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Does Liberty Matter?
by Ahmed Amr
Dissident Voice
November 8, 2003
Should the
long dormant file on the USS Liberty be opened again? Is there any new
development that would warrant a congressional investigation? The survivors of
the Israeli assault on the Liberty have been lobbying Capitol Hill to probe the
matter for thirty-six years. Why should a single sworn affidavit by a retired
Navy captain make a difference? Does the USS Liberty still matter?
The answer
to all these questions is yes. Does that mean we will get a congressional
hearing? May be. Maybe not. There are plenty of reasons for pessimism. A
detailed and compelling narrative of the Liberty ‘incident’ has long been
available in the form of a book by one of the officers who survived the
assault, Lt. James Ennes. Anyone who has read his “Assault on the Liberty” or
attended one of his lectures will likely arrive at the same conclusion as Eric
Margolis who called it ‘America’s most shameful secret’.
Along with
other survivors, Ennes has set up a web site (www.ussliberty.org) that tracks
developments relating to the assault.
No single American has contributed more to keeping the issue alive than
Ennes. For over three decades, Jim Ennes has led the futile effort to bring this
matter to closure. He has adamantly maintained that the Israeli attack was
deliberate and that there was a government cover-up. Many senior Navy officers
have backed up his allegations, including Admiral Thomas Moorer.
For all
their trouble, nothing has come of their efforts. Ennes himself has become
‘weary’ of his long crusade to shed light on the deliberate and pre-meditated
slaughter of young American sailors off the Sinai coast in 1967.
Why is
there a sudden interest in this old bit of Navy history? No reason except that
one of the principal actors involved in the cover-up has broken his silence.
The ‘John Dean’ of the USS Liberty has emerged from the shadows with a signed
affidavit confirming that there was a cover-up and that he played a role in it.
Captain Ward Boston has joined the fray. It is now left to others to get his
story past the thick walls of the pro-Israeli spin machine.
On October
13, 2003 Captain Ward Boston appeared at a press conference on Capitol Hill.
Most mass media outlets didn’t even bother to show up. But his account of the
cover-up that followed the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty was briefly
mentioned in an AP article. For a couple of hours, the AP article was even
featured on Yahoo. The next day, the
story was ancient history.
If you
read the AP story, you would hardly notice that this retired navy officer had
just dropped a major bombshell on Capitol Hill. After thirty-six years of
silence, Captain Ward Boston had decided to come forward with a signed affidavit
that revealed the fact that Israeli attack on the Liberty was deliberate.
What made
Ward Boston such an expert on the Liberty ‘incident’? Nothing except that he was the Navy attorney who led the military
investigation into whether the attack was deliberate or accidental. What made
the story of his affidavit worthy of further attention? Nothing except that his
sworn affidavit stated that President Johnson and Defense Secretary McNamara
had ordered him to conclude that the attack was accidental, regardless of the
evidence to the contrary. Was anyone else going to back up his serious
allegation? Nobody, except retired Admiral Thomas Moorer, who was chief of
naval operations at the time of the attack. He later became the Chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff. Admiral Moorer had arrived at his conclusions by
investigating the Liberty ‘incident’ with an independent panel of former senior
military officials and retired diplomats.
The AP
story quoted Admiral Moorer as saying that the USS Liberty was “one of the
classic all-American cover-ups.” Admiral Moorer also asked a pertinent
question: “Why would our government put Israel’s interest ahead of our
own?”
Going over
the text of the Associated Press article is very instructive. An Israeli
Embassy spokesman, Mark Regev, gets the last word with a gorilla sized sound
bite of 41 choice words. Count them yourself. “I can say unequivocally that the
Liberty tragedy was a terrible accident, that the Israeli pilots involved
believed they were attacking an enemy ship. This was in the middle of a war.
This is something that we are not proud of.”
So, we
have Admiral Moorer, who went to the trouble of showing up in a wheelchair to
demand a congressional investigation, coming in second at seventeen words. Less
than half the space devoted to the Israeli Embassy spokesman who only had to
pick up the phone.
What about
Captain Ward Boston, who was supposedly the subject of this AP story. He was
left to defend why he took so long to ‘share the truth’. Notice the carefully
placed quotes around those three words. That is how an Associated Press
‘journalist’ makes you doubt the good Captain. Boston was left to defend his
tardiness. What was his response to the incredulous unidentified staffer from
the AP? “When orders come … I follow them.” What are those three dots in the
middle of the quote? Who knows? I suspect the Captain had used up his full
allotment of five words.
Although
the AP staffer managed to get a hold of the spin man at the Israeli embassy,
his calls to the Navy were not “immediately returned”. So, did he give the Navy five minutes or ten
minutes? Your guess is as good as mine.
The
unidentified ‘journalist’ who filed this AP story was at the press conference.
He noticed that Admiral Moorer was in a wheelchair. And he had done a bit of
research before showing up at the conference and noticed that that independent
panel that had investigated the USS Liberty attack included James Akins, a
former ambassador to Saudi Arabia. So
now you had cause to also doubt the Admiral’s story. The intention behind
including that little detail was for the reader to suspect that the whole
matter was just a sly attempt by the Saudi’s ‘lobby’ to smear the Israelis.
The bulk
of the article was devoted to Israeli denials. The picture of the USS Liberty
that accompanied the article was of a vessel that looked like it was on its
maiden voyage. It is hard to believe that the Associated Press didn’t have a
file copy of what the ship looked like after
the Israeli assault. On final thing that got my attention was that the AP
article was also credited to Haaretz, an Israeli paper.
Now, here
is a little bombshell to drop on the AP story. After getting that long quote
from the Israeli Embassy, the AP ‘journalist’ called Captain Boston in
Coronado, California, a lovely little island off the coast of San Diego where
many Navy officers like to spend their retirement years. It is over three
thousand miles from Capitol Hill. So, guess what? Boston “did not return calls
seeking comment”. Once Again, Captain Boston was tardy making his way home from
the news conference. He had missed his scheduled Concord jet from Capitol Hill
to his front yard.
What is
missing from this article? Well, The Associated Press ‘forgot’ to contact the
one person who could really challenge the account of Captain Boston and Admiral
Moorer. That would be Robert McNamara. If the phone doesn’t ring, it is
probably the Associated Press not calling McNamara.
Captain Ward
Boston signed a sworn affidavit accusing the former Secretary of Defense of
ordering him to cover up a deliberate attack by a foreign country on an
American ship. The Israeli assault cost the lives of 34 sailors and wounded 174
others. Israeli jets strafed the surviving sailors in their life rafts, which
happens to be a war crime.
This was
not the Gulf of Tonkin assault that Johnson and McNamara used to escalate the
war in Vietnam. Not a single American sailor was wounded in that fictitious
‘assault’. In the case of the USS Liberty, a very anxious McNamara called back
the Sixth Fleet F-4 planes that had taken off to challenge the Israeli jets.
The Israeli air attacks continued for two hours, in an apparent attempt to kill
every single sailor on the Liberty.
While the
Israeli’s continue to deny that the attack was deliberate, they have never
denied that they attacked life rafts. They only claim that they thought the
victims would be Egyptians on a horse transport ship called the El Quseir. So,
even official Israeli denials leave them open to the charge that they were
attempting to murder Egyptians in cold blood. On the same day, thirteen miles
away in El-Arish, they were already murdering hundreds of Egyptian POWs.
Why would the Israelis deliberately try to sink an
American ship? This is a list of
plausible Israeli motives for the attack:
1) Some
have suggested that the Israeli attack against the USS Liberty, an intelligence
ship, was meant to cover up the mass murder of Egyptian POWs at El-Arish.
2) Another
Israeli motive might have been to cover up their intention to attack Syria.
3) Yet a
third possible reason was to sink the Liberty, blame it on Egypt and get the
Americans to ‘retaliate’ by nuking Cairo.
4) To
grasp the fourth motive, one should note that when the Liberty was assaulted
the crew knew immediately that it couldn’t have been Egyptian planes. The
entire Egyptian air force had already been destroyed on the ground in a
‘preemptive’ Israeli strike on the first day of the six-day war. Which means
that the USS Liberty already had intelligence proving that Israel had started
the war. To this day, the Israeli narrative insists on propagating the canard
that Egypt had fired the first shot. A
few days after seizing Gaza and the Sinai, the Israelis attacked Syria and
Jordan and invaded the Golan Heights, Jerusalem and the West Bank. Since the
six-day war, the whole region has been devastated by the consequences of that
aggression. Two generations of Middle Easterners have paid a stiff price in blood
and treasure as a result of the carnage that followed.
Israel’s
motivations for attacking the liberty could have involved one or all four of
the above. The Israelis know how to keep secrets. So, don’t count on them
coming clean any time soon. Israeli Archives on the systematic expulsion and
ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians in 1948 are still secret. Haim Ramon made
an attempt to make them public in 1999, but Barak overruled him.
Captain
Boston’s confirmation of a Johnson/McNamara cover-up provided the vital link to
answering Admiral Moorer’s question. “Why would our government put Israel’s
interest ahead of our own?”
Which one
of Israel’s four plausible reasons would have motivated Johnson to cover-up an
Israeli war crime that took the lives of so many American sailors?
1) Why
would Johnson care about Israel killing Egyptian POWs? He had his own headaches
with American POWs and American war crimes in Vietnam. The Israelis launched
their invasion with French weapons. In
1967, America was not the major supplier of arms to Israel. France was. LBJ could have just issued a one paragraph
condemnation from the State Department and than actively moved to hold Israel
accountable for the murder of American sailors on the high sea. He could have
then sent The Sixth Fleet to teach the Israelis a lesson about decorum on the
high seas.
2) Why
would Johnson be any more upset about an Israeli invasion of Syria than an
Israeli invasion of Egypt? Why would one additional Israeli land grab matter?
It certainly wouldn’t warrant an American cover-up of an Israeli war crime
against Americans. As far as the United States was concerned, it was just
another case of one foreign country invading a couple of other foreign
countries. An American president might object to that and decide to reverse it,
as was the case in Kuwait. More likely, in the event of an Israeli invasion, he
would make his reservations in the form of a reprimand from the State
Department and close the file.
3) Yet a
third possible reason was to sink the Liberty, blame it on Egypt and get the
Americans to ‘retaliate’. This would hardly be a reason for Johnson and
McNamara to cover-up for the Israelis. In fact, it would be all the more reason
for Johnson to have confronted the Israelis. Not only for the assault on the
USS Liberty. But also for trying to entrap America on a second front while
McNamara was busy escalating the war in Vietnam. And for killing and wounding
two hundred American sailors in the process.
Those who remembered the Lavon affair in 1954, were quick to assume that
this was Israel’s major motivation for the attack. In 1954, Israeli agents
attacked American offices in Egypt in an effort to create friction between
Cairo and Washington.
4) Only
the fourth reason would match up the Israeli motivation with the
Johnson/McNamara cover-up. Only the fourth reason would explain why eight
American Presidents have avoided an investigation of the cover-up. If the USS
Liberty crew had gathered information confirming that it was Israel that started
the six-day war in 1967, they were not the first to get wind of that news.
Johnson and McNamara already knew because they had given Israel a green light.
There has always been strong evidence pointing to American complicity in the
six-day war, but no solid proof. More on that later. That green light made
Johnson and McNamara complicit not only for approving the invasion but also for
one of the disastrous results of the invasion; the murder of so many American
sailors. Johnson was in no position to point fingers at the Israelis. They
would simply have gone public with the dirty little secret that Johnson and
McNamara had given the nod to the invasion. Johnson’s secret complicity in
giving a green light to Israeli aggression gave birth to a cover-up of why the
IDF also so fit to attack the USS Liberty.
5) The
fourth reason would also explain why the cover-up story has remained buried for
thirty-six years. By late 1967, Israel had already started building settlements
in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Not long after, settlements sprang up in
Sinai and the Golan Heights. Even in Gaza, one of the most densely populated
areas in the world, the expultionist Israeli settler movement saw fit to
confiscate thirty percent of the land to accommodate a few thousand of their
zealots. The land grab of native
Palestinian land continues unabated to this day. The settlement movement was accompanied by a regime of repression
to ‘entice’ the native Palestinians to abandon what remained of their ancient
land. It is a regime of brutality that continues to this day. That is not the
scenario Johnson and McNamara counted on. They had more modest goals. The
defeat of the Egyptian army would lead to the fall of Nasser’s regime. Once
that was accomplished, the Israelis would be told to withdraw to the 1967
borders. Mission accomplished. Johnson’s miscalculation was vintage
McNamara. The cost of their error in
judgment keeps mounting every year. No American president would want to admit
that the United States was a principal party in unleashing the many
catastrophes that were born as a result of Johnson’s decision to bless the
Israeli invasion.
The amount
of effort to avoid a probe of the cover-up makes the assault on the Liberty
unique in American history. Eventually, most American transgressions against
foreigners becomes part of the public record. In the last few years, the U.S.
government has admitted to backing the generals in Greece, Brazil and Argentina
and has shed light on the war crimes perpetrated in My Lai and No Gun Ri. Senator
Bob Kerrey of Nebraska was outed a few years back for his involvement in war
crimes that he himself labeled as ‘atrocities’. Most recently, The Toledo Blade
ran a compelling four part series on how the Tiger Force murdered hundreds of
Vietnamese civilians and on the subsequent Pentagon cover-up. American
involvement in Iran in 1953 is now official history. The list goes on. The coup
in Guatemala in 1954. Nixon and Kissinger’s role in subverting Allende in Chile
in 1973. The green light to the Indonesian invasion of East Timor in 1975. The
official lies that ended up costing 58,000 American dead in Vietnam, not to
mention the uncounted multitudes of Vietnamese and Cambodians that paid the
price of McNamara’s most notorious folly.
At some
point, America’s history of intervention becomes part of the public domain and
we move on to new interventions.
Many other
illicit actions can be added to the above list. The public has been given a
single rationale for this secret foreign policy. It was the Cold War and bad
things happened. You were either with us or against us. File closed.
In the
case of the USS Liberty, the US government is not covering up American
transgressions against the little people of the world. What makes the Liberty
so unique is that Johnson and McNamara staged a cover-up of a war crime by a
foreign government against American sailors.
So why
would the American government air our ‘Cold War’ dirty laundry and refuse to
investigate a deliberate Israeli war crime against the crew of an American Navy
vessel?
The short
answer is that Johnson had a secret agreement with the Israelis. It was very
similar to the secret agreement struck by Israel, France, Britain in a French
Chateau in Severes on October 22, 1956. That Anglo-French agreement with Israel
was titled “The Protocol of Sevres”. It
was a choreographed dance to invade Egypt after the Suez Canal was
nationalized. The full text of the Protocols is provided below. Prime Minister
Guy Mollet signed for France. Ben-Gurion and Moshe Dayan were there to
represent Israel, accompanied by one Shimon Peres. Selwyn Lloyd, the Foreign
Secretary, represented the English. The rest of this story is very well
documented. (See chapter 17 of 'Suez’
by Keith Kyle. Conference of
Collusion.)
The Protocols of Severes was a rather short document. It
was supposed to remain secret. In fact, Article (C-6) states that “The
arrangements of the present protocol must remain strictly secret”. Article
(C-5) is also interesting. “Israel undertakes not to attack Jordan during the
period of operations against Egypt”.
President Johnson’s behavior immediately before and after
the Israeli ‘preemptive’ strike have always suggested that he had signed an
American version of the Protocols of Severes. The day before the Israeli invasion,
he had personally assured Nasser that Israel would not attack Egypt. When the
United Nations Security Council intervened and called for a cease-fire, the
American Ambassador was in no hurry to finalize a draft resolution. US
Ambassador Arthur Goldberg famously said, “Gentlemen, take your time”, giving
the Israelis more time to complete their land grab. After the cease-fire agreement, the Israelis attacked Syria and
ceased the Golan Heights.
How secret was the American-Israeli version of “The Protocols of Sevres”? So secret that
Dean Rusk didn’t know about it. He supported a full investigation of the
Assault on the USS Liberty. So secret, that the only people alive today who
know about it are probably McNamara and whoever signed it for the Israeli side,
probably Abba Eban.
What would Johnson and McNamara hope to achieve from this
sinister collusion with Israel? Again, the American Foreign ethos at the time
was “If you are not with us, you are against us.” The President and his Defense Secretary were probably only
interested in humiliating Nasser for his pan-Arab politics, his socialism and
his prominent involvement in the non-aligned movement. The non-aligned movement
was considered a mere front for the Soviets. In America’s Cold War eyes, Nehru
and Tito and Nasser were considered as ‘subversive’ as Fidel Castro. Ahmed
Sukarno of Indonesia, another leader of the non-aligned movement, had already
been taken care of. Nasser’s Pan-Arab
socialist ideology was anathema and a threat to the American oil colonies in
the Gulf.
Johnson and McNamara almost succeeded in toppling Nasser.
He resigned on June 9th, 1967.
But millions of Egyptians took to the street and demanded that he remain
in office. By all accounts, it was a spontaneous outpouring of affection and
support for Nasser, a man who for all
his faults, was considered as much a victim as any other Egyptian.
The
Israeli trump card
For the record, The Israelis broke article C-6 of the
Sevres Protocol when it suited their purposes. The secret document was ‘leaked’
to embarrass Charles De Gaulle. His sin was that he punished Israel for the
land grab in 1967 by imposing an arms embargo.
The still secret version of the American ‘Sevres Protocol’
would also explain why Johnson and McNamara wrote off the USS Liberty and its
crew. Push comes to shove, the Israelis had a trump card.
Those
waiting for the Israelis to give a confession on why they assaulted the USS
Liberty had better have the patience of Job. Now that Captain Ward Boston has
revealed his long held secret, the need for confessions should start with
Robert McNamara. Perhaps he can be persuaded to lay down Israel’s trump card.
Once that domino falls, they rest will follow.
The
survivors of the USS liberty should not concentrate their efforts on making
Israel accountable. Even if the Israelis confess, their mass media boys would
make certain that this ‘old story’ ended up buried next to the obituaries. Just
take a look at how FOX and CNN sanitized the war crimes of Sharon from Qibya to
Sabra and Shatila to Gaza and Jenin. Or how they managed to completely bury the
devastating implications of Captain Boston’s affidavit.
Given
Captain Boston’s sworn affidavit, we are now certain of one thing. There was a
cover-up. We know it was Johnson and McNamara who ordered the cover-up. Johnson
is now dead. So, we are left with McNamara to reveal his role and his motives
for covering up this dark chapter of American history. This is a lot easier
done than trying to take on the Israeli Lobby, their congressional majority or
their mass media wizards.
We must
demand that McNamara come forward to cleanse his soul. He has done it before
and he should be persuaded to do it again. We don’t need a congressional
investigation that will never happen. We need one single American to come clean
with the survivors of the USS Liberty and the families of the sailors who were
butchered on the morning of June 8, 1967. That one person is McNamara.
This is
not a story that should interest only the families of the murdered sailors and
their mates who survived to tell the tale. Probing the atrocities against the
USS Liberty is essential to understanding the horrible injustice inflicted on
two generations of Middle Easterners by an American foreign policy that can
only be described as cruel.
Does the
Liberty Matter? Today, more than ever. More than any other incident, the USS
Liberty gave the Israeli Lobby cause to believe that they could get away with
anything. The Chicken Hawk neo-cons who are responsible for the campaign of deception
that led to the war in Iraq are an integral part of a Likudnik cabal that has
taken control of the American agenda for the sole purpose of serving Israeli
interests. They know that they have
blunt instruments like FOX TV and the Washington Post to emasculate any major
politician that stands up to them. Over the years, as they move from one
success to another, they have acquired an arrogance that used to be reserved
for absolute monarchs. When you have a podium the size of CNN and the New York
Times, it is not difficult to acquire a bad case of Napoleonic fever.
Any frontal assault against the Lobby and their media ‘assets’ is doomed
to failure. The AP story on Captain Ward’s revelation should serve as an
example. The mass media lads have honed the art of muzzling Israel’s critics to
a fine science. Notice how they managed to bury the Plame affair, the mother of
all Watergates. Why are none of their
‘journalists’ available to investigate the Likudnik Office of Special Plans
(OSP) for cherry picking intelligence to make the case for war in Iraq?
Consider the resources they let loose on Kobe, OJ Simpson, Chandra Levy, Lacy
Peterson and that stain on Lewinsky’s dress. Yet, they refuse to pay a morsel
of attention to the monumental significance of Captain Boston’s affidavit? And
they have the audacity to casually dismiss a Former Joint Chief of Staffs who
comes forward with a compelling story of a government ‘cover-up’?
Yes, the
USS Liberty matters. And we need to make certain that it continues to matter.
Captain Ward Boston took his story to the big boys and they killed it. What is
needed here is a plan of action that gets public attention over the heads of
the mass media and against the neutered will of congress.
To avoid
the frustrations that James Ennes has encountered over the last thirty-six
years, a new approach is needed. The focus needs to be on McNamara, not on
Israel or their slaves in the U.S. Congress. Captain Ward’s affidavit completed
half the job. McNamara’s confession would finish the job and force both
Congress and Israel’s amen corner to take notice that the mystery surrounding
the assault on the USS Liberty will be solved, one way or the other. And
soon.
1) If the
AP boys can’t afford to make a call to McNamara, others can spring a little
change to ask him about his role in covering up the Israeli assault on the USS
Liberty. Implore Robert McNamara to come clean. For that to happen, the
survivors of the Liberty and the survivors who lost loved ones on the Liberty
must make a pledge not to sue McNamara and to forgive him in exchange for the
truth. With a McNamara confession, wrongful death lawsuits can be filed against
the U.S. government and the Israeli government. All we need is another Mea
Culpa from McNamara, not an inquisition.
2) Attempts
need to be made to identify the pilots who took off from the Sixth Fleet to
rescue their brethren on the USS Liberty. Ask them to follow the example of
Captain Ward Boston and come forward with their stories. Why were they told to
return instead of being allowed to challenge the Israeli jets?
3) While
media tycoons like Rupert Murdoch and Sulzberger are certain to avoid this
story like the plague, there are still a few mid-sized independent American
publishers who might well want to press McNamara and the Israelis for answers.
The Toledo Blade is one place to start. The Seattle Times is family owned. The
Atlanta Journal is independent. The Christian Science Monitor should be lobbied
to follow up on Captain Boston’s revelations. European journalists should also
be encouraged to join the fray, especially the Guardian, the Independent and Le
Monde. If your local paper is family owned and independent, it might have more
resources to attach to this story than you might imagine. In covering the Tiger
Force massacres, The Toledo Blade actually went to the expense of sending
journalists to Vietnam and devoted two full time reporters to the story. They
are now being nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.
4) Find
out where McNamara plays golf. Show up with your signs and let him know that
Americans want him to answer a simple question before he tees off. Why the
cover-up?
5) Find
out about McNamara’s business interests. He is probably on a few Boards of
Directors. Show up at their annual meetings with shareholders. You might have
to buy a few shares to do that.
6) Honor
Captain Ward Boston, Lt. James Ennes and Admiral Thomas Moorer. The best way to
do that is to support the web site WWW.USSLIBERTY.GOV.
Not just by visiting, but by sending them a check so they can make their
presence known and expand their work. Let other web sites and independent media
know about this incredible resource.
7) Call up
the Navy. And give them more than ten minutes to get back to you. A lot of Navy
officers want the answers just as much as you do.
8) Ask the
local chapter of the American Veterans of foreign Wars or the American Legion
to invite Ward, Ennes and Moorer to give a speech.
9) Contact
the Israeli Embassy and let them know you want answers. They won’t respond and
they won’t call back. But you will feel better. Call up the Washington Post and
The Associated Press and ask them to follow up on the Captain Boston’s lead.
They won’t. But you will feel better still.
10) Make
the USS Liberty matter. Don’t give up now. Let us help James Ennes run the
final lap of his long struggle to honor the memory of those who perished on the
USS Liberty. He said there was a cover-up and he was right. This one gutsy
American used his liberty to wage battle on behalf of his mates and challenge
his government and the mass media barons to tell America the truth. Because of
his dedication, we now know for certain that there was a cover-up. We know
McNamara was part of the cover-up. All we now need is for McNamara to tell us
why.
Ahmed
Amr is the Editor of NileMedia. He bashes Thomas Fraudulent because Friedman makes it
such light duty. He can be reached at: Montraj@aol.com
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Creep: Sharon's 100-day war extended to 100 years
The
Protocol of Sevres, 24 October 1956
The results of the conversations which took place at
Sevres from 22-24 October 1956 between representatives of the Governments of
the United Kingdom, The State of Israel and of France are the following:
1) Israeli forces launch in the evening of 29 October
1956 a large-scale attack of the Egyptian forces with the aim of reaching the
Canal zone the following day.
2) On being apprised of these events, The British and
French Governments during the day of 30 October 1956 respectively and
simultaneously make two appeals to the Egyptian Government and the Israeli
Government on the following lines:
A
To the Egyptian Government
a) halt all acts of war
b) withdraw all its troops ten miles from the Canal
c) accept temporary occupation of key positions on
the Canal by the
Anglo-French forces to guarantee freedom of passage
through the
Canal by vessels of all nations until a final
settlement.
B
To the Israeli Government
a) halt all acts of war
b) withdraw all its troops ten miles to the east of
the Canal.
In addition, the Israeli Government will be notified
that the French and British Governments have demanded of the Egyptian
Government to accept temporary occupation of key positions along the Canal by
Anglo-French forces. It is agreed that if one of the Governments refused, or
did not give its consent, within twelve hours, the Anglo-French forces would
intervene with the means necessary to ensure that their demands are accepted.
C
The representatives of the three Governments agree
that the Israeli Government will not be required to meet the conditions in the
appeal addressed to it, in the event that the Egyptian Government does not
accept those in the appeal addressed to it for their part.
3) In the event that the Egyptian Government should
fail to agree within the stipulated time to the conditions of the appeal
addressed to it, the Anglo-French forces will launch military operations
against the Egyptian forces in the early hours of the morning of 31 October.
4) The Israeli Government will send forces to occupy
the western shore of the Gulf of Akaba and the group of islands Tirane and
Sanafir to ensure freedom of navigation in the Gulf of Akaba.
5) Israel
undertakes not to attack Jordan during the period of operations against Egypt.
6)The
arrangements of the present protocol must remain strictly secret.
7) They will enter into force after the agreement of
the three Governments
In addition to this protocol, there is a separate
French Israeli protocol, to provide French jets to Israel.
1) Israel’s
Attack on the Liberty by Jeffrey St. Clair: http://www.counterpunch.org/stclair1126.html
2)
Findings of the Independent Commission of Inquiry into the Israeli Attack on
USS Liberty: http://www.ussliberty.org/findings.htm
3) Affidavit of Captain Ward Boston, USN, JAG (Ret.): http://www.ifamericansknew.org/history/boston.html
4) The USS
Liberty Court of Inquiry: http://www.usslibertyinquiry.com/
5) Best
source of information about the USS Liberty: http://www.ussliberty.org
6) Best
Book: Assault on the Liberty by Jim Ennes
http://www.ussliberty.org/whoisjim.txt
7) “The
USS Liberty: America’s Most Shameful Secret” by Eric S. Margolis: http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig/margolis12.html
8) Israeli
troops killed many Egyptian POWs by Karin Laub
http://www.mideastfacts.com/pow_ap.html
9) Look
who opened the USS Liberty File? Why Captain Ward Boston broke his silence
after 36 years.
http://www.ussliberty.org/wshr703.txt
10)
Additional valuable reference: Body of Secrets by James Bamford