Transcripts For ALJAZ The Day Israel Attacked America 20240712

United Arab Emirates and bahrain formalizes relationships already of place but now includes the opening of embassies its a pivot point they hope will end old conflicts and lead to new Cooperation Among israel and eventually even more arab nations to all over israels friends in the middle east those who are with us today. And those who will join us tomorrow i said. Earlier in the day trump hinted that other countries will also be signing diplomatic pacts with israel but will have at least 5 or 6 countries coming along very quickly. But noticeably absent from tuesday steel siding palestinian leadership the foreign minister of the United Arab Emirates acknowledge their participation in the agreement require the preservation of current palestinian land. I thank you for choosing peace and for halting. Territories at position that reinforces our shared will to achieve a Better Future for generations to come. In the palestinian territories there were protests over the deal that also failed to ease the 13 year blockade of people in gaza the human rights activists have like into an open air prison this trump official blames palestinian leadership for refusing to negotiate separately you have the leadership of the time its refused to engage refused to engage directly with israel their message is to go to the United Nations. The road to peace is not through the United Nations who through. The through through the divisions over this deal also on full display outside the white house. They deserve to have a. List and then a bra going to. Be in there with the leads. There are also questions in the United States about why the aber have accords are called a peace deal given none of the nations are war theres also concern the socalled peace deal is really a new military alliance of nations with a common interest to confront iran the u. S. Congress already promising to scrutinize the d. Particularly over the possible sale of f. 35 fighter jets to the usa. But more importantly for President Trump with less than 2 months until the us election the accords offered the optics of a Foreign Policy win it for a president behind in the polls and eager for reelection can really help get aljazeera the white house here a city of louisville will pay briana tennis family 12000000. 00 in compensation the 26 year old black woman was shot several times by police when they forced their way into an apartment in the mistaken drugs raid the city has also promised to reform its department including the way warren sort of proved west african mediators appear to have agreed to give mollys military coup leaders 18 months to hand over power to a civilian government the military junta mad hit heads of state as the deadline imposed by the block to nominate a civilian president past. U. S. President donald trump has approved a disaster declaration for auto gone to help those affected by wildfires it will make federal funding available to people whose properties have burned down or been damaged more than 100 fires are burning up the west coast it caused a record amount of damage and those are the headlines the news continues here on al jazeera after the day Israel Attacked and i think a good buy. Ready. 30 june 1967 the 6 day war in the middle east between israel egypt jordan and syria is underway a spy ship very lightly armed but bristling with antenna it steams into the mediterranean to eavesdrop on the conflict it is patrolling in International Waters off the egyptian cursed. At 2 in the afternoon on june the 8th with the wall reaching its climax israeli jets and moto pito boats launched an unprovoked attack on the ship they dropped napalm and strafe its decks with rockets kind in fire and armor piercing rounds before trying to sink it with talk paedos. We had no way to defend ourselves and it was just were just slaughtered and a shot of the life rafts. That were put into the water and they shot i want to were still on more of a ship. Full of holes shell holes everywhere blood the focsle the front part of the ship was just red with blood. Throughout the attack the ship flies the stars and stripes the flag of israels closest ally the United States of america its name the u. S. S. Liberty is freshly painted on its stern and the bow carries the distinctive numbers of an American Naval vessel out of a crew of just under 300 there were 34 killed 172 injured in greece 2. Life threatening life debilitating injuries so that was more than 2 thirds of the crew. This audiotape which has never been broadcast before was recorded in real time by the Israeli Military during the assault the womans voice in the background is counting down the seconds it proves that israeli commandos knew all along that they were attacking an American Ship. I am. For the 1st time this and other evidence allows us to reveal the true story of what happened that day and what came after when a deadly assault by one ally and another was covered up and an american president was manipulated by the secret agents of a foreign power events that have shaped us israeli relations ever since. The United States Navy Memorial in washington d. C. June the 8th 2014 for every year on the anniversary of the attack on the u. S. S. Liberty survivors relatives and supporters gather together its a remembrance of those who who were killed that day the 34. On dave lucas i was in charge of the deck force i was 25. 00 my 1st child was born when i was one day out on that cruise so as long as there are survivors and and maybe children of survivors i think this will probably be an annual event. Antelope. The names of the 34. 00 killed are read out all. Right. Punctuated by the tolling of a navy bow. And the playing of taps the traditional military funeral lament. Its important to. Not forget what happened and to continue to try to find out why it happened and who made it happen. In the summer of 1967 america was in turmoil an incendiary mixture of Racial Discrimination and extreme poverty exploded into a summer of rioting in cities across the country. But one issue dominated. The vietnam war you know 10000. 00 troops would die that year the americans were trapped they couldnt leave and they could win. In the middle east to war looked inevitable there was growing tension between israel and its arab neighbors armies were mobilizing israel promised the white house they would not attack 1st but on the 5th of june they jammed radar sets of the us embassy in tel aviv so the americans couldnt detect their jets taking off to launch a surprise assault on egypt. Meanwhile the u. S. S. Liberty was sailing across the mediterranean into the war zone liberty was. The state of the our intelligence gathering vessel of the time and what we did is we list it we were listening ship my name is lloyd painter i was a Research Officer we could sent we could receive any signal that was out there low band high band anything intercepting it recording it and we did have on board some translators who could have an immediate translation of whats going on with actually bad things off the moon back to n. S. A. We were were spice im Jim Cavanaugh was a communication technician aboard the u. S. S. Liberty and i intercepted morse code were spice i mean intercepting messages from embassies military bases Police Anything and everything that we could get to ensure that the United States was comfortable what was going on in the world unknowns conspiring against us and basically goes to protect our interests. This was the cold war american president Lyndon Johnson knew that the russians already had substantial military influence in egypt he needed to find out what they were going to do next to make sure that a local conflict did not become a world war with the usa backing israel and russia siding with the arab cause i was assigned as a russian linguist aboard the ship im Bryce Lockwood United States marine corps retired israelis our primary purpose was to intercept communications of the russian spy or craft as it were at alexandria egypt and it was our job was to find them and we were not targeted against israelis life was very relaxing and one of the nice things about the liberty is we had air conditioning because we had Communications Equipment so we were cool in the hot days it was a very laid back very clean ship it was spotless the morale was pretty high i mean very high. By the time the liberty arrived off the coast of egypt on the 8th of june the war had just 2 days left to run israel had seized the old city of jerusalem the west bank and the gaza strip Jordanian Forces were beaten and egypt was conceding defeat only syria held out. The airwaves were dead the only voices we did get while those of israeli or hebrew were what we were hearing my name is bob wilson i worked for n. S. A. On june 8th 1967 when what we were trying to monitor find something coming from the direction of egypt there just was nothing they own the skies and iran and everything that. I dont think there was anything moving at that time that i didnt know about listening to the chatter night before knew it was American Ship that came into the area they knew who we were 5 15 am 1st light the ships log recorded an israeli photo reconnaissance plane flying over the liberty that was easily identifiable as a nor atlas aircraft and those are photo Reconnaissance Aircraft israeli records obtained by aljazeera show that they recognizance plane reported that they beauty as an american spy ship number g t 5 well i was on the bridge im john scott i was the damage control officer. Circled the ship kind of in a broad circle and headed back towards israel israeli planes then continued to fly over the liberty all morning. And they would do half moon passes over us and we saw that they were israeli they were slowly lumbering over our ship and we were waving at them they were waving at us they were sophisticated almost as sophisticated as we were as far as surveillance and technology they had everything we supplied it with all the technology to this day. And i felt that we werent we were in great shape because they knew we were there our friends we felt safe actually was a secure feeling to see them there was one other thing which made the crew feel safe we had an American Flag flying the standard and then we put up the holiday colors which is a huge American Flag and it was a bright sunny day with the wind blowing out of 5 or 10 knots the flag was unfurled you could see it for miles meanwhile Israeli Military jets were on their way on the real time audio tape obtained by aljazeera at 1 53 pm the pilots asked the base control about the ship. The u. S. S. Liberty was the only ship of any size in the area. The american 6th street including 2 aircraft carriers was 500 miles away oh it was a great day hello im jim smith damage control man in engineering i mean im 20 years old its a time i come from a small town you store hay bales and in a summer time for blocking our sun was shining blue sky clouds nice people sunbathing on a day we had lunch and 5 minutes later maybe here came the jets and when nobody really knew what was happening then we started a fire. Captain said to me alert the forward gun math were under attack and i tried to raise the the 2 sailors in the forward gun mats i looked at and they were they were blown to pieces by the rocket when the attack started. And we realized that we needed help we tried to communicate with the 6th fleet they were jamming both our distress frequencies and our tactical frequencies the tactical frequencies is all right but the International Distress frequency is a violation of International Law to jam them and the israelis were jamming and we could not get a single rose heres a question i have to ask who would know the frequencies other than an ally and who is the ally in the war who was in egypt it was israel they would know and only they would know in this conflict what our frequencies would be. Now cut off from the outside world the crew on the liberty was defenseless we had 450. 00 caliber machine guns on board that were basically there to repel any boarders that might come by a pirate situation certainly werent designed to bring down jet aircraft that were hammering at us but you cant shoot a jet going 600 miles an hour with a 50 caliber machine gun work it was just a surreal scene people who had been standing there earlier joking and laughing were now dead dying and with the walking dead and wounded it was just unreal gasoline barrels stored on the deck of the ship burst into flames the crew rushed to try to put out the fires ma was watching the aircraft as they circled around and when they got to coming back towards the ship i just holler at him down then fire circle back around we jump back up and keep fighting fire the rocket noise was horrendous when iraq it explodes. You cant escape iraq here where you go. What the crew didnt know was that at 3 minutes past 2 the israeli pilots voted to use a new much deadly weapon. To. Debate this problem i guess from from that was the napalm which they dropped from the airplane the napalm and burn scorched almost seen tar from part of the ship the bridge area the whole tops of the ship and the fire and it was all charred it was no longer a navy grey you have to stop the fire stop the flooding to keep the ship afloat thats your home youve got nowhere else to go you cant pack up and go down the road because there is no not no road up above the Israeli Military argued about what should happen next and who should sink the liberty. Yeah. I remember thinking i was in pretty good shape and i said i think i can swim to the shore. And i thought sharks i thought a lot of things ill call quickly you know. At 11 minutes past 2 with the israeli jets running out of ammunition the pilots were instructed to fly down and confirm the identity of the ship. It was now 12 minutes past 2 and the israeli control tower knew for certain this was an American Ship the same one its forces had 1st identified at 5 15 am that morning and then buzzed again during 7 additional reconnaissance flights throughout the day. The jets then pulled out but 3 israeli navy motor torpedo boats were already on their way. The u. S. S. Liberty was a spy ship in the event of an attack it was standard procedure for the spies on board to destroy everything just in case it fell into enemy hands everyone was destroying material everyone was. Stripping information off of computers ripping computers open pulling information out thats something you just dont want to hear aboard ship youve done all this work. Collected this intelligence and processed it and now you have to destroy it you just didnt want the enemy on to get a hold of anything classified at 235 the israeli motorboats fired 5 torpedoes for missed but one hit remember remember and remember. Remember. It had been over 9 hours since the Israeli Military 1st identified the liberty israeli planes had flown over it repeatedly and 20 minutes earlier their control tower had confirmed it yet again as an American Ship 25 americans were about to die in a single moment. This is what it looks like when it took paedo hits the ship the size of the liberty. The torpedo through a step in the air like a roller coaster felt like one coming down dead silence like salo smoking haze everywhere i went back to the drinking fountain and filled it with blood. Reached down to get a drink black man stared back at me. And when it fell back to get right he just kept getting wrong camp sank and sank and sank. We just waited all of us waited thinking that this was it were going down. And i figured that was the end of life for me. And the 2 of peter who had blown a huge hole in the hollow 39 feet by 24 killing 25 americans in a single hit the top you know hit the room that i was in and it was just luck this guy died this one live that died it was how much shrapnel was coming in your direction you know the Old Fashioned typewriters i had the letter h. Sticking out of my left foot i had. 80 pieces of shrapnel in my lower extremities and the place filled up with water that. Totally black totally filled with. Powder. And oil it was like. Gagging and you only had about 8 or 10 inches of. Space where you could catch a breath. Only way to go in that direction most drop down and swim underwater for 5 strokes come back up and then frantically catch a breath and try to find Something Else an old aunt to. Got pull through the hatch and onto the deck others were not so lucky my friend Ronnie Campbell had a desk right there. And i remember ronnie saying you fellows can do what you want to so im going to write a letter home and he stuck a piece of paper in his mills typewriter and began typing dear eileen you wont believe whats happening to us and just seconds after that the torpedo struck and killed both the 2 moraines killed. My friend Ronnie Campbell and my job was to try to get probably 20 or 30 wounded sailors out to the main deck into the life rafts so i went up and looked at myself before i try to get a went out and thats when i observed a motor torpedo boat is really plainly marked with a star of david. Machine gunning our life raft. The crew of the liberty were now trapped on board the own ship with nowhere to run and nowhere to hide the torpedo boats came in closer and began to machine gun the ship using armor piercing projectiles the armor piercing the shells that they were using were leaving holes about that big around in the Metal Plating just. Peel it out like it was orange peel. I close range the arm a piercing rounds ripped through the steel hull of the ship no way i was safe this bullet was retrieved from one of the navigational books at the rear portion of the bridge penetrated the skin of the ship going through at least one other book and then stopped and in the 2nd book this is part of an armor piercing shell the outer portion or jacket makes the whole of this thing goes through and im bullet like this that hit a seam and Francis Brown and and killed him he died around the spot this fellow floor dead is just barely 18. There werent enough helmets to go around for want to it was like sitting in a Cardboard Box and having somebody shoot through it the bullets were just coming everywhere. Throughout the attack the liberty had been silent to the outside world all its ariels why the smashed or jammed. We had one would band to know which had were an entire cruise and it had a bullet hole in it one of the radio minute taken a reload coax cable and ran it from one of the transmitters back there to that with than 10. And took some shrapnel in the process he got out and made a fire fox firefox this is rock star rock star under attack by i doubt id surface a neighbor units require immediate assistance. The american 6th fleet was 500 miles away and picked up the signal so did the Israeli Armed forces the attack stopped shortly afterwards the american aircraft carriers were in the middle of a Nuclear Weapons drill and had to rearm with conventional bombs before they could take off. Once the israelis knew the us jets were in the air they summoned the American Naval attack and told him that had been a terrible mistake. The american planes were recalled as they returned israeli helicopters flew out to the liberty this one had some personnel from. The Israeli Government and the us naval attache dropped a brown paper sack on the deck and for part of the ship. Weighted down with an orange at a Business Card in it. It landed right next to the severed leg of. One of the deck personnel. And the note said. Do you have careful. Pretty obvious that there were casualties. I mean theyre still body parts. And blood streaming down the pockets. So his message do you have casual use was kind of. Out of place. One of the sailors carried that sack back to the captain in the captain took out the no and read it looked up at the helicopter and bought the sort of thing or at. All i want to stay with my son stay with my wife the rest internment and mass indoctrination all we got children are now in a process of reeducation or chinese assimilation forced labor and the use of high tech surveillance were being complicit in the human rights abuses that are carrying an australian investigation into chinas systematic repression of the weakest tell the world on aljazeera. Amidst destruction and despair a group of friends resist. Rescuing books from the rubble they build a refuge for freedom and democracy. A secret library of hope from which they endeavor to rewrite their story and that of their country. Witness. A library under bombs on aljazeera. Im about to send in doha the top stories on aljazeera the United Arab Emirates and behind have officially signed a deal in washington to normalize ties with israel its being described as a betrayal by the palestinians for President Donald Trump says it represents the dawn of a new middle east and hes predicting more countries will follow the move the moment was marked with an elaborate ceremony at the white house together these agreements will serve as the foundation for a comprehensive peace across the entire region something which nobody thought was possible certainly not in this day and age maybe in many decades from now but one founded on shared interests Mutual Respect and friendship to our honored guest from israel the United Arab Emirates and bahrain congratulations on this Outstanding Achievement congratulations. The u. S. City of louisville will pay brianna taylors family 12000000. 00 for her death during a police raid on her apartment the 26 year old black woman was shot several times by police when they forced their way into her apartment in a botched drugs raid. U. S. President donald trump has approved a disaster declaration for all of them to help those affected by wildfires it will make federal funding available to people whose properties a burned or damaged more than 100 fires are burning up the west coast theyve caused record amounts of damage. A powerful slow moving storm is closing in on the u. S. Gulf coast and sally has weakened to a category one but it is likely to gain strength before making landfall early on wednesday forecasters are warning of flooding on an unprecedented scale alabama and mississippi have declared states of emergency and some residents have been ordered to evacuate west african mediators appeared to have agreed to give mollys military coup leaders 18 months to handle the power to a civilian government monies military junta met a west african heads of state at the end of a deadline imposed by the block to nominate a civilian president. The president of the European Council have visit visited a new refugee camp on the greek island of les boss shall michels visits comes after the greek Prime Minister requested european support to deal with the refugee crisis a fire destroyed europes largest refugee camp last week it was home to 12000 people those are the headlines the news continues here on aljazeera after the day Israel Attacked america goodbye. June the 8th 1967 the height of the 6 day war the u. S. S. Liberty an american spy ship had just been attacked by israeli jets and 2 peter boats while in International Waters off egypt badly damaged 2 thirds of its crew were dead or wounded. As soon as the news reached washington the attack on the liberty instantly triggered a domestic political crisis 2 according to documents released under the freedom of information act one solution suggested in American Government circles was to sink the liberty so journalists could not photograph it and inflame Public Opinion against the israelis the n. S. A. Rejected this idea with an impolite comment handling the media became the top priority and i was taken to my home and why dont maryland man name is sap patricia. And my husband was killed on the liberty. And by the time i got there there were any number of people from the National Security agency they are they were there to make sure that i didnt speak to anyone from the press and i didnt. They stayed night and day back in the mediterranean the liberty was now listing at 10 degrees a massive hole in the hull above and below the waterline the planes that they said they were sending to us never arrived where i was afraid of and i think most of us was that we were going to sink next was it was pretty much littered with the wound looks like something out of a horror movie with people standing around or lying wounded and dead and stunned heads missing parts of their bodies the liberty had only one doctor on board with very limited medical resources there was not a table that wasnt being usual the body honor wanted body and the doctor fixed compound fractures and treated but it entrapped no wounds while blood transfusions were given to. It was. It was real bad and the doctor said to him you want me to operate he says youre probably going to die if i do and youll certainly die if i dont and he said go ahead doctor and so when the doctor operated. We held in this tight as we could as horrible pain im sure for him and all of a sudden he went he went limp and he died right there. Other wont ever see anything like that again. Captain mcgonagle received a pretty bad leg injury lost a lot of blood. Even navigating by the stars we had it a little bit of power and tons of water in our belly which meant the ship waved back and forth all night long and the next day American Ships arrived to take the injured in the dead off the liberty the American Government now made sure that no journalists could get anywhere near the crew. When i took the severely wounded to various parts i actually posted guards on the room so that no one could be interviewed by the press the total press blackout was in effect back in washington the government ensured there was Little Information for the press while politics went on behind closed doors. I was told to go up personally to the. 7th floor. Oh my name is bill lloyd i was in charge of the arab israel desk sit in because the secretary of state himself dean rusk had summoned. The master harman of israel to come in or julie and. So i sat through the meeting taking notes and in a loud voice a secretary who was once really demanding some explanation for why and what had happened the ambassador himself. Seemed to be ignorant of the incident she immediately said i cant believe what youre telling me its it would be impossible it would be unheard of it was especially tough for Lyndon Johnson to date the most pro israeli american president in history johnson was and a very tough mood. Im tom he was director in the state Department Director of intelligence and research at the time of the liberty incident and 67. 00 tack on the Liberty Johnson himself briefed Newsweek Magazine off the record that the israelis had attacked and the reason they detect was that they thought this was an intelligence ship that was a deception perhaps israeli as well as Egyptian Communications but then everything changed. The fact that johnson of self was the leaker and briefer of newsweek was soon leaked and this alarmed of course the Israeli Embassy and other leading friends in the jewish organizations the Israeli Embassy regarded this as a major problem. And that. What johnson told newsweek practically amounts of blood libel declassified israeli documents show they were going to threaten president johnson with blood libel gross anti semitism and that would end his political career blackmail. This is what i know bobbie are among Us Navy Retired former director of the National Security agency. But they know if he is thinking about running again hes going to need money for his campaign. So alleging that hes blood libeling is gonna rouse the jewish donors the Israeli Government hired teams of lawyers some of whom were Close Friends of Lyndon Johnson and began an all out offensive they lent on the media to kill critical stories and slanted others in favor of israel. There was a campaign mounted to see if what could be done about returning johnson to his normal. Predictable pro israeli position at the time johnson was still undecided as to whether to run for president the following year efforts were to be made to remind the president of the delicacy of his own position that he personally would lose support. For his run for reelection in 1968 israeli tactics were clever they identified johnsons soft spot the war in vietnam and gave him 2 extraordinary gifts neither of which were made public at the time the 1st was political but one of johnsons complaints about israel was that many of the jewish organizations and the heads of. Leaders in the Jewish Community were opposing him. And there were 7 becoming more silent as the liberty crisis moves so he also knew that there was a move back in his favor if he was moderate. Israel there was a 2nd gift much more secret but vital to the american president the dreadful death toll in vietnam was dominating the domestic news agenda the North Vietnamese had russian surface to air missiles which were bringing down american aircraft on a daily basis. The American Military attacks in israel got a surprise visit from a senior Israeli Intelligence officer took some helicopters and one across the north red sea to the surface to air missile sites and helicopters and put took back everything the launchers the missiles from the manufacturing thats manuals harassed them and then he went to the u. S. Embassy sierras say and said i think i have something you might be interested in and of course those were the same missiles that our aircraft flying over North Vietnam were encountering they day and countermeasures was a huge issue. So grateful was the American Government they gave israel to gifts in return theyd be supplied them with the weapons they had just lost in the war and the liberty inquiry run by the department of defense the d. O. D. Was watered down. All its influence by what have we benefited from from the capture of this aide to missile sites soon johnson did respond and took a much more lenient lie and wish that the whole incident could be put behind as soon as possible johnson softer approach to israel was immediately reflected in the American Navy inquiry which was now underway on board the liberty we began to realize that a cover up was was this was descending upon us a lot of people that were in a key position to offer testimony were not given that opportunity i testified to the machine gunning of life rafs to the captain state of mind and it was that those 2 issues in particular totally admitted lloyd painter was not the only officer to have his testimony ignored i saw what looked like unburned vaseline and i scraped a little bit of it off and put it in the jar and sealed the cap on and i presented to the court of inquiry and thats the last i saw that jar there was no mention of napalm and im sure thats what it was they want to hear any of that i didnt know that at the time i didnt know until many months later that night i had been recorded looking back on it it was a total sham the us court of inquiry reported in just 20 days it was a rush job full of spelling mistakes much key evidence ignored no israelis interviewed and it exonerated them from blame. I read the court of inquiry and realized that my statements have been stricken from the record and never recorded so i knew then for certain that the cover up was this massive the israelis then rushed out their own report which concluded that the whole affair was a series of mistakes and that no one was to blame the only dissenting voice was that of the israeli ambassador in washington he sent a secret telegram back home arguing that israel was clearly guilty he cited the audiotape of the attack the existence of which was known to top israeli officials and mentioned the crucial 20 minute gap that followed the libertys identification and the launch of the torpedoes against him he said they should own up to what they had done and put the guilty on trial his advice was ignored the focus now was to repair the damage to american israeli relations and the israelis have always been very skillful. Tracking what the Us Government is doing saying thinking and after 10 flights and theyre by no means the only country that does it many do theyre just more effective than it must have a great advantage they have as compared to other countries is their influence in the congress around the time of the attack the Washington Post had noted that the jewish lobby could help determine the outcome of 169 of the 270 electoral votes needed to win the white house the big emotive words about the attack disappeared from press releases at the pentagon much more bland neutral. Sounding. Discourse heard and this was true of the private briefings that official people in the vatican made about the ends but whatever was said to journalists every Us Intelligence had believed the attack was intentional one of them wrote a nice whitewash for a group of ignorant stupid and inept x x x. Jewish community has always been more generous than many of their other counterparts and supporting financially. Actions political causes process that does translate and they influence many of johnsons closest friends and advisers were pro israeli and they reported back to tel aviv on his every move is really story constantly shifted to counter whatever new intelligence the white house received so sensitive with these communications that the israelis used code names to protect the identity of their white house agents but for the 1st time the members of the ring can be named hamlet was a 1000000. 00 fundraiser for the democrats when he rang johnson took his calls he was a find. Was Arthur Goldberg the u. S. Ambassador to the United Nations was David Ginsburg a high profile washington lawyer who also represented the Israeli Embassy. Was Supreme Court justice abe fortas. Lyndon johnson had dinner with him on the eve of the 6 day war. The strategy where the u. S. Israeli relationship proved to be stronger than the killing and injuring of more than 200. 00 americans. American israeli relationship was very much at stake. Was brought back from the precipice the crucial intelligence came from the u. S. Ambassador to the United Nations after goldberg he wont tell of eve that the United States had the audiotape which revealed israeli pilots knew it was an American Ship before attacked. The tape was quietly buried. And i think a conscious decision was made to sweep it under the rug to put it behind my reading is that the u. S. Government had made the decision to accept the apology and reject the other rationale but dont push it further with the politics sorted the only remaining issue was the fate of the u. S. S. Liberty badly damaged and now in malta for extensive repairs the 2 paedo hole was massive and was revealed to be much bigger once they got the ship into dry dock and drained it of water the sealed compartment was a water filled too full of bodies body parts and top secret equipment. You could smell death and you could smell the oil thats what i remember and soon as the air hit the bodies it began to deteriorate rapidly you knew what you have to do there were you shipmates still are the navy was more concerned with part than they were vital parts but when i went down i knew that you can separate the 2 we had to start shoveling up the the but the parts 168 bags worth. Elsewhere the make up artists were getting to work we were in the dry dock about 6 weeks and 300 maltese workers are working 2 shifts a day and i think 7 days a week to try they were cutting out the shell holes welding plates over that. And fabricating metal to cover the torpedo hole and then in one day they painted the entire ship we looked like nothing ever happened we took it across the atlantic it was like being in a cemetery but when we pulled into port we looked good next press and everything with air and we looked like basically nothing really happened so its great for the press to downplay what really happened to us while the survivors met the widows and friends the 168. 00 bags of body parts and top secret equipment were quietly taken to an incinerator and. A year later and the liberty captain William Mcgonagle was given the medal of honor americas highest award for gallantry the tradition has always been that it is presented by the president in the white house. I look at these 2. And i see. Captain mcgonagle never heard words like these may his commander in chief there was no Television Coverage for him as he was sieved his medal in a quiet ceremony in the navy yard president johnson was just 4 miles away at the time he stayed in the white house to hand out diplomas to schoolchildren. The reason was revealed in this internal memo which advised president johnson the due to the nature and sensitivity of these awards they should be given by the department of defense not by him the advice was clear no press release regarding them should be made. When i received my purple heart and in a secret ceremony in the captains office i was in monish to thread a Court Martial dont ever tell anyone where you got this dont ever tell anyone how you got this medal. The following Year American aid to israel increased fourfold and president johnson agreed a treaty classified above top secret with israel for the Mutual Exchange of intelligence and arrangement which is still in place today code named stone ruby. 2 1 of the things about this me is there wasnt a nice explanation of what went on no one wants to talk about the why. The big secret the israelis want to protect was their next move they had told the americans that this was to be a limited war not a land grab but on june 8th 1967 the forces were poised to attack and seize the Golan Heights and invade syria something they wish to keep from the white house until theyd done it. Successive american administrations both republican and democrat had refused to deal with the liberty even the issue of war crimes against unarmed americans has never been addressed there was a war crimes report filed by the Liberty Veterans Association to address the issues of such war crimes as firing on life rafts that was never answered properly i dont think was answer period the people who are responsible for attacking the Liberty Liberty were you know by and large the military individuals in the war room i dont know how many 4810. Those are the people who came up with the plan those are the individuals who are responsible for the attack. The pilots the moderates or peterborough personnel they were ordered you know you dont follow orders go to go to jail so they have to follow through it wasnt the israeli people who ordered the attack it wasnt the average jewish person who ordered that attack we really need to exonerate the average jewish person israeli from this and go to wards those individuals who are responsible for the attack no one was really willing to take this on not to start state department the white house not the congress its in everybodys best interest to just let this go and thats exactly what they did but by doing that they laughed a lot of pain for the survivors and for their families because there was a lot of broken families broken marriages alcoholism depression. Posttraumatic stress disorder. So those those crewmembers suffered a lot but so did the families the hardest part was that the reaction of our own government toward us and we were actually the fingers were pointed us and the israelis where they were that they were never questioned as to why they did it they only questioned us. The families still want answers from their government which remains silent for many some memories never fade we had a wonderful time just being together i met our. At a party and we spent a lot of time talking throughout the evening and at the end of the evening he said to me. Are you busy tomorrow afternoon and i said well no and he said do you think we could get married then i was told that he was among the dead it was absolutely the worst moment of my life because that doesnt go by our own think about those guys i mean i went through hell but they left the earth. When im walking up to the mass grave i still feel a connection with those people. Hard to explain but its still there still. I want to remember that connection. As long as i can what we shared what we felt. It took 13 years of haggling before both sides finally agreed a compensation deal for the ship by 980. 00 the bill plus interest was just over 17000000. 00 israel offered 6 the americans accepted then sold the liberty 4100000 dollars scrap. The settlement for the victims was quicker but many are still unhappy with the today. Not feel it was a fair settlement i would have thought it. But i was so sad and broken. I just didnt have the energy to take on that fight and it wasnt a fight that i thought i could when the state department. Were very eager for the survivors to make that settlement they sent a check for their the amount and that that was that the American Government came up with a formula for the israelis to compensate the widows and children for their loss this included the payment for shock and mental anguish the widows got 25000. 00 with 10000. 00 for each of the children over 5 an American Government lawyer doubted that children under 5 could sufficiently comprehend the event to suffer shock and grief. The u. S. Proposed they should therefore receive nothing and offer the israelis accepted. Since the attack on the liberty the usa and israel had grown ever closer at the time george ball the u. S. Undersecretary of state noted that it seemed clear to the israelis that as american leaders did not have the courage to punish them for the blatant murder of american citizens they would let them get away with anything. Places say we have seen a little more cloud a little more rain just nudging towards the Pacific Northwest so a challenge system whats the weather some cold weather increasing humidity up towards oregon and also into what Washington State signs of some improvement in the other while fucking titians elise so the far northwest of the u. S. Not really seeing anything useful making its way anywhere near california having said that already wet weather of course is a little farther south and east down into the tape south we have Hurricane Sandy staggering away making its way across mississippi as we go on through what wettest day into thursday and grassy easing over toward South Carolina and it will bring flooding looking at some Copious Amounts of rain for us a position the storm at the moment that it is on the moving very slowly its staggering along at around 4 kilometers an hour thats not even walking past it really is a stumble and you can see how does this little zigzag so moving by slowly throwing huge amounts of rainfall potential for historic rainfall across the deep south of the u. S. Maybe 20300 millimeters old more of rainfall coming in here as we go through the next few days for Central America the wetter weather is into Central America and show us that for the greater antilles. It could be the biggest land grab in history. As powerful nations lay claim to territories under the oceans 21. 00 geologists are secretly plotting new borders. As the struggle for resources intensifies some of the worlds most powerful scientists speak out. Oceans manakin on a. United out about merits and buffering sign a deal to normalize ties with israel president tom is calling it the dawn of a new middle east. Where you look. At. The palestinians mourn what they call a black day saying the resolution is a stab in the back. Im not matheson