U.S POLITICIANS REMAIN SILENT OVER USS LIBERTY ATTACK

Egyptian lawmakers call
for probe of Israeli atrocity

 

At the same time the Israelis were attacking and killing American servicemen aboard the USS Liberty in 1967, they were also busy butchering up to 1,000 unarmed Egyptian POWs and Indian UN peacekeepers along the Sinai coast. Indeed, some say that one of the reasons for the attack on the Liberty was to cover up the slaughter of prisoners taking place, whose actual number has been placed as high as 1,000.* Now Egyptian lawmakers, unlike their American counterparts, are demanding an investigation.

Egypt wants probe into 'IDF massacre'
The Jerusalem Post Saturday, 3 March 2007

JERUSALEM — National Infrastructures Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer
of Labor may be joining the long list of political officials currently
under investigation, following a claim that the reconnaissance unit
he commanded during the Six Day War killed 250 prisoners of war.

Egyptian parliamentarians are demanding that the IDF investigate
whether Ben-Eliezer's elite Shaked unit killed the prisoners.

BINYAMIM BEN-ELIEZER: Will this war criminal be brought
to justice and receive more than a slap on the wrist —
or do the so-called Chosen Ones have a special license
to do as they please to whomever they want?

Dr. Mustafa al-Faki, chairman of the Egyptian legislature's Foreign
Affairs Committee, denounced what he called the "massacre of
helpless Egyptian soldiers," adding that it was the first time evidence
had been presented proving that "Israeli hands are drenched with
the blood of Egyptian prisoners."

Last week, Channel 1 aired Ruah Shaked (The Spirit of Shaked),
a documentary compiled by journalist Ran Edilist. It claimed that
Ben-Eliezer's unit killed 250 unarmed Egyptian prisoners of war in the Sinai desert after the fighting had stopped.

Edward Rali, head of the Egyptian parliament's Committee for Human Rights, called for his panel to meet on Sunday to discuss "the Israeli massacre of innocent Egyptian soldiers, which represents a serious violation of human rights and international law."

Ben-Eliezer, a former brigadier-general, told an Egyptian newspaper
on Saturday that the accusations were inaccurate. Those killed,
he said, were not Egyptian POWs, but rather Palestinian fedayun
(suicide troops paid and trained by Egyptian intelligence) who were
killed in battle.

Former [Israeli] education minister Yossi Sarid told Egypt's Al-Ahram
that the "killing of prisoners of war is a war crime with no statute of
limitations. The problem, however," said the former Meretz chairman, "is that the region is filled with war crimes."

Sarid told the paper he had not seen the documentary, but that he
was aware that Israeli forces had committed such acts. "Punishing
those responsible for these crimes is difficult due to the fact that 40
years have passed since the 1967 war, but history will judge these
people," he said.


*For full details see the 721-page Body of Secrets by investigative
writer James Bamford. Available in hardcover for $34 postage paid
from: NS Publications, PO Box 188, Wyandotte MI 48192.