Remember America’s Dead on the USS Liberty

Israel is no friend and never has been one

Philip Giraldi • June 5, 2025

https://www.unz.com/pgiraldi/remember-americas-dead-on-the-uss-liberty/

It often pays, literally, to be perceived as a perpetual victim, a status that Israel and the Jewish institutional constituency have exploited relentlessly since 1945. It is now eighty years since the Second World War ended and the numbers of those receiving “holocaust” reparations from the German government hardly seems to diminish and may now include children of survivors who presumably were somehow damaged in the womb after the conflict ended and the camps in Europe were “liberated.” More than 20,000 Jews fled to Shanghai in China before and during the war, avoiding the prison camps in Europe, but they too are reported to be eligible for reparations. And then there are the still sprouting-everywhere taxpayer funded holocaust memorials and museums throughout the US even though the alleged events commemorated took place a long time ago and far away from America. Public schools and some state colleges in America are also increasingly being compelled to teach about the so-called holocaust as part of the required history syllabus, so the brainwashing will continue into the next generation.

Excuse me, but if all of the above cannot be perceived at least in part as special consideration granted to a tiny part of the US population which is admittedly hugely disproportionately wealthy and politically powerful, it begs one to provide a satisfactory explanation for the developments. The latest turn of the wheel comes in the wake of the killing of two Israeli Embassy employees in Washington DC. It is not widely known that the US Department of Homeland Security gives out discretionary grants of aid money to help provide security for nonprofit entities and groups that are perceived by the government as being threatened. The largest tranche of those grants, to the tune of more than $275 million in 2024 went to Jewish groups, monuments and buildings. A number of Jewish organizations and Israel-First congressmen are now calling for that money to be increased dramatically by an additional $1 billion. The money is justified by the much-touted claim that Jews are experiencing a surge in what is described as “antisemitism.” As many of the compilers of the statistics behind the surge are themselves Jewish groups that in some fashion benefit from the cash in hand, like the dreadful Anti-Defamation League (ADL) headed by the ghastly Jonathan Greenblatt, one might reasonably suspect that the numbers are cooked to include incidents so minor as to pass under normal circumstances. And there is also the issue of Israel itself, which is carrying out a genocide in Gaza and an occupation by Jewish settlers of what remains of historic Palestine on the West Bank. As the US government and groups like ADL define criticism of Israel as antisemitism any such commentary is rolled neatly into the statistics claiming the surge in anti-Jewish sentiment when it is really about the monstrous behavior of the Jewish state, which, in fact declares itself to be just that in law, that is, a Jewish state.

And it doesn’t all end there. There are numerous Jewish or neocon think tanks and foundations, all of which are well funded without any real need for a federal government handout to provide their security. Most of them claim to be “charitable” or “educational” to secure a tax exemption while they dig their talons deep into government in the United States at all levels down even to the state and local levels where many citizens cannot even write a letter to the editor to protest against Israel’s behavior without being denied benefits as an antisemite. Witness the recently passed antisemitism in education act in Arizona, which takes an extreme response to fear of antisemitism and makes it even more outrageous. The legislation bars public schools and public colleges from promoting what it describes as “antisemitic conduct” and creates disciplinary procedures for violations.

Worse than that, some states require applicants for jobs or benefits to sign a document confirming that they will not ever support the so-called BDS movement (Boycott, Divest and Sanction) which calls for pressuring the war criminals in Tel Aviv using economic measures. Indeed, the federal government is even worse with a national campaign against America’s universities being given alleged “credibility” by the depiction of college campuses as hotbeds of Jew-hatred even though in reality it is not about Jews per se and is rather Israel’s behavior that is arousing student anger as the mass starvation makes the piles of dead Palestinian babies continue to grow.

Israel’s perpetual victim status is part of the cover story that has been developed, most particularly in the United States, to explain away atrocities that have been carried out by the Israelis against their neighbors since and even before the founding of the state. As early as 1917 during the First World War, Britain, the colonial power in Palestine, responded to Jewish pressure from its major banking families with the Balfour Resolution, which promised a Jewish homeland. During the later post World War 2 period of the transition from British colonial rule which foresaw a division of Mandate Palestine into two separate states, Jewish terrorist groups brought pressure by assassinating British officials and soldiers and blowing up hotels and residences. They even went so far as to bomb and destroy the British Embassy in Rome!

Israel kills Americans whenever it believes there is some advantage to be gained from doing so and no presidents since John F Kennedy and George HW Bush have dared to push back to protect United States civilians and military even when major US interests are at stake. This reticence about confronting Israel has clearly been due to the widely recognized malignant power and wealth of the Israel Lobby. To cite only the most egregious killing of Americans by Israel, I would recall the June 8^th, 1967 attack on the USS Liberty, which killed 34 crewmen and injured 171 more. The crew’s dwindling number of survivors are this very weekend having a reunion in Norfolk Virginia.

The attack was followed by a cover-up that demonstrated clearly that at least one president of the United States named Lyndon Johnson even back nearly sixty years ago valued his relationship with the state of Israel above his loyalty to his own country. The two-hour assault on the Liberty was, in truth, the worst attack ever carried out on a US Naval vessel in peace time. It was a surprise attack which was clearly intended to destroy the intelligence gathering vessel operating in international waters collecting information on the ongoing Six Day War between Israel and its Arab neighbors. The Israelis, whose planes had their Star of David markings covered up so Egypt could be blamed, attacked the ship repeatedly from the air and using gunboats from the sea. When the ship’s distress signal was received, the aircraft carrier USS Saratoga launched fighters to go to its assistance, but they were called back under orders from President Johnson. The incredible courage and determination of the surviving crew was the only thing that kept the Liberty from sinking.

The Israelis and their political and media supporters in the United States have always claimed the attack was a tragic mistake while many of the Liberty crew have indicated their firm belief that it was anything but, that the vessel was flying an oversized American flag and was clearly and easily identifiable as a US Navy vessel. The ship’s commanding officer Captain William McGonagle was awarded a Congressional Medal of Honor for his heroic role in keeping the ship afloat, though President Lyndon Baines Johnson broke with tradition and refused to hold the medal ceremony in the White House, also declining to award it personally, delegating that task to the Secretary of the Navy in an unpublicized presentation made at the Washington Navy Yard. The additional medals given to other crew members in the aftermath of the attack made the USS Liberty the most decorated ship in the history of the United States Navy.

The Liberty crew was sworn to secrecy over the incident and a hastily convened and conducted court of inquiry headed by Admiral John McCain acted under orders from Washington to declare the attack a case of mistaken identity. The inquiry’s senior legal counsel Captain Ward Boston, who subsequently declared the attack to be a “deliberate effort to sink an American ship and murder its entire crew,” also described how “President Lyndon Johnson and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara ordered him to conclude that the attack was a case of ‘mistaken identity’ despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.” The court’s findings were rewritten and sections relating to Israeli war crimes, to include the machine gunning of life rafts, were excised. Following in his father’s footsteps, Senator John McCain of Arizona later used his position on the Senate Armed Services Committee to effectively block any reconvening of a board of inquiry to reexamine the evidence. The cover-up continues to this day. Florida’s governor Ron DeSantis is one of the most ardent Israel-firsters in national politics. He describes his state as the most “Pro-Israel” in the US. When he was a congressman representing a Florida district several retired Liberty survivors who were his constituents sought to meet with him. He turned them down. Most of the documents relating to the Liberty incident have never been released to the public in spite of the 58 years that have passed since the attack took place.

Israel famously has long sustained the doctrine that Jews are somehow chosen by God and can do no wrong when they are advancing their own interests. This belief has meant near constant warfare directed against neighbors like the Palestinians, as well as against Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan. Currently the Israeli government headed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is intent on destroying Iran’s military capabilities with the help of the United States of America. Netanyahu has argued repeatedly for over twenty years that Iran is on the verge of building a nuclear weapon, which would threaten both Israel and the region, but both the CIA and even Mossad agree that there is no such development being pursued on the part of the Iranian government. Ironically, Israel is the only country in the Middle East region that is “nuclear.” It has a substantial secret arsenal consisting of 200-300 nuclear bombs that was obtained illegally by theft from the United States. JFK may have paid a price for his temerity when he tried to expose Jewish groups that were acting as fronts for the Israeli government while also stopping the nuclear development and disarming them. I am not aware of any American politician having ever challenged Israel’s secret nuclear arsenal publicly and it is widely believed within the federal government that to do so would be “illegal.” That is what putting “Israel First” is all about!

I am sad to observe over this USS Liberty weekend how President Donald Trump is apparently crawling to Netanyahu and his murderous associates, just like his predecessor in office Genocide Joe Biden. The US has again in the UN Security Council vetoed an otherwise unanimous vote to call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, supporting Israel but no conceivable US or even humanitarian interest. Instead of taking the relatively simple step to contact Netanyahu and tell him that he must end the slaughter of the Palestinians using weapons, money and political cover all provided in abundance by Uncle Sam or face the consequences immediately. No more money, weapons and visits from pathetic grifter Senators like Lindsey Graham. In fact it might be a good thing to suggest to Bibi that he-she Lindsey just might be tried for treason as he is interfering illegally with US foreign policy in both Gaza and Ukraine. But we will save that story for another time, maybe next week!