Americans killed by Israel & 49th Anniversary of attack on USS Liberty. 49th Anniversary of the Israeli attack on the U.S.S. Liberty ignored by Americans. Americans killed by Israel continue to be forgotten by Americans. There is no patriotism for their memories in an American controlled by Israel’s propaganda, lies and lobby
By Ray Hanania
Ray Hanania
covering Chicago
City Hall
(1976-1992)
Many Americans have been killed by Israel, most murdered without investigations or accountability. Few of the incidents have received the coverage they deserve in the mainstream American news media, which is controlled and bullied into pro-Israel silence by Israel’s vicious lobby, AIPAC.
As an American military veteran myself, I am ashamed of how Americans claim to be patriotic, when it is convenient. And yet they are afraid to stand up for those who were killed by a country that we have financed, we have built, we have armed and we continue to defend and excuse for war crimes and human rights violations, Israel.
Many American citizens living in Palestine in 1948 were attacked, injured and killed by Israeli forces when Israel’s new government rejected the UN Partition Plan and instead launched a military assault to takeover all of Palestine. They succeeded in capturing half of the land set aside in the UN Partition Plan that was supposed to be a part of the Arab State. And, they captured West Jerusalem, which was to be internationalized. In 1967, they captured the remaining areas of Palestine, occupying the entire country and imprisoning all non-Jews who challenged their actions.
How many Americans were killed by Israel forces in 1948? Hundreds. But officially, the United States does not acknowledge Americans who are non-Jewish killed by Israel. They only acknowledged Israelis who are Jewish killed in skirmishes with the occupied Palestinians who engage in resistance. From 1948 until 1967, hundreds more were killed as Israel oppressed the non-Jewish Palestinians — Christians and Muslims — who refused to flee and become refugees and who lived in Israel without any rights for more than a decade under Israeli military control.
On June 8, 1967, Americans were killed by Israel when Israel sought to cover up its efforts to forcibly take East Jerusalem by destroying the U.S.S. Liberty communications ship that was in the Mediterranean sea supporting the American interests, which were providing support to Israel. Israel was forced to acknowledge their killings. Yet, Israel’s lobby has fought hard to define that attack as an “accident.”
Liberty Veterans Billboard to acknowledge Israel’s killing of Americans was removed after pro-Israel protests. Writer Eileen Fleming has written extensively on the USS Liberty. Click here.
But an “accident” doesn’t last 75 minutes — 120 minutes if you base it on when Israel finally acknowledged to US Forces that they did indeed attack the ship, but couldn’t sink it. The Israeli attack on the U.S.S. Liberty was deliberate. Israel didn’t acknowledge the attack for two hours, clearly hoping the ship would be destroyed and the evidence of Israel’s war crime against Americans eliminated.
Worse, Israel knew the ship was there and had been monitoring it for more than eight hours before deciding to attack it. Read the scathing report prepared by the U.S.S. Liberty Veterans themselves in 2005.
The U.S.S. Liberty was a commissioned US Naval vessel during the Israeli sneak attack against Egypt, Syria and Jordan in 1967, sitting in the Mediterranean Sea monitoring both sides to ensure peace and protect American interests.
Three days after Israel attacked its neighboring Arab countries, Israel was consolidating its hold on East Jerusalem, which is began attacking the night before. Israel wanted the remaining lands of Palestine which were held under a protectorate by Jordan since 1948 when the pre-State Jewish guerrillas violated a UN Partition Plan and attacked the proposed “Arab State” and captured West Jerusalem, a city that was designated as an international Zone open to Christians, Muslims and Jews.
Israel failed to take all of Jerusalem and East Jerusalem remained free, until 1967. The Israelis feared the USS Liberty might expose the lies of their propaganda which falsely claimed they were being attacked by the Arabs.
U.S.S. Liberty Lt. Commander Philip McCutcheon Armstrong, killed on June 8, 1967 for mortal wounds. He was born on the 4th of July. Courtesy of the USS Liberty Organization www.USSLiberty.org
Instead, the Arabs boasted wildly about how they were angry with Israel and Egypt’s pompous dictator Gamal Abdul Nasser vowed to “drive Israel into the sea.” But their military was ill-equipped to launch any invasions, as they were ill-equipped to prevent the destruction of Palestine in 1948.
It was Israel that decided to use the boisterous Arab blather as an excuse to launch an aggressive war with one goal, capture the Sinai Peninsula, grab the Golan Heights and thus create land buffer zones that would separate Israel from Egypt and Syria, two worthless and weak Arab neighbors. But the real goal was to attack Jordan and take control of East Jerusalem and the remaining portions of Palestine that were unoccupied at the time, the West Bank.
The USS Liberty, the American spy ship, might disclose Israel’s plans to provoke Jordan that the spy ship might have been documenting. What if the ship had monitored Israel’s secret plans to attack Jordan, which had not sent any troops over the border? In fact, none of the Arab countries had sent any troops over the border.
After monitoring the ship for 8 hours, Israel ordered a deliberate attack on the USS Liberty, which was flying an American flag. The American soldiers on the ship were on stand-down, and were not wearing helmets or were armed ready for conflict. They were not preparing to attack and they were not expecting to be attacked, especially by a so-called “ally.”
The ship was easily identified as American because the Israel had been closely monitoring the ship for 8 hours. Most of Israel’s pilots were either former American or British Jewish military personnel who had immigrated to Israel. They knew what they were doing.
It was flying an American Flag!!!!
The Israelis asserted that the ship was not flying the American Flag. If that were true, they would have attacked it 8 hours earlier. But it was flaying the American Flag, according to every member of the U.S.S. Liberty. Except for one moment, when Israeli fire power destroyed the flag and the flag was taken down and replaced with another American Flag.
It was Iwo Jima Moment!
The Israelis have done more to cover up the crime and confuse the facts than Americans have done to expose the truth and stand up for the rights of the murdered Americans!
In the Israeli attack to destroy the feared listening devices, Israel killed 34 American soldiers and wounded 172 more. The Israelis did their best to sink the ship so there would be no evidence of the attack, but the Liberty and its valiant American soldiers defended themselves against the Israeli attack. As the attack continued longer than expected, almost two hours, Israel was forced to pull back its forces.
The Americans protested, but by then, Israel had launched its invasion of Jordan, a tiny dictatorship run by a Westernized monarchy and had easily taken East Jerusalem and the entire West Bank, killing thousands of civilians and forcing another wave of Palestinian Christians and Muslims to leave what Israel intended to be only a state for Jews. Non-Jews are the victims of discrimination under Zionism.
This day marks a national mourning for the forgotten American soldiers killed by Israel. Israel has killed many Americans, but for political expediency and because of the power of the Israeli lobby and the acquiescence of American politicians under Israel’s control, their plight is never acknowledged properly. And Americans murdered by Israel such as Rachel Corrie, Orwa Hammad, Mohammad Abdul-Rahman Ayyad, 21, and Abdul-Rahman Wajeeh Barghouthi, Furkan Dogan, and so many more.
Here is the list of the 34 Americans murdered by Israel on the U.S.S. Liberty on June 8, 1967 as a part of Israel’s aggressive strategy to destroy Palestine and take all of the land. Click to view names.
One of those killed on the U.S.S. Liberty was its Lt. Commander, Philip McCutcheon Armstrong, who ironically was born o the 4th of July in 1929.
What a shame that Israel can do this to America! What a shame!
Ray Hanania is an award winning political and humor columnist who analyzes American and Middle East politics, and life in general. He is an author of several books.
Hanania covered Chicago Politics and Chicago City Hall from 1976 through 1992 at the Daily Southtown and the Chicago Sun-Times. He began writing in 1975 publishing The Middle Eastern Voice newspaper in Chicago (1975-1977). He later published “The National Arab American Times” newspaper (2004-2007).
Hanania writes weekly columns on Middle East and American Arab issues as Special US Correspondent for the Arab News ArabNews.com, at TheArabDailyNews.com, and at SuburbanChicagoland.com. He has published weekly columns in the Jerusalem Post newspaper, YNetNews.com, Newsday, the Orlando Sentinel, Houston Chronical, and Arlington Heights Daily Herald.
Hanania is the recipient of four (4) Chicago Headline Club “Peter Lisagor Awards” for Column writing. In November 2006, he was named “Best Ethnic American Columnist” by the New American Media. In 2009, Hanania received the prestigious Sigma Delta Chi Award for Writing from the Society of Professional Journalists. He is the recipient of the MT Mehdi Courage in Journalism Award. He was honored for his writing skills with two (2) Chicago Stick-o-Type awards from the Chicago Newspaper Guild. In 1990, Hanania was nominated by the Chicago Sun-Times editors for a Pulitzer Prize for his four-part series on the Palestinian Intifada.
His writings have also been honored by two national Awards from ADC for his writing, and from the National Arab American Journalists Association.
Hanania is the US Special Correspondent for the Arab News Newspaper, covering Middle East and Arab American issues. He writes for the Southwest News newspaper group writing on mainstream American issues.
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