ISRAEL DID NOT PAY REPARATIONS TO THE SURVIVORS OF THE USS LIBERTY!
Letter to the Editor
Keene Sentinel
Keene, New Hampshire
Editor:
I recently received the Liberty News, published by the USS Liberty Veterans Association, featuring the 1989 months long exchanges in your paper relating to the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty. At this late date, I’d like to throw in my two cents on a topic brought up by two letters critical of the Sentinel and not answered by your supporters.
The two letters stated that Israel had paid “reparations” to the wounded and next-of-kin of those killed and to the U.S. for the damage to Liberty. I take exception to that. I will explain that Israel didn?t pay one thin dime.
U.S. TAXPAYERS PAID ALL THAT WAS PAID!
An arrangement was agreed to by Israel only after U.S. aid to Israel was increased from $13 million in Fiscal Year 1967 to a whopping $76.8 million in Fiscal Year 1968. That aid increase took care of negotiations for the crew, dead and wounded. These payments were made with U.S. Government checks in late Spring, 1968.
Israel then refused to pay for the LIBERTY damage. The United States government then increased the aid to Israel to $121.7 million for FY 1969. The new negotiations began and Israel agreed to pay $7.6 million damages for the $40 million ship which was sold for less than $200,000.00 as scrap. But Israel DID NOT PAY as promised when U.S. aid was cut to $71 million for FY 1970, even though that was still five times the U.S. aid of 1967. And the bill remained unpaid (and not deducted from the increased U.S. aid).
With the election of Ronald Reagan in November of 1980, Israel was unsure of how good a friend to Israel Reagan would be. A bird in the hand, so to speak and Israel initiated new USS LIBERTY damage negotiations with old friend Jimmy Carter. In December, 1980 the state Department announced that Israel had agreed to pay a total of $6 million for the LIBERTY in three payments over the next three years. A State Department official was quoted (as saying), “The book is closed on the USS LIBERTY.” That was 10-1/2 years after Israel had agreed to pay $7.6 million. No interest was to be paid by Israel. Even this last agreement was not kept per the agreement. It was reported in 1988, five years after Carter’s agreement should have been paid off, that Israel had finally paid the last installment.
Between the attack by Israel on the LIBERTY in 1967 and the last payment, some $45 billion is U.S. (U.S. taxpayer money) has been given to Israel by bought U.S. politicians. Any payments were deducted from ever increasing U.S. aid to Israel.
But that is not the end of the story.
To give money to Israel, the U.S. must first borrow the money and pay interest on that borrowed money. The money and the interest become part of our FEDERAL DEBT, now more than THREE TRILLION DOLLARS. We, the U.S. taxpayers, are today paying interest on the FIRST DOLLAR in aid given to Israel in 1949 and all in between.
Using U.S. treasury interest tables on interest rates we have paid, year by year, to borrow money through 1983 and using 10 percent (1984-1990), AID TO ISRAEL WITH INTEREST COMPOUNDED ON THE PRINCIPAL AMOUNTS TO AN ABSOLUTE MINIMUS COST TO U.S. TAXPAYERS OF $128.138 BILLION (ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-EIGHT BILLION, ONE HUNDRED THIRTY-EIGHT MILLION DOLLARS).
All aid to Israel is now in GRANTS, never to be repaid. And unlike aid to other countries that receive their aid quarterly, Israel is given all their aid at the start of each of our Fiscal Years, thereby costing United States taxpayers an additional $50 million or so in interest each year. And aid to Israel is not subject to any cuts if budget cuts are made necessary by the Gramm-Rudman Act.
No, Israel did not pay reparations for the USS LIBERTY nor to the wounded and the next of kin of those killed as Fred Slavic and four others stated in their letters. Even United States aid to Egypt is to pay Egypt for its peace with Israel.
Gip D. Oldham, Jr.
6008 E. University Boulevard
Dallas, TX 75206
Source: Liberty News
The Newsletter of the USS Liberty Veterans Association
Issues 3 & 4 Volume 8/March-June 1990
Article Source: WhatReallyHappened.com
