LowerCaseRepublican

Wait...when did I insult you? Close the threads because you are getting pwn3d by facts in the debate or because you've been forced to resort to puerile name calling or close the threads because you're getting dangerous uncomfortable defending distortions and lies?

Good to see you're sticking to the debate and your promise of no name calling, I4E.

They can rely on that because it's putting money in their pockets. . The U.S. Navy Court of Inquiry: The senior legal adviser to the Court of Inquiry reflected that, in his entire career, he has never seen court of inquiry appointing letters with such limited authority, or an investigation made in such haste. The court's hearings began before the Liberty even arrived in Malta, and the report was completed just 10 days after the attack. The court commented on this haste in the official record: "The Court of Inquiry experienced no unusual difficulties incident to conducting the subject proceedings except for the necessity of investigating such a major naval disaster of international significance in an extremely abbreviated time frame." Due in part to the required haste and the limitations imposed on the scope of the court's inquiries ("It was not the responsibility of the court to rule on the culpability of the attackers, and no evidence was heard from the attacking nation"), the court concluded that "available evidence combines to indicate...[that the attack was] a case of mistaken identity." How, one might ask, could one inquire into all of the circumstances without hearing from the attacking nation? In fact, the court did neither. According to Captain Ward Boston, chief legal counsel to the Court of Inquiry, the court found that the attack was deliberate, but reported falsely that it was not because they were directed by the president of the United States and the secretary of defense to report falsely. So the findings are fraudulent. Yet these fraudulent findings were the basis for several other reports that followed. 2. Israeli government investigations: The Ram Ron and Yerushalmi reports of 1967 were not investigations. Both were elements of an Israeli process to determine whether anyone in Israel should be tried for a crime. That the attack itself was an accident was a given. Both hearings officers determined that no one in Israel did anything wrong, and that the USS Liberty was partly responsible, for a number of contrived reasons, such as "failure to fly a flag" and "trying to hide" - which the Navy Court of Inquiry found to be untrue. 3. The Joint Chiefs of Staff Report of June 1967: This was an inquiry into the mishandling of several messages intended for the ship. It was not an investigation into the attack. It did not exonerate Israel, because it did not in any way consider the question of culpability. 4. CIA report of June 13, 1967: This interim report, completed five days after the attack, reported "our best judgment [is] that the attack...was a mistake." No investigation was conducted, and no first-hand evidence was collected. Then-CIA Director Richard Helms later reported in his autobiography that the still-classified final CIA report found that the attack was planned and deliberate - a fact ignored by Mr. Cristol. 5. Clark Clifford report of July 18, 1967: Clark Clifford was directed by Lyndon Johnson to review the Court of Inquiry report and the interim CIA report and "not to make an independent inquiry." His was merely a summary of other fallacious reports, not an "investigation" as alleged by Mr. Cristol. The report reached no conclusions and did not exonerate Israel, as Mr. Cristol also claimed. On the contrary, Clifford wrote later that he regarded the attack as deliberate - a fact ignored by Mr. Cristol. 6. and 7. Two Senate Investigations: The Committee on Foreign Relations meeting of 1967 and Senate Armed Services Committee meeting of 1968 were hearings on unrelated matters which clearly skeptical members used to castigate representatives of the administration under oath before them. Typical questions were, "Why can't we get the truth about this?" They were not "investigations" at all, but budget hearings, and reported no conclusions concerning the attack. They did not exonerate Israel, as claimed by Mr. Cristol. 8. House Appropriations Committee meeting of April and May 1968: This was a budget committee meeting which explored the issue of lost messages intended for the ship. It was not an investigation and reported no conclusions concerning the attack, as alleged by Mr. Cristol. 9. House Armed Services Committee Review of Communications, May 1971: Liberty communications were discussed along with other communications failures. The committee reported no conclusions concerning the attack, as alleged by Mr. Cristol. 10. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, 1979/1981: Mr. Cristol claims that the committee investigated the attack and exonerated Israel, yet he has been unable to provide minutes, a report or other evidence of such an investigation. Rules of the select committee require that any committee investigation be followed by a report. There is no evidence that any investigation was undertaken. More importantly, there is no published committee report of such an investigation; ergo, there was no such investigation. 11. National Security Agency Report, 1981: Upon the publication in 1980 of Assault on the Liberty by James Ennes, the National Security Agency completed a detailed account of the attack. The report drew no conclusions, although its authors did note that the deputy director dismissed the Israeli excuse (the Yerushalmi report) as "a nice whitewash." The report did not exonerate Israel, as claimed by Mr. Cristol. 12. State of Israel - Israel Defense Force History Department report of June 1982: This Israeli government report was a reaction to a published report by Sen. Adlai Stevenson III that he believed the attack to be deliberate and hoped to provide a forum for survivors to tell their story. It was primarily a summary of the Ram Ron and Yerushalmi reports. The Stevenson forum, which was the impetus for the report, was never held. The report supports the official Israeli position that the attack was a tragic accident. It also blames USS Liberty, in part, for the attack. 13. House Armed Services Committee investigation of 1991/1992: Though cited by Mr. Cristol as an investigation which exonerates Israel, the U.S. government reports no record of such an investigation. Cristol claims that the investigation resulted from a letter to Rep. Nicholas Mavroules from Joe Meadors, then-president of the USS Liberty Veterans Association, seeking Mavroules' support. Instead of responding to Liberty veterans, however, Congressman Mavroules referred the matter to Mr. Cristol for advice. Survivors heard nothing further. Meadors' letter was never answered. The U.S. government reports that there has been no such investigation. Summary Mr. Cristol alleges that there were "thirteen investigations, all of which exonorated Israel." This allegation is completely false. "Thirteen." Putting aside all other issues, there were not "thirteen" investigations (or whatever you wish to call them). Two of the "thirteen" were complete fabrications - they never happened. "Investigations." Of the remaining eleven documents referenced by Cristol, at best, three could be argued to have been investigations. The other eight were nothing more than compilations of existing reports. Of those three, two (the Yerushalmi Report and the Ram Ron Report) were Israeli investigations to determine whether the Israeli Chief Military Prosecutor's indictments of a number of Israeli military personnel for criminal negligence should be upheld. The third (the Joint Chiefs of Staff Report) was an investigation, but it only inquired into the facts of the message routing system and did not undertake any "investigation" of the attack. "Exonorated Israel." Not surprisingly, the two Israeli reports (or if you prefer "investigations") not only exonorated Israel, but affirmatively found that no Israeli military personnel did even the slightest thing negligently or improperly. Those U.S. reports which even offered an opinion uniformly stated that there was not sufficient evidence at the time of the report (in most cases mid-June 1967) to establish that the attack was not a mistake. This is hardlly an exonoration of Israel. Nonetheless, Cristol continues to spin the Big Lie that there have been "thirteen investigations, all of which have exonorated Israel." Readers should judge all of his work by the quality of his research on this subject. No matter what one might conclude concerning the others, two of the alleged investigations are simply lies - they never happened.

You fail to see that the IDF is admitting to it (the 1948 massacre) by putting it in their archives. Its their soldiers talking about things in their archives. How is this not getting through to you?

Did you see the refutation I posted about the investigations? There were plenty of holes in them and in fact, 2 never took place.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0...4461314,00.html Of course, just because the threat of terror hasn't actually shrunk, and just because the US military is already stretched well past its limits, and just because civil liberties are increasingly a distant memory... and now we're also admitting that we're never actually going to win, that's no good reason to stop. I'm sure that's one thing Bush and Kerry can agree on.

Judicial Watch is good people. They're the ones that sued Cheney for his Energy documents when he had that meeting with big members of Enron etc. to decide Energy policy. After they won the court case, Cheney appealed and lost again. Then he put the documents under the vast blanket of "executive privilege". Only problem is the idea of a polygraph test to determine if this guy is telling the truth? In 1997, an FBI agent by the name of Drew Richardson who had dealt with polygraphs for 25 years as an agent. He stated under oath in the Senate Judiciary Committee about using polygraphs to question people in sensitive positions: "It is completely without any theoretical foundation and has absolutely no validity. Although there is disagreement among scientists about the use of polygraph testing in criminal matters, there is almost universal agreement that polygraph screening is completely invalid and should be stopped. As one of my colleagues frequently says, the diagnostic value of this type of testing is no more than that of astrology or tea-leaf reading. If the test had any validity, which it does not, both my own experience and published scientific research has proven that anyone can be taught to beat this type of polygraph exam in a few minutes." Needless to say he was told not to speak on the topic again and the FBI has refused him from speaking about it. I didn't wanna threadjack but just found that was really interesting about polygraph testing. As for this Kerry thing...it wouldn't surprise me at all if these claims are substantiated. Remember, the media is there to debate Kerry's hair, not make investigate breakthroughs like they did with the Pentagon Papers (back when the media had balls)

Yet another straw man argument, I4E. The fact of the atrocities committed by the IDF in 1948 is in the (let me put this in bold so you don't miss the source) ISRAELI DEFENSE FORCE ARCHIVES, it's to be believed.

They had to gain the fact that nobody would find out about their mass slaughter of Egyptian POWs and that nobody would find out about their plan to f*** the cease fire and invade the Golan Heights. http://edition.cnn.com/WORLD/9509/mass_graves/ http://www.time.com/time/international/199...middleeast.html But I'm sure Time and CNN are anti-Semitic as well. An intelligence ship could have found out both of those. And telling me I have a limited brain, good to know that you're keeping your promise of no insults. As for the investigations exonerating it as an accident. 1. The U.S. Navy Court of Inquiry: The senior legal adviser to the Court of Inquiry reflected that, in his entire career, he has never seen court of inquiry appointing letters with such limited authority, or an investigation made in such haste. The court's hearings began before the Liberty even arrived in Malta, and the report was completed just 10 days after the attack. The court commented on this haste in the official record: "The Court of Inquiry experienced no unusual difficulties incident to conducting the subject proceedings except for the necessity of investigating such a major naval disaster of international significance in an extremely abbreviated time frame." Due in part to the required haste and the limitations imposed on the scope of the court's inquiries ("It was not the responsibility of the court to rule on the culpability of the attackers, and no evidence was heard from the attacking nation"), the court concluded that "available evidence combines to indicate...[that the attack was] a case of mistaken identity." How, one might ask, could one inquire into all of the circumstances without hearing from the attacking nation? In fact, the court did neither. According to Captain Ward Boston, chief legal counsel to the Court of Inquiry, the court found that the attack was deliberate, but reported falsely that it was not because they were directed by the president of the United States and the secretary of defense to report falsely. So the findings are fraudulent. Yet these fraudulent findings were the basis for several other reports that followed. 2. Israeli government investigations: The Ram Ron and Yerushalmi reports of 1967 were not investigations. Both were elements of an Israeli process to determine whether anyone in Israel should be tried for a crime. That the attack itself was an accident was a given. Both hearings officers determined that no one in Israel did anything wrong, and that the USS Liberty was partly responsible, for a number of contrived reasons, such as "failure to fly a flag" and "trying to hide" - which the Navy Court of Inquiry found to be untrue. 3. The Joint Chiefs of Staff Report of June 1967: This was an inquiry into the mishandling of several messages intended for the ship. It was not an investigation into the attack. It did not exonerate Israel, because it did not in any way consider the question of culpability. 4. CIA report of June 13, 1967: This interim report, completed five days after the attack, reported "our best judgment [is] that the attack...was a mistake." No investigation was conducted, and no first-hand evidence was collected. Then-CIA Director Richard Helms later reported in his autobiography that the still-classified final CIA report found that the attack was planned and deliberate - a fact ignored by Mr. Cristol. 5. Clark Clifford report of July 18, 1967: Clark Clifford was directed by Lyndon Johnson to review the Court of Inquiry report and the interim CIA report and "not to make an independent inquiry." His was merely a summary of other fallacious reports, not an "investigation" as alleged by Mr. Cristol. The report reached no conclusions and did not exonerate Israel, as Mr. Cristol also claimed. On the contrary, Clifford wrote later that he regarded the attack as deliberate - a fact ignored by Mr. Cristol. 6. and 7. Two Senate Investigations: The Committee on Foreign Relations meeting of 1967 and Senate Armed Services Committee meeting of 1968 were hearings on unrelated matters which clearly skeptical members used to castigate representatives of the administration under oath before them. Typical questions were, "Why can't we get the truth about this?" They were not "investigations" at all, but budget hearings, and reported no conclusions concerning the attack. They did not exonerate Israel, as claimed by Mr. Cristol. 8. House Appropriations Committee meeting of April and May 1968: This was a budget committee meeting which explored the issue of lost messages intended for the ship. It was not an investigation and reported no conclusions concerning the attack, as alleged by Mr. Cristol. 9. House Armed Services Committee Review of Communications, May 1971: Liberty communications were discussed along with other communications failures. The committee reported no conclusions concerning the attack, as alleged by Mr. Cristol. 10. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, 1979/1981: Mr. Cristol claims that the committee investigated the attack and exonerated Israel, yet he has been unable to provide minutes, a report or other evidence of such an investigation. Rules of the select committee require that any committee investigation be followed by a report. There is no evidence that any investigation was undertaken. More importantly, there is no published committee report of such an investigation; ergo, there was no such investigation. 11. National Security Agency Report, 1981: Upon the publication in 1980 of Assault on the Liberty by James Ennes, the National Security Agency completed a detailed account of the attack. The report drew no conclusions, although its authors did note that the deputy director dismissed the Israeli excuse (the Yerushalmi report) as "a nice whitewash." The report did not exonerate Israel, as claimed by Mr. Cristol. 12. State of Israel - Israel Defense Force History Department report of June 1982: This Israeli government report was a reaction to a published report by Sen. Adlai Stevenson III that he believed the attack to be deliberate and hoped to provide a forum for survivors to tell their story. It was primarily a summary of the Ram Ron and Yerushalmi reports. The Stevenson forum, which was the impetus for the report, was never held. The report supports the official Israeli position that the attack was a tragic accident. It also blames USS Liberty, in part, for the attack. 13. House Armed Services Committee investigation of 1991/1992: Though cited by Mr. Cristol as an investigation which exonerates Israel, the U.S. government reports no record of such an investigation. Cristol claims that the investigation resulted from a letter to Rep. Nicholas Mavroules from Joe Meadors, then-president of the USS Liberty Veterans Association, seeking Mavroules' support. Instead of responding to Liberty veterans, however, Congressman Mavroules referred the matter to Mr. Cristol for advice. Survivors heard nothing further. Meadors' letter was never answered. The U.S. government reports that there has been no such investigation. Summary Mr. Cristol alleges that there were "thirteen investigations, all of which exonorated Israel." This allegation is completely false. "Thirteen." Putting aside all other issues, there were not "thirteen" investigations (or whatever you wish to call them). Two of the "thirteen" were complete fabrications - they never happened. "Investigations." Of the remaining eleven documents referenced by Cristol, at best, three could be argued to have been investigations. The other eight were nothing more than compilations of existing reports. Of those three, two (the Yerushalmi Report and the Ram Ron Report) were Israeli investigations to determine whether the Israeli Chief Military Prosecutor's indictments of a number of Israeli military personnel for criminal negligence should be upheld. The third (the Joint Chiefs of Staff Report) was an investigation, but it only inquired into the facts of the message routing system and did not undertake any "investigation" of the attack. "Exonorated Israel." Not surprisingly, the two Israeli reports (or if you prefer "investigations") not only exonorated Israel, but affirmatively found that no Israeli military personnel did even the slightest thing negligently or improperly. Those U.S. reports which even offered an opinion uniformly stated that there was not sufficient evidence at the time of the report (in most cases mid-June 1967) to establish that the attack was not a mistake. This is hardlly an exonoration of Israel. Nonetheless, Cristol continues to spin the Big Lie that there have been "thirteen investigations, all of which have exonorated Israel." Readers should judge all of his work by the quality of his research on this subject. No matter what one might conclude concerning the others, two of the alleged investigations are simply lies - they never happened.

So wait, an Israeli historian living in Israel who found the real history in the IDF archives is an anti-Semite? I wonder if you say the same about the Sayaret Metkal dissenters who are refusing to serve in the occupied territories amongst other Israeli civilians that are refusing to serve in the IDF because of the crimes the IDF perpetrates. Face it, most Jews are sick and tired of being angered by the propaganda and being manipulated because of the bulls*** claim that they are being hated for their Jewish heritage. It's the same thing with Cosby calling out blacks like he did. Sure, there are a slim minority of asshats who are true anti-Semites but being critical and showing what actually happened in the historical record is not anti-Semitism, no matter how many times you want to say it. I remember when anti-Semite meant somebody that hates Jews. Now I think it's become simply a term for somebody whom Jews hate because they question the practices of the Israeli police state.

I don't know how official the inquiries are when they deny the people who were actually on the boat the ability to testify. When even IDF pilots are saying that they ID'ed the boat as American and bombed it anyway, there's enough damning evidence to show that Israel attacked it on purpose.

I wonder where he got these statistics from. The Jews were living fine pre-1948 co-existing with Arabs in the region. Funny only after their war crimes was there extreme dislike for Israelis. Now after 56 years the truth emerges. The Israelis were waiting for an opportunity to expand beyond the partition borders. The Palestinians did not flee but were driven out. There was not one but 24 massacres. "Transfer" or "Ethnic Cleansing" was (Israeli PM) David Ben Gurion's unwritten policy. An Israeli historian Benny Morris has access to IDF archives and the integrity to speak. In a January 8 interview in Ha'aretz, Morris says [about the 1948 "war of independence" and the Palestinian fleeing]: "Twenty-four [massacres]. In some cases four or five people were executed, in others the numbers were 70, 80, 100. There was also a great deal of arbitrary killing. Two old men are spotted walking in a field - they are shot. A woman is found in an abandoned village - she is shot. There are cases such as the village of Dawayima [in the Hebron region], in which a column entered the village with all guns blazing and killed anything that moved. "The worst cases were Saliha (70-80 killed), Deir Yassin (100-110), Lod (250), Dawayima (hundreds) and perhaps Abu Shusha (70). There is no unequivocal proof of a large-scale massacre at Tantura, but war crimes were perpetrated there. At Jaffa there was a massacre about which nothing had been known until now. The same at Arab al Muwassi, in the north. About half of the acts of massacre were part of Operation Hiram [in the north, in October 1948]: at Safsaf, Saliha, Jish, Eilaboun, Arab al Muwasi, Deir al Asad, Majdal Krum, Sasa. In Operation Hiram there was a unusually high concentration of executions of people against a wall or next to a well in an orderly fashion. "That can't be chance. It's a pattern. Apparently, various officers who took part in the operation understood that the expulsion order they received permitted them to do these deeds in order to encourage the population to take to the roads. The fact is that no one was punished for these acts of murder. Ben-Gurion silenced the matter. He covered up for the officers who did the massacres." My point here is that Jewish propagandists like Dennis Prager mislead Jews. As long as they think they are disliked for no reason, Jews can be manipulated. Their actions create more anti-Semitism, and the vicious cycle continues.

I4E, first hand accounts from testimonies on the official survivors' web page along with articles that I posted in the locked thread are where I derived all this evidence from. So, you've seen the evidence (assuming you read it)

Oh, I forgot to add: the reason for the coverup was that many military weapons firms and the Pentagon wanted to sell weapons to Israel but were banned with the weapons embargo. At the time of the Liberty attack, if the overwhelming evidence that it was a purposeful attack on a US ship, the odds of getting the embargo lifted and allowing weapons to be sold to Israel would be slim and none (and slim just left town). So, they hushed it up. In January 1968, the arms embargo on Israel was lifted and the sale of American weapons began to flow. By 1971, Israel was buying $600 million of American-made weapons a year. Two years later the purchases topped $3 billion. Almost overnight, Israel had become the largest buyer of US-made arms and aircraft.

Reason they attacked: Israel was slaughtering thousands of Egyptian POWs (the mass graves have been found ) A somewhat more likely scenario holds that Moshe Dayan wanted to keep the lid on Israel's plan to breach the new cease-fire and invade into Syria to seize the Golan. It has been suggested that Dayan ordered the attack on the Liberty with the intent of pinning the blame on the Egyptians and thus swinging public and political opinion in the United States solidly behind the Israelis. Of course, for this plan to work, the Liberty had to be destroyed and its crew killed. Also, it was to cover up the breaking of the cease fire and taking the Golan Heights. There's another factor. The Liberty was positioned just off the coast from the town of El Arish. In fact, Ennes and others had used town's mosque tower to fix the location of the ship along the otherwise featureless desert shoreline. The IDF had seized El Arish and had used the airport there as a prisoner of war camp. On the very day the Liberty was attacked, the IDF was in the process of executing as many as 1,000 Palestinian and Egyptian POWs, a war crime that they surely wanted to conceal from prying eyes. According to Gabriel Bron, now an Israeli reporter, who witnessed part of the massacre as a soldier: "The Egyptian prisoners of war were ordered to dig pits and then army police shot them to death." According to accounts of people who were on the boat (and I'll believe them because, they were actually there and all have the same account even after all these years) The IDF sent out reconnaissance planes to identify the ship. They made eight trips over a period of three hours. You mean to tell me in EIGHT trips they couldn't figure out that it was a US ship even with the huge new US flag on it? As for McNamera, he's complicit in the coverup: The Liberty's radio team tried to issue a distress call, but discovered the frequencies had been jammed by the Israeli planes with what one communications specialist called "a buzzsaw sound." Finally, an open channel was found and the Liberty got out a message it was under attack to the USS America, the Sixth Fleet's large aircraft carrier. Two F-4s left the carrier to come to the Liberty's aid. Apparently, the jets were armed only with nuclear weapons. When word reached the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara became irate and ordered the jets to return. "Tell the Sixth Fleet to get those aircraft back immediately," he barked. McNamara's injunction was reiterated in saltier terms by Admiral David L. McDonald, the chief of Naval Operations: "You get those f***ing airplanes back on deck, and you get them back down." The planes turned around. And the attack on the Liberty continued. Plus, let's not forget that McNamera is a huge liar (looking at his lies about Vietnam as well) After the attack ended, Ennes was approached by his friend Pat O'Malley, a junior officer, who had just sent a list of killed and wounded to the Bureau of Naval Personnel. He got an immediate message back. "They said, 'Wounded in what action? Killed in what action?'," O'Malley told Ennes. "They said it wasn't an 'action,' it was an accident. I'd like for them to come out here and see the difference between an action and an accident. Stupid bastards." Since the Liberty was an intelligence ship, the Pentagon naturally refused to take ownership and responsibility for it being there (just like they do with CIA agents that get wasted) "The Liberty contributed decisively toward its identification as an enemy ship," the IDF report concluded. This was a blatant falsehood, since the Israelis had identified the Liberty at least six hours prior to the attack on the ship. Even though the Pentagon knew better, it gave credence to the Israeli account by saying that perhaps the Liberty's flag had lain limp on the flagpole in a windless sea. The Pentagon also suggested that the attack might have lasted less than 20 minutes. After the initial battery of misinformation, the Pentagon imposed a news blackout on the Liberty disaster until after the completion of a Court of Inquiry investigation. The inquiry was headed by Rear Admiral Isaac C. Kidd. Kidd didn't have a free hand. He'd been instructed by Vice-Admiral McCain to limit the damage to the Pentagon and to protect the reputation of Israel. The Kidd interviewed the crew on June 14 and 15. The questioning was extremely circumscribed. According to Ennes, the investigators "asked nothing that might be embarrassing to Israeland testimony that tended to embarrass Israel was covered with a 'Top Secret' label, if it was accepted at all." Ennes notes that even testimony by the Liberty's communications officers about the jamming of the ship's radios was classified as "Top Secret." The reason? It proved that Israel knew it was attacking an American ship. "Here was strong evidence that the attack was planned in advance and that our ship's identity was known to the attackers (for it its practically impossible to jam the radio of a stranger), but this information was hushed up and no conclusions were drawn from it," Ennes writes. The investigators buried intercepts of conversations between IDF pilots identifying the ship as flying an American flag. It also refused to accept evidence about the IDF's use of napalm during the attacks and choose not to hear testimony regarding the duration of the attacks and the fact that the US Navy failed to send planes to defend the ship. "No one came to help us," said Dr. Richard F. Kiepfer, the Liberty's physician. "We were promised help, but no help came. The Russians arrived before our own ships did. We asked for an escort before we ever came to the war zone and we were turned down." None of this made its way into the 700-page Court of Inquiry report, which was completed within a couple of weeks and sent to Admiral McCain in London for review. McCain approved the report over the objections of Captain Merlin Staring, the Navy legal officer assigned to the inquiry, who found the report to be flawed, incomplete and contrary to the evidence. More proof has recently come to light from the Israeli side. A few years after Attack on the Liberty was originally published, Ennes got a call from Evan Toni, an Israeli pilot. Toni told Ennes that he had just read his book and wanted to tell him his story. Toni said that he was the pilot in the first Israeli Mirage fighter to reach the Liberty. He immediately recognized the ship to be a US Navy vessel. He radioed Israeli air command with this information and asked for instructions. Toni said he was ordered to "attack." He refused and flew back to the air base at Ashdod. When he arrived he was summarily arrested for disobeying orders. I believe there's one word for this, pwn3d.

Neck and upper back strain. Beltran got slammed in the knee with a HBP and had to leave the game. Then Berkman took a nasty shot off his wrist which bounced and smacked him in the coconut and knocked him down for a while. (all in the same inning) And it's 9-3 now Astros with the bases loaded and 0 out for the 'Stros.

Yeah, f*** them. They're not Jews so who gives a s***.They're subhumans, right I4E? Your virulent racism makes me sick.

Tex, if Israel gets implicated by being actively involved in this then I seriously think the US should question the s***load of aid we give them. Do the same with any ally. If they're gonna be dicks then they can go f*** themselves and watch how fast these countries fall into line if the prospects of aid get cut.

Wow great comeback! I'm shocked and amazed at your ability to cunningly debate with facts and evidence and not resort to puerile name calling.

Let's see. Palestinians just might be a bit bitter at the fact that they've been screwed over by the UN and forced to live under oppressive police state structures and forced to be 2nd class citizens because Israel wants their own private ethnic state...just might be a little bit bitter at having to see civilians killed, all their buildings bombed and no ability to make an honest living if guards decide to be asshole and not let them get to their farms etc. But I'm sure Jews and others that felt the effects of the Reich were peachy keen with the Germans right after the end of World War II. As for your statement about 68%, you quote it a lot with no source at all. Makes it just a little bit suspicious to me. (Cite sources to prove your case, for those "intelligence challenged" people out there ) And I am not a fan of Arafat, I am rather a fan of the NPI movement in Palestine. It is a movement of both Jews and Palestinians and has about 55% of the population behind it now according to research done by Edward Said. The most promising is made up of the members of the National Palestinian Initiative; they are grass roots activists whose main activity is not pushing papers on a desk, nor juggling bank accounts, nor looking for journalists to pay attention to them, but who come from the ranks of the professionals, the working classes, and young intellectuals and activists, the teachers, doctors, lawyers, working people who have kept society going while also fending off daily Israeli attacks. Second, these are people committed to the kind of democracy and popular participation undreamt of by the Authority, whose idea of democracy is stability and security for itself. Lastly, they offer social services to the unemployed, health to the uninsured and the poor, proper secular education to a new generation of Palestinians who must be taught the realities of the modern world, not just the extraordinary worth of the old one. For such programs, the NPI stipulates that getting rid of the occupation is the only way forward, and that in order to do that, a representative national unified leadership be elected freely to replace the cronies, the outdated, and the ineffectiveness that have plagued Palestinian leaders for the past century. Edward Said elaborates saying: One in particular has struck me as significant (and I have attached myself to it) inasmuch as it now provides the only genuine grassroots formation that steers clear both of the religious parties and their fundamentally sectarian politics, and of the traditional nationalism offered up by Arafat's old (rather than young) Fatah activists. It's called the National Political Initiative (NPI) and its leading figure is Mostapha Barghuti, a Moscow-trained doctor, whose main work has been as director of the impressive Village Medical Relief Committee, which has brought healthcare to more than 100,000 rural Palestinians. A former Communist Party stalwart, Barghuti is a quietly spoken organiser who has overcome the hundreds of physical obstacles impeding Palestinian movement or travel abroad to rally nearly every independent individual and organisation of note behind a political programme that promises social reform as well as liberation across doctrinal lines. Barghuti has built an enviably well-run solidarity movement that practises the pluralism and coexistence it preaches. NPI doesn't throw up its hands at the directionless militarisation of the intifada. It offers training programmes for the unemployed and social services for the destitute on the grounds that these answer to present circumstances and Israeli pressure. Above all, NPI, which is about to become a recognised political party, seeks to mobilise Palestinian society at home and in exile for free elections - authentic elections which will represent Palestinian, rather than Israeli or US, interests. This sense of authenticity is what seems so lacking in the path cut out for Abu Mazen. The vision here isn't a manufactured provisional state on 40 per cent of the land, with the refugees abandoned and Jerusalem kept by Israel, but a sovereign territory liberated from military occupation by mass action involving Arabs and Jews wherever possible. Because NPI is an authentic Palestinian movement, reform and democracy have become part of its everyday practice. Organisational meetings have already been held, with many more planned abroad and in Palestine, despite the terrible travel restrictions. It is some solace to think that, while formal negotiations and discussions go on, a host of informal, unco-opted alternatives exist, of which NPI and a growing international solidarity campaign are now the main components.

Wow, nice straw man argumentation! Misrepresent your opposition so it's easier to debate them. 1. Just because you believe they have no legitimacy, there are plenty of non-Zionist Jews who are sickened by the actions of the extremists that have taken power to act in their name. Just like we hate Bush, that doesn't make us "American self-haters" because we dislike the neo-conservative asshat agenda being touted by our government. 2. Arafat and Sharon are the same type of person. Sharon committed war crimes at Sabra and Shatila and has committed numerous war crimes with his extra-judicial murder sprees within Israel not to mention the murder of civilians. (Don't tell me he's not targeting civilians. Shooting missles from a helicopter into an apartment, one knows there will be civilian "collateral damage") 3. As for news, it seems like you read frontpagemag, the Moonie Times (aka the Washington Times) and pro-Zionist papers rather than anything like you stated. As for the media I read, it's not "IHATEISRAEL.com" (a cunning strategy by an equally cunning linguist) but rather Antiwar.com, Common Dreams Media Center, CounterPunch, Salon.com, The Nation, BBC, The Guardian, Buzzflash, Greg Palast etc. along with some US media like Mother Jones, the Progressive etc.

Well, it also reflects badly on the US relationship with Israel. After Pollard got nailed in 1985, Israel stated that it was done spying on the US. Granted that was probably just lip service but even so...

Sharon never targeted civilians? How about Sabra and Shatila. As for Baruch Goldstein: His tombstone in Kiryat Arba reads: Here lies the saint, Dr. Baruch Kappel Goldstein, blessed be the memory of the righteous and holy man, may the Lord avenge his blood, who devoted his soul to the Jews, Jewish religion and Jewish land. His hands are innocent and his heart is pure. He was killed as a martyr of God on the 14th of Adar, Purim, in the year 5754. And yes, most of the sane Israelis condemned him. However, in the right wing extremists (the same extremists promoting the IDF's tactics) have made him a cult icon. Israel regularly punishes dead Palestinian fighters by destroying their family home or by punishing the entire village; but Goldstein's house was left untouched, and his settlement, 400 Jews who terrorize the entire Palestinian city of Hebron, was not dismantled, though such a measure enjoyed an overwhelming support in Israeli opinion polls after the massacre. Most Israelis indeed condemned the crime, but "acting alone" can hardly be said of a murderer whose municipality built a large memorial park for his followers, who come to pray at his grave, or for the hero of the biography titled Praised be the Man, a popular book in extreme right-wing circles. As for the spy, investigate him and what people he was involved with in the US government. If they were complicit in helping him, prosecute their asses as well. http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/9524480.htm

I4E, if I only read sources that are anti-Jew then you may want to read this. I'm a member of local chapters of Gush Shalom (a Jewish peace group), Jews Against the Occupation, and other non-Zionist organizations. But if I was an anti-Semite, wouldn't it be common sense that a Jew hater would not join Jewish groups? I have said on numerous occassions that I am not a supporter of Arafat. Nice job misrepresenting the opposition so you can create a straw man argument. Sharon and Arafat are the same type of person - blood soaked butchers. Just because one critiques the destructive and Nazi-like policies of a state does not make one an anti-Semite. As a political state, Israel (and any nation) opens themselves up to critiques. And if you're so offended at Israel's leadership and IDF being equated with Nazism, then they must simply stop acting like Nazis. All the web sites that I site. They can be Jewish organizations, non-partisan organizations, quotes from Israelis who are refusing to serve in the occupation army in any newspaper from Haaretz to antiwar.com (which is right libertarian) but you never believe them anyways since you have anti-Arab hatred running through your veins. I looked at all sides of the issue. The UN went and gave land that wasn't theirs away to Israel. Then the Zionists who wanted an ethnic state comprised only of Jews hijacked this and have made the peaceful people who live there and wanted to co-exist with Palestinians pre-1948 a seemingly minute voice. According to international law, when there is an occupying force in one's country (as the Israeli army is doing in Palestine) then all means of getting them out are legal. (The fact of effectiveness of Palestinian bombings on getting this accomplished is another debate althogether) If you were so right then how come members of the Sayaret Metkal refusing to be occupying forces and more and more people in Israel are seeing that the Likudnik cabal of ethnic apartheid promoters are wrong? And technically with the word Semite, it's root origin is all people of the Mid-East area. So would I then be a "Semite Loving Anti-Semite" according to you? How does that work? As for being a man...yes, I guess it takes a real man to be in a tank and shoot 8 year olds like the IDF does. I guess it takes a real man to arrest kids. I guess it takes a real man to go into a mosque and unload with an automatic weapon like Baruch Goldstein did. I guess it takes a real man to create a national shrine and park in honor of Goldstein for his cold blooded murder of Arab civilians. Zionist apartheidists make me sick to my damn stomach. They give all sane Israelis and Jews a bad name.

Assuming she remembers.