F.A.Q.

Haven't there been numerous investigations of the attack?
What about Congressional investigations?
There have been no Congressional investigations. One of the more prominent Israeli propagandists, AJ Cristol, created this allegation in the mold of the "Big Lie" technique of the 1930's ("if you tell a big enough lie often enough, people will come to believe it"). 
The Librarian of Congress, when asked about this allegation of purported Congressional investigations, formally replied: "After checking numerous resources, including the CIS (Congressional Information Service) Indexes to Congressional Hearings (both published and unpublished), and the Public Documents Masterfile, I could find no evidence that the Congress ever held hearings or launched an investigation into the June 8, 1967 incident with the USS Liberty."
This allegation is a lie, plain and simple. The chief proponent of this lie, A.J. Cristol, has repeatedly been asked to produce evidence of the truth of his allegation. He has refused to do so.
Question: But I've seen many references to “official US investigations,” are you saying that these are false?
That is exactly what we are saying. They are false. There have been no “official US investigations.” There have been no unofficial US investigations. There have been no US investigations at all into the conduct of the Israeli forces when the attacked USS Liberty. The Israelis have never been asked to produce evidence, nor have they been interviewed about the attack.
Question: Why have the Israelis and their partisans made these claims?
When you don't have a legitimate factual defense, and you are without shame and want your position to be accepted at any cost, the only thing left is lying. The best argument in favor of their guilt is the fact that they have taken so much trouble to lie about so many things. Why would innocent people lie?
Why was the attack unlawful?
First, you have to bear in mind that USS Liberty was in international waters, had no offensive armament, and was moving so slowly that she was barely making way. No one, not Israel, not Egypt, not the Soviets - no one - had a legal right to fire on such a ship. The attack was, per se, a violation of international law. Under international law, in the absence of an attack against the Israelis by USS Liberty, the only legal right the Israelis had was to approach the ship and identify her. They did not do this.
Question: But I've read that USS Liberty fired first on the Israeli torpedo boats?
That allegation is subject to controversy. First, the ship was already on fire from the repeated, savage Israeli air attacks. Many sailors were dead and dozens more were wounded. The crew members closest to the machine gun that fired say that the fires from the ship as a result of the earlier Israeli napalm attacks "cooked off" the ammunition in the gun. Others say that one of the crewmen fired "a few rounds" toward the attacking Israeli torpedo boats.
Most witnesses agree that the fire cooked off the ammunition. Photos taken after the attack show that all four of the machine guns were inoperative - most likely as a result of the air attacks.
Even if a crewman fired at the attacking torpedo boats it was only after Israeli aircraft had brutally attacked the ship, killing and wounding his shipmates and the torpedo boats were in the process of making an attack run on the ship.
It is important to note that the Israeli torpedo boats were not approaching under a flag of truce, nor did they make any effort to demonstrate peaceful intent. Israeli aircraft had just repeatedly strafed and napalmed USS Liberty in an unlawful attack. To assert a defense that they were fired upon by USS Liberty and that justified their torpedo attack is absurd.
Question: But USS Liberty sailed into a war zone?
Neither Israel nor Egypt had declared a war exclusion zone nor issued a notice to mariners. USS Liberty had a legal right to be where she was. Israel had no legal right to attack her. A country at war cannot simply attack anything that moves, just because there is a war going on. Assume for a moment that USS Liberty was in fact an Egyptian merchant ship in international waters, Israel still would not have had a legal right to attack her without first trying to stop her and identify her.
International law obligated the Israelis to at least make an attempt to stop the ship and ask for identification. They did not do this. By their own account, the Israelis launched their attack without a positive identification as to who they were attacking in international waters.
Question: What about “the fog of war”?
What “fog of war”? The Israelis positively identified USS Liberty as a specific US Navy ship (“USS Liberty”) in the early morning hours of the day of the attack. They maintained aerial surveillance of her throughout the day. They followed her, using their maritime defense radar network. Then they launched a 75 minute coordinated air-sea attack. There was no “fog of war.”
Why did Israel attack?

Why did Israel attack?

Israel's motive is irrelevant. They did it. They admit they did it. If motive were a factor, then Charles Manson should be released from prison because no one knows his precise motive for mass murder.

Still, they must have has some reason to attack. What plausible motive could they have had?

We were an intelligence ship and the Israelis were doing something that they did not want the US to know about. One popular writer of Jewish fear-literature, John Loftus, writes in "The Secret War Against the Jews" (a Jewish version of The Turner Diaries) that Israel attacked deliberately because Israeli authorities believed that USS Liberty was relaying Israeli war plans to Egypt in order to assure the destruction of the Jewish State. That is patently ridiculous, but widely accepted even in Israel. Loftus claims to have documented his position through interviews with long lists of "retired old spies" whom he refuses to identify. While Loftus may be correct about Israeli paranoia, he is totally wrong about Liberty's mission. Liberty's primary mission was to collect intelligence on the Soviet forces in the area. The ship didn't even have a qualified Hebrew linguist aboard.

Question: What other reason might they have had for attacking?

Intelligence analysts agree that they attacked because they feared we might learn something that they did not want the United States to know. That could have been:

1. The planned invasion of the Golan Heights which was set to start a few hours after Liberty's arrival in the area. When Liberty arrived, the invasion was postponed for 24 hours, Liberty was attacked, and the invasion took place the next day. Did they postpone the invasion until Liberty was out of the way and unable to report on the war?
2. It is possible that they were afraid that Liberty might learn and report to the United States that Israeli forces were executing up to 1,000 Egyptian Prisoners of War at El Arish at the very moment that Liberty was just 13 miles off shore.
3. It is also possible that USS Liberty was attacked to prevent the ship from reporting a deliberate massacre of 14 Indian United Nations peacekeepers that took place in Gaza shortly before Israel's attack on USS  Liberty.

Question: Some of those reasons sound far fetched. Is there any proof to substantiate them?

Israeli apologists dismiss these stories as untrue or wildly speculative, although they are well-documented. Israeli apologist-historian Michael Oren, in his book "Six Days of War" and in published articles, dismisses the claim as untrue claiming, that, if it were true, there would be mass graves, reports in the major media, and great outcries from Egypt for justice.

Behold! There are mass graves, major media reports and cries for justice.
Attention is invited to CNN reporting on the subject which reports the mass graves of POWs

.

More on the atrocities can be found in Jim Ennes's report in The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, and in Jim Bamford's Body of Secrets.

What can I do to support Liberty survivors?

Often we are asked "What can I do to help?"

Here are some things you can do with some examples of what others have done before:

1. Write to your Congressman. The attack on our ship was a documented, proven war crime even as described by the Israeli government. The Israelis claim that they attacked without first identifying the ship or its nationality. That alone is a war crime. We know that they did in fact identify our ship as American before attacking and attacked with full knowledge that we were American. Yet even if their story were true, their own version of the circumstances would identify this attack as a war crime. Thirty-four Americans died and 174 were wounded. Yet the attack on the USS Liberty is the only serious maritime incident in American history that has never been investigated by Congress. Urge your Congressman to break this longstanding impasse. Click here for your Congressman's email and regular mail address.

Find your Senator.

Find your Congressman.

2. Write to your newspaper.

3. Buy and display a USS Liberty bumper sticker and other Liberty memorabilia.

4. Buy and wear a USS Liberty cap, jacket, shirt or sweatshirt.

5. Ask your town, city or county board, your mayor or your governor to declare June 8 “USS LIBERTY REMEMBRANCE DAY". A dozen states and as many cities and counties have done so already. Yours could be next

6. Ask to name a park, street, lake, library, building or other suitable landmark in memory of USS Liberty or one of the brave men who died on June 8, 1967. Over four dozen such memorials already exist. You need only ask.

7. Become a supporting Associate Member of the USS Liberty Veterans Association by sending a tax deductible contribution of $20 or more to Treasurer Moe Shafer, USSLVA, c/o Blazer Associates, Inc., 4994 Lower Roswell Rd., Suite 33, Marietta, GA 30068

8. Buy and read "Assault on the Liberty. Give copies to your friends.

9. Buy and read "Operation Cyanide: How the Attack on USS Liberty Nearly Caused World War III". Give copies to your friends.

10. Buy and view BBC Documentary "USS LIBERTY, DEAD IN THE WATER". Give copies to your friends.

11. Buy and view The History Channel Documentary: COVER-UP: Attack on the USS Liberty. Give copies to your friends.

12. Buy and view The Documentary: USS Liberty Survivors -- OUR STORY. Give copies to your friends.

13. Tell the USS Liberty story to friends and co-workers. Invite them to learn more online at http:/www.ussliberty.org or by Googling for USS Liberty.

14. If you have a web site, click this link, copy the HTML code you see in red, and place it in your site to link to USS Liberty .


15. Confront the Israeli apologists when you encounter them and insist that they produce proof of their allegations of “official US investigations” and similar tall tales.

What motivates the anti-Liberty, pro-Israel apologists?

Question: What motivates the anti-Liberty, pro-Israel partisans?

It is hard to understand what motivates these people. Why did Jonathan Pollard betray the United States? There have always been individuals who feel that they owe a greater allegiance to a foreign state than to the interests of their own country. Recently, people like Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Ann Coulter, and Alan Dershowitz have attacked USS Liberty survivors and supporters for no reason other than we continue to demand an investigation.

Question: But why do they feel that an investigation is such a bad thing?

If the attack was a legitimate mistake, then an honest investigation would reveal that fact. The objective, undisputed facts, however, make it pretty clear that the attack could not possibly have been a mistake or accident. An honest investigation would reveal that the attack was not a mistake. If it was not a mistake or accident, then the American people would demand an accounting from Israel and Israel would have to decide whether to punish those responsible (something they have refused to do for more than 40 years), or not punish them and suffer a loss of support in the United States. Israeli supporters know this and attack USS Liberty survivors and supporters in order to prevent this from happening.

Question: How do they get away with it?

The power of the Israeli lobby is not a secret. Recently, two Harvard University Kennedy School of Government Fellows were forced to go abroad to find a publisher for their paper on this subject. The Israeli lobby was powerful enough to keep them from publishing in the United States. When American scholars cannot publish papers in their own country, that speaks volumes about the power of a foreign lobby.