Killing of the BBC`s news assistant Abed Takkoush, USS Liberty anda subsidy of
forwarded | 28.01.2003 17:16
"I saw Abed lurch out of the driver`s side of the car and then fall to the ground," said Jeremy Bowen, the BBC reporter whom Takkoush had driven to the scene. As Bowen rushed to help the driver, Israelis opened up on him with machine-gun fire. They also fired at a Lebanese Red Cross truck as it attempted to come to the rescue.
Killing of the BBC`s news assistant Abed Takkoush, USS Liberty and a subsidy of $100 billion.
Throughout its history, Israel has hidden its abominable human rights record behind pious religious claims. Critics are regularly silenced with outrageous charges of antiSemitism - even many Liberty crewmembers who managed to survive the bloody attack and dared call for an investigation. Evidence of Israel`s deliberate killing of civilians is as recent as May 2000. The British Broadcasting Corporation has charged that the death of one of its drivers that month was caused by a deliberate and unprovoked strike on civilian targets during an Israeli tank attack.
The driver was Abed Takkoush, a news assistant for the BBC in Lebanon for twenty-five years. Takkoush was killed on May 23, when an Israeli Merkava tank, in Israel, fired an artillery shell across the southern Lebanon border at his blue Mercedes. "I saw Abed lurch out of the driver`s side of the car and then fall to the ground," said Jeremy Bowen, the BBC reporter whom Takkoush had driven to the scene. As Bowen rushed to help the driver, Israelis opened up on him with machine-gun fire. They also fired at a Lebanese Red Cross truck as it attempted to come to the rescue.
According to the BBC`s account, which is supported by extensive video footage from its own camera crew and those of four other television news organizations, the killing was totally unprovoked. "Everything was quiet," said Bowen. There had been no gunfire, rocket attacks, or artillery exchanges during the day as Israeli forces withdrew from southern Lebanon, which they had occupied for more than two decades. Bowen was close enough to the border to wave at residents of a local kibbutz across the fence. Predictably, as it did in the case of the attack on the Liberty, the Israeli government claimed the shooting was a "mistake". But the BBC was not buying that, and instead began investigating whether Israel could be accused of a war crimes violation under the Geneva Convention.
Even more damningly, the BBC contends that its news film shows that the Israeli Army, "appeared to be sporadically targeting vehicles" driven by Lebanese civilians along the same stretch of road earlier on May 23 and on May 22, despite the absence of any "retaliatory fire from the Lebanese side of the border."
Since the Israeli attack on the Liberty, U.S. taxpayers have subsidized that country`s government to the tune of $100 billion or more - enough to fund NSA for the next quarter of a century. There should be no question that U.S. investigators be allowed to pursue their probe wherever it takes them and question whoever they need to question, regardless of borders. At the same time, NSA should be required to make all transcripts available from the EC-121 and any other platform that eavesdropped on the eastern Mediterranean on June 8, 1967. For more than a decade, the transcripts
of those conversations lay neglected in the bottom of a desk drawer in NSA`s G643 office, the Israeli Military Section of G Group.
The time for secrecy has long passed on the USS Liberty incident, in both Israel and the United States. Based on the above evidence, there is certainly more than enough probable cause to conduct a serious investigation into what really happened - and why.
The above excerpt is taken from the book "Body of Secrets, how America`s NSA and Britain`s GCHQ eavesdrop on the world", written by James Bamford.
Throughout its history, Israel has hidden its abominable human rights record behind pious religious claims. Critics are regularly silenced with outrageous charges of antiSemitism - even many Liberty crewmembers who managed to survive the bloody attack and dared call for an investigation. Evidence of Israel`s deliberate killing of civilians is as recent as May 2000. The British Broadcasting Corporation has charged that the death of one of its drivers that month was caused by a deliberate and unprovoked strike on civilian targets during an Israeli tank attack.
The driver was Abed Takkoush, a news assistant for the BBC in Lebanon for twenty-five years. Takkoush was killed on May 23, when an Israeli Merkava tank, in Israel, fired an artillery shell across the southern Lebanon border at his blue Mercedes. "I saw Abed lurch out of the driver`s side of the car and then fall to the ground," said Jeremy Bowen, the BBC reporter whom Takkoush had driven to the scene. As Bowen rushed to help the driver, Israelis opened up on him with machine-gun fire. They also fired at a Lebanese Red Cross truck as it attempted to come to the rescue.
According to the BBC`s account, which is supported by extensive video footage from its own camera crew and those of four other television news organizations, the killing was totally unprovoked. "Everything was quiet," said Bowen. There had been no gunfire, rocket attacks, or artillery exchanges during the day as Israeli forces withdrew from southern Lebanon, which they had occupied for more than two decades. Bowen was close enough to the border to wave at residents of a local kibbutz across the fence. Predictably, as it did in the case of the attack on the Liberty, the Israeli government claimed the shooting was a "mistake". But the BBC was not buying that, and instead began investigating whether Israel could be accused of a war crimes violation under the Geneva Convention.
Even more damningly, the BBC contends that its news film shows that the Israeli Army, "appeared to be sporadically targeting vehicles" driven by Lebanese civilians along the same stretch of road earlier on May 23 and on May 22, despite the absence of any "retaliatory fire from the Lebanese side of the border."
Since the Israeli attack on the Liberty, U.S. taxpayers have subsidized that country`s government to the tune of $100 billion or more - enough to fund NSA for the next quarter of a century. There should be no question that U.S. investigators be allowed to pursue their probe wherever it takes them and question whoever they need to question, regardless of borders. At the same time, NSA should be required to make all transcripts available from the EC-121 and any other platform that eavesdropped on the eastern Mediterranean on June 8, 1967. For more than a decade, the transcripts
of those conversations lay neglected in the bottom of a desk drawer in NSA`s G643 office, the Israeli Military Section of G Group.
The time for secrecy has long passed on the USS Liberty incident, in both Israel and the United States. Based on the above evidence, there is certainly more than enough probable cause to conduct a serious investigation into what really happened - and why.
The above excerpt is taken from the book "Body of Secrets, how America`s NSA and Britain`s GCHQ eavesdrop on the world", written by James Bamford.
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