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Politics : Stockman Scott's Political Debate Porch -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (17535)	4/18/2003 12:30:47 PM
From: tonka552000	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 89467

The Jerusalem Post \| September 27, 2000 Bush campaign steps back from supporter's criticism of Israel \| Janine Zacharia WASHINGTON (September 27) - The George W. Bush campaign is distancing itself from positions on Israel taken by a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who has endorsed the Republican Texas governor's bid for the presidency. Retired Navy admiral Thomas Moorer has been an outspoken critic of what he and others contend was an American cover-up of the 1967 Israeli attack on an American intelligence ship, USS Liberty, which killed 34 crew members and injured 171. In 1985, Moorer was quoted in a book by Paul Findley, a former congressman from Illinois who was a bitter critic of Israel, as saying: "I've never seen a president - I don't care who he is - stand up to them [the Israelis]. It just boggles your mind... If the American people understood what a grip those people have got on our government, they would rise up in arms." A pro-Israel Democratic organization, The National Jewish Democratic Council, included the quotation in a statement protesting Moorer's inclusion on a list of 93 vice chairs of the "Veterans for Bush-Cheney National Coalition," that was released by the campaign last week. A spokesman for Bush, Ari Fleischer, said Moorer's views did not reflect those of the governor. "Governor Bush has been unequivocal in his support for Israel and Israel's security. Admiral Moorer's views about US-Israel relations are entirely his own," Fleischer said. Moorer said his critics were ignoring the assistance he helped funnel to Israel during periods of war. "The facts are that I have been very concerned about the Liberty because I'm convinced that the attack was deliberate. Thirty-four American boys were killed and the Congress would not hold an investigation of the attack," Moorer said by telephone from his home in Bethesda, Maryland. "Having said that, the idea that I am antisemitic is a gross overstatement. I am very critical of anybody who attacks an American ship in peacetime. When Mrs. Golda Meir was here for a visit, she thanked me very much for how I helped Israel in 1967. I was very instrumental in getting supplies to Israel when they really needed them and nobody every [sic] said anything of that," he added. Moorer described the NJDC criticism as an unfair attempt to discredit Bush. "This is a political period and the [sic]... are indirectly trying to attack Bush. Whoever made that comment about me should forget about US politics for a while and remember what I did to help Israel." Frank Gaffney, a Reagan-era Pentagon official who is now the director of the Center for Security Policy, a non-profit think tank that deals with foreign affairs and defense issues, described Moorer as a "very eminent and highly respected military officer" and added: "I have no evidence that he is antisemitic or anti-Israel per se." Gaffney said he thought the Liberty incident "was deeply traumatic for him and for a lot of people in uniform," but that "to make much of his views on that episode," or to suggest that it implies anything about George W. Bush, "is a stretch and a disservice." <end>

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (17535)	4/18/2003 2:05:12 PM
From: Thomas M.	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 89467

The Israelis hijacked a civilian ship/plane ? Yup. Here is a thorough review of the facts that have been carefully withheld from the American public by the American media: <<< One of the acts of PLO terror that most outraged the Secretary of State and his admirers in Congress and the media was the hijacking of the Achille Lauro and the murder of Leon Klinghoffer, doubtless a vile terrorist act. Their sensibilities were not aroused, however, by the Israeli bombing of Tunis a week earlier, killing twenty Tunisians and fifty-five Palestinians with smart bombs that tore people to shreds beyond recognition, among other horrors described by Israeli journalist Amnon Kapeliouk on the scene. U.S. journals had little interest, the victims being Arabs and the killers U.S. clients. Secretary Shultz was definitely interested, however. The United States had cooperated in the massacre by refusing to warn its ally Tunisia that the bombers were on their way, and Shultz telephoned Israeli Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir, a noted terrorist himself from the early 1940s, to inform him that the U.S. administration "had considerable sympathy for the Israeli action," the press reported. Shultz drew back from this public approbation when the U.N. Security Council unanimously denounced the bombing as an "act of armed aggression" (the United States abstaining). Foreign Minister Shimon Peres was welcomed to Washington a few days later as a man of peace, while the press solemnly discussed his consultations with President Reagan on "the evil scourge of terrorism" and what can be done to counter it. The outrage over hijacking does not extend to Israeli hijackings that have been carried out in international waters for many years, including civilian ferries travelling from Cyprus to Lebanon, with large numbers of people kidnapped, over 100 kept in Israeli prisons without trial, and many killed, some by Israeli gunners while they tried to stay afloat after their ship was sunk, according to survivors interviewed in prison. The strong feelings of Congress and the media were also not aroused by the case of Na'il Amin Fatayir, deported from the West Bank in July 1987. After serving eighteen months in prison on the charge of membership in a banned organization, he was released and returned to his home in Nablus. Shortly after, the government ordered him deported. When he appealed to the courts, the prosecutor argued that the deportation was legitimate because he had entered the country illegally -- having been kidnapped by the Israeli navy while travelling from Lebanon to Cyprus on the ship Hamdallah in July 1985. The High Court accepted this elegant reasoning as valid. The visceral outrage over terrorism is restricted to worthy victims, meeting a criterion that is all too obvious. The hijacking of the Achille Lauro was in retaliation for the bombing of Tunis, but the West properly dismissed this justification for a terrorist act. The bombing of Tunis, in turn, was in retaliation for a terrorist murder of three Israelis in Cyprus by a group which, as Israel conceded, had probable connections to Damascus but none to Tunis, which was selected as a target rather than Damascus because it was defenseless; the Reagan administration selected Libyan cities as a bombing target a few months later in part for the same reason. The bombing of Tunis, with its many civilian casualties, was described by Secretary Shultz as a "a legitimate response" to "terrorist attacks," to general approbation. The terrorist murders in Cyprus were, in turn, justified by their perpetrators as retaliation for the Israeli hijackings over the preceding decade. Had this plea even been heard, it would have been dismissed with scorn. The term "retaliation" too must be given an appropriate interpretation, as any casuist would understand. >>> zmag.org As for your pathetic attempts to draw America into this conflict, remember that American cluster bombs killed plenty of Palestinian civilians during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. Tom