Joe Meadors is an American former U.S. Navy signalman, who survived Israel’s attack on the USS Liberty

USS Liberty (AGTR-5)

USS Liberty was a Belmont-class technical research ship that was attacked by Israel Defense Forces during the 1967 Six-Day War.-History:...

, June 8, 1967.
In 2010, he was a passenger on the Sfedoni, in the Gaza flotilla.
He is married to Jean Meadors; they live in Corpus Christi, Texas

Corpus Christi, Texas

Corpus Christi is a coastal city in the South Texas region of the U.S. state of Texas. The county seat of Nueces County, it also extends into Aransas, Kleberg, and San Patricio counties. The MSA population in 2008 was 416,376. The population was 305,215 at the 2010 census making it the...

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U.S.S. Liberty

Joe
He and Francis Brown hoisted a second American Flag, after the first was shot down.
He was on the bridge throughout the attack, and was an eyewitness to the machine-gunning of liferafts.

I watched some jets pass us, then turn left after they passed our ship, then they started strafing us.
The attack lasted 90 minutes, during which we got a message off to the Sixth Fleet asking for assistance. We learned later that Joe Tully, commanding officer of the USS Saratoga

USS Saratoga (CV-60)

USS Saratoga , was one of four Forrestal- class supercarriers built for the US Navy in the 1950s. Saratoga was the sixth US Navy ship, and the second aircraft carrier, to be named for the Battle of Saratoga in the American Revolutionary War.Commissioned in 1956, she spent most of her career in...

, launched aircraft within minutes of the attack, but he told us later they were recalled before they reached the horizon. We found this out 20 years after the attack.


The most frustrating thing has been a lack of reaction from the U.S. government. On June 8, 2005, we filed a war crimes report, and they are required to investigate these allegations. They've created reports about our mission, but they never did conduct an actual investigation of the attack itself.

He is president of the USS Liberty Veterans Association

USS Liberty Veterans Association

The USS Liberty Veterans Association is an organization of former crew members and survivors of the USS Liberty incident on June 8, 1967.- Organizational structure :For 2010, the board of directors of the LVA consists of the following:...

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Gaza flotilla

In 2010, he was a part of the Gaza flotilla.

He was on the Sfedoni, with Ambassador Edward Peck

Edward Peck

Edward L. Peck is a retired career United States diplomat who served thirty-two-years in the U.S. Foreign Service .-Early life and career:...

, captured by the Israelis, and released.

They [Israeli military] are very inept, to tell you the truth,


It was an illegal attack. We were on the high seas conducting legal activities. They admitted that they closed the area for military purposes but they, we tried to find out the boundaries of that area and they wouldn’t tell us,


They’re just a bunch of rag-tag people who think they can do no wrong. Every time they speak they say they don’t break any laws, they always abide by international laws. But, they break them with impunity and the US Government is not going to hold them accountable, nobody is

There is no doubt that the Israelis were committing piracy on the high seas against the Freedom Flotilla and used deadly force against unarmed humanitarians whose only crime was defending themselves against a sea and airborne invasion by heavily armed aggressors.

External links

• 43 Years After Surviving Israeli Attack on USS Liberty, US Veteran Joe Meadors Seized by Israeli Forces on Gaza Aid Flotilla - video report by Democracy Now!
  Democracy Now!
  Democracy Now! and its staff have received several journalism awards, including the Gracie Award from American Women in Radio & Television; the George Polk Award for its 1998 radio documentary Drilling and Killing: Chevron and Nigeria's Oil Dictatorship, on the Chevron Corporation and the deaths of...