides no evidence that Massie “loathes” Israel, nor does he cite any statement in which Massie expresses hatred toward Israelis or Jews. Instead of addressing Massie’s arguments, Eshman repeatedly attributes malicious motives to him without proof. Criticism of a foreign government’s actions is not the same thing as hatred toward a people or nation.
Eshman: “I’ve got a call to action for everybody here,” said Massie, speaking of attack survivors who were in the audience, “Honor these individuals. Quit ignoring that they exist. Let’s have an investigation. It’s long overdue.”
Let’s put aside the fact that there have been numerous official investigations into what exactly happened on June 8, 1967, the second day of the Six Day War, when Israeli aircraft and torpedo boats attacked the Liberty off the Sinai Peninsula, killing 34 American service members.
Eshman, who has no known expertise on the issue, echoes a false Israeli talking point. The fact is that there has only been one, extremely limited, U.S. investigation concerning the attack, as stated by the Department of the Navy. (Claims by Israel partisans that there were “many investigations” are demonstrably false.)
Eshman: These investigations concluded that the tragedy was a friendly-fire incident.
This investigation, actually termed a “Navy Court of Inquiry,” consisted of a quick, one-week undertaking whose statement that the Israeli attack “was a case of mistaken identity” was questioned from the very beginning by the Navy officer reviewing the report, who described it as “a hasty, a superficial, an incomplete, and a totally inadequate inquiry.” Even the court itself cited the extreme difficulty of “investigating such a major Naval disaster of international significance in an extremely abbreviated time frame.”
Its conclusion was later publicly disavowed by its lead investigator, who stated that he and the Admiral conducting the inquiry “believed with certainty that this attack, which killed 34 American sailors and injured 172 others, was a deliberate effort to sink an American ship and murder its entire crew.”
It’s interesting that this information is missing from Eshman’s article even though it was reported by Admiral Thomas Moorer in the Stars and Stripes newspaper, the U.S Naval Institute, the Congressional Record, various newspapers, Fox News, and numerous other places.
The Department of Defense issued a press release about the attack on June 28 after the Court of Inquiry report had been cleared for public release. This stated:
“A Navy Court of Inquiry has determined that USS LIBERTY was in international waters, properly marked as to her identity and nationality, and in calm, clear weather when she suffered an unprovoked attack by Israeli aircraft and motor torpedo boats June 8 in the Eastern Mediterranean.
“The Court produced evidence that the Israeli armed forces had ample opportunity to identify LIBERTY correctly. The Court had insufficient information before it to make a judgment on the reasons for the decision by Israeli aircraft and motor torpedo boats to attack.”
It also stated: “It was not the responsibility of the Court to rule on the culpability of the attackers.”
Eshman: The Israelis initially mistook the Liberty, an intelligence-gathering vessel, for an Egyptian warship.
Israel did not claim to have mistaken the USS Liberty for a “warship.” Its official explanation was that it was mistaken for the Egyptian vessel El Quseir, a much smaller transport ship that has been variously described as a horse carrier, cargo vessel, or coastal transport.
In fact, the Defense Department press release on the Court of Inquiry had specifically stated: “LIBERTY was flying her normal size American flag (5 feet by 8 feet) at the masthead. Her name was painted on her stern in English, and her U. S. Navy distinguishing letters and number on her bow. (Egyptian naval ships carry their names in the cursive Arabic script.)”
“Her configuration, as shown in the international standard naval identification book, “Jane’s Fighting Ships,” and her standard markings were clearly sufficient for the aircraft to identify her properly as the non-combatantship LIBERTY.”
A 2003 article in the Naval Institute’s Proceedings Magazine similarly reported that the El Quseir was “one-quarter of the Liberty’s tonnage and just nearly half her length.”
In addition, Israeli aircraft had flown multiple reconnaissance passes over the Liberty preceding the attack, and at least one pilot reported that the ship was flying an American flag, as reported by the Chicago Tribune and Israeli media.
Eshman: After the smoke cleared, [Israel] accepted responsibility, apologized and paid $12 million in compensation to the victims.
Israel dickered over the amount it would pay for years, finally thirteen years later it grudgingly paid $6 million for a ship valued at $40 million. (Keep in mind that Israel had received hundreds of millions of dollars from the US during that time.)
Eshman: Of all the explanations, it’s perhaps the least satisfying but the most logical.
In reality, it is the one favored by Israel but unsupported by the facts. It is odd that Eshman, presumably a US citizen, favors the claims made by a foreign country over the statements by American eye witnesses on board the ship – crew members and the commanding officer (who received the Medal of Honor) – and by numerous US officials.
Eshman: During the Vietnam War, happening at the same time, an estimated 11% to 15% of casualties were from friendly fire.
Israel’s ruthless attack in which stretcher bearers were machine-gunned and life boats shot up was hardly friendly.
Eshman: Massie’s call for a new investigation would be more believable if he then didn’t go on to recite the alternative one-sided narrative of the incident long pushed by some survivors and now taken up with gusto by Israel haters Candace Owens, Tucker Carlson and others.
The author attempts to discredit the facts put forward by Massie and numerous others by associating them with people he labels “Israel haters” (a phrase often applied to individuals critical of Israel’s actions, such as former President Jimmy Carter, super model Bella Hadid, and UN Rapporteur Francesca Albanese). Yet the concerns raised about the USS Liberty did not originate with Candace Owens or Tucker Carlson. As demonstrated above, these facts have been voiced for decades by survivors of the attack, senior military officers, intelligence officials, and diplomats. Ad hominem attacks on contemporary commentators do nothing to address the underlying evidence or testimony.
Eshman: To [Massie and others] the attack was deliberate: The Israelis ignored the large American flag the Liberty was flying and began shooting.
Numerous USS Liberty survivors have consistently testified that the ship was clearly marked and that large American flags were visible. After the first one was shot down, they hoisted a second, even larger flag.
Eshman: “It was intentional murder by the country of Israel,” said Massie on the House floor, “either as a false flag operation or because they simply didn’t want anybody observing what they were doing that day.”
What Massie and his fellow conspiracy theorists are alleging is a crime, but none of them has sufficiently proven a motive. Why would Israel attack the ship of its most important and powerful ally?
To begin with, many people question calling Israel an ally, given its history of spying on the US, stealing American technology, and doing harm to the US.
Eshman: Possible motives have been proposed over the years. Some analysts have suggested that the attack was intended to prevent the Liberty from observing Israeli military operations such as their intention to attack the Golan Heights while the U.S. was calling for a ceasefire, to cover up the fact Israeli forces were killing prisoners of war< In cold blood in the Sinai, or as a false-flag operation designed to bring the U.S. into Israel’s war. A thorough investigation is necessary to determine the facts, which is what the survivors and others have long been calling for.
Eshman: The false flag theory — the idea that Israel wanted to sink the Liberty, blame Egypt or the Soviet Union for it and draw America into the war — makes no sense.
This assertion is not evidence. The author merely informs the reader that he finds the theory implausible. However, history is rife with false flag attacks of all sorts, including several by Israel, such as the Lavon Affair and 1951 bombings in Egypt. People interested in learnling the truth should join Massie’s call for an impartial investigation and declassification of the many files that are still classified.
Eshman: The war was all but won by June 8. Moreover, as the historian and former Israeli ambassador to the United States Michael Oren relates in Six Days of War, the Israelis actually stopped firing initially when they suspected the ship was American.
Instead of citing the American veterans who were on board the ship, Eshleman’s source is Michael Oren, who was born and grew up in the United States where he was active in Zionist youth movements, emigrated to Israel where he took Israeli citizenship, served in the Israeli army, participated in Israel’s first invasion of Lebanon, served as a Major in the Reserve during Israel’s 2006 invasion of Lebanon, and has been a senior fellow at an Israeli institute associated with extreme Jewish nationalism. Oren has been criticized for stating political advocacy as historical fact and buying into various conspiracy theories.
The claim itself raises obvious questions. If Israeli forces had begun to suspect that the ship was American, why did the attack continue? Critics point to the multiple reconnaissance flights reportedly conducted before the attack, the clear weather conditions, the large American flag flying from the ship, and the Liberty’s visible hull markings as evidence that ample opportunities existed to identify the vessel before and during the assault.
Eshman: The Israelis sent helicopters to investigate, but heavy smoke obscured the ship.
According to crew members who were on deck and observed the helicopters, they contained heavily armed combat soldiers who appeared to be planning to board the ship.
Eshman: Meanwhile, as Israeli torpedo boats closed in, a U.S. Navy crewman, perhaps not hearing his commander’s orders, opened fire.
The Israelis, now convinced it was an enemy ship, unleashed torpedoes, killing 25 Americans.
The phrase “opened fire” is misleading because it suggests that the USS Liberty initiated hostilities. According to the author’s own account, the ship had already been under attack by Israeli aircraft before any crew member allegedly fired a weapon. Any such fire would therefore have been defensive in nature.
The author’s conclusion is equally difficult to follow. He argues that this alleged return fire “convinced” the Israelis that the Liberty was an enemy ship, yet Israeli forces had already deemed the vessel hostile enough to strafe, rocket, napalm, and attack it with cannon fire. The fact that a ship under attack might return fire does not explain how its identity was determined, nor does it resolve the broader question of why the attack was initiated in the first place.
Eshman: Massie left all this out of his narrative.
Massie was allotted five minutes to speak, which he used to provide facts and honor the veterans; there was hardly sufficient time to repeat and counter every fraudulent claim put out by Israel and its persons.
Eshman: He quoted then-Secretary of State Dean Rusk, who said at the time, “the attack was, quite literally incomprehensible,” implying that a murky conspiracy underlay it all.
But he didn’t include the rest of what Rusk said: That what happened was “an act of military recklessness reflecting wanton disregard for human life.”
In other words, Rusk’s full quote doesn’t suggest intention, but gross carelessness, which is a far cry from premeditated murder. It was chaos, miscommunication, uncertainty, incompetence, fear — the fog of war.
The author accuses Massie of omitting part of Rusk’s statement while omitting an even more important part himself. In the same document, Rusk wrote that “there is every reason to believe” that the USS Liberty had been identified, or at least its nationality determined, before the attack. He emphasized that the ship was flying an American flag, displayed clear identifying markings, and was operating in broad daylight under excellent visibility. These remarks are difficult to reconcile with the article’s attempt to portray Rusk as an advocate of the mistaken-identity explanation.
Eshman: But to Massie and others, there’s no need to establish a coherent motive for why Israel attacked its harmless friends, because in their minds that’s just who Israelis are.
Such speculation about motives and inner thoughts is not a substitute for addressing the facts being presented.
Eshman: If Massie wants another investigation, fine. But I find it hard to believe that any investigation that doesn’t find Israel guilty of murder in the first will ever satisfy him or the people for whom “Remember the Liberty” is shorthand for “Israel is evil.”
The author once again speculates about the motives and future actions of people he disagrees with. He offers no evidence that Rep. Massie would reject the findings of a fair and credible investigation simply because they failed to support a particular conclusion. More importantly, he equates the phrase “Remember the Liberty” with the belief that “Israel is evil.”
For many survivors, family members, supporters, and researchers, however, “Remember the Liberty” is simply a call to remember the 34 Americans who were killed, the 174 who were wounded, and the unanswered questions and cover up surrounding the attack.
Seeking truth, accountability, and justice for American servicemen is not evidence of hostility toward Israel. It is evidence of respect for the men who served, suffered, and died aboard the USS Liberty.
For more information go here.
Alison Weir is is the founder and executive director of the nonprofit organization If Americans Knew, president of the Council for the National Interest, and author of Against Our Better Judgment: The Hidden History of How the U.S. Was Used to Create Israel.
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