Thread: Is It Okay To Criticize Israel?

IS IT OK TO CRITICIZE ISRAEL?
By LCDR Jim Ennes, USN (Ret)
email: jim@ennes.com

The question was answered eloquently several years ago by my good
friend Stephen Green as he was researching the USS Liberty attack for
his book "Taking Sides". Steve was the first to report that the Defense
Appropriations Subcommittee, meeting a few days after the attack, took
testimony that the CIA learned the day before the Liberty attack that
Israel was planning to attack and that this was the reason for the
urgent messages telling us not to approach the coast.

Steve told me that when he first planned to write a chapter on the
Liberty for his book, it was his impression that the attack was "an
interesting aberration in US-Israeli relations." Yet when he studied
the matter more he realized that the Liberty attack was not an
aberration at all; it was what he called "main line Israeli behavior"
toward the US. It was only one of a long string of outrageous acts
against American interests.

A few examples that come to mind: selling our secrets and
technology to China; selling our weapons to Iran; sending Jonathan
Pollard to spy against us; threatening during the 6-day-war to shoot
down any US jets that approached Israel; sending the Lavon espionage
team to bomb American installations in Egypt during the Eisenhower
administration; rudely demanding that we guarantee billions in loans,
then demanding that the loans be converted to gifts; coercing more
billions every year from our Congress while Congress cuts back on
more vital needs at home.

On the international scene Israel has an even worse record.
Israel was responsible for the murder of over 1,000 innocent refugees
at the Sabra and Shatilla refugee camps; they have driven hundreds of
thousands of innocent Arab villagers from their homes; even today they
drive farmers from land they have held for generations in order to make
more Arab land available for illegal settlements. Israeli law dis-
criminates against Arabs and allows torture and extended imprisonment
without charges being filed. Israel was the first nation in the world
to shoot down a civilian airliner, and it did so after careful,
close-up examination.

At the very moment the USS Liberty was off shore near El Arish
Israeli forces were executing up to 1,000 Egyptian prisoners of war
at El Arish almost within our sight, a fact which may have been their
reason for attacking our ship. Just a few weeks ago they deliberately
bombed a UN refugee camp in Lebanon, killing over 100 innocent people.
The list goes on.

Meanwhile, Israel continues to alienate the Arab world by building
illegal settlements on captured Arab land in violation of US policy and
international law. They threaten to renege on agreements to return
captured land in exchange for a peace treaty with their Arab neighbors.
Their actions are routinely condemned by every nation in the world
except ours.

These are not the actions of a nation "trying to find peace with
its neighbors". These are the actions of a nation that holds the US
and much of the world in contempt and cares nothing for the lives of a
few American sailors whom they feared might have seen or heard some-
thing Israel did not want the world to know. These are not friends
who need special favors and special gifts and consideration from
American taxpayers or from the shipmates and families of the men they
deliberately and in cold blood killed on June 8, 1967, or who need
to be protected from criticism in our tiny newsletter.

To understand the murder of our shipmates, one must understand that
the attack on our ship was consistent with a long pattern of such
behavior which is usually funded by American Taxpayers.

One need not be "anti-Semitic" to feel revulsion for those things.
One need only be sensitive, caring, and aware.


Jim Ennes is webmaster for the Liberty Veteran's Association USS LIBERTY web site at http://www.ussliberty.org/

Short answer: Sure, why not?

They're no better than anyone else. They're not perfect.

Thank you for supporting free speech.

Originally Posted by Lasher

Thank you for supporting free speech.

Is it OK if I criticize Iran?

Originally Posted by Coolio43

Is it OK if I criticize Iran?

Sure, why not?

BUT, don't you DARE criticize George W. Bush, you anti-American, enemy-embolding non-patriots!! :hissy:

Originally Posted by Common Sense Craig

BUT, don't you DARE criticize George W. Bush, you anti-American, enemy-embolding non-patriots!! :hissy:

:hissy: I hate George Bush! :hissy:

The problem with criticizing Israel is simple. Israel doesn't care what is said about its policies and actions. It has a stand alone, us against the world mentality and a propensity to use preemptive force without good cause under the aegis of preventing a repeat of what happened during the holocaust.

Criticize Israel all you like, but they're not listening.

Originally Posted by Bourne

The problem with criticizing Israel is simple. Israel doesn't care what is said about its policies and actions. It has a stand alone, us against the world mentality and a propensity to use preemptive force without good cause under the aegis of preventing a repeat of what happened during the holocaust.

Criticize Israel all you like, but they're not listening.

Would you concede that if a nation did criticize they should have some teeth behind that criticism?

If you criticize Israel, you are a white-supremacist who hates Jews, and wants the terrorists to win.

Just kidding. Sort of.