The Attack on the USS Liberty

Entire town is blackballed
In 1989 when the village of Grafton, Wisconsin accepted a donation of $400,000 to finance the construction of a local library with the condition it be named in memory of the USS Liberty, a clamor arose.  Jewish organizations in Milwaukee protested the name as an insult to Israel, and the director of the Milwaukee Jewish Council argued the USS Liberty had become "a symbol of anti-Semitism".

  As rather indicative of the attitudes of the established American press, the Milwaukee Journal chided the village elders for not seeing their errors and asked that the rest of the community "make the needed mid-course correction".^[2]  Affluent white America with no stake in placing themselves or their children in harm's way had made their case very strongly.

 ADL says attack was a mistake

A year earlier in 1988 a writer challenged an assertion that Israel had made adequate restitution for killing American sailors and noted the number of wounded had been dramatically understated in a newspaper article.[3]  This letter provoked a response by Mr. Abraham Foxman, National Director of the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, an organization for American Jewry anxious to protect their claim to righteousness and innocence.  Mr. Foxman asserted Israel did not attack the Liberty deliberately, but rather it was all a mistake.[4]

Israeli pilot says it was deliberate

On November 6, 1991 in the Washington Post newspaper columnists, Rowland Evans and Robert Novak, gave a much different version of this sordid affair.  After 24 years of silence American Ambassador Dwight Porter unburdened himself and revealed the truth.  Porter, who was in the US Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, chose to make public the intercepts of radio communications between Israeli pilots circling the USS Liberty and Israeli Defense Force headquarters.  The pilot of the Israeli Mirage fighter-bomber had radioed "It's an American ship".  The reply from the Israeli headquarters told him to disregard the identification and attack the ship.  Again the pilot pleaded, and again he was instructed to attack.  He did so.  The account of Ambassador Porter was substantiated by American-born Seth Mintz, who was a Major in the Israeli forces.  Mintz, one of those who claim dual citizenship, was living in Houlton, Maine in 1991.^[5]

 Abe Rosenthal goes on attack

One of the attack dogs of the Israeli lobby, Abe Rosenthal of the New York Times, within two days had written a rebuttal.  Mr. Rosenthal stated he had tried to get Ambassador Porter to give his version, but Porter did not return his call.  However, the civilianized Mr. Mintz, a salesman of chemicals in the United States, did deny virtually everything attributed to him by Evans and Novak.  Mr. Mintz denied stating the attack was "an outrage" and further stated: "I was misquoted, quoted out of context, used, abused and screwed".

Mr. Rosenthal, using Mr. Mintz's testimony, then challenged the validity of the column by Evans and Novak.^[6]  Some six months later it was revealed Ambassador Porter had not been home when the "one and only call" came from Mr. Rosenthal.  Within three days of reading the column by Mr. Rosenthal Ambassador Porter had sent a letter confirming the essential facts as set down by Evans and Novak.  Neither the New York Times nor Mr. Rosenthal in characteristic duplicity chose to publish the letter disputing Mr. Rosenthal's wild and dishonest defense of Israel.^[7]  This treacherous, cowardly and dishonest behavior long has been the norm for adverse reporting about Israel.  What forced the public repudiation of Mr. Rosenthal's accusation was that it was coupled with a charge by Evans and Novak that Israel was illegally selling American military technology to China.

Mintz backs off

On November 9, 1991 the Washington Post published a letter by Mr. Mintz in which he denied corroborating any of the charges by the columnists Evans and Novak.[8]  That a letter could be published within three days of a published column clearly indicated the gravity and concern by the Washington Post about the charges made.

This had to have been a decision made at a minimum the editor's level and probably much higher, at the publisher's level.  Presidents of the United States and United States Senators would have great difficulty in having a letter published within three days rebutting a charge in a newspaper.  Within two days on November 11, 1991 on what was once remembered as Veteran's Day, Evans and Novak once again took the offensive and repeated the charge that the Israelis knew.^[9]  They mentioned the news story dated November 7, 1991 in Ha'aretz, a prominent Israeli newspaper.  This dispatch from Washington mentioned the grave concern Mr. Mintz had for all the media interest in him.  Mr. Mintz told Ha'aretz he did not need the Mossad or Shin Bet, the Israeli intelligence services, knocking on his door.

            Three letters to the New York Times of November 20, 1991 shed more light on what could be considered news and what was not.  Evans and Novak, who were not published in the New York Times, had a videotape of a June 1991 reunion of the survivors of the USS Liberty during which Mr. Mintz appeared and confessed to the men of the USS Liberty that the Israeli Self Defense Force knew it was an American ship.  Later Mr. Mintz repeated his assertion that Israel knew.  What was somewhat more curious was the letter immediately below was signed by Mr. Mintz in which he denied making these remarks and stated the real truth lay with his remarks to Mr. Rosenthal. 

John Hrankowski

The revelation was the third letter by a member of the crew of the USS Liberty.  Mr. John Hrankowski told of how he and other crew members within two hours of the attack were forbidden to talk about it.  Then he mentioned Mr. Mintz, whom he claimed he first met along with his wife in Washington in 1987, when 12 crew members including himself were invited by a film documentary company from London to comment on the attack.

Mr. Hrankowski met Mr. Mintz again on June 8, 1991 at the USS Liberty reunion where Mr. Mintz confessed to the survivors the same tale he told Evans and Novak.[10]  The production company had Mr. Mintz's story on film.

What has been so obvious was the consideration given by the powers in the American press to minimize any story which would lessen the image of Israel in the American media, or failing that to give a more forgiving spin.  One must not forget that Mr. Rosenthal, once editor of the New York Times, did that sort of thing on a daily basis.  It must not be thought he was alone.

Casually mentioned was Mr. Mintz's entry into the Israeli Self-Defense Force in 1965.  One should be allowed to ask why he did not join the American army which was then engaged in Vietnam.  Dual-citizenship does not mean dual loyalty.  Mr. James Ennes, retired from the US Navy after 27 years, has pointed out the attack followed nine hours of close surveillance by the Israelis during which Israeli pilots circled the ship 13 times on eight different occasions before attacking.  Radio operators in Spain, Germany, Lebanon and aboard the Liberty heard the Israeli pilots describe the ship as American, but they attacked regardless.  Some fifteen years later one of the Israeli pilots held extensive interviews with then Congressman Pete McCloskey about his role.

McNamara cancelled the rescue

This pilot refused to obey orders to attack, and after he returned to base, he was arrested.[11]  One of the more intriguing sub-plots of the entire affair was that when the Liberty radioed for help, US Navy planes were dispatched, but ordered to return by Robert McNamara.  Years later when accounting for his behavior during the war in Vietnam, McNamara failed to mention the attack on the Liberty.Establishment reviewers did not notice.  Thirty years later McNamara told the American Legion he had no recollection of recalling American aircraft.

Yitzhak Rabin
	Yitzhak Rabin then commander of Israeli forces denied his planes knew the ship was American.[12]  When Rabin died, President Clinton ordered American flags to fly at half-mast.   Aside from ex-chief of Naval Operations Thomas Moorer, Secretary of State Dean Rusk and precious few others, the Israelis and their bonded liars and spokesmen in the American media have gone unchallenged.

The worst exhibition of American cowardice and duplicity has been in the American Congress where blood money of Jews has purchased allegiance to their cause and to the cause of Israel over concern for the lives of American servicemen.