Who is Behind the Bulgaria "False Flag" Attack on Israeli Tourists?

Global Research

Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich

On July 18, 2012,  attack on an Israeli tourist bus in Bulgaria took the lives of 5 Israeli nationals, a Bulgarian, and the mysterious suicide bomber.  It is reported that the suspect, a young Caucasian, had a fake Michigan driver’s license.  According to Israeli Haaretz, a top Bulgarian official warned that it would be a “mistake” to blame a specific country or organization for the attack.   However, Israel ’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had other ideas.

Quick to point the finger at Iran , Mr. Netanyahu called it an “Iranian terror network spreading throughout the world”.  He added: "Exactly 18 years after the attack on a Jewish community center in Argentina , the Iranian terror continues to hurt innocent people."  Apparently, it takes a village and some to set Iran up.

These serious allegations with a potential for disaster, demand scrutiny on several levels.  The most fundamental question which needs to be addressed is who benefits from these attacks.  One must question the location – location, location, location.  And finally, analyze the empirical data.

  

Who Benefits? 

In spite of Israel and its Washington lobbies pushing for a war against Iran ,  of late,  prominent voices have adopted a less bellicose stance towards Iran and its nuclear program.  The possibility of any military action against Iran which would undoubtedly lead to a closure of the world’s most important oil chokepoint, the Strait of Hormuz, has prompted politicians around the globe to opt for a diplomatic solution to end the impasse with Iran.  

Somewhat optimistically, Iran is investing its efforts in diplomacy.   While continuing to work towards a mutually acceptable solution with the P5+1, Iran is making extensive preparations for the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) summit it will be hosting in Tehran in August.   Over the past three centuries, Iran has never initiated a war and it would seem unlikely that at this juncture Tehran would resort to terrorism and solicit condemnation and possibly war.   On the other hand, the targeting and killing of Israeli citizens by Iran would serve to support and justify Netanyahu’s call for military action against Iran . 

For Netanyahu,  domestic dissatisfaction aside, Israel ’s policy of settlement expansion, a policy which government appointed jurists called legal, has brought international condemnation.   With the moderate Kadima party pulling out of government, leaving Netanyahu in charge of  hard-line coalition opposed to Middle East peace, Israel needs support from its allies more than ever.    Undoubtedly, Israel would have greater support as a victim instead of an aggressor.

Location, Location, Location

In addition to the Bulgaria attack, Mr. Netanyahu has blamed Iran for attacks in other countries, including the apparent  foiled attack in Cyprus and  the accusations leveled against Iran for plotting an attack in Kenya.  

Bulgaria - Bulgaria and Israel have very cordial relations.  In July 2011, an Israeli-Bulgarian declaration pledged wide range cooperation.  A year later, on July 8th,   Bulgaria ’s former foreign minister Solomon Passy told The Times of Israel that Israel should aggressively seek to join NATO and the EU.   Passy said: “Israel is part of Western civilization and of the Euro-Atlantic political culture and that’s why Israel shouldn’t be shy to vocally say that it wants to become a member of NATO, the EU and OSCE [Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe],”.    Ten days later, an attack against Israel took place in Bulgaria . 

Thailand – Thailand and Israel have had cordial relations with moderate and steady trade.  In January 2012, Thailand recognized Palestine as an independent state.  A month later, Israel blamed Iran for “terrorist attacks” in Bangkok .  Allegedly, one of the perpetrators had carried his “Iranian” passport on him to carry out the mission. 

India -  India and Israel have had very amicable relations.   On July 17, 2003, JINSA’s executive director delivered a speech in Washington to the US–India Political Action Committee International Conference on Terrorism in India in which he put Israel, the United States, and India in the same boat – as the number one on the terrorist hit list (Bonney 2008).  In 2008, India launched Israel’s spy satellite into orbit.  In spite of its close ties to Israel , India has not stopped trade with Iran .  In fact, two days prior to the  Israeli embassy staff in India were targeted on February 13, 2012, India defended its oil trade with Iran.

Georgia – Israel ’s relations with Georgia are unique.  It was widely reported in 2008 that Israel had the green light to attack Iran from Georgian territory.   Israel is thought to have played a prominent role in the Russian-Georgian conflict (see link for full details of the relationship.   In 2010, Georgia and Iran entered a new phase in their relationship and Nino Kalandadze, the Georgian deputy foreign minister expressed that “ties will further deepen”.  As with India , Iran was blamed for the bomb attempts in Georgia.  

Israel Attacked A US Navy Ship 45 Years Ago Killing Dozens Of Sailors — Survivors Want To Know Why

Business Insider
Robert Johnson

FlickrIt's understandable if you've never heard of the USS Liberty and the more than 200 sailors who were wounded and lost their lives the day she was attacked in the summer of 1967.

That was the Summer of Love, when nearly 100,000 American youth descended on Haight Ashbury in San Francisco, and the Vietnam War was really getting into the ugly abyss it would become. Nearly 13,000 American's died in the jungle in 1967, less than half the number who would fall in 1968.

So, it's understandable if amid all that carnage, loss, and revolution the lives of a couple hundred Liberty sailors fell to the heap of history and were forgotten.

What's still not understandable is why the Liberty was ambushed by Israeli gunships, that efforts to rescue dying sailors were called off, and a massive cover-up trailed the incident's wake.

Elizabeth Flock at U.S. News reminds us of the incident in a piece honoring this Friday's Liberty memorial service to be held at Arlington National Cemetery in D.C.

Flock points to lingering outrage and concern of a cover up that has prompted a Facebook page asking people to sign a petition calling for a renewed investigation of the incident, which apparently went down something like this:

Three days into Israel's Six-Day War, the Liberty was parked off the coast of Egypt collecting communication signals in international waters.

While initially some concern was given about the ship getting too close to shore, or mistaken for an enemy vessel, those misgivings seem to have vanished when Israeli planes flew in for a visual inspection at about 6:00 a.m. local time as the mist was still burning off the surface of the Mediterranean.

American sailors say the Israel aircraft flew so closely that they rattled the Liberty's steel plating and the ship's crew waved to the planes pilots, who did the same in return.

All morning and into the afternoon the Liberty went about her mission unmolested when at 1:40 p.m., unknown to the Liberty crew, an Israel torpedo boat reported wan "unknown vessel" traveling at speeds only attributable to warships.

Twenty minutes later two, Mirage II fighters rattled down over the Liberty and made two visual inspection passes at 3,000 feet. The Mirage pilots radioed command that the ship looked like a non-Israeli destroyer and orders came back over the airwaves to attack.

The Liberty's command knew the planes were Israeli so the ship's crew were all on "stand down" mode, non-defensive, with no helmets or even life jackets at the ready.

The twin Mirage's pounded the Liberty with all the cannons, rockets, and bombs at their disposal during three separate runs. When they depleted their ammunition they were replaced by two Dassault Mysteres filled with napalm bombs that tore into the Liberty engulfing it in a raging inferno from the bridge to the deck.

When it was all over 34 sailors were dead, 174 were injured and Israel claimed they'd mistaken America's most distinctive ship for an Egyptian horse-cavalry transport half the Liberty's size with a completely different profile.

Israel apologized, made reparations to the U.S. and the sailor's families, and then according to many — the incident was swept under the rug and a whitewashing of the facts came in to preserve Israel's reputation

A letter to Congress from USS Liberty veterans, asking for the renewed investigation, also says that rescue efforts to save the Liberty's crew were somehow called off, and that makes even less sense to them than anything else about the whole, tragic, and nearly forgotten fiasco.

The most detailed version of the incident and all that followed may be found here in the NSA's de-classified documents.

How Palestine Became Israel

Intifada Palistine


The Catastrophe (Al Nakba)

“November 29th, commemorating the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People.”

If Americans Knew

In the late 1800s a small, fanatic movement called “political Zionism” began in Europe. Its goal was to create a Jewish state somewhere in the world. Its leaders settled on the ancient and long-inhabited land of Palestine for the location of this state.

Palestine’s population at this time was approximately ninety-six percent non-Jewish (primarily Muslim and Christian).

Palestine the land now occupied by the state of Israel was a multicultural society with Arabs comprising 96 % of population in late 1800s

Over the coming decades Zionist leaders used various strategies to accomplish their goal of taking over Palestine:

Encouraging Jewish immigration to Palestine, partly through the invention of such deceptive slogans as “a land without a people for a people without a land,” when, in fact, the land was already inhabited. Since the majority of Jews were not Zionists until after WWII, Zionists used an array of misleading strategies, including secret collaboration with the Nazis, to push immigration.

Convincing a “Great Power” to back this process. By turn, Zionists approached the Ottomans, the British, and the U.S. to further their cause. While the Ottomans turned them down, the British (being promised that American Zionists would push the U.S. to enter World War I on the side of England) eventually acceded, as did the U.S. (due to concerns of politicians like Harry Truman that they would lose elections otherwise).


Buying up the land (sometimes through subterfuges), proclaiming it Jewish for all eternity, and refusing to allow non-Jews to live or work on the purchased land. This was called “redeeming” the land and was financed by a variety of means, including by such wealthy banking families as the Rothschilds.

Violence, if such financial dispossession should fail or prove too slow – as it did.
In the 1930s, Jewish land ownership had increased from approximately 1% to just over 6% of the land, and violence had increased as well. With the emergence of several Zionist terrorist gangs (whose ranks included a number of future Prime Ministers of Israel), there was violent conflict. Numerous people of all ethnicities were killed – then, as now, the large majority of them Christian and Muslim Palestinians.

The Catastrophe

750,000 Palestinian men, women, and children were expelled from their homes by violent Israeli forces (1947-49)

This growing violence culminated in Israel’s ruthless 1947-49 “War of Independence,”in which at least 750,000 Palestinian men, women, and children were expelled from their homes by numerically superior Israeli forces – long before any Arab armies joined the war. This massive humanitarian disaster is known as ‘The Catastrophe,’ al Nakba in Arabic.

Zionist forces committed 33 massacres and destroyed 531 Palestinian towns. Author Norman Finkelstein states: “According to the former director of the Israeli army archives, ‘in almost every village occupied by us during the War… acts were committed which are defined as war crimes, such as murders, massacres, and rapes’…Uri Milstein, the authoritative Israeli military historian of the 1948 war, goes one step further, maintaining that ‘every skirmish ended in a massacre of Arabs.’”

Israel's forgotten war crime wakes up conservatives

The Anatomy Of Silence

Rense
Jim Kirwin

Perhaps the most underrated weapon being used against the populations of people everywhere is silence. Not the kind of silence that denotes indecision or forbearance: NO this is the that brand of 'silence' that is rooted in sheer terror of what could happen if and when people finally snap-out-it; pick up a weapon and begin to make the streets run red with the blood of those that have been behind every single one of these treasons that have brought us to the brink of WWIII.

 

I'm not suggestng that anyone do this, I'm simply stating the obvious that history has shown to anyone that bothers to look at actual results, going all the way back to before formal history records were even kept. If we want to survive we must begin to take the chances that we each have been given; each and every day that require us to make the hard choices.

Live a little take a chance now and then because the rest of your life is at stake!

 

The day before yesterday I sent out this article, which carefully explains, with documentation, the entire saga behind the events surrounding the attempt by Israel to sink the USS Liberty, during the six day war in the Middle East. Far from "an accident or mistaken identity; the Liberty was sent to the spot where she was attacked, by orders in a plan called Cyanide. This PLAN was conceived TWO MONTHS BEFORE THAT WAR BEGAN: This involved US intelligence, the US Navy and Israel in a carefully constructed plan that was designed to sink the Liberty and blame it on the Egyptians. (1)

 

When the Liberty was attacked, the US ordered A-4 aircraft, with nuclear weapons to attack Egypt with nuclear weapons to obliterate Cairo. But as soon as Washington realized that the Attack on the Liberty had not succeeded the nuclear armed planes were ordered to return to the carrier. At the same time the Commander of the Fleet ordered aircraft (armed only with conventional weapons) to go to the aid of the Liberty. Washington again intervened and ordered the commander of the US Fleet to withdraw those rescue fighter-aircraft as well ­ and all of this is documented by White House briefing notes, and other data from that day and time, in the Cyanide file that was discovered in the LBJ Library, by a time tested researcher.

 

The amazing thing that happened to my message of the 14th was this; from a friend of mine about this entire episode:

 

"As I mentioned last week, I already know that the CIA/FBI/NSA, and any number of letter agencies are monitoring social media such as Facebook. Therefore, I INTENTIONALLY submit truthful and politically incorrect websites to Facebook on a regular basis. Today, I submitted your below USS Liberty related link, right from that website itself, as can be done often with an imbedded social media icons links.

 

What happened doesn't happen very often at all, not to me. I clicked the "F" icon which represents Facebook, and I was immediately asked to submit my comment, which would be shown on Facebook with the link to the USS Liberty article. After typing a few angry sentences, it simply disappeared. So, I went to my Facebook profile to see if it appeared there anyway. The link to the USS Liberty article did indeed appear, but minus my angry and accusing comment. Moments later, I clicked off of my Profile page and onto my Facebook "Home" page, which shows all my contacts' submissions (which I subscribe to see as they are posted). I saw my own posts as well, which is normal, except the USS Liberty article link was now MISSING. An earlier post showed up which I had submitted, as well as a later post which I submitted from a totally unrelated website concerning homeopathies (I normally have several browsers open at once).

 

My comments disappeared first, then the link to the USS Liberty also disappeared from Facebook, while the other almost simultaneous link submissions I'd made were still there. That's political censorship in action, as it happens, in cyberspace.

 

Sure, I've thought I must have my "own" tiny group of censors monitoring me. Now I have the proof. Which of course means that YOU also have the same honor, because I receive your emails and write you back, and I submit your articles to my blogspot. But I think you're already aware also that you're being monitored." (Private email)

 

This is only the latest in the long chain of treasons that have been practiced against this country. The first one in the New Millennium was this horrific act:

 

"We left the United States Because on December 12, 2000, the United States Supreme Court nullified the results of a national election and installed George W. Bush as president. And then I saw millions of my fellow Americans deliriously happy the Rule of Law was broken by the Supreme Court of the Land so "their guy" could "win."

 

That's when I knew partisanship had ultimately won out over reality. More Americans believe in angels than election fraud. If millions of Americans could turn a blind eye to a stolen election, simply because their side stole it, and then have that coup legitimized by not only the Supreme Court but by all of Main Stream Media then I knew the country I lived in was not the land of my birth.

 

I can't emphasize this enough. Millions of Americans were ecstatic that George W. Bush won regardless of how he won. Unquestioning blind partisanship was more important than the law to these people. But more ominous was Main Stream Media ratifying the coup. At that moment Corporate Media proved they were committed to the destruction of our democratic republic.

 

That was pretty scary to witness. We've all heard of similar ham-fisted tactics used in banana republics south of the border but this was happening here." (2)

 

The third and clenching-condemnation of what was left of the old USA was when the congress chose to grant Bush-the-Dictator a License to Kill. With this action I started to write because it was now clear that these back-from-the-dead Robber-Barons would not stop until they owned or controlled everything that was once considered to be the USA. (3)

 

The final dropping of "the other shoe" came with the creation of The SUPER-CONGRESS and its thirteen members (that includes the resident of the Oval Office). This final travesty finally removes all possibility of any representation of or for the people, by any member of the congress: Thereby having formalized the creation of the POLICE-STATE firmly and clearly in that part of the public that has not chosen to remain oblivious to the continuing crimes being done to every American, 24-7, and 365 days every year. The USA is now clearly USI, and our freedoms and our supposed rights no longer exist!

 

Today the news has begun to take on the final elimination of the formerly fixed leaderships of all the players in the war-torn Middle-East, including the failing and almost-encircled Israel. Turkey has formed new alliances with Egypt and possibly Iran; while NATO's obscenities have begun to be exposed as never before in places like Libya and Syria, with Russian and China on the scene but still in the background.

 

It begins to appear that the yet to be house-broken Israel with all of her hatreds and fears has finally crossed the line in too many places now, and she too will soon be sacrificed on the alter of the New World Order. But however this plays out, it is certain that the surprise release of the long dead secrets that were kept in the Cyanide File for just such an occasion ­ could not have been an accident.

 

There is however one very bright spot in all of this. These formerly dead bodies that have now been reincarnated have been using the wrong end of the microscope in their planning to destroy the public.

 

Their primary beneficiaries were always thought to be the massively criminal corporations many of which are larger than most of the nations in the world. But if this were true then you would think that the corporations would want to stay not just profitable but growing? Apparently; since the bankers and the corporations do NOT look at outcomes but only at profit margins and numbers, instead of people, they have managed to overlook the one thing that could very quickly kill them all: The people they pnce employed.

 

What once set this country apart from all others is that we were actually able to buy the products and services that this country once provided to the world. We can no longer do this. Moreover, the people that were thought to be needed to show a profit were downsized and traded-in for overseas workforces that cost next to nothing; because that would increase the companies profits even more while almost eliminating the costs of production. The companies, even though they are overseas now are still listed on the Stock Exchange as American companies ­ but that is lie. Still this allows these corporations to buy and sell each other (out of view of the American public) which is how these basically destroyed American corporations can still show profits when everything is dying, everywhere in this country now.

 

But in their haste and greed they seem to have forgotten the most important thing of all, their own survival. All of the food and the water and the electricity that is needed to keep their lives and their obscenely grand mansions functioning is dependent not upon their profit and loss sheets but upon the slaves that are needed to keep everything moving. When the goods and services businesses can no longer survive; neither will they. No one can eat or drink their phony money or the gold and silver that they have amassed: And without real money there is no way to continue to pay their private-security forces to protect them from us. In countries very far from this one the ragged populations of the poor have figured out that even unarmed, and in their rags, these starving people could and did descend upon their overlords in such numbers that the corruptions that had been controlling them had to run for their lives and not the other way round. (4)

 

We have the power and the strength in numbers to overrun this government and end this nightmare once and for all. Ah but apparently things have not yet become BAD ENOUGH, but when they do reach that point - this will end their entire construct with such finality; that this will truly be over because most of those in charge now will be dead, precisely because they have overlooked this most-dangerous of all threats to their petty tyrannies and their grievous TREASONS which they are now practicing daily.

 

This time round the collapse of this nation will not be followed by tent-cities all over this land; it will be followed instead by a massive resistance against all those who have stolen and murdered their way through the entire infrastructure and the ruins (which they have created) from what was once the actual-culture of this flawed but thriving United States of America.

 

US Navy Veterans Continue to Seek Justice for Israeli Attack

Truthout
by Dahr Jamail

Damage to USS Liberty, June 1967. (Photo: U.S. Navy)

The Israeli military has attacked a flotilla of international peace activists, killing as many as 19 innocent civilians while they were carrying ten tons of aid to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza. This is not the first time the Israeli military has attacked a nonthreatening entity in international waters.

On June 8, 1967, while sailing in international waters, the US Navy intelligence ship USS Liberty was attacked by air and naval forces of the state of Israel. Of the Liberty's crew of 294, more than half were killed or wounded. More than 40 years later, survivors are still seeking justice.

The Israeli forces attacked with full knowledge that the Liberty was an American ship, yet survivors have been forbidden to tell their story under oath to the American public.

Joe Meadors was on the Liberty during the attack.

"I watched some jets pass us then turn left after they passed our ship, then they started strafing [attacking repeatedly with bombs or machine-gun fire from low-flying aircraft] us," Meadors told Truthout.

"The attack lasted 90 minutes, during which we got a message off to the 6th fleet asking for assistance, and we learned later, Joe Tully, commanding officer of the USS Saratoga, launched aircraft within minutes of the attack, but he told us later they were recalled before they reached the horizon. We found this out 20 years after the attack."

Meadors said he and his group, the USS Liberty Veterans Association, believe that Rear Adm. Lawrence Geis, the Sixth Fleet carrier division commander at the time of the attack, was following orders from Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, who called off the Navy's rescue mission for the USS Liberty.

Meadors, along with other survivors of the attack, have been engaged in what has evolved into a more than 40-year struggle to find justice.

"The most frustrating thing has been a lack of reaction from the US government," Meadors explained, "On June 8, 2005 we filed a war crimes report, and they [the US Government] are required to investigate these allegations. They've created reports about our mission, but they never did conduct an actual investigation of the attack itself."

Meadors and the other veterans he works with to bring about a governmental investigation of the attack take the position that they should not have to force the government to do this.

In 2003, an independent commission of highly regarded experts was created to look into the matter. The Moorer Commission, named after its chairman, included Adm. Thomas H. Moorer, United States Navy (Ret.), former chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff and Gen. Raymond G. Davis, United States Marine Corps and former assistant commandant of the Marine Corps.

Findings of this commission included: "Israel launched a two-hour air and naval attack against USS Liberty ... Israeli torpedo boats later returned to machine-gun at close range three of the Liberty's life rafts that had been lowered into the water by survivors to rescue the most seriously wounded ... Israel's attack was a deliberate attempt to destroy an American ship and kill her entire crew."

Ray McGovern is a senior CIA analyst who served under seven presidents - from John Kennedy to George H. W. Bush.

McGovern is clear about why he believes the US government continues to refuse to launch an investigation. "For the same reason that President Johnson called back the fighter/bombers; i.e., so as not to embarrass our friend Israel," McGovern explained to Truthout, "It is my view that the killing of 34 USS Liberty crew and wounded more than 170 others and the fact that the US Navy, Congress, executive branch not only prohibited the survivors to speak about it, but also launched faux 'inquiries,' is the poster child for what is wrong with the US relationship with Israel, showing the penchant of senior US officials to sacrifice honesty, justice, and US servicemen on the sacral altar of "compassionate attachment" to Israel."

McGovern added that, in his view, the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty is "the archetypical example of how Israel was given convincing affirmation of its belief that it can get away with murder, literally, and the US Gulliver would be bound to ignore it ... or even mount 'official' inquiries to explain it away."

Bryce Lockwood survived the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty and was awarded the Silver Star for his heroic actions during the attack, when he saved at least one wounded sailor's life.

Lockwood, like McGovern, feels there is no doubt whatsoever that the attack was no accident.

"It was deliberate," Lockwood told Truthout. He went on to explain why he thinks Moshe Dayan, who was appointed as Israel's Defense Minister in 1967, ordered the attack.

"I only learned recently, via a document released by the CIA, that Dayan ordered the attack, despite objections from his staff members," Lockwood explained, "Our ship had the capability of monitoring virtually everything ... all communications. The Israelis had nuclear capability, and it was extremely important to the Johnson administration that the Israelis not use the nuclear option. We could monitor all of this, even when it was done by the Israelis. The Israelis wanted unbridled use of the nuclear option, and they didn't want us to know about it ... that's why they attacked us."

Another reason why Lockwood is so certain that the attack was deliberate is because he watched Joe Meadors hoist three US flags up a pole in an attempt to insure the Israeli pilots knew they were firing on a US ship.

"The Israelis claim they didn't see a US flag, but they shot down two, and Joe raised three of them, since they kept firing on them," Lockwood explained, "They riddled the third with bullet holes, but it stayed up."

In addition, writing in his memoirs, Richard Helms, the director of Central Intelligence at the time of the attack, explained that the CIA undertook a "final" investigation after more evidence became available, and he offered the following information concerning the CIA's final finding:

"Israeli authorities subsequently apologized for the incident, but few in Washington could believe that the ship had not been identified as an American naval vessel. Later, an interim intelligence memorandum concluded the attack was a mistake and not made in malice against the US.... I had no role in the board of inquiry that followed, or the board's finding that there could be no doubt that the Israelis knew exactly what they were doing in attacking the Liberty. I have yet to understand why it was felt necessary to attack this ship or who ordered the attack."

Meadors' and Lockwood's struggle to find justice spans decades, and there doesn't appear to be an end in sight.

Meadors is measured in his explanation of how he perceives the politics behind the lack of an investigation. "Politicians feel the Israeli lobby is so powerful, that if they do anything about this it will cost them votes. Nobody thinks it was a mistake, everybody knows it was deliberate. But they won't investigate it because they feel it would damage the relationship between the US and Israel."

"I'm disgusted with our country and our representatives," Lockwood concluded, "My country doesn't give a damn about me or the people on the Liberty. I'm terribly disappointed in the way our country has dealt with us."

While both Meadors and Lockwood urge people to contact their Congressional representatives and demand an investigation, Meadors is moving ahead with looking for an attorney who will help the USS Liberty Veterans group to which he belongs determine if they have a course of action through federal courts.