A USS Liberty survivor who was arrested by Israel this month trying to break the Gaza blockade joins Episode 2 of Consortium News Radio.
Joe Meadors was a signalman on the USS Liberty surveillance ship on June 8, 1967 when Israel attacked, killing 34 U.S. sailors and injuring 173 more.
This month Meadors was arrested by Israeli soldiers onboard a boat taking part in a flotilla to break the Gaza blockade.
Meadors tells Consortium News Radio in this episode how he first became sympathetic to the Palestinians while growing up in Saudi Arabia; how he was told by his superiors not to discuss what happened on the Liberty; why he broke his silence 12 years later; who he thought was attacking the Liberty; why the U.S. covered it up; what he believes was Israel’s motive in trying to sink his ship; what it was like in Israeli custody this month and much more.
Thank you Joe Laurie for interviewing Joe Meadors- what a fine and decent person he is.
Joe is a former President of the USS Liberty Veterans Association (LVA), and is presently its Director of Operations. For more information, go to: https://www.usslibertyveterans.org/index.html
The Freedom Flotilla website is; https://freedomflotilla.org
and see also: https://twitter.com/gazafflotilla?lang=en and https://jfp.freedomflotilla.org and
http://2018boatstogaza-nonviolenceinternational.nationbuilder.com
might want to consider” The secret war against the jews”by John Loftus and Mark Arons. The Liberty incident is the chapter. 1If the Zionist navy wanted to sink the ship that was’nt too hard to do. 2 the liberty ignored heaps of navy orders at various levels to back off the coast why? (NSA was in command not the navy).3 what the IDF was doing with its forces was shifting from the egyptian line to the syrian line. Why was the ship ordered to stay in that close? Get the book and read it the authors have some pretty good dots. how you connect them to resolve conflicts is up to you…..
Victory ship with cargo holds full of stuff that floats makes ship very difficult to sink.
One can also note the parallel to Israel’s stealing the technology for nuclear weapons and the U.S.’s deliberately ignoring the theft, which belong to the same era as the Liberty incident.
From James DiEugenio’s CN review of Roger Mattson’s “Stealing the Atom Bomb: How Denial and Deception Armed Israel”:
“As the book shows, the cover-ups and duplicity did not just come from Israel and its agents in America. The deceit also came from men inside the American government who, for whatever reasons, decided to cast a blind eye on what was really happening under their jurisdiction, even after they had been alerted to it.
What Mattson reveals is no less than an atomic heist – one that could have been prevented if men in high positions had done their duty.”
https://consortiumnews.com/2016/09/11/how-israel-stole-the-bomb/
MEADORS: I knew that anything the Israelis did to me or to us was just a drop in the bucket [compared] to the situation in Gaza and what the Palestinians in Gaza are subjected to every day, I mean they wake up in the morning not knowing if they’re going to live the entire day. So anything the Israelis did to us was just nothing compared to that. I knew that didn’t sit well with me, and it shouldn’t sit well with anybody. We just wanted to bring attention to the plight of the Palestinians and to get some medical supplies into Gaza.
LAURIA: As a child in Saudi Arabia you came across people who had suffered the catastrophe—the Nakba—who had been ethnically cleansed from Palestine. So from an early age you were aware of this, it wasn’t your decision about the Liberty. So when you were on the Liberty you also knew what was going on with the Palestinians. Did that make you even more angry? What the Israelis had done to you? Trying to kill you, essentially?
MEADORS: Not really, it just woke me up to the situation between Israel and our government, how much control the Israelis have over our government, the Israelis and the Israel Lobby, how much control they have.
Zionists have so much control over US news media and US politicians that you almost have to be brought up outside the US or attacked directly by the most immoral army (or air force in this case) in the world to realize that whenever US and Israeli interests clash, which is most of the time, our elected representatives routinely put Israeli interests first.
Most Americans would probably feel the same way as Meadors if they knew the (hideously) ugly truth.
I just read somewhere, and can’t figure out where, that the sinking of the USS Liberty by the Israelis was in order to draw the US into attacking Egypt.
Not likely. By the time the attack on the USS Liberty took place the Egyptian army had already been routed. Also even if the ship had been sunk the Isreali planes and attack boats had already been identified as Israeli and this info had been radioed to Sixth Fleet command.
There are two facts which are clear, firstly Israel knew that the USS Liberty was a US ship and secondly they intended to sink the ship killing all on board so that there would be no survivors to tell the tale. They used unmarked planes to carry out the attack and as Joe Meador stated, their initial belief was that they were being attacked by Egyptian planes. So what was their motive? If they had succeeded in sinking the ship with the loss of all on board, Egypt would have been blamed and in all likelihood the US would be sucked into the war on Israel’s side. An insurance policy in the event of a setback in the war. High stakes indeed, considering he USSR’s presence in Egypt and elsewhere in the Middle East. They failed in their efforts, so the fallback position was that they had misidentified the ship, believing it be Egyptian, an excuse accepted by the subsequent US investigation. Israel then, not unlike today, were being cavalier in their actions. It is almost incomprehensible to believe that Johnson knew from the start what were the Israeli intentions but his actions, recalling the US fighters, was a traitorous act and surely undermined his position a President and Commander in Chief. Alas, we may never know the full story but for the sake of those that died and the sake of the survivors, we should continue to seek the truth and bring this event to a conclusion that satisfies all of those involved.
Yes, it was a very cowardly business, just as so many violent activities of Israel are – e.g., platoons of solders with sniper rifles shooting from behind a fence at unarmed civilians as though it were a big-game hunt.
The most interesting missing information about Israel’s attack on the USS Liberty is Lyndon Johnson’s role.
Was he secretly complicit? He was a very devious person and had no problem causing the deaths of vast numbers, as in Vietnam.
And he was a man with a violent temper and an immense ego, so his behavior afterward in staying quiet, not doing anything against Israel, and in calling off assistance when the attack was reported is a great mystery.
One can imagine motives for Israel even without Johnson’s complicity.
There was the atrocity of Israel’s machine-gunning large numbers of Egyptian prisoners of war in the Sinai which was done because Israel was in a rush to turn north for conquests there and didn’t want the “burden” of prisoners. An electronic observer ship would record it all.
There was the matter of Dayan turning his armor North, too. American authorities had told Israel not to do this, but they did it anyway. Of course, an electronic observer would notify American authorities and record the activity.
There has been speculation around Israel’s blackmailing Johnson, perhaps over his behavior in the Kennedy assassination. I don’t know, but that is entirely plausible given the nature of the two actors.
There has also been speculation of a dirty deal Johnson may have arranged with Israel. You sink my ship for me, and I’ll blame Egypt and send in the Air Force.
Entirely believable, given again the nature of the players, but I don’t buy it without some evidence.
We have evidence around Israel’s possible motives in Sinai and heading North. We also can easily buy some kind of blackmail to shut Johnson up, Israel having done such things many times.
It is all a mystery as big as the Kennedy assassination, but it rarely gets that kind of attention. We generally only hear of a determined sneak attack, killing many Americans, by a supposedly friendly state which said “Sorry, our mistake,” afterward. And of the wall of silence which immediately was created.
Of course, it wasn’t a mistake. The ship was well marked. A lead pilot flew over first and saw Americans, and he is said to have radioed back to re-confirm orders (if so, the pilots hadn’t been told whom they were attacking). But the attack went ahead.
Whatever way you interpret it, the main players come out even dirtier than considering only the attack.
As a last note, the Six Day War was a planned affair by Israel. Provocations were used against several Arab states, Israel certain it could easily defeat them. President de Gaulle, among other notable figures, understood this and commented disapprovingly on it.
Israel was grabbing “Greater Israel” without telling anyone in a lightning war of aggression.
General Dayan, Israel’s darling of the war, said a number of times that it would be necessary to make the Palestinians miserable so they would leave.
Well, Israel has certainly worked hard towards that goal, but the brave Palestinians remain, largely peacefully resisting occupation.
Of course, there were UN Resolutions demanding Israel return to its borders, but they have always just been ignored, and the United States has always gone along with the occupation and its countless injustices.
The entire business, from beginning to end, represents complete lawlessness on Israel’s part.
I worked for US Naval Oceanographic Office who supplied scientists for the Liberty. l was told that General Dayan’s order to execute 7,000+ captured Egyptian soldiers had been intercepted by our signal team. Dayan decided to sink the Liberty to prevent further intercepts. Some assumed he was sending a message to Pres Johnson to keep his nose out of Israel’s affairs
Israel is the greatest danger on the planet bar none.
Israel would be helpless without support from the US, UK, France and Canada just like the situation in Yemen with the Saudis. Their genocidal attacks can’t happen without the use of western made bombs,the western made jets and inflight refueling to the jets to drop them and technical information on sites to target.
Not to mention the multi-billions of dollars in ‘aid’ and the bought off members of Congress and the media that give cover for their genocidal regime over the Palestinian people.
Imagine the world’s reaction if Russia had such an open air prison like the one in Gaza and were shooting men, women, children and clearly marked medical help during a peaceful protest.
An event like the double amputee (from a prior Israeli bombing attack) sitting in a wheelchair far behind the crowds holding a small Palestinian flag in his right hand shot dead by a bullet in the forehead from a sniper would be the iconic symbol spread around the world in every form of media while the UN Security Council would be calling for military action to bring a halt to the rampant war crimes.
A NOTE TO LISTENERS: Consortium News decided long before CN Radio was launched to create podcasts on numerous platforms. We will begin those podcasts shortly. So stay tuned.
We asked our first two guests but they were not set up for video. When available we will accompany video with our audio interviews. All interviews will be archived as well on our Consortium News YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDZuNFwJ4BIRV_Z5IxFXVrA
What appears to be a mystery that will go unsolved where an American president shows preference over his own Navy’s embattled crew on board a U.S. Navy spy ship performing it’s mission, to not want to embarrass an ally over saving his dying crew is mind boggling. Since we will probably never know to just exactly what LBJ was thinking, it goes to show where loyalties lie when it comes to the U.S. and Israel.
Just as among the many other Israeli abuses with it’s disrespect for the U.S. we should not forget such other incidents as Johnathan Pollard, and our country rolling out the Oded Yinon Plan, as a gratuitous U.S. act of solidarity for the indigenous land thief Zionist. All this, and still to allow Israel to beat up Americans attempting to supply Palestinians with food stores and medical supplies, is as disgusting as disgusting can get, while the U.S. once again ignores it’s citizens when they are under siege.
Lastly, any god who would recognize these Zionist as his chosen people, is god not worth praising, as this is not a god representative of all of his/her/it’s universal glory. In short it’s all a lie, but what isn’t a lie, is Israel is not America’s friend nor is it God’s chosen few.
I guess the same goes for JFK assassination
I’m not sure how to respond. In what reference is there similarity?
Here former CIA agent Phillip Giraldi explains it all.
https://www.globalresearch.ca/why-confronting-israel-is-important/5650542
Assuming you mean the U.S. when you say “our country”, in what sense did the U.S. “roll out” the Yinon Plan?
I now see by “rolling out” you mean the U.S.’s actions in the region in line with it in the years since. I’d say that’s debatable, but I see your point.
David you don’t need to agree with me, but I have felt for sometime now that everything the U.S. has done in the Middle East, and is still doing, is guided by the hand of Israel. The Yinon Plan, like the Clean Break Strategy, is all to coincidental to U.S. actions in the Middle East to at least not give reference too where America gets its inspiration to rein havoc over that part of the world. Joe
Joe, about that mystery of yours — accept that our leaders are psychopaths and all is explained. See also https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olPAsssli3E
Yes Paul, and just as your video clip so pointedly points out, some profitable schemes are free of income tax. Thanks for reminding me that we live in a double standard world. That’s okay, I’ll pay my income tax, and sleep all the better for it…. even when they come to take me away. Joe
Hey you guys!
Consortium News Radio is a fabulous idea. But YouTube, as you may have noticed, is actually video. “Radio” in 2018 suggests a podcast, a medium to which I for one am addicted. And I would love to be able to listen to Consortium News on my headphones. But I looked on the iTunes store and couldn’t find you. Any plans to produce something along these lines at all? I have no idea what the technical challenges are — I am, as they say, just saying.
Love your stuff!
Jeff Ewener
Toronto
Good man