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The Israelis later insisted that the strafing and torpedo attacks were accidents in the fog of war. However, U.S. intelligence intercepted Israeli conversations at the time showing the attacks were deliberate, and their nature and persistence showed clear intent to sink the Liberty and leave no survivors.
Israeli commandos clad in black were about to land from helicopters and finish off what remained of the Liberty crew when Seaman Terry Halbardier (later awarded the Silver Star) slid over the Liberty's napalm-greased deck to jury-rig an antenna and get an SOS off to the Sixth Fleet.
Israeli forces intercepted the SOS and quickly broke off the attack. But 34 of the Liberty crew were killed and over 170 wounded.
To avoid exacerbating relations with Israel, the U.S. Navy was ordered to cover up the deliberate nature of the attack, and the surviving crew was threatened with imprisonment, if they so much as told their wives. When some of the crew later called for an independent investigation, they were hit with charges of anti-Semitism.
One of the surviving crew of the USS Liberty, decorated Navy veteran Joe Meadors, was with the "Freedom Flotilla" when it was attacked on Sunday night. Meadors is past president of the USS Liberty Veterans Association. The State Department tells us that Joe Meadors survived this latest Israeli attack.At last word, he sits in an Israeli jail.
Rachel Corrie
Another American was murdered in cold blood on March 16, 2003. Twenty-three year-old Rachel Corrie, a volunteer serving in Gaza with the International Solidarity Movement was run over by an Israeli Army bulldozer after a prolonged face-off in full view of several of her volunteer colleagues. Rachel had been trying to prevent the bulldozing of a Palestinian home where she had been staying.
The message the Israelis wanted to convey in killing Rachel Corrie was that international volunteers would no longer be exempt from the brutal treatment accorded young Israeli volunteers who tried to stand up, as Rachel did, for decent treatment of Palestinians in Gaza.
The FCM's excitement over President George W. Bush's eagerly anticipated "shock-and-awe" bombing of Iraq three days later pushed what limited coverage there was about Rachel's murder to the back pages. The Israelis claimed the killing was an inadvertent mistake, like the shoot-up of the Liberty. The courageous Rachel was very much with the Freedom Flotilla in spirit. And a certain poetic justice is to be found in that one of the ships in the convoy bore the name "Rachel Corrie."
Israel cannot hide behind "inadvertence" this time, although its spin-masters are already doing their best to smear the civilians on the ships with buzzwords, calling them "militants" and "terrorists" who "ambushed" and tried to "lynch" the Israeli commandos.
These P.R. tactics may work with the American FCM and neocons in Washington and by extension the TV-watchers in the United States but patience with Israel in the international community is wearing paper-thin.
Some Care About the Scandal of Gaza
Much of the world's impatience has to do with Gaza, including the Israeli attack from Dec. 17, 2008, to Jan. 18, 2009, as well as the three-year blockade that began when Hamas won Palestinian elections and became the governing party in Gaza.
Israel and the U.S. government deem Hamas to be a terrorist organization, though some other countries regard it more as a resistance movement fighting against Israeli occupation.
Regardless of how one feels about Hamas, Israel's harsh blockade of Gaza and last year's military assault have inflicted a humanitarian disaster on the Palestinian people.
Has Netanyahu Gone Too Far?
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