From The "Hidden Day"* Israel Deliberately Attacked American Ship, Killing 34:

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee brags that it is the most influential foreign policy lobbying organization on Capitol Hill, and it has demonstrated that time and again, and not only on Capitol Hill.

Nowhere is the lobby's power more clearly demonstrated than 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 40-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 destroyed voice tapes seen by many intelligence analysts, showing beyond doubt that the Israelis knew exactly what they were doing.

But the truth will come out -- eventually. All it took in this case is 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 -- unimpeachable 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." (For the full story, click here.)

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."...

Previously in O,DIKTO?: The Israel Lobby & American Politics

And for the record, I don't think the Israel Lobby's activities in America have done particularly much good for Israel either. They've got their lunatic right-wing as well.

SEE COMMENTS FOR ALTERNATE POV LINKS

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* "Hidden" is in the original title to the piece, but I think I agree with zarq that it's a bit loaded a term, and could be a bit misleading. The event is part of acknowledged history. If history in general is not one of our best subjects, then lack of public knowledge about the incident doesn't make it "hidden".

"Underreported", "Excessively Spun", even "Important details covered up" might be in more in line with the accusations leveled against the official story.

...so that they can be given the choice of accepting Jesus or burning in everlasting damnation once the rapture comes. Let's go with Max Blumenthal as he takes a look inside the Christians United for Israel conference:



Rapture Ready: The Unauthorized Christians United for Israel Tour from huffpost and Vimeo.

Remember, God's wants the US to support expanding Israeli territorial conquest and pre-emptively attack Iran to protect Israel so that the Jews can be given the choice between accepting Jesus or Hell when he returns to magic away his followers. And the Anti-Christ will be a man of peace who tries to force Israel into a peace treaty with the Muslims (who are basically the tools of Satan). All of which is propmted by Pastor Hagee who lives in a mansion and shears a million bucks a year off his flock.

Did I miss anything?

The Foreign Ministers of Egypt and Jordan have, on behalf of the Arab League, been holding peace talks in Israel.

The League is offering normalized relations with Israel in exchange for withdrawal from the occupied territories, the creation of a Palestinian state, and a just solution to the Palestinian refugee problem.

Fingers fucking crossed, baby.

Israel is a rogue nuclear power, it isn't going anywhere. They're never going to be "driven into the sea", and the Palestinians aren't going anywhere either. Wouldn't it be nice if everyone just took a bite out of the shit sandwich and accepted less than they dearly wanted in exchange for peace, justice, trade, and their kids not growing up in a war zone?

I mean, no way all the Israeli settlements on the West Bank will be uprooted, but a fair number of them could certainly be evacuated. And yeah, probably a large number of Palestinians will not get to return to their homes in land now controlled by Israel.

Sorry, can I interest you in a compensation check and recently vacated house on THIS side of the border and your kids not growing up in a war zone??

Both sides have armed whackos who think Heaven is on their side, both morally and cartographically. Here's hoping the reality-based moderates carry the day and stuff a cork in the gunmen-for-God. I mean, Hamas was lawfully elected on an Islamist platform in Gaza. But even people in the region who are pro-Palestinian democracy have been saying "Whoa, this cats are a bit extreme."

Oh yeah, fingers WAY crossed. Ireland ain't perfect, but more and more people seem to be realizing that a lack of bullets and bombs is good for the economy. And then you can spend your money on dinner and a movie with the family, not ammunition and blasting caps. Plus, the the guys who still want to shoot it up look like marginalized assholes fucking it up for everybody.

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Also, all politics aside, Tzipi Livni is TEH HAWTEST Foreign Minister of a major power out there. I'm just sayin...

Two articles for your perusal:

1) Israel responded to an unprovoked attack by Hizbullah, right? Wrong:

Since Israel's withdrawal from southern Lebanon in May 2000, there have been hundreds of violations of the "blue line" between the two countries. The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil) reports that Israeli aircraft crossed the line "on an almost daily basis" between 2001 and 2003, and "persistently" until 2006. These incursions "caused great concern to the civilian population, particularly low-altitude flights that break the sound barrier over populated areas". On some occasions, Hizbullah tried to shoot them down with anti-aircraft guns.

In October 2000, the Israel Defence Forces shot at unarmed Palestinian demonstrators on the border, killing three and wounding 20. In response, Hizbullah crossed the line and kidnapped three Israeli soldiers. On several occasions, Hizbullah fired missiles and mortar rounds at IDF positions, and the IDF responded with heavy artillery and sometimes aerial bombardment. Incidents like this killed three Israelis and three Lebanese in 2003; one Israeli soldier and two Hizbullah fighters in 2005; and two Lebanese people and three Israeli soldiers in February 2006. Rockets were fired from Lebanon into Israel several times in 2004, 2005 and 2006, on some occasions by Hizbullah. But, the UN records, "none of the incidents resulted in a military escalation"...

On July 12... Hizbullah fired the first shots. But that act of aggression was simply one instance in a long sequence of small incursions and attacks over the past six years by both sides. So why was the Israeli response so different from all that preceded it? The answer is that it was not a reaction to the events of that day. The assault had been planned for months.

The San Francisco Chronicle reports that "more than a year ago, a senior Israeli army officer began giving PowerPoint presentations, on an off-the-record basis, to US and other diplomats, journalists and thinktanks, setting out the plan for the current operation in revealing detail". The attack, he said, would last for three weeks. It would begin with bombing and culminate in a ground invasion. Gerald Steinberg, professor of political science at Bar-Ilan University, told the paper that "of all of Israel's wars since 1948, this was the one for which Israel was most prepared ... By 2004, the military campaign scheduled to last about three weeks that we're seeing now had already been blocked out and, in the last year or two, it's been simulated and rehearsed across the board".

2) Israel set war plan more than a year ago / Strategy was put in motion as Hezbollah began gaining military strength in Lebanon. (This is the article Monbiot refers to in the previous piece).

WMDs in Iraq, captured Israeli soldiers, whatever the premise is, you can't have a pre-emptive war of choice without one. You have to feed some of crap to the voters before you go and launch a war you were going to anyway.

And lets not forget, Israel could never get away with it's beligerence and refusal to make a just peace with the Palestinians (which is inextricably linked to almost all of our problems in the Middle East) without the unlimited and unquestioned support (financially, militarily, and politically) of the US, even when it is not in the US national interest to do so.

The US gives Israel, a highly industrialized modern nation, more foreign aid, on sweeter terms, than it does to any other nation the world over.

The US rattles sabres like mad over Iran's nuclear weapons program, but keeps the IAEA from even discussing the fact that Israel (not a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty) has already developed a nuclear weapon.

On June 8, 1967, Israel sank the USS Liberty while she was a non-combatant and in international waters, after which "the United States Navy held an unusual and extremely abbreviated Court of Inquiry."

Israel, the dominant military in the region due to US support, consistantly inflicts more casualties (including innocent civilians) than it suffers, both in Palestine, and now in Lebanon (using our bombs that we rush-deliver to them in the middle of a bombing campaign.)

Israel, in a manner most ungrateful given the massive amount of foreign aid the US taxpayer shells out to support them, spies on the US. Israel has spied on its US sugar-daddy patron repeatedly. And, in fact, quite recently.

The US government consistently supports Israel, seemingly without question, no matter what Israel does.

The fact that supporting Israel (at the expense of the Palestinians and Israel's other neighbors) has been a cornerstone of US foreign policy for decades causes resentment globally because we are not seen as an honest broker for peace in the region, but as Israel's lawyer, armorer, and apologist rolled into one.

The US Government, with regards to Israel, consistently makes foreign policy decisions that do not serve the US national interest, the most serious consequence of which is causing the US to be a target of terrorist violence*

And the US taxpayer foots the bill.

Why?

Because The American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), essentially a tax-exempt, de facto agent of a foreign power, has more juice on Capitol Hill than almost any other lobbying group, including the National Rifle Association. The only group that has more clout with D.C. lawmakers than AIPAC is AARP.

At least the gun-fetishists and the old people are Americans lobbying Congress on behalf of the interests of Americans, not the interests of a foreign nation that, to my eye, hasn't acted particularly grateful for all it's gotten from the American taxpayer.

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* Both by those who support the Palestinian cause as well as by those with other beefs [e.g. al Qaeda] who're against us anyway but who generate sympathy for their own violence by waving the Palestinian situation like a flag.