The Free Seeker

E-Newsletter of the Unitarian Fellowship of Huntington, WV

Issue No. 25, June 30, 2010

Jack Wilkinson, Editor

Program for July 4, 2010:  "Open Discussion"

            A panoply of possibilities present themselves.  We could continue our discussion from last Sunday, which left me with a disturbing question.  Should we resurrect old business and cold cases in order to arrive at satisfactory closure?  A resounding 'yes!'  The attack on the USS Liberty and its cover-up need to be touted, certainly, but so do other matters, including the Holocaust, of which some are still disdainfully dismissive.  Then there is a host of issues from the Bush-Cheney administration that constitute a cynical and venal kind of criminality that cry out for congressional investigation. 

Future Programs

July 11:         What Nixon Saw in China:  the Maoist Ballet

July 18:         What Nixon Saw:  Part II

July 25:         Discussion on China

August   1:    Bill Patton on Afghanistan:  Part II. 

August   8     Open Discussion

August 15:    The Great West Virginia Textbook Wars

August 22     To be announced

August 29:    Fellowship Potluck Dinner

Retrospective on Last Sunday

            Jacqueline Muth presented a movie of the attack by the Israeli military on the USS Liberty, an American ship during the 1967 War.  The Liberty was sent into the Mediterranean by the U.S. Navy as a listening post to  pick up radio messages of all the combatants, which included Israel, Egypt, Syria and Jordan.  The USS Liberty was sitting there off the coast of Palestine in a listening posture, not at all in a war posture, when it was savagely attacked by Israeli airplanes and gunboats, despite the fact that they were plainly flying the American flag, which clearly identified them as non-combatants.  All the witnesses in the film (compiled some 20 years after the incident) testify to the utter impossibility of the Israelis mistaking the Liberty for an enemy craft,  So, why did they attack?

            Speculation by those involved, including Admiral Moorer, later Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, was that the Israelis did not want the U.S to hear their deliberations regarding their impending attack on the Golan Heights for fear that the U.S. would try to stop it.  The attack lasted for several hours, but, to make a long story short, the airplanes took out all the antennae above decks with their machine gun fire, and the gunboats put a torpedo in the Liberty's side causing it to list. Crew members discovered a safe haven from the strafing if they crouched below the water line.  Assistance to the Liberty was twice called in by the besieged and twice called back by Secretary of Defense McNamara and President Johnson, who stated that he didn't wish to embarrass an ally. 

            Immediately after the attack the cover-up began.  Seamen both dead and wounded were flown back to the States without prior notification of their families,  The crew of the Liberty was scattered and reassigned so they couldn't get back together and compare notes.  All the commanders and staff were muzzled.  The Board of Inquiry was a total whitewash. 

            The question arises:  why did the US so desperately want to protect Israel from war crimes prosecution, and how were they so able to hush it up?  Where was the press in all this?  Clearly the geopolitical smart set, whoever that may have included, felt that Israel's friendship was worth giving it a pass for one of the most heinous war crimes in recent memory. 

            A film,  now around 20 years old, is part of the record, but it needs to be revisited.  This cannot stand indefinitely.  Or can it?

Light from Jack's Lantern:  "While we're on the Subject"

            Whoever fails to decry the Holocaust in no uncertain terms forfeits the right to criticize Israel.  The Holocaust was a sickening event that should never have happened and could not have happened without the acquiescence of the entire world, including, sadly, the Jews themselves.  Inasmuch as I was alive at the time, albeit rather young, I must consider myself as being among the guilty. 

            After the collapse of the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War I at a conference in Cairo the victorious Allies created some new nations, including Syria

and Iraq.  A new state of Israel had also been mandated by the Balfour Declaration in 1917 and later by the League of Nations in 1923, but Great Britain was upset with Israel for winning the Allied Expeditionary Force boxing contest with gold medals in all seven weight classes, so Great Britain dragged its feet for nearly thirty years until under pressure from the Irgun they acquiesced in 1947.  The point is that Israel has the same standing as Syria and Iraq, because they all came out of the same process of nation carving out of a defeated Turkey. 

            Having myself condemned the Holocaust I now exercise my right to criticize Israel.  In general terms Israel is treating people in vulnerable positions as badly as they were treated when they experienced the same vulnerability.  Although this does not excuse them, part of the reason is the Muslim Holy War template, which during World War II merged with Nazism and the two similar virulences became a combined force.  Now Germany has retracted its own virulence but not without having left traces of it in the Muslim-Arab world.  Whatever we might choose to say about Jewish mischief, it is evident that Muslim-Arab mischief preceded it, aided and abetted by that of Great Britain. 

            Now let me chastise Israel without qualification.  Anthony Lewis, a longtime Boston newspaper columnist, during the 1980's reported on case after case of  Israel undermining the attempts of Palestinians both in Israel and outside it to sustain businesses by the withholding of licenses and other treacheries.  This sly fox behavior is reminiscent of the Mafia, and it must stop, assuming that it is still going on.  We cannot believe in Israel's good will until we have a critical mass of evidence that it is encouraging grass roots prosperity throughout Israel and the occupied territories.  Although the aid flotilla was a naked provocation, Israel's attack on it does open up the question as to how willing Israel is to promote peaceful prosperity in Palestine among all its people.  The more Palestinians are able to exult in their own economic well-being the less of a threat they will be to Israel.  We shall be witnessing an interesting contest when we see the designs of Iran and Syria to keep Palestine poor and warlike thwarted by Israel's design to enrich them.