Israelis kill 7 on Gaza beach Friday, June 9, 2006 CNN An Israeli navy gunboat fired shells into northern Gaza on Friday, killing at least seven Palestinians on a beach, Palestinian medical sources said. The Israel Defense Forces halted firing pending an investigation into the strike at Beit Lahya. The IDF apologized and said it "regretted the strike on innocents," the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported. Haaretz said the IDF's chief of staff, Gen. Dan Harel, had ordered a halt in the shelling. The Israeli paper quoted Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas as condemning the killings as a "bloody massacre." Separately, three Palestinian militants died earlier Friday in an Israeli airstrike, also in the Beit Lahya area, and two Palestinians were killed in another Israeli strike in the Jabalya refugee camp in Gaza. Video footage from the beach showed ambulance workers carrying away injured people on stretchers. A young girl was screaming for her mother in the footage. Palestinian security sources said about 20 others were injured when Israeli shells hit the beach. The IDF said it was shelling rocket-launching areas in Gaza from the sea. A representative said the areas were believed to be uninhabited. Comment: For the people of Gaza, the beaches that line their tiny piece of land offer the chance of a little relaxation and respite from the daily threat of death in the form of the thousands of Israeli shells that are fired at them each month. Now, even this has been denied them and Israeli has extended the Gaza killing fields to Gaza's beach front. Today's attack was indeed a "bloody massacre", but Israel was not content until it had rubbed salt into the bloodied corpses by claiming that they thought there was no one on the obviously packed beach. Meanwhile, the mainstream media sits back and says nothing and American taxpayers continue to allow their government to funnel billions of dollars each year to enable Israel to continue the massacre of innocent Palestinian lives. With this massacre of Palestinians by Israel on a Gaza beach, Hamas has said today that it will renew its attacks on Israel...how very, very convenient for Israel and its need to perpetuate a state of conflict with a Palestinian enemy in order to pursure its bloodthirsty agenda.

Palestine to Say 'Yes' to Israel Foreign News Desk zaman.com June 08, 2006 According to a public opinion poll, 77 percent of the nation approved the plan anticipating a two-state solution and the recognition of Israel, while debates over a "common policy" continue between al-Fatah and the Islamic Resistance Movement (HAMAS) in Palestine. Israeli Khaaretz newspaper yesterday published the results of the public opinion poll conducted by Birzeit University in Ramallah. The results revealed that Palestinians want to establish a state with Jerusalem as the capital within in Palestine, occupied by Israel since 1967. The survey revealed 77 percent of the people approved the dossier "prepared by Palestinians held in Israeli prisons," which Israeli leader Mahmoud Abbas tried to introduce to a referendum. The results also revealed that HAMAS, having won a victory in the Palestinian general elections, has lost a large number of votes, while public support, which was 50 percent in May, dramatically fell to 37 percent in July. Meanwhile, Abbas said he will announce the referendum date soon. Comment: Hamas refuses to recognise Israel, even though the majority of Palestinians want them to do this and rightly see such a recognition as a way to ease their suffering. Hamas declared 'al Zarqawi' a matyr and mourned his death. Osama bin Laden's right hand man, 'Ayman al-Zawahiri' in his most recent video, declared that Palestinians should not support Abbas' referendum that would lead to a recognition of Israel. Al-Qaeda condemns referendum Aljazeera has aired a video in which al-Qaeda's number two leader urges Palestinians to reject the referendum proposed by their president and praises Abu Musab al-Zarqawi without mentioning his recent death in Iraq. Bin Laden, al Zarqawi and al-Zawahiri are all puppets in a US/Israel psychological operation and they and Hamas support each other. So our question is: Who are the real players behind Hamas and why is their agenda so similar to that of the phony Islamic terrorists? The answer is simple and already an established fact: Hamas has Israeli roots.

Israeli forces continue daily attacks on Gaza Strip killing three Palestinians PNN Editor Kristen Ess 8 June 2006 Palestinian medical sources reported that Israeli forces killed three more Palestinians last night, east of Gaza City. They were "too close to the fence." Israeli soldiers opened fire from their occupation posts along the border, killing the three Palestinians and injuring another four. From Gaza City's major Al Shifa Hospital, Director of Emergency and Ambulance services, Dr. Juma' Al Saqa, reported that firstly two dead Palestinians arrived and four injured. He confirmed that all shots fired into their bodies were from Israeli soldier bullets, which are well known to the Gaza Strip population as they are frequently pulled not only from men, but also out of the bodies of children, mothers and grandparents. This is the continued devastating condition of life in the Gaza Strip where Israeli forces still control the borders, the sky, the sea, and the infrastructure, including electric and water sources. The only name among those killed available at first was Khader Qassem, as reported by Al Shifa Hospital. He was a member of the Palestinian National Security Forces. Later in the night the third person killed was found in bits and pieces, his body scattered throughout the eastern Gaza Strip area. Israeli forces hit him hardest with artillery shelling. That information came directly from Palestinian sources in the northeastern Strip. The Israeli Radio reported that Israeli soldiers opened fire with machine guns on four Palestinian youths approached them at the border fence separating the Gaza Strip and eastern Israeli territory. The Israeli Radio reported that Israeli soldiers killed one Palestinian and injured the others. However, there are three bodies in Al Shifa's morgue and generally the Israelis are not shy about admitting how many Palestinian they have killed in a day, unless it is a child, a woman, or an elderly person and they give an indirect apology in order to stave off the international outrage that never seems to come. Palestinian security and medical sources said that the Israeli army contacted them to arrange coordination to send a Palestinian ambulance to the area where there were several people lying on the ground. This time Israeli forces allowed the Palestinian ambulances to gain access, but it was far too late for several.

President Abbas Describes Israel's Massacres in Gaza "Annihilation War" June 9, 2006 WAFA Ramallah - President Mahmoud Abbas condemned the Israeli killing operations in Gaza Strip, describing them as "annihilation war" against the Palestinian people. "Undoubtedly what happened in Gaza today are bloody pogroms against safe civilians," said President Abbas in a statement to WAFA "Israeli is committing the biggest crimes of termination against the Palestinian people." Israel killed on Friday at least seeven citizens, including children and women, as they were by the shore of al-Sudaniyeh, north of Gaza Strip, and other three citizens in a car. Last night, Israel also killed four citizens in the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah. President Abbas called on the international community, the UN Security Council and the Quartet to put an end to Israel's haughtiness and crimes against the Palestinian people.

It's Palestine That Needs a Right to Exist Thursday 08 June 2006 Jurnalo In today's Financial Times, Henry Siegman explores the facts behind Middle-Eastern rhetoric and asks the reader to judge political action and not be blinded by words and speeches, however promising or evil they might appear. Siegman, the director of the U.S./Middle East Project at the Council on Foreign Relations, focuses on the current Western request that Hamas accept 'Israel's right to exist', which they have refused to do. In light of Palestinian President Abbas' planned referendum to receive that acceptance directly from the Palestinian people, Siegman, citing former Mossad head Efraim Halevy, comments: "Why should Israel care whether Hamas grants it the right to exist [...] Israel exists and Hamas's recognition or non-recognition neither adds to nor detracts from that irrefutable fact." The real issue, Siegman puts forward, is how Israel perceives Palestinian statehood, concluding that "it is clear that - its many declarations to the contrary not withstanding - Israel does not recognise a Palestinian right to statehood", adding that the partial withdrawals of some settlements merely served "narrow Israeli interests". Having arrived at this conclusion, the former executive director of the American Jewish Congress states that the most pressing question is not whether Abbas' approach will succeed; but rather whether European Governments will "continue their support of Washington's incurable pandering to Israel's rightwing policies or [...] muster the political will to re-engage with the Palestinian Authority".

Israeli generals mull massive operation in West Bank China Daily 06/06/2006 Israeli army generals have been calling for massive raids and operations in the West Bank in a bid to destroy militants infrastructure there before Israel's further pullout from the region, Israel's Jerusalem Post reported on Tuesday. The call, made by senior members of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) General Staff, came ahead of a further Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank, which is outlined in Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's convergence plan. At the moment, the IDF has cut off northern West Bank from the rest of the region to prevent Islamic Jihad militants from entering Israel, said the post. Concerning the pending military operation in the West Bank, some Israeli generals expressed different opinions on the need for such an operation. Major General Amos Gilad, head of the Defense Ministry's Political-Military Bureau, was cited by the Post as saying that the main question yet to be decided was whether Israel would retain a military presence in evacuated areas of the West Bank. "If the army stays there, then there is no need for such an operation, but if the IDF pulls out together with the settlers, then there might be a need for such an operation to destroy terror infrastructure prior to the withdrawal," another high-ranking defense official said. Olmert has been touring around the world to seek support for his convergence plan since his U.S. visit in May. Olmert vowed to set Israel's final borders by 2010 by pulling out isolated settlements in the West Bank but keeping bigger ones with or without peace talks with the Palestinian side. Comment: The term "terrorist infrastructure" is used by Israeli politicians to define anything from a factory making qassam rockets to Palestinian policemen. Israel is a pariah state, recognised by the peoples of the world for its brutal treatment of Palestinian civilians and rightly condemned for it.

Israeli strike kills top Hamas enforcer By IBRAHIM BARZAK Associated Press June 8, 2006 GAZA CITY, GAZA Strip - An Israeli airstrike Thursday killed the top Hamas enforcer in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian hospital officials and group members said. Israel has accused militant faction leader Jamal Abu Samhadana of spearheading rocket attacks on Israel and of the fatal 2003 bombing of a U.S. convoy in the Gaza Strip that killed three American security guards. Two other people were killed and seven were wounded in a strike on a Popular Resistance Committees training camp. The 43-year-old militant had been No. 2 on Israel's wanted list and had tried to avoid detection by moving stealthily, switching cars and hideouts. In an interview last week with The Associated Press, Abu Samhadana railed against the U.S. government, saying he's happy whenever American soldiers are killed and vowed not to take Hamas' 3,000-strong militia off the streets. The U.S. and Israeli-led boycott of the Hamas-run Palestinian Authority is "cheap extortion" that only serves "to make our people more attached to the government," he said in the interview, held at a clandestine location chosen by his group. Abu Samhadana graduated from a military school in then-communist East Germany in 1988. He was loyal to Yasser Arafat for many years, but was later expelled from Arafat's group Fatah. He formed the Popular Resistance Committees, a violent group consisting of militants from various factions, after the latest Palestinian uprising broke out in 2000. His appointment as director general of the Hamas-led Interior Ministry infuriated both Israel and Hamas' Fatah rivals, led by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. After Hamas' victory in Jan. 25 legislative elections, the group deployed its 3,000-strong militia, whose rifle-toting black-clad members guard streets throughout Gaza. Abu Samhadana has said the force will remain in place despite criticism by Hamas' detractors that it's a major source of friction and instability.

US judge rules alleged Hamas operative not tortured by Israel by Mira Oberman AFP Thu Jun 8, 2006 CHICAGO - A US judge ruled that a man accused of supporting Hamas terrorist operations was not tortured by Israeli security forces following his 1993 arrest. The ruling allows US prosecutors to use incriminating statements made during 55 days of interrogation in order to prosecute Muhammad Salah, a naturalized US citizen, on charges of providing material support to terrorists. The decision sets a "dangerous example" of allowing coerced confessions obtained by foreign governments into US courts, warned the National Lawyers Guild, a New York-based progressive bar association. "When our government turns prisoners over to others for torture, as has happened in several cases, or seeks to exploit torture committed by one of our surrogates, as happened in the Salah case, the government demonstrates contempt for our own constitution," guild president Michael Avery said in a statement. In a 138-page ruling on a motion to suppress the statements, Judge Amy St. Eve determined that Salah's allegations of sleep deprivation and other forms of physical and psychological torture were not credible. She noted that Salah had not complained of ill-treatment during consular visits and did not show any bruising in news photographs taken shortly after he alleges that he was beaten about the head with a rifle. She also noted that the tone and transcript of one interrogation which had been taped showed that Salah had a friendly and easy relationship with one of his interrogators who remembered that Salah took two spoons of sugar in his coffee. "Salah's affidavit is questionable given its inconsistencies with Salah's prior statements and the other evidence presented at the suppression hearing," she wrote. St. Eve also ruled that two Israeli security forces interrogators were "forthright and truthful" when testifying that Salah was subjected to special treatment because he was an United States citizen and was not tortured. It was the first time members of Israel's General Security Service, or Shin Bet, had testified in a US court. The six days of testimony were made in closed court and transcripts edited for classified information were later made available. An Israeli police officer also testified. The interrogators were questioned about their interactions with Salah and the general interrogation tactics used with terrorism suspects. They admitted that some detainees were forced to sit on a low child's chair and had coverings placed over their heads, but said special orders had been given to treat Salah "differently." They also described the use of collaborators in prisons to extract information from terrorist suspects in a "bird drill", but those details were withheld from the public record. Salah's lawyer said the decision to grant credibility to testimony from Shin Bet interrogators showed a lack of understanding of the situation in Israel. "The problem is she doesn't evaluate them in the context of the environment they operate in where they systematically lie and coerce people," Michael Deutsch told AFP. "She treated it like it was a bank robbery case in the US where the FBI were the interrogators and they were operating under a whole different set of rules." A spokesman for the US Attorney's office declined to comment on the ruling. Salah spent nearly five years in an Israeli prison in the mid-1990s after admitting he committed a number of crimes on behalf of Hamas, which swept to power in January elections this year but remains designated by the United States as a terrorist organization. He was charged by US prosecutors in August 2004 of involvement in a 15-year racketeering conspiracy in which he provided material support to terrorists along with Abdelhaleem Ashqar of Virginia and Hamas leader Mousa Marzook, who is considered a fugitive living in Syria. A jury trial for Salah is scheduled for October in Chicago.

Hawkish Israeli Lobby Wants War with Iran Baltimore Indymedia 25/04/2006 The Israeli Lobby, with others, helped to instigate the Iraqi War. A scholarly report, the "Harvard Study," which was recently released, also documents the "unmatched power" of the Lobby over the national interest. Now, the Bush-Cheney Gang is targeting Iran for a pre-empted strike. Is the hawkish, hard right, pro-Israeli Lobby pushing for a war with Iran, too? Kevin Zeese, an independent candidate for U.S. Senate In MD, thinks that it is. Washington, D.C. - Kevin Zeese was the first speaker at a public forum held on Monday evening, April 24, 2006, at the West End Neighborhood Library, near the community of Georgetown. The topic for the event was, "Is the Israel Lobby Promoting War on Iran?" He said the question of whether the hawkish, hard-right, pro-Israeli Lobby in America wants to see war with Iran "gets answered in an ad which was in the New York Times, the Financial Times, and other newspapers. It's a full page ad by the American Jewish Committee, put out on April 4th. The center of the bull's eye is Iran and the headline is: 'Can Anyone Within Range of Iran's Missiles Feel Safe?' I think that's a pretty inflammatory ad. It's signed by more than a hundred people...I think it's a pretty strong indication of where the Lobby stands. That isn't the only proof we have that the hawkish Israeli Lobby wants to go to war." Zeese is the director of DemocracyRising.U.S., an organization working to end the Iraqi War and the Occupation. He was also an ex-press secretary for Ralph Nader in 2004. Presently, Zeese is an independent candidate for the U.S. Senate in Maryland, who is looking to bring together, in a voting block, the combined electoral efforts of the Green, Populist and Libertarian Parties. (1) The DC Anti-War Network (DAWN) presented the evening program. (2) David Kirshbaum and Carol Moore of DAWN acted as co-moderators for the event and did a splendid job. Other speakers were Simin Royanian and Alex Patico. Alex is a U.S. coordinator of the multi-country "Campaign Against Sanctions and Military Intervention in Iran." Ms. Royanian is an economist and the cofounder of the "Women for Peace and Justice in Iran." Ms. Royanian, in her remarks, pointed to U.S. "militarism and imperialism" as being the root of the problem of injustice around the world and in the Middle East as well, and as posing the main threat to Iran today. She did acknowledge that the Israeli Lobby is "brainwashing" the American people. She also emphasized that Iran is not making "any nuclear weapons." Mr. Patico saw the U.S. government itself as the main issue with respect to Iran. He said it has "exacerbated the situation." Patico asked: "Why did it (the U.S.) put the nuclear option on the table?" According to DAWN's press release, the focus of the event was the new "Harvard Study on the negative influence of the Israel Lobby and what activists can do about it." (3) The report was authored by Professors John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt. (4) It generated hostile reactions from Israeli sympathizers, like Alan Dershowitz, David Gergen and the Washington Post. (5) Essentially, the document revealed what most objective observers of the Middle East already knew: The Israeli Lobby, which includes the Neocons, has exercised "unmatched power" over U.S.'s policies to the extent that its role is harmful and not in the national interest. In fact, pundit Charley Reese, was even more blunt. He called Israel, "The dead roach in America's salad." He also accused the Lobby of "beating the drums for war with Iran." (6) Recently, investigative reporter Seymour Hersh revealed, that the Bush([search])-Cheney Gang was planning a nuclear strike against Iran. (7) Continuing with Zeese's comments, he said: "Another important, hard line group is the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA). They have been advocating 'regime change' in a number of Arab counties: Iraq([search]), Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, and with the Palestinian Authority for years. JINSA's board of advisors has included many Bush administration leaders: Dick Cheney, John Bolton, Richard Perle, James Woolsey and Douglas Feith...They (JINSA) put a report out on April 12th, called, 'Iran, Iran, Iran and Iran.' Iran, the document said is the 'whole list of national security priorities.' Yes, they want to see 'regime change' in Iran. They want to see an attack on Iran." It's interesting to note that one of the members of the U.S. Congress, who supports a U.S. air strike against Iran's nuclear facilities is the Israeli Firster, Joseph Lieberman (D-CT). He told the Jerusalem Post, he would, if necessary, advocate such a measure to "deter the development of their nuclear program." (8) What, of course, Lieberman didn't say is that his favorite country, Israel, is suspected of having over 400 nuclear weapons! (9) Meanwhile, as gas prices soar above $3 a gallon, the resentment in the U.S. towards the Israeli Lobby's role in inflaming that problem, too, can also be expected to grow exponentially. Some fondly recall that before the creation of Israel, the U.S. didn't have any Arab enemies in the oil-producing Middle East and that buying gas for the car wasn't an issue. Other matters, like: Israel's launching of the notorious "Lavon Affair," in 1954; its bulldozing to death, in 2003, of peace activist Rachel Corrie; its deliberate attack in 1967, on the U.S. Liberty; its unleashing of the spy/traitor, Jonathan Pollard; the over $140 billion in dollars in foreign aid that it has extracted from our treasury, since 1948; and the Larry Franklin/Pentagon Spy case, with its ties to American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)-will continue to simmer in the bosom of many Americans. (10) There is, too, another factor which causes friction. It is the arrogance of some of the Israel's apologists! Their condescending attitudes and their use of smear tactics towards those who dare to speak out for the good of our Republic is deeply resented by their targets and, too, by the wider community. It reminds some of how the British imperialists regularly abused our gallant patriots before the Revolution. As brave Americans die daily in the Neocon-inspired Iraqi War, and others ingest the toxic depleted uranium dust, those feelings against a militant Israel, and its haughty and schoolyard bully of a Lobby, will only persist. (11) Finally, in his over fifteen-minute-talk, Zeese underscored the importance of the Harvard Study and how it can open up a discussion on matters that have long been a "taboo topic among elected U.S. politicians." He had high praise for its two authors. Zeese spotlighted for the audience some of the significant items, and findings, contained in the report, including one of their conclusions that Iran is Israel's next target for "regime change." He emphasized that the "lopsided U.S. policy in favor of Israel" needs to be changed. He pointed out that aid to Israel over the last 58 years has far outstripped aid to other nations. He gave as example the fact that, "Aid to Israel is greater than all of U.S. aid to sub-Saharan Africa, the Caribbean and Latin America combined." Zeese said that our "democracy is threatened by the stifling of debate." He said now is the time to confront that "special relationship. It is evident that the current approach has not benefitted Israel, the Palestinians, the Middle East on the United States." He finished up by urging people who are opposed to any war against Iran "to get organized."

Flashback: Beyond Niger: Are All Terrorism Files Forgeries? By Cyte November 29, 2005 Operation "Mass Forgery" Ever wondered why "Islamic terrorism" cases fall apart? Israel's declared policy is to "work closely with Jordan to destabilize" the Middle East. Jordan is an old ally of Israel. The bombs in the hotel ceiling may have been part of this continued clandestine collaboration. But there is more. In the late 1970's, Jordanian intelligence helped Israel execute the most deceptive psychological operation of all times. The operation was headquartered in the town of Zarqa near Amman, Jordan. "Zarqawi" means "the man from Zarqa," and this Israeli-Jordanian cooperation created many mythical Zarqawis. Over beer in downtown Amman, Mossad agents discussed the details with their Jordanian counterparts. Leaflets were printed under the slogans "save your Muslim sisters from rape by infidels in Afghanistan" and "come train for jihad." Psychedelic Islamic choir chants were created, probably with professional help from Zionist musicians. The chants put listeners in some kind of a trance and moved them to sign up for training in Jordan. For those young Arabs to think they could train in Jordan to fight the Russians in Afghanistan is like Northern Irish Catholic boys believing that they could train with British cops in the London subway. Israel's old ally, Jordan, is a small police state and an enemy of Muslim causes. The king of Jordan ordered his troops to shoot at Arabs in 1947 to protect invading Israelis. Religious activists are tortured to death. But the leaflets told of Russians raping Muslim women while they are crying for help. It made Muslim men feel an extreme sense of duty and guilt. And the chants placed the young listeners on an imaginary mission in the middle of a war and it made them feel invincible. The poetry challenged mountains to come crumbling down and used similar fantastic exaggerations typical of Arabic poetry. Verses of the Koran were intermingled to give authority to the fantasy. These unique songs had very powerful psychological effects, especially on a young listener. Arabs had never heard anything like them. Men with beards from Jordanian intelligence played the roles of imams and martial arts trainers. Mossad agents who spoke Arabic gave lectures on the Islamic virtues of suicide bombings (there are none). Hundreds of Arabs from different countries flocked to the "training camps" in Zarqa. The young men were trained in martial arts, they ate hummus together, they listened to lectures and psychedelic chants for three months, and then, it was round-up time. The purpose of the operation was only to create an illusion of global Islamic suicide terrorism, not real terrorists. The operation was wrapped up because the illusion was already created, with real people and real records of "jihad training." Jordanian intelligence kept records that would convince foreign prosecutors. One of the remnants of this mass forgery operation is Zarqawi, the man from Zarqa. Many trainees perished under torture in Jordanian prisons or were shipped to other Arab countries or to Afghanistan. Few escaped and rejoined normal life. Chants from the Past To this day, the 25 year old, powerful psychedelic chants remain unmatched in Arabic music. Those caught listening to them are arrested for subversion. So how did these chants end up on the Baghdad sniper's video? The middle song on this tape is a recruitment song from 25 years ago. It is the one that calls on mountains to come crumbling down. I watched the high-quality video. It does not look like something prepared by a man on the run. A man who lists statistics bragging about killing hundreds of American troops, including several snipers. One of the targets is performing a Christian prayer, just before being shot dead. No, this is not a documentary of the work of one Iraqi resistance sniper named Juba. I believe that a team of non-Arab snipers are involved (Israeli contractors? Mercenaries?). I believe that this video is a psy-op meant to inflame Americans, an attempt to fuel the dying war between Christians and Muslims, a war that was started for the sake of Israel. P.S. Many Arabs have friends and relatives whose kids were lured to Jordan by this recruitment ploy. Just ask an Arab friend who is old enough to know. This is not fiction.

Flashback: Ex-officer alleges cover-up in probe of USS Liberty attack By James W. Crawley February 17, 2004 Union-Tribune Ward Boston is an unassuming octogenarian who resides in a gated community on Coronado's Silver Strand. A retired Navy captain, he hardly attracts attention in a town full of active-duty and retired sailors. Yet Boston is in the maelstrom of a nearly 37-year-old controversy surrounding Israel's deadly attack on the Navy's spy ship Liberty during the Six-Day War with Egypt, Syria and Jordan. The June 1967 attack killed 34 Americans and wounded 171. Last October, Boston broke decades of silence and declared that the Navy admiral who investigated the incident had been ordered by President Lyndon Johnson and Defense Secretary Robert McNamara to conclude it was a case of mistaken identity, despite evidence to the contrary. As the chief counsel for the Navy's court of inquiry, Boston had an insider's view. "I didn't speak up earlier because I was told not to," Boston said in an interview. His revelation, repeated last month before a State Department conference about the Six-Day War, has rekindled a smoldering debate over how it happened and whether the United States and Israel covered up the truth. Anti-Israel factions portray Boston's words - true to his legal background, memorialized in two affidavits but rarely spoken to an audience larger than one person - as proof of Israel's guilt. Israel's supporters, including a federal bankruptcy judge who researched the attack and wrote a book on it, say Boston is lying. Some pin an anti-Semitic badge on his lapel. On Web pages and through e-mail, an electronic brawl is raging over Boston's disclosures among his admirers and detractors. But, for the men who survived the attack, Boston's comments endorse views smelted in cordite, blood and smoke. "We feel we've been vindicated," said James Ennes, the Liberty's officer of the deck the day of the attack, which left him severely wounded. "We've been saying for 37 years that the court of inquiry was a fraud, that it was corrupted, that it ignored evidence and made findings not supported by the evidence," said Ennes, whose book about the incident claims it was a deliberate Israeli attack. Boston's cover-up allegation is "enormously significant," said author James Bamford, who has written several books about the super-secret National Security Agency, which analyzed radio intercepts from Liberty and other U.S. surveillance ships. "It's equivalent to former Supreme Court (Chief) Justice Earl Warren coming out and saying 'the Warren Commission report on (the) Kennedy (assassination) - everything we said was not what we believed, but we were pressured to say it,' " Bamford said. "It puts an enormous shadow over everything that was in the (Navy) report," he said. Even with Boston's affidavits and some newly released documents presented at the State Department conference, no consensus was reached on whether the attack was deliberate, accidental or the result of negligence. The Liberty was a Navy spy ship, plain and simple. Like its ill-fated sister vessel Pueblo, which was captured by North Korea six months later, the Liberty was festooned with antennas and its cargo holds were converted into top-secret locked compartments lined with receivers where petty officers eavesdropped on other nations' militaries. During the Six-Day War, the Liberty loitered off the Sinai Peninsula, listening to Israel's lightning victory over Egypt. On the afternoon of June 8, 1967, Israeli jets strafed the ship. Hours later, Israeli torpedo boats attacked. By the evening, 34 U.S. sailors were dead and 171 injured. Israel said the attack was a terrible mistake caused by the misidentification of the Liberty as an Egyptian vessel. Investigations followed, including the Navy's court of inquiry. That's when Ward Boston's involvement began. If Hollywood had discovered Boston, he could have been the real-life prototype for Cmdr. Harmon Rabb, one of the leads on the television show "JAG." In the Pacific during World War II, Boston flew harrowing photo-reconnaissance missions over Tokyo and Iwo Jima in Navy Hellcat fighters, sometimes making three passes over a single target - once to take pre-bombing pictures, then joining other planes in attacking the target and, finally, a post-attack pass to photograph the damage. After the war, Boston went to law school, passed the bar and entered private practice. Meanwhile, he continued to fly Navy fighters as a reservist, including its first jet, the FH-1 Phantom. In the late 1940s, he joined the FBI and was assigned to field offices in San Francisco and Los Angeles. During the Korean War, he rejoined the Navy, this time as a JAG officer. By June 1967, Boston was legal officer for then-Rear Adm. Isaac Kidd Jr. when the flag officer was assigned to head the hastily convened inquiry into the Liberty attack. Unable to interview hospitalized sailors and Israeli military and civilian officials, the investigative panel was given just a week to examine the battered ship, interview survivors and collect radio intercepts and other information. Boston said it was obvious then who was responsible. "There's no way in the world that it was an accident," Boston said. In his affidavits and a recent interview, Boston recounted how he and Kidd discussed their conclusions about the survivors' testimony. "(Kidd) referred to the Israelis as 'murderous bastards,' " Boston said. After Kidd delivered the panel's report to Washington officials, Boston said the admiral told him, "they aren't interested in the facts or what happened. It's a political issue. They want to cover it up." Then Kidd admonished Boston to keep silent. Boston said Kidd told him privately that orders came from Johnson and McNamara to find the incident was a mistake and not a deliberate act. There is no documentation to support Boston's account. Kidd died in 1999 at 79 after a career topped by command of the Atlantic Fleet. He never spoke of a cover-up. The late '60s was the height of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. The Soviets were backing the Arab nations; the United States was allied with Israel. U.S. troops were fully engaged in Vietnam and the United States was fearful of growing Soviet influence, especially in the oil-rich Mideast. Those who claim the attack was no accident argue that Israel wanted to stop the Liberty from snooping on its military during the war. Boston kept quiet too, until the 2002 publication of "The Liberty Incident," by Judge Jay Cristol, provoked him. Cristol's book, based on more than 10 years of research and hundreds of interviews and the collection of thousands of documents, argued that Israeli pilots, sailors and top military officials, in the heat of combat and the fog of war, were unaware the Liberty was a U.S. ship, mistaking it for an Egyptian vessel. The two men spoke twice during the 1990s while Cristol researched his book, but Boston said recently that he only discussed his career and did not reveal details of the inquiry. "It is Cristol's insidious attempt to whitewash the facts that has pushed me to speak out," Boston said in a Jan. 8 affidavit, read by Bamford at the State Department conference last month. Boston did not attend the conference. Boston's affidavit was passed to Bamford by a friend who believes that Israel is responsible for the attack on the Liberty. The judge, during a recent telephone interview, discounted Boston's contention that Johnson and McNamara covered up Israel complicity. "I think those (accusations) are kind of nonsense," Cristol said. Cristol - also a former Navy pilot and JAG officer - said Boston's comments show that he either lied in 1967 by knowingly filing a false report or that his memory has changed with age. Referring to Cristol, Boston said, "I'm not going to get into a spitting contest with a skunk." He also rejected suggestions that he is anti-Semitic, while acknowledging some sympathy for the plight of Palestinian refugees. As he splits his day between local organizations and daily visits to the gym to loosen up arthritic joints, Boston remains largely oblivious to the electronic cacophony of e-mail and Internet chat that makes him out to be either a patriot or a patsy for anti-Israel factions. That's because Boston doesn't have a computer. Friends print out and pass along Internet postings mentioning him or his statements. "I'm a dinosaur," he said. "I use a pencil with an eraser and a typewriter."