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Wars and conflicts Parties International Governments
The Gaza withdrawal has been a veil for continued persecution and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians
by Gerald Kaufman
I know the attractive Israeli seaside resort of Netanya well, having stayed several times at my niece’s flat there. Not long ago I heard on BBC radio a series of interviews with residents of Netanya, which has in the past suffered a number of terrorist attacks. They rejoiced at how much easier the situation had become following the building of the Israeli separation wall, designed specifically to protect places like Netanya, located at the narrow neck of Israel’s pre-1967 border. Two days ago five people were killed in a suicide bombing in Netanya.
All terrorist attacks are unjustifiable atrocities. Five Israelis are the latest victims. Over the past months, 15 Palestinians, two of them children, have been killed by Israeli troops. Their deaths attracted no headlines, but they are dead just the same.
I recently returned from leading the first British parliamentary delegation to the Palestinian Authority. What we saw is never seen by ordinary, decent Israelis, like the citizens of Netanya - who, since they dare not venture into the occupied territories, have no idea of the persecution of Palestinians being carried out in their name.
Last there two years ago, I was appalled at how an already unacceptable situation has deteriorated. There are now more than 600 fixed checkpoints in the tiny Palestinian area, which, with so-called flying checkpoints, make free movement almost impossible. In Bethlehem, which used to be crammed with tourists, we saw just two groups in Manger Square and the Church of the Nativity. The Old City of Nablus, which I knew for a quarter of a century as a hub of commercial activity, is also desolate. Heavily-armed Israeli troops man walls, gates and huts, all preventing Palestinians from moving about.
When our delegation, with Nablus Palestinians as our guides, tried to walk down one street our way was barred by Israeli soldiers pointing threatening weapons. When I explained our mission, a soldier said: "You can pass, but the Arabs cannot." Naturally, we refused to proceed. Meanwhile, we saw busloads of illegal Jewish settlers sailing through this restricted area at will.
One of the motivations of this policy is to make the lives of the Palestinians so intolerable that they get out. The success of this ethnic cleansing is shown in Ramallah, which in the two years since I was last there (meeting Yasser Arafat in the bunker where he was incarcerated) has become bloated as Palestinians from other areas of the West Bank huddle together there.
After Monday’s bombing, Shaul Mofaz, defence minister and would-be successor to Ariel Sharon as Likud leader, put targeted killings of Palestinian "extremists" and blowing-up of suicide bombers’ homes back on the Israeli agenda, though even he cannot be too stupid to understand that such reprisals will be used by Islamic Jihad and other terrorist organisations as a pretext for the murder of more Israeli civilians.
It is such posturing that leads Sharon to claim that he is now at the centre of Israeli politics. Sharon’s champions argue that Israeli troops’ withdrawal from Gaza demonstrates his peacemaking motivation. Shimon Peres, now a pathetically vain frontman for Sharon, claims that Sharon’s alleged wish for peace is the reason for his jumping ship from the Labour party.
Yet, as Brent Scowcroft, the first President Bush’s national security adviser, has explained to Condoleezza Rice: "For Sharon this is not the first move, this is the last move. He’s getting out of Gaza because he can’t sustain 8,000 settlers with half his army protecting them. Then, when he’s out, he will have an Israel that he can control and a Palestinian state atomised enough that it can’t be a problem."
It is good for Labour to be free of the albatross of Peres, following the welcome election of Amir Peretz - a tough, no-nonsense Sephardi whom I first met nearly 20 years ago in the slummy southern development town of Sderot, where he was a populist mayor. Peretz is no peacenik, but he does want a negotiated two-state solution.
Instead of lauding Sharon as he expands illegal West Bank settlements and imprisons East Jerusalem in a ring of concrete and armour, the British government should be giving full support to Peretz. He may not be perfect but, if at this bleak hour there is any hope for Israelis and Palestinians alike, he is it.
· Gerald Kaufman is the Labour MP for Manchester Gorton
kaufmang@parliament.uk
http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,1660589,00.html
Forum posts
8 December 2005, 21:12
I, Ward Boston, Jr. do declare that the following statement is true and complete:
For more than 30 years, I have remained silent on the topic of USS Liberty. I am a military man and when orders come in from the Secretary of Defense and President of the United States, I follow them.
However, recent attempts to rewrite history compel me to share the truth.
In June of 1967, while serving as a Captain in the Judge Advocate General Corps, Department of the Navy, I was assigned as senior legal counsel for the Navy’s Court of Inquiry into the brutal attack on USS Liberty, which had occurred on June 8th.
The late Admiral Isaac C. Kidd, president of the Court, and I were given only one week to gather evidence for the Navy’s official investigation into the attack, despite the fact that we both had estimated that a proper Court of Inquiry into an attack of this magnitude would take at least six months to conduct.
Admiral John S. McCain, Jr., then Commander-in-chief, Naval Forces Europe (CINCUSNAVEUR), at his headquarters in London, had charged Admiral Kidd (in a letter dated June 10, 1967) to “inquire into all the pertinent facts and circumstances leading to and connected with the armed attack; damage resulting therefrom; and deaths of and injuries to Naval personnel.”
Despite the short amount of time we were given, we gathered a vast amount of evidence, including hours of heartbreaking testimony from the young survivors.
The evidence was clear. Both Admiral Kidd and I believed with certainty that this attack, which killed 34 American sailors and injured 172 others, was a deliberate effort to sink an American ship and murder its entire crew. Each evening, after hearing testimony all day, we often spoke our private thoughts concerning what we had seen and heard. I recall Admiral Kidd repeatedly referring to the Israeli forces responsible for the attack as “murderous bastards.” It was our shared belief, based on the documentary evidence and testimony we received first hand, that the Israeli attack was planned and deliberate, and could not possibly have been an accident.
I am certain that the Israeli pilots that undertook the attack, as well as their superiors, who had ordered the attack, were well aware that the ship was American.
I saw the flag, which had visibly identified the ship as American, riddled with bullet holes, and heard testimony that made it clear that the Israelis intended there be no survivors. 10. Not only did the Israelis attack the ship with napalm, gunfire, and missiles, Israeli torpedo boats machine-gunned three lifeboats that had been launched in an attempt by the crew to save the most seriously wounded — a war crime.
Admiral Kidd and I both felt it necessary to travel to Israel to interview the Israelis who took part in the attack. Admiral Kidd telephoned Admiral McCain to discuss making arrangements. Admiral Kidd later told me that Admiral McCain was adamant that we were not to travel to Israel or contact the Israelis concerning this matter.
Regrettably, we did not receive into evidence and the Court did not consider any of the more than sixty witness declarations from men who had been hospitalized and were unable to testify in person.
I am outraged at the efforts of the apologists for Israel in this country to claim that this attack was a case of “mistaken identity.”
In particular, the recent publication of Jay Cristol’s book, The Liberty Incident, twists the facts and misrepresents the views of those of us who investigated the attack.
It is Cristol’s insidious attempt to whitewash the facts that has pushed me to speak out.
I know from personal conversations I had with Admiral Kidd that President Lyndon Johnson and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara ordered him to conclude that the attack was a case of “mistaken identity” despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
Admiral Kidd told me, after returning from Washington, D.C. that he had been ordered to sit down with two civilians from either the White House or the Defense Department, and rewrite portions of the court’s findings.
Admiral Kidd also told me that he had been ordered to “put the lid” on everything having to do with the attack on USS Liberty. We were never to speak of it and we were to caution everyone else involved that they could never speak of it again.
I have no reason to doubt the accuracy of that statement as I know that the Court of Inquiry transcript that has been released to the public is not the same one that I certified and sent off to Washington.
I know this because it was necessary, due to the exigencies of time, to hand correct and initial a substantial number of pages. I have examined the released version of the transcript and I did not see any pages that bore my hand corrections and initials. Also, the original did not have any deliberately blank pages, as the released version does. Finally, the testimony of Lt. Painter concerning the deliberate machine gunning of the life rafts by the Israeli torpedo boat crews, which I distinctly recall being given at the Court of Inquiry and included in the original transcript, is now missing and has been excised.
Following the conclusion of the Court of Inquiry, Admiral Kidd and I remained in contact. Though we never spoke of the attack in public, we did discuss it between ourselves, on occasion. Every time we discussed the attack, Admiral Kidd was adamant that it was a deliberate, planned attack on an American ship.
In 1990, I received a telephone call from Jay Cristol, who wanted to interview me concerning the functioning of the Court of Inquiry. I told him that I would not speak to him on that subject and prepared to hang up the telephone. Cristol then began asking me about my personal background and other, non-Court of Inquiry related matters. I endeavored to answer these questions and politely extricate myself from the conversation. Cristol continued to return to the subject of the Court of Inquiry, which I refused to discuss with him. Finally, I suggested that he contact Admiral Kidd and ask him about the Court of Inquiry.
Shortly after my conversation with Cristol, I received a telephone call from Admiral Kidd, inquiring about Cristol and what he was up to. The Admiral spoke of Cristol in disparaging terms and even opined that “Cristol must be an Israeli agent.” I don’t know if he meant that literally or it was his way of expressing his disgust for Cristol’s highly partisan, pro-Israeli approach to questions involving USS Liberty.
At no time did I ever hear Admiral Kidd speak of Cristol other than in highly disparaging terms. I find Cristol’s claims of a “close friendship” with Admiral Kidd to be utterly incredible. I also find it impossible to believe the statements he attributes to Admiral Kidd, concerning the attack on USS Liberty.
Several years later, I received a letter from Cristol that contained what he purported to be his notes of our prior conversation. These “notes” were grossly incorrect and bore no resemblance in reality to that discussion. I find it hard to believe that these “notes” were the product of a mistake, rather than an attempt to deceive. I informed Cristol that I disagreed with his recollection of our conversation and that he was wrong. Cristol made several attempts to arrange for the two of us to meet in person and talk but I always found ways to avoid doing this. I did not wish to meet with Cristol as we had nothing in common and I did not trust him.
Contrary to the misinformation presented by Cristol and others, it is important for the American people to know that it is clear that Israel is responsible for deliberately attacking an American ship and murdering American sailors, whose bereaved shipmates have lived with this egregious conclusion for many years.
Dated: January 9, 2004
at Coronado, California.
Ward Boston, Jr., Captain, JAGC, USN (Ret.)
Senior Counsel to the USS Liberty Court of Inquiry