American Newspaper Tells Truth About U.S.S. Liberty!
by Kevin Barrett
Believe it or not, a mainstream U.S. paper, the Northfield News of Northfield, Minnesota, has published a truthful, hard-hitting op-ed about Israel's slaughter of unarmed American sailors aboard the U.S.S. Liberty: http://www.northfieldnews.com/news.php?viewStory=47136
The op-ed, by my friend and 9/11 truth colleague Andy Kornkven, is nothing less than brilliant...except for one sentence: "Can we trust the official narrative of events leading to the current conflict — especially the nature and origin of the alleged Hamas rocket attacks, which provide such a handy excuse for the deadly retaliation carried out by Israeli warplanes?" While Andy is right to doubt the official narrative -- the truth is that Israel, not Hamas, broke the ceasefire -- the suggestion that Israel and not Hamas is firing the rockets is misleading.
Here is my response to Andy:
Great article, Andy!
The only questionable point is the notion that Hamas's rockets are false-flag.
We need to be discerning about events deemed "terrorist" by the powers that be. A great many attacks are false-flag -- 9/11, 7/7, London, Bali, Madrid, Bombay, Achille Lauro, Entebbe, Locherbie, and of course the botched Lavon Affair and USS Liberty attacks are examples. The common thread in all these cases is that the fall guys had little to gain and much more to lose; while the actual authors of the attack had something to gain by blaming it on their enemies.
With the rocket attacks, it may look like the same dynamic is at play. And in a sense it is: The Israelis wanted to be attacked, and triggered the attacks, at the time of their choice, by starving Gaza and then brutally violating the ceasefire.
But Hamas, like the rest of the Palestinian armed struggle, is for real, and supported not only by the vast majority of Palestinians, but also by the vast majority of Arabs, Muslims, and anti-imperialists around the world, who are hailing its victory in Gaza as even more significant than Hezbullah's victory in Lebanon in 2006.
The Palestinian resistance has a good strategic reason to use tactics like rocket attacks and suicide bombings. In fact, they have no other choice. The Israelis refuse to make the minimal concessions that would be necessary for peace. (Those concessions are: Return to the 1967 borders, and right of return for Palestinian ethnic cleansing victims.) The Zionists insist that the Palestinians recognize Israel, when in fact not only the Palestinians, but virtually the world's entire Arab and Muslim population regard the Zionist regime as an illegitimate settler colonial occupation, not a legitimate country. (If it wants to be legitimate, Israel has to at least make those minimal concessions.)
Since the Camp David con job, the Zionists have continued systematically exterminating and expelling the Palestinian population.
Clearly, Israel will make no concessions unless it is forced to at gunpoint. Rocket attacks, bombings, and other military actions have the potential to force these concessions, and perhaps even to end Zionism. By creating a climate of insecurity in Israel, these attacks decrease Jewish immigration and increase emigration, adding to the Palestinians' trump card: their demographic edge.
Note that according to international law, occupied peoples have the right to use lethal violence against their occupiers; while every act of violence perpetrated by an occupying power is a war crime. Palestinian attacks against Israel are thus legal and just, and supported by billions of people around the world; while Israel's vastly bloodier and more numerous attacks against Palestinians are war crimes and universally deplored, except by those brainwashed by Zionist media outlets.
The Zionists want you to confuse senseless "terrorism" like 9/11 with genuine anti-occupation armed struggle, so that the latter can be tarred with the brush of the former. They are trying to convince Americans that the very real military threat Israel faces from Palestinians and their supporters is also a threat to America -- which it is not.
Kevin
PS - Pape points out that suicide "terrorism" has a very strong strategic logic when practiced by occupied peoples against the forces of occupation, in the place of occupation. Here's a paragraph from my book in progress.:
Are anti-imperialists and anti-colonialists who happen to be Muslim more likely to commit suicide terrorism than non-Muslims of the same political orientation? According to the best research, the answer is no. Robert Pape is a University of Chicago professor who wrote Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism. Pape's exhaustive study of every suicide attack between 1980 and 2003 concludes: “The data show that there is little connection between suicide terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism, or any one of the world’s religions."[4] Instead, people of any or no religion use suicide terrorism as a weapon of last resort when their lands are invaded and occupied.