- 8 June 2005 marks the 38th anniversary of the Zionists'
deliberate attack on the USS Liberty and the survivors, their families
and friends and supporters will commence their four day reunion in Washington
with a noon-time ceremony to honor their slain shipmates at Arlington National
Cemetery. I ask the Rense Website audience to keep these courageous and
truly patriotic people in their thoughts and prayers always, but especially
on this day.
-
- By visiting the USS Liberty Veterans Association Website
at www.ussliberty.org one will discover the remarkable successes these
men have achieved in their decades-long battle to end the US and Zionist
governmental coverups of the facts and circumstances surrounding the attack.
Even so, at the national level, the lessons to be learned have not been
learned let alone applied. But I am hopeful for a reversal of this deplorable
situation, for I have witnessed the USS Liberty survivors travel light
years since the awakening brought about by surviving officer James M. Ennes,
Jr., with the 1980 publication of his excellent book Assault on the Liberty,
now in its ninth edition.
-
- The just cause of the USS Liberty survivors has great
momentum. Please add to it. This is the missing piece to the Middle East
Peace Puzzle. Those who care should know.
-
- As for the Zionists' last-resort fallback defensive question
- Why on earth would we even think to attack an important ally's ship?
- I present to the Rense Website Audience my own answer: The Pre-4 June
1967 Madrid Pact, which is Appendix C of my Eight Part Peace Proposal for
Greater Jerusalem. Though this article was written 14 years ago, it remains
highly relevant today.
-
- Finally, let me add that it is deeply regrettable that
the USS Liberty issue has been ignored for so long. For example, Wolf
Blitzer passed up an invitation to the first reunion of USS Liberty survivors
in 1982 in Washington and I am sure that he will miss the one about to
take place 8-11 June 2005 at the very same hotel in DC. I truly believe
that if Americans at the decision-making level had only listened to the
champion of the USS Liberty survivors, the late Admiral Thomas H. Moorer,
the Zionist-Neocons never would have prevailed in their immoral, psychopathic
and unconstitutional designs for world dominance brought about by their
wishful thinking for a "new Pearl Harbor" to get their agenda
going.
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- **************************************
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- The Pre-4 June 1967 Madrid Pact (Appendix C)
-
- The author of An Eight Part Peace Proposal for Greater
Jerusalem regrets that he finds it necessary to present to his audience
a conspiracy theory; he is reasonably confident that this theory, if put
fully to the test, will make all of us witnesses to a monumental act of
deception. The author also wishes to emphasize that, with the exception
of this Appendix C, his peace proposal is basically an action programme
and not a discussion paper. He shall endeavour to answer as best he can
written inquiries from LIBERTY NEWS subscribers which are sent to P. O.
Box 449, New York, NY 10185.
-
- According to informed sources whose identities must remain
secret for their own safety, a meeting took place between certain Syrian
and Zionist representatives in the Spanish State, in Madrid, sometime prior
to the Six Day War of June, 1967. The result of this meeting was an agreement
whereby the Syrian conspirators, in consideration of a stupendous sum of
money, promised to orchestrate a retreat of the Syrian Armed Forces from
the Golan Heights against the day of an Israeli advance.
-
- Some details of the arrangements resulting from what
the author now calls "the Madrid Pact" can be found in Suqut
al-Julan, or, The Fall of the Golan, which was published in Cairo in 1980
by the Dar El E'etsam Publishing House. The author, Khalil Mustapha, is
said to be a former Syrian intelligence officer.
-
- In the early spring of 1967, the very idea of Israel's
easy capture of the Golan Heights, an extremely well-fortified place, was
simply preposterous; for this public relations problem, the Syro-Zionist
conspirators had a ruse that would give plausibility to their private real
estate venture. On 7 April 1967, a limited engagement took place between
the armed forces of Syria and of Israel; Syria's principal action that
day was a vituperative harangue against Egypt for not coming to the aid
of Damascus during the short-lived surprise attack. Thus, from this preplanned
skirmish between Israel and Syria there exploded on the airwaves reports
and rumors of war and hot rhetoric that were cleverly designed to place
the blame on Egypt for Israel's imminent taking of the Golan Heights.
-
- The Syrian Minister of Defense at the time, an ambitious
former Air Force General named Hafez al-Asad, was also a brilliant propagandist.
Born in humble circumstances, Asad's love of western money eventually
boosted him to the presidency in 1970; Asad is the only man in world history
to become the leader of his nation right after losing a significant portion
of its sovereign territory. He is a sure shot for the Wax Museum, close
to where the brandy-brained masterminds originally concocted their plans
for the Zionist expansion onto the Golan Heights.
-
- Unforeseen complications arose as the Syro-Zionist conspirators
made ready to put the Israeli flag on the Golan Heights. Egyptian intelligence
had already uncovered this planned treachery against the Syrian people,
which Gamal Abdel Nasser tried to forestall with diversionary tactics along
Israel's southern border. Nasser hoped that the Israeli conspirators,
who were apparently operating on their own with their Syrian counterparts
and not within the councils of their own government, would back off from
their designs on the Golan Heights to the north by making all of Israel
(in fact, all the world) look warily at the Egyptian border to the south.
His purpose was to thwart Israeli aggression with a show of force.
-
- But Nasser could not, and did not, anticipate the reaction
of the Pentagon in Washington, which suddenly became very paranoid about
Dimona, the nuclear weapons facility in Israel's Negev desert, not far
from Egypt's military buildup. Dimona represented then, and still represents
today, an extreme diversion for nuclear armaments of United States and
Israeli human and economic resources, which is an egregious violation of
the letter and spirit of Article 26 of the Charter of the United Nations.
In order to save face, the United States had to protect Dimona at all
costs.
-
- On 7 April 1967, the very same day the Syrians and Israelis
briefly locked horns for the believing world to see, the "303 Committee,"
a United States Government interdepartmental group that supervised CIA
covert operations, met and approved a sensitive Department of Defense project
known as "Frontlet 615," which involved secretly placing an unregistered
submarine or two inside the territorial waters of the United Arab Republic;
this mission was most likely for the purpose of electromagnetic interference
with radio airwaves, thereby allowing United States technical support for
the defense of Dimona and of Israel to proceed undetected. Secrecy was
of paramount importance both tactically and strategically; while Dimona
had to be defended at any cost, if the United States had been exposed as
"a party to a dispute," this great nation, under the provisions
of Article 27 of the Charter of the United Nations, would have been forced
to abstain from voting in the Security Council on matters pertaining to
the Arab-Israeli dispute! Imagine!
-
- Furthermore, Pentagon heads knew that any fighting between
Egypt and Israel would have put the nuclear weapons facility at Dimona
in jeopardy in more ways than one. If the Egyptians had captured Dimona,
their discovery would have been a major embarrassment to the USA; for only
a few years before, it was the USA that had so righteously forced the USSR
to remove its nuclear weapons from Cuba. The Pentagon did not want any
surprises at the United Nations for their colleagues across the Potomac
at the Department of State, who were apparently unaware, or pretended to
be unaware, of the nuclear weapons facility at Dimona. Dean Rusk, then
the US Secretary of State, recently said of those days: "We were
especially concerned about the Israelis. If they ever developed and deployed
nuclear weapons, nuclear proliferation in the Middle East could not be
far behind. Fearful of this, we repeatedly urged Israel not to be the
first country to introduce nuclear weapons into the Middle East. If they
did, we told them they'd lose the United States and the protection of our
nuclear umbrella." (As I Saw It, W. W. Norton & Co., New York,
1990, pp. 342-343)
-
- Whatever the case back then in the 1960s, we know now
-- thanks to one Mordechai Vanunu and The Sunday Times of London (5 October
1986) -- that Israel has nuclear weapons and also rockets to deliver them;
true to Rusk's sober reflections, this ominous development predated Iraq's
acquisition of weapons of mass destruction as a deterrent force. Unlike
Iraq, however, Israel's nuclear facilities have never been open for international
inspection under any circumstances.
-
- The official attitude of the United States Government
with respect to Israel's nuclear weapons capability remains a mystery to
this day. Questions such as "Who knew what about Dimona and when
did they know it?" remain unanswered. Was President John F. Kennedy
opposed to Israel's nuclear weapons program? If so, how far were the Israelis
willing to go to circumvent his objections? (Wasn't President Kennedy
the son of a pro-Nazi United States Ambassador to the Court of St. James?)
Why was the systematic theft of weapons-grade uranium from a US Government
contractor located in the State of Pennsylvania never properly investigated?
These concerns do not fall exclusively within the domestic jurisdiction
of Israel and the United States; the conspiracy of silence in both countries
is a danger to international peace and security.
-
- Nasser's noble bluff was unfortunately destined to fail.
War erupted and, despite all the inflammatory rhetoric of the previous
weeks, Syria stayed in a defensive posture as Israel's attention was focused
on several objective points in the south and the east. In a classic illustration
of "peace through strength" vying with and prevailing over "peace
through understanding," Dean Rusk recollects: "But we were shocked
as well, and angry as hell, when the Israelis launched their surprise offensive.
They attacked on a Monday, knowing that on Wednesday the Egyptian vice-president
would arrive in Washington to talk about reopening the Strait of Tiran."
(As I Saw It, p. 386) The closure of the Strait of Tiran had been declared
a casus belli by Israel, and its reopening would have lessened tensions
in the region considerably. Maybe a telephone call to Secretary of Defense
Robert McNamara or his assistant at the Pentagon, Cyrus Vance, would have
helped immeasurably too.
-
- With a key opportunity for a diplomatic solution lost
forever, the outcome was disastrous for both Egypt and Jordan; with the
West Bank, East Jerusalem, Gaza and Sinai now under Israeli control and
with the action all but finished on these fronts largely because of US
aerial photographic reconnaissance that was made available to the Israel
Defense Force, the Israeli conspirators soon resumed their original preparations
for a northern invasion into Syria.
-
- But at the last moment, another obstacle presented itself
to the Syro-Zionist conspirators: an audio-electromagnetic surveillance
ship, the USS Liberty, arrived off the coast of Gaza. According to James
M. Ennes, Jr., who was an officer aboard this US Navy "spy ship"
at the time, the USS Liberty was in a position to learn a great deal about
the tactics, procedures, morale, discipline, order-of-battle and the military
objectives of both sides of the conflict. Ennes raises a number of important
questions that still need answers in his well researched book, Assault
on the Liberty, which was published by Random House in New York in 1980.
-
- Clearly, the USS Liberty's sudden and unexpected visit
to the eastern Mediterranean put the Golan operation in jeopardy; secrecy
could no longer be assured with this intelligence-gathering platform floating
nearby. A bold move was called for; Israel launched a carefully coordinated
air and sea attack that was calculated to sink the USS Liberty and leave
no survivors -- an extraordinary measure that remains controversial even
to this day largely because the demolished ship refused to go under and
the surviving crew vehemently rejects Israel's claim that the attack was
an unfortunate case of mistaken identity. Thus, the Israel Defense Force,
whose ranks were already thinned over the newly conquered West Bank, East
Jerusalem, Gaza and the Sinai Desert all the way to the Suez Canal, was
finally free to take the virtually impregnable Golan Heights in less than
24 hours! (This feat is indeed wondrous when compared with the PLO's tenacious
defense of Beaufort Castle with rifles and mortars against a fully concentrated
thrust by the Israel Defense Force in 1982.)
-
- Survivors of the USS Liberty formed their very own veterans
association and actively seek ways to bring the whole truth about the attack
on their ship before the American public. Despite strong hindrance brought
to bear on these courageous men by American Jewish organizations, the Liberty
survivors are quite determined to end the cover-up that has been perpetrated
for 24 years now by the governments of Israel and the United States. Largely
because of their self-sacrificing dedication and diligent supererogation
that carry on in their retirement years, the United States Navy changed
course in 1989 and finally admitted that the original Navy Court of Inquiry
focused only on certain military communication problems prior to the attack
and the heroic efforts of Liberty's crew in controlling damage caused by
the attack. Clearly, the presiding officer, Admiral Isaac Kidd, never
carried out in good faith President Lyndon Johnson's order to investigate
all the circumstances of the attack. Or, maybe Kidd's real instructions
came to him between the lines.
-
- The United States Navy now maintains that sensitive international
issues arising from Israel's attack on the USS Liberty were best left for
diplomatic and political consideration. But for 24 years, the Congress
of the United States, because of sheer lack of integrity, has failed to
face this issue honestly and forthrightly. The House of Representatives
has a Constitutional mandate "To define and punish Piracies and Felonies
committed on the high Seas, and Offenses against the Law of Nations."
(Article I, section 8) But in the case of the USS Liberty, this assembly
refuses to recognize and carry out one of its enumerated powers. In fact,
the case of the USS Liberty represents the only major incident at sea involving
a US Navy ship that has not been fully investigated by Congress.
-
- Political expediency is by no means the only reason American
politicians have for ducking responsibility when it comes to the USS Liberty.
Other factors include the demagogic character of the major American Jewish
organizations. For example, an excellent TV documentary, called "Days
of Rage," produced by Jo Franklin Trout, was nearly kept off the air
through their highly skilled and organized protests across the United States.
The film was finally aired on 6 September 1989 thanks to an emerging Arab-
American constituency, but even so, a very controversial statement evoked
by Ms. Trout from retired Israeli Major General Mattiyahu Peled, that the
conquest of the Golan Heights was the "private venture of the then
Defense Minister Moishe Dayan and a few generals who were very much interested
in this adventure," drew no comment whatsoever from Hodding Carter's
discussion panel or any other member of the press, the government or academia
except this writer. The shrill Jewish protestors caused PBS executives
to "wrap" the documentary with two others more to their liking,
and placed one at the beginning and the other at the end of "Days
of Rage," thereby wearing down the attention span of most TV viewers.
How Peled's remarkable statement can still be ignored in public fora for
so long remains to be explained fully. Certainly there is a "chilling
effect" on certain topics that are unflattering to Israel, from the
halls of Congress even to one's own living room.
-
- Another reason for American politicians to shun the just
cause of the USS Liberty Veterans Association is the strenuous effort by
American Jewish lobbyists to persuade government officials to believe that
the attack was an accident and that any statement to the contrary is merely
Arab propaganda or out and out anti-Semitism. Indeed, most Congressmen
are more familiar with the Israeli version of the attack than the well-
researched accounts that their own fellow citizens are trying to offer
against all odds. Unrelenting pressure has been applied to those who ask
questions too much.
-
- One must also consider the fears that normally attend
espionage and blackmail. Israel's official version of the attack, a Preliminary
Inquiry known as the "Yerushalmi Report," makes clear reference
in its opening paragraphs (establishing time, place, etc.) to the officially
"unconfirmed" existence of a submarine in the vicinity of the
USS Liberty on the day of the attack. It is quite easy to conjecture that
such prominent mention of an unconfirmed sighting of a submarine was a
warning to the United States Government that any rigorous investigation
into the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty would also result in exposure
of the "Frontlet 615" project, which, as already mentioned, involved
secretly placing at least one submarine inside UAR territorial waters --
a clear violation of international law, and an especially serious one by
an avowed neutral nation that was in fact controlling the course of an
ongoing war.
-
- A thorough investigation into all the circumstances of
Israel's premeditated attack on the USS Liberty will, of course, consider
the question of motivation, and such an inquiry will inevitably lead not
only to a realistic appraisal of the "miraculous" Golan operation,
which just happened to proceed apace a day after Liberty's electronic eavesdropping
capability was neutralized by Israeli jet fighters and torpedo boats, but
also to a frank and objective discussion of the Pentagon's key role in
Israel's aggression against its Arab neighbors. The stakes are indeed
quite high: The duplicity, the lies, the ruthlessness and corruption will
be exposed for all to see. But with the removal of the facade and all
the false pretenses associated with "bargaining chips" and "land
for peace" and "limited autonomy" (Give me limited autonomy
or give me death, already!?!?) and with proper measures for accountability
and responsibility finally taken, the consequences can be dealt with justly
and expeditiously and the United Nations will be free to move on the Arab-Israeli
agenda without so many hidden obstacles.
-
- And finally, an investigation of the USS Liberty incident
is such a hot political potato because the Bush Administration, which stood
so vigorously on principle in the Arabian Gulf crisis, would be compelled
to admit US involvement in Israel's willful aggression against Egypt, Jordan
and Syria in 1967. The White House, having poured its armed forces into
Saudi Arabia, has reminded Arabs of what could have been done for Palestinians
if President Bush or any other President of the United States since Eisenhower
had so chosen. In stark contrast, the White House's niggling veto in May
1990 of a United Nations Security Council Resolution calling for United
Nations observers in the Israeli-occupied territories leaves a very bitter
aftertaste. What good was the UN coalition against Iraq if there cannot
be a UN coalition for peace between Israel and the Palestinian people?
-
- Some readers will believe without a doubt that collusion
between Israel and Syria is just too far-fetched an idea to imagine. They
would be well advised to read Jimmy Carter's Blood of Abraham (p. 79) where
he describes at some length "the peculiar confluence of some Syrian
and Israeli interests." This book, published by Houghton Mifflin
in New York in 1985, contains plenty of food for thought.
-
- The "Madrid Pact" not only explains certain
events in the past such as the USS Liberty incident but also offers a ready
explanation of the current impasse in the Arab- Israeli dispute. Take
for example this cryptic statement by Shimon Peres, which is from a Rosh
Hashanah radio address that he made when he was still the Prime Minister
of Israel and which appeared as a news item inside the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner:
-
- "In the past we have already seen several instances
in which we reached all kinds of understandings with the Syrians -- on
the Golan Heights, even in Lebanon itself -- almost without negotiations.
When the Syrians identify their interests, and when they are capable of
also understanding our interests, and there is no conflict between the
two, then an understanding is created which is limited in scope and limited
to a certain place. And this is what I see in the future, more or less."
-
- In straight talk, Peres's message is that United Nations
Security Council Resolution 242 has no bearing at all insofar as the Golan
Heights are concerned. Israel refuses to implement this resolution and
Israel will not even attempt to negotiate the content of this resolution
with Syria. Avoiding an international peace conference is Israel's way
of avoiding discussions about 242 and the Golan Heights. Simply put, there
is no need for negotiations where an agreement already exists! Never mind
that this secret agreement was sealed with the blood of the Liberty crew.
-
- This Syro-Israeli "understanding" is, in effect,
an agreement, and, as such, it violates Article 102 of the Charter of the
United Nations, which stipulates that every treaty and international agreement
"shall as soon as possible be registered with the Secretariat and
published by it."
-
- Furthermore, this failure on the part of Israel and Syria
to honor Article 102 effectively prevents the United Nations Security Council
from exercising its responsibilities under Section 2 of Article 36 of the
Charter of the United Nations, which enjoins the Security Council to "take
into consideration any procedures for the settlement of the dispute which
have already been adopted by the parties." Such a procedure is the
secret agreement or understanding between Israel and Syria which this writer
calls the "Madrid Pact."
-
- Shimon Peres's "understanding" with the Syrians,
which was cited above, has impaired his own thinking process to such an
extent that he dares to assert, in an article published on the Op-Ed page
of the New York Times of 21 December 1988, that a "comprehensive settlement"
can be negotiated with a Joint Palestinian-Jordanian delegation. He hopes
in vain to isolate Syria from negotiations by not mentioning Syria in his
article! The editors of the New York Times are playing in the same key
with Peres. Reading this newspaper, one can easily get the impression that
the West Bank and Gaza are the only occupied territories. A semantical
shift makes occupied Lebanon a "security zone." And Jerusalem,
east and west, is just a dot conveniently straddling the 1967 green line.
But the Golan Heights? Where seldom is heard a discouraging word, all
is calm; all is quiet! No problem. Not even those diagonal lines that
denote "occupied by Israel" on their maps; they are for the West
Bank and Gaza only.
-
- Common sense of course tells us that a comprehensive
peace plan for the Arab- Israeli dispute will ultimately be implemented
only by all the parties involved in the dispute. Any separate arrangements
by Israel and Syria with the weaker entities, Jordan and Lebanon, will
only preserve the Syro-Israeli understanding, which will sooner or later
undermine any efforts to make peace. Unfortunately, this is the direction
that we seem to be taking as the superpower sponsors of Israel and Syria
prepare to take matters into their own hands at a "regional peace
conference" in October 1991.
-
- Only an international peace conference sponsored by the
United Nations with the participation of the five permanent members of
the Security Council can offer authenticity and balance to Middle East
peace negotiations; without such a unified approach one must question the
variable commitment of the USA to the UN as it runs hot in the case of
Iraq but freezes on issues concerning Israel. With the balance and authenticity
that only the United Nations can bring to the negotiations, imaginative
solutions are possible, including one that features a legal mechanism for
conflict resolution patterned after the only provision of the Constitution
of the United States that has never been exercised. Article 4, Section
3 is the inspiration and basis for the territorial arrangements called
for in this work, An Eight Part Peace Proposal for Greater Jerusalem.
-
- Copyright 1991 Stephen M. St. John, All rights reserved.
Non-commercial dissemination of The Pre-4 June 1967 Madrid Pact is permitted
and encouraged so long as proper attribution is given to the author and
there are no changes in the text.
-
- This article appeared in the official newsletter of the
USS Liberty Veterans Association, Liberty News, Volume 9 for June 1991,
on pages 48 through 52, and may be accessed at the LVA website www.ussliberty.org/newsletters.htm
and Hierosolyma: An Eight Part Peace Proposal for Greater Jerusalem can
be found at http://mysite.verizon.net/vze4wbps.
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