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BY MELVIN GOODMAN

“The State of Israel will be judged not by its wealth, nor by its
army, nor by its technology, but by its moral character and its human
values.”

– Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, 1955, Israel’s first prime minister
and defense minister.

Fifty-seven years ago during the Six-Day War (June 8, 1967), Israeli
Defense Forces (IDF) brutally attacked a U.S. naval intelligence ship
that was seconded to the National Security Agency (NSA) for
intercepting communications in the Middle East. Thirty-four American
sailors were killed in the attack, and 171 were wounded by unmarked
Mirage fighter aircraft using cannons and rockets. Israeli boats
fired machine guns at close range at those helping the wounded,
including a Soviet naval vessel that was trying to rescue U.S.
sailors; they also machine-gunned life rafts that survivors had
dropped in hopes of abandoning the ship. The Israelis immediately
called the disaster a “random accident.” It wasn’t “random” and it
wasn’t an “accident,” but the NSA investigation of the assault remains classified to this day.

Israeli duplicity in their relations with the United States was
displayed as early as 1955, when Israeli intelligence operatives
bombed a U.S. library in Alexandria, Egypt, and the Israeli government
placed the blame on Egyptian operatives. This covert action was
designed to stop the United States from funding the Aswan Dam in
Egypt. Several decades later, Israeli intelligence recruited a U.S.
naval intelligence officer, Jonathan Pollard, to provide sensitive
U.S. intelligence, despite the reams of intelligence that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was sharing with Israel.

Pollard sold numerous state secrets, including the NSA’s ten-volume
manual on how the U.S. gathers its signals intelligence as well as the
names of thousands of people who had cooperated and were cooperating
with U.S. intelligence agencies. Some of Pollard’s documents ended up
with the Soviet Union’s KGB, and the loss of sensitive signals
intelligence contributed to several successful Palestinian terrorist
attacks against Israel. The Israelis maintained for years that the
Pollard operation was an unauthorized rogue affair. More lies.

Israeli deceit in their relations with the United States continues to
this day. U.S. weapons have been used illegally in Israeli wars,
including the current genocidal attacks in Gaza. U.S. weapons
technology and the weapons themselves have been provided to third
countries in violation of Israeli agreements with the United States.
The United States has never challenged the obnoxious personal attacks
on its leaders by Israeli leaders, particularly Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu.

The current war in Gaza is replete with examples of Israeli denials
and explanations that defy reality. Israel has denied placing limits
on humanitarian aid entering Gaza, which couldn’t be more
counter-intuitive or counter-factual. After all, there are famine
conditions in the north and south of Gaza as well as ample evidence of
Israels preventing aid trucks from entering Gaza. There is no serious
evidence that the Israelis are willing to investigate the brutal
attacks that have taken place. Israeli spokesmen describe the current
Rafah operation as a “limited incursion,” which is belied by satellite photography that shows Israeli forces moving closer to the center of
the city as well as the collapsed buildings and debris in the eastern
parts of the city.

“The pattern of attacks” on aid workers, according to the Secretary
General of Doctors Without Borders, Christopher Lockyear, “is either intentional or indicative of reckless incompetence.” Israel’s 16-year
blockade of Gaza at least permitted a stable food situation in the
territory, but now Israeli Defense Forces ignore Israeli right-wing
activists who destroy food headed for Gaza’s refugees.

The Israeli military states that it would “never deliberately target
aid convoys and workers,” but this too is a bald-faced lie. Hundreds
of Palestinian aid workers have been killed, but it was not until
non-Arab workers were killed in a malicious attack that the
international community expressed outrage. This has not stopped
Netanyahu from proclaiming that Palestinians “sanctify death while we
sanctify life. They sanctify cruelty while we sanctify compassion.”

Last week’s disgraceful attack on a tent camp in Rafah was the latest
example of Israel’s lack of moral compunction in the killing of
innocent civilians, even children. The many Israeli wars against the Palestinians have demonstrated Israel’s ease in destroying homes and
olive groves, but the increased killing of children reveals the
absence of a moral compass among Israeli civilian and military
leaders.

The anniversary of the Liberty attack is a reminder that there are no
limits to Israeli perfidy. In June 1967, I was a junior analyst at
the CIA working on the Six-Day War. Our task force knew that the
Israeli attack took place after six hours of intense, low-level
reconnaissance. The attack itself was conducted over a two-hour
period by unmarked fighter aircraft. According to Israeli archives,
at least one of the pilots instructed to attack the Liberty
communicated “But Sir, It’s an American Ship.” He was told “Never
Mind, Hit Her!”

Even today, Michael Oren, a former Israeli ambassador to the United
States, maintains that the operation was an accident: “There was a lot
of chaos. It was a classic screw-up.” Another former ambassador to
the United States, Ron Dermer, one of Netanyahu’s closest colleagues,
once remarked that Israeli Defense Forces should be given a Nobel
Peace Prize for its use of “knock on the roof” warning shots before
they destroy homes that often house numerous members of extended
families that are seeking shelter. No warning was given to the
Palestinian refugees in the Rafah encampment. Both Oren and Dermer
would born in the United States and educated at Ivy League
institutions.

Meanwhile, U.S. officials at the highest levels continue to maintain
that the Israelis have crossed no “red lines” in their genocidal
attacks in Rafah. John Kirby, the spokesman for national security
adviser Jake Sullivan, even maintained that Israeli use of precision
guided weapons in Rafah “indicates a desire to be more deliberate and
more precise in their targeting.” When pressed, Kirby blithely
maintained that he needed “more granularity” to explain the civilian
losses. The Palestinian in Rafah who held a girl’s brain in one hand
and a bag full of body parts in the other hand should be sufficient “granularity.”

Several Biden administration officials and Department of States
officials have resigned because of U.S. complicity with Israeli
genocidal operations as well as the U.S. official view that Israel has
not impeded humanitarian assistance to Gaza. Meanwhile, the
Palestinian death toll is climbing, and Israeli military operations
are increasing, but the trio of Biden, Blinken, and Sullivan contend
that no “red lines” have been crossed.

It is long past time for the United States to demonstrate openly and emphatically its revulsion over Israeli war crimes and to end U.S.
military aid that enables Israel to pursue its genocidal attacks. It
is also time for the United States to fully support an immediate
ceasefire in Gaza. The consistent U.S. use of its veto of ceasefire resolutions in the UN Security Council is unconscionable.

Melvin A. Goodman is a senior fellow at the Center for International
Policy and a professor of government at Johns Hopkins University. A
former CIA analyst, Goodman is the author of Failure of Intelligence:
The Decline and Fall of the CIA and National Insecurity: The Cost of
American Militarism. and A Whistleblower at the CIA. His most recent
books are “American Carnage: The Wars of Donald Trump” (Opus
Publishing, 2019) and “Containing the National Security State” (Opus Publishing, 2021). Goodman is the national security columnist for counterpunch.org.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/05/31/the-attack-on-the-uss-liberty-symbolizes-israels-duplicity-and-deceit/

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