Let's remember the USS Liberty, 34 sailors murdered
Let's remember the USS Liberty
The Israelis massacred 34 American sailors. That was in 1967.
by Daniel Borgström
March 2025
Several Bay Area cities have passed resolutions on the Gaza genocide. These include San Francisco, Richmond, Albany, Oakland, and Hayward. But NOT Berkeley. Children dying, and our city council says nothing. Berkeley used to be the first to pass such resolutions.
So Cynthia Papermaster of Code Pink organized a protest. On Tuesday, March 11th about fifty of us, wearing keffiyehs, attended the a meeting of the Berkeley City Council with this message: "SHAME ON YOU FOR YOUR SILENCE ON GENOCIDE IN GAZA!"
We held two long red banners, about forty feet long, with names of murdered Palestinian children on them. We extended these banners along the back and sides of the hall.
At the previous Saturday's meeting of Veterans for Peace East Bay Chapter, we'd decided that our VFP chapter would participate and bring up the USS Liberty. So I attended, bringing a sign reading:
"Remember the USS LIBERTY, attacked by Israel in June 1967. 34 American sailors killed. 173 wounded."
Ten of us, Code Pink and allies, spoke to the Council, for one minute each. When my turn came, I said,
"I'm here to speak for thirty-four persons who cannot be here. These thirty-four were crewmen of the USS Liberty, murdered by Israeli aircraft and torpedo boats."
Israel was not held accountable for the crime. The US government was complicit in covering it up, falsely calling it "an accident." It is clear from the records, the testimony of surviving crew members, and a huge amount of evidence, that the attack on the American ship was deliberate.
Although this happened over 50 years ago, it's not as far back as the Nakba; It's just an example of how Israel operates, and how the US establishment, government and media, has nearly always covered for it.
A lot of younger people may not know about the Liberty, we have to tell them. When we attend pro-Palestinian demonstrations, let's carry signs saying "Remember the USS Liberty."
Daniel Borgström
ex-Marine (1959-1963)
Veterans for Peace, East Bay Chapter 162
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PHOTO ESSAY and report from March 11, 2025 is on Indybay
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ARTICLES ABOUT ISRAELI'S ATTACK ON THE USS LIBERTY:
Philip Giraldi: The 50 year cover-up of a mass murder of U.S. servicemen orchestrated by Israel here
Israeli Attack on the Liberty Was No Accident: An Interview with Lieutenant James Ennes, Jr.
Audio interview with a US Navy veteran, Donald Pageler, who was aboard the USS Liberty in 1967 when it was torpedoed and attacked by Israel.
U.S. Government Withholding Hundreds of Pages About Deadly 1967 Israeli Attack on U.S. Navy Ship
State of Israel and Lyndon B Johnson Deliberately Murdered 34 American Sailors in 1967, Fabricated Massive Cover-Up Still in Effect After 55 Years
The USS Liberty Timeline
