Amid these tumultuous times in the Middle East, I was pleased to learn that legislators in New Hampshire will be forming a new caucus in support of Israel, as described by founder representative James Spillane.
“The mission of the Nonpartisan Bicameral USA-Israel Relations Caucus is to provide a united front among like-minded legislators in both chambers of the NH State House to further legislation that enhances the strong alliance between the USA and Israel, supports the state of Israel, and to fight against anti-Israel, antisemitic, and anti-Zionist legislation.
The Caucus is open to members of all political parties, in the House and the Senate, who value our strong alliance with the democratic state of Israel, and who oppose the rising levels of antisemitic, anti-Israel hate speech.”
Being a strong advocate for free speech, I am wary of any campaign to eliminate “hate speech” as that is often the horse that censorship rides in on. As a state representative for both Northfield and the City of Franklin, I’m partial to the words of Benjamin Franklin:
“Without Freedom of Thought, there can be no such thing as Wisdom; and no such thing as public liberty, without Freedom of Speech.”an be no such thing as Wisdom; and no such thing as public liberty, without Freedom of Speech.” Benjamin Franklin, Letter from Silence Dogood, printed in The New England Courant, July 9, 1722.
Given the complexities of the conflict in the Middle East, there have been attempts to leverage historical incidents to impugn Israel’s credibility. This is something I am adamantly opposed to. Indeed, so much so that I put in a bill to create a commission to investigate the USS Liberty incident. This was a tragedy that nearly launched the United States into WWIII. It was only through the intervening hand of God that the Liberty didn’t sink.
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In 1967, during the Six-Day War between Israel and a number of Arab countries, the USS Liberty was ordered into the Mediterranean Sea alone to conduct signals intelligence. Her mission was to listen to everything being said over the airwaves so Washington could keep track of the war. She was only armed with four .50 caliber machine guns meant to repel boarders.
From www.USSLibertyVeterans.org:
ON JUNE 8, 1967, while patrolling in international waters in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea, USS Liberty (AGTR-5) was savagely attacked without warning or justification by air and naval forces of the state of Israel. Of a crew of 294 officers and men (including three civilians), the ship suffered thirty four (34) killed in action and one hundred seventy three (173) wounded in action. The ship itself, a Forty Million ($40,000,000) Dollar state of the art signals intelligence (SIGINT) platform, was so badly damaged that it never sailed on an operational mission again and was sold in 1970 for $101,666.66 as scrap.
At 1400 hours, while approximately about 17 nautical miles off the northern Sinai coast and about 25 nautical miles northwest of El Arish, USS Liberty’s crew observed three surface radar contacts closing with their position at high speed. A few moments later, the bridge radar crew observed high speed aircraft passing over the surface returns on the same heading. Within a few short moments, and without any warning, Israeli fighter aircraft launched a rocket attack on USS Liberty. The aircraft made repeated firing passes, attacking USS Liberty with rockets and their internal cannons. After the first flight of fighter aircraft had exhausted their ordnance, subsequent flights of Israeli fighter aircraft continued to prosecute the attack with rockets, cannon fire, and napalm.
During the air attack, USS Liberty’s crew had difficulty contacting Sixth Fleet to request assistance due to intense communications jamming. The initial targets on the ship were the command bridge, communications antennas, and the four .50 caliber machine guns, placed on the ship to repel boarders. After the Israeli fighter aircraft completed their attacks, three Israeli torpedo boats arrived and began a surface attack about 35 minutes after the start of the air attack. The torpedo boats launched a total of five torpedoes, one of which struck the side of USS Liberty, opposite the ship’s research spaces. Twenty-five Americans, in addition to the nine who had been killed in the earlier air attacks, were killed as a result of this explosion.
The only investigation conducted was a rushed one-week inquiry that Senator John McCain’s father, Admiral John McCain Jr., placed Adm. Issac Kidd Jr. to preside over.
“‘That was a shock,’ recalled retired Navy Capt. Ward Boston, the inquiry’s counsel, who said he and Kidd had estimated that a thorough inquiry would take six months.”
“Rear Adm. Merlin Staring, the Navy’s former judge advocate general, was asked to assess the American inquiry’s report before it was sent to Washington. But Staring said it was taken from him when he began to question some aspects of the report. He describes it now as ‘a hasty, superficial, incomplete and totally inadequate inquiry.’
“Staring, who is among those calling for a full congressional investigation on behalf of the Liberty’s survivors, observed in an interview that the inquiry report contained several ‘findings of fact’ unsupported by testimony or evidence.”
In that same Chicago Tribune article cited above are the wise words of Michael Oren:
“Though the attack on the Liberty has faded from public memory, Michael Oren, a historian and senior fellow at The Shalem Center in Jerusalem, conceded that ‘the case of the assault on the Liberty has never been closed.’
“If anything, Oren said, ‘the accusations leveled against Israel have grown sharper with time.’ Oren said in an interview that he believed a formal investigation by the U.S., even 40 years later, would be useful if only because it would finally establish Israel’s innocence.”
Mr. Oren is much more than just a historian; according to Wikipedia:
Michael Bornstein Oren (Hebrew: ןרוא לאכימ; born Michael Scott Bornstein; May 20, 1955) is an American-Israeli diplomat, essayist, historian, novelist, and politician. He is a former Israeli ambassador to the United States (2009–2013), former member of the Knesset for the Kulanu party and a former Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office.
Where the US government fails, New Hampshire will succeed.
Even though New Hampshire is a small state, she produced a notable figure onboard the Liberty that fateful day: Commander David “Eddie” Lewis. He was born and raised in Colebrook. A Lt. Cmdr at the time, he was in charge of 195 out of the 294 men on board. Lewis died in 2021. His obituary speaks to his character and desire for the truth.
“Eddie’s naval career spanned more than 25 years, and he retired in 1979 at the rank of Commander. His career took him all over the world, and he was wounded aboard the U.S.S. Liberty in the Mediterranean Sea when the nation of Israel attacked the ship, claiming a mistaken identification of the ship. For the rest of his life, Eddie bore the scars of that day, and he was deeply involved with the group of survivors, proving that the state of Israel and the Johnson administration deliberately staged the attack to try and draw the U.S. into the Israeli-Egyptian Six-Day War in 1967. In 2018, he was a central figure and collaborator in the book “Blood In the Water” which chronicles this dark episode of American military history.”
For Commander Lewis and all of the great men aboard the Liberty that day, it is incumbent upon us to search for the truth, for it will set us free.
God bless.
