Palestine – Fraser Must Tell The Naked And Unadorned Truth…writes David Singer
Former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser convincingly exposed the falsity of his own and former Foreign Minister Bob Carr’s unsubstantiated claim that the pro-Israel Australian Jewish community wielded too much power – with these few well – chosen words to the ABC’s Jon Faine:
“Fraser: Um, I once said that Israel had exercised excessive power in relation to Lebanon. I got some pretty furious phone calls as a result, and people asked to come up and see me. And I thought it was going to be two or three [of them] and I found, well, there were so many they wouldn’t fit in my office. So I said “Let’s go into the Cabinet Room”. They all explained Israel’s position, which I understood. And at the end of that discussion I said, “Well, gentlemen, I am glad to have listened to you, but you know the Australian government’s position”. I said that “The power Israel used was excessive. That view has not changed. But I have heard you. Thank you.” But it’s a continuum, it’s a continuum.”
There could be no clearer case of the total ineffectiveness of those Jewish representatives sitting in the Cabinet Room – whom Fraser had properly met, courteously listened to and then rebuffed.
These lobbyists again had not got to first base.
Yes Prime Minister – contrary to your highly damaging allegations – lobbying you on this occasion on this particular issue once again had failed to change your mind.
Yet you misleadingly use this meeting to suggest there is an organised Jewish lobby that exercises too much power over Australian Governments.
Such an offensive suggestion is utterly false – as your own recollection confirms.
Maybe you felt uncomfortable when confronting the larger than anticipated number of lobbyists who had unexpectedly filed into your office. Numbers may be a turn off – as can be exasperation resulting from meetings over the same issue.
You admitted having received some pretty furious phone calls from these people. Prime Ministers would not probably appreciate such calls and their tenor.
Larger than expected noisy interest groups combined could have been even more counter-productive. Personal impressions created by lobbyists can be the kiss of death negating detailed well-researched fact-based arguments.
The indisputable fact however remains that the representations made by this group of lobbyists – for whatever reasons – were once again rejected.
But my most serious criticisms – Prime Minister – are reserved for these following comments you made:
“The Jewish community…well not all the community…because I have had many letters, I’ve got many letters in my office in the files that say “No we don’t agree with the publicly proclaimed leaders of the community in Melbourne. We take a different view.” But they’re not going to say so publicly. The Jewish community seek to get Australia to support policies as defined by Israel. Look, Israel years ago, during one of the wars, killed 30 or 40 Americans on a spy ship in the western (sic) Mediterranean.
Faine: That was a mistaken missile hit, if I remember correctly, or an air strike. I can’t remember.
Fraser: Well, the Americans tried to cover it up. It wasn’t a mistake. It was deliberate.
Faine: You believe so?
Fraser: Yes.
Faine: Based on what?
Fraser: Information I have. I am not going to tell you the source.
You revealed there were an undisclosed number of publicity shy Australian Jewish citizens who had previously written to you requesting you not to accept the views of the organised Jewish community leaders supporting policies as defined by Israel differing from theirs.
That argument was your perfect entitlement to accept and theirs to make – but you can’t have it both ways.
Being ready to reject the views of these community leaders knowing this could lead to possibly losing votes if the majority of Jewish voters they represented were unhappy with your decision does indeed suggest you were a politician of principle – a rare phenomenon in politics.
So why allege excessive power-wielding when you were prepared to dismiss their submissions even if it cost you votes in sending them back to Melbourne empty-handed – which is what you actually did?
But far worse – you told the interviewer you believed that the Americans had deliberately covered up an attack on the USS Liberty on 8 June 1967 at the height of the Six Day War.
When asked to provide the evidence to substantiate your claim – you refused to reveal the source.
Prime Minister – six American investigations into these claims resulted in the following findings:
| C.I.A. report June 13, 1967 No malice; attack a mistake |
| U.S. Navy Court of Inquiry June 18, 1967 Mistaken identity |
| Report by Clark Clifford July 18, 1967 No evidence ship was known to be American |
| Senate Select Committee on |
| Intelligence 1979/1981 No merit to claims attack was intentional |
| National Security Agency 1981 Mistaken identity |
| House Armed Services Committee 1991/1992 No support for claims attack was intentional |
Refusing to substantiate your highly damaging claim on public radio after it was challenged as being factually inaccurate – is surely conduct unbecoming of a former Prime Minister.
Prime Minister – On 14th October 1986 you were discovered in the foyer of a seedy Memphis hotel wearing only a towel and a dazed expression.
Have you been caught out with no clothes on once again? Will remaining silent on America’s cover up enhance your credibility?
Do we believe you or six American investigations?
Shame on you, David Singer. You’re propagating a myth that there have been six investigations of the June 8, 1967 attack on our ship.
This is provably false and obvious to anyone who approaches the attack with an unbiased eye..
None of the reports you present were prepared as a result of an investigation of the attack on our ship. Indeed, the Report of the Select Senate Committee on Intelligence mentioned above doesn’t even exist.
We’re not afraid of an investigation of the attack. Why are you? Perhaps you are afraid that it will be officially acknowledged that during the attack:
” We were attacked by unmarked aircraft;
” Our radios were jammed on both US Navy tactical and international maritime distress frequencies;
” Life rafts we had dropped over the side in anticipation of abandoning ship were deliberately destroyed by machine gun fire from the attacking torpedo boats;
” Attacking torpedo boats slowly circled the torpedoed and sinking ship while firing upon USS Liberty crewmen who ventured topside to help our wounded shipmates; and,
” Two flights of rescue aircraft that had been launched from Sixth Fleet aircraft carriers were ordered recalled while we were still under attack and calling for help.
One has to wonder with the plethora of information about the USS Liberty readily available online why do you have to rely upon myths that have been promulgated about the USS Liberty.
The facts about the attack and ongoing coverup are fascinating enough. No need to create a myth about it.
Respectfully,
Joe Meadors
USS Liberty Survivor
Director of Operations, USS Liberty Veterans Association
http://www.usslibertyveterans.org
Email: [email protected]
Joe
Thank you for responding to my article. I can understand how deeply traumatic are the events of that horrible that day that still continue to haunt you. No one would like to be in the position you feel today.
Please note that the case of the Liberty was only part of my article which also dealt with the misleading claim by Mr Fraser that the Australian Jewish lobby in Australia wielded too much power – an allegation I was able to disprove based on what Mr Fraser said himself.
I have written to the source I used in my article to confirm whether there were 5 or 6 inquiries -and will post a response when received.
I try to make sure my articles are factually correct and indeed this is the first occasion someone has challenged a fact. I am as interested as you to establish the truth.
Assuming you are correct – there are still five inquiries that do not appear to accept the evidence of the witnesses to support Mr Fraser’s and your claims.
Can you explain why?
It is very easy to throw mud but much harder to make it stick
You should be approaching Mr Fraser to find the source that he refused to disclose when claiming publicly on radio that the attack was deliberate and there had been a cover up – not “may have been deliberate and may have been a cover up.”
Making allegations as statements of fact without being prepared to substantiate them is not worth the breath used to make them – especially 47 years after the events took place and a series of inquiries over 25 years that do not support your claims or Mr Fraser’s.
No one – especially myself – believes the law is perfect or will always come up with the right answer.
However as I have written very often – it is the best system we have of discovering the truth and its authority should be respected – not demeaned – at all times.
By all means press for a new inquiry – but don’t continue to repeat your canard until another properly instituted inquiry has proved you correct.
Unsubstantiated and very serious allegations are continually being made against Israel on any number of issues without the proof to back them up.
Israel has been grossly maligned and continuing to ignore the findings of at least five inquiries is contrary to all accepted norms of fairness and decency.
That information from Mr Fraser would of course be very helpful to your claims and enable them to be more fully considered . You should be contacting Mr Fraser to get him to relent and reveal his unnamed source.
That is how you should proceed in my humble opinion. If Mr Fraser is privy to information unknown to you that would support your claims then you should be publicly calling on him to release it?
Joe
I have received a response from the source quoted by me in my article referring to your claim that there was no investigation by the Senate Select Committee – which states the following:
“In particular his claim that there was no investigation by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, is curious, since the investigation was spurred by none other than Mr. Meadors’ group, including his colleague and shipmate James Ennes! The committee did investigate and even sent investigators to Israel to interview the relevant Israeli officials including the pilots who attacked the Liberty (for details see The Liberty Incident Revealedby A Jay Cristol, 2013, Naval Institute Press, p 168-169). There was never any official report issued, apparently because such a report would have only confirmed the prior reports. But the US Senate investigation spurred an official IDF History branch report on the incident, which mentioned the Senate investigation”
I then sought further clarification and was provided with this response:
“As I said in my previous email there was a Senate investigation — in fact a thorough one — but no formal report was written since the investigation did not merit going forward with hearings. It’s like a Grand Jury investigation that fails to support an indictment — it usually simply ends.
That doesn’t mean as Meadors claims that there was no investigation — especially since in this case it was Meadors’ own letter that kicked off the investigation.
So I think what you said in your article was absolutely accurate and factual.”
As I said I do try to be accurate with my facts.
Can you now explain how you can claim there was no investigation by the Senate Select Committee when your group apparently initiated that investigation?
It would seem that an apology should be given by you to me together with the withdrawal of your claim that I was propagating a myth that there were six investigations that was “provably false”.
Paul
Your comments are very incisive as usual.
Fraser seems to have adopted an anti – Israel bias as a result of his own faulty research or someone providing him with misleading information that he has swallowed hook line and sinker.
His take on the Liberty Affair has impacted on his thinking on Israel for many decades now. You would think he would at least be frank enough to reveal what facts brought him to his viewpoint.
Could it be the Arab lobby that has been wielding excessive power to have persuaded Fraser to take the amazing line he has? Now that would really be ironic.
Even so I never believed I would see the day when a foreign minister or a prime minister would be persuaded to abandon supporting Israel after initially being pro-Israel.
Just shows how persuasive the incessant Arab propaganda campaigns of false facts and invented narratives has been – aided regrettably by organizations like New Israel Fund using extensive funds received from overseas governments and foreign trusts to fund anti-Israel organisations running campaigns to denigrate and delegitimise Israel.
Treating us like intellectual cretins only demeans Fraser’s reputation and identifies him as a person who makes damaging statements that he cannot back up when challenged.
Having the courage of his convictions seems to have gone missing from Mr Fraser’s profile.
At least we can now understand why he has been reduced to being irrelevant, of no influence and the laughing stock that he has nowbecome following this remarkable interview with Jon Faine.
Thank you JWire for publishing the transcript which inspired this article.
David, I am pleased to note that you are making the points I made with regard to the Carr article on J-Wire on 11.5.14. It is stupid of Fraser to criticise the “Jewish lobby” if in the same breath he brags that that lobby failed to blunt his bias against Israel. Fraser’s and Carr’s objection to Jews lobbying and not to any other group says that to those two and those of their ilk, Jews are Israel firsters if they dare raise their voices on any matter that differs from those people’s views on what is in Australia’s interests. That is antisemitism, pure and simple.
With regard to the attack on the USS Liberty, Fraser’s position is that his unsubstantiated statements must be taken as fact. That might work in societies where conspiracy theories account for all sorts of things, like in most Middle East countries, but they have no place in civilised societies like Australia or Israel.
The naked truth is that Fraser stands exposed as a bigot and a conspiracy peddler, without the wit or decency to hide the loose ends of the tales he dangles about.
Sorry to say it guys….it all sounds sooo familiar on other issues not related here and good on Jon Faine.