The U.S.S. Liberty: The Latest Tactic In Anti-Semitism
By
Leonard Zwelling
I am always on the lookout for the new ways the anti-Semites are going to come after me. This article on the front page of The New York Times on February 12 seems to be another in a long series of tropes aimed at us Jews. I do remember hearing this story, but have not thought about it in quite a while.
Here’s the gist:
On June 8, 1967, in the middle of the Six-Day War, the Israelis attacked a United States ship that was off the coast of Sinai. Thirty-four Americans were killed. No one is disputing any of this.
The official explanation from both Israeli and the American governments was this was a “case of mistaken identity amid the chaos of the Six-Day War.” Remember this was almost 60 years ago. All the decision makers of that time are long dead and the American naval survivors are in their seventies.
In recent days, the extreme right in the United States has taken up this incident as a reason to mistrust Israel as an ally with tons of anti-Semitic language to explain the right’s position. Other conservatives accept the official version of a terrible accident and continue to stand with Israel.
Fortunately, as a well-trained Jew always looking for Nazis, I recognize what I am seeing and reading. This is just another tool in the tool box of the anti-Semites devoted to blaming the world’s ills on Jews. I get it. It never seems to stop and it hasn’t for 2000 years. I seriously doubt it will stop now.
Obviously, it is possible that the Israelis were the ones who felt the Americans could not be trusted and determined that the U.S.S. Liberty was gathering intelligence on Israel so attacked the ship when Israel was at war with its many Arab neighbors..
Another possibility is that this was a false flag operation meant to draw America deeper into the Six-Day War on Israel’s side.
Of course, the most likely explanation is the official one. Someone screwed up. Why attribute this error to malevolence when incompetence is the more likely explanation?
I am only writing about this now because the article appeared in the NYT and I was not aware this was still an issue under discussion, let alone being used against Israel and the Jews. Personally, I have no idea why it is even relevant to our current relationship with Israel which is a little confused right now given the war in Gaza and Israel’s ever more aggressive encroachment on Arab land in the West Bank decreasing the likelihood of peace in that area of the world. Shall we say that the relationship between Mr. Trump and Mr. Netanyahu is at times strained?
Trump wants to be a peace-making hero. Netanyahu will never give in to the existence of a Palestinian state on his watch. Stalemate, for now. Trump is distracted by Greenland, Venezuela, and Iran. This Israeli government will continue to try to eliminate the possibility of a Palestinian state for as long as Netanyahu and his current coalition are in power.
This is a fraught time for all Jews. The attack on Bondi Beach is just the latest example of more lethal aggression against Jews the world over especially in Europe.
If the American far right wants to use a 60-year-old war incident to justify cutting ties with Israel, I am not going to pass that off as a difference in foreign policy views. This is just the latest attack on Jews from the right.
But make no mistake, attacks on Jews can come from either extreme as was obvious in Stalin’s Soviet Union. How many Jewish students were demonstrating for Palestine at Columbia after the beginning of the Gaza War? One would be too many.
I have a very good non-Jewish friend who just cannot grasp why everyone seems to hate us. The list of reasons goes on for miles from the killing of Christ, to being money lenders, to blood libel. I am not expecting any of that to change any time soon. I just try to call it out when I see it.
This nonsense about a war time incident that may or may not have been an accident, should not be used to justify any thinking about the current relationship between Israel and the U.S. That relationship is certainly strained right now, but it is still to the mutual benefit of both countries to remain aligned. This latest anti-Israeli garbage is just that. Anti-Semitic garbage. Like pornography, I know it when I see it.
