“I Will Not Bow to a Foreign Flag” — Patrick Little on Israel, the USS Liberty & the Lavon Affair

On May 5, 2018, California Republican Senate candidate Patrick Little was expelled from the California Republican Party convention. Immediately afterward, he recorded a video outside the convention in which he declared:

“I will not bow to a foreign flag. I will not serve a foreign government.”

Little then attacked what he described as the California GOP's relationship with Israel, calling the party “Zionist stooges” and arguing that American foreign policy had become too closely aligned with Israeli interests. Contemporary documentation confirms that this was the speech/video he made after being expelled from the convention.

He then points viewers toward two controversial episodes in U.S.–Israeli history:

THE USS LIBERTY — June 8, 1967

During the Six-Day War, Israeli aircraft and torpedo boats attacked the USS Liberty, a U.S. Navy intelligence ship in the Mediterranean. 34 Americans were killed and 171 were wounded. Israel maintained that the attack was "accidental" and resulted from "mistaken identification"; the U.S. government accepted Israel's explanation, while some survivors, investigators, and other researchers have disputed that conclusion!

THE LAVON AFFAIR — 1954

Little also references the Lavon Affair, in which an Israeli military intelligence operation involved placing bombs at American and British-linked civilian targets in Egypt. The operation was intended to have the attacks blamed on Egyptians. The affair became a major political scandal in Israel, and the historical record documents the involvement of Israeli intelligence personnel.

Little's broader argument is that Americans should examine these episodes when evaluating the relationship between Israel, Zionism, American foreign policy, U.S. military personnel, and the political influence of pro-Israel organizations.

There is another important dimension to this footage: who is speaking. Little was not simply an anonymous internet commentator. He was a political candidate seeking a U.S. Senate seat in California in 2018. However, his broader political record included extreme "antisemitic" and white-nationalist rhetoric, including calls for the expulsion of Zionists from the United States.

That context matters.

A serious examination of American foreign policy should be capable of separating documented historical events and legitimate questions about U.S.–Israeli relations from sweeping claims about Jews as an ethnic or religious group.

The USS Liberty happened. The Lavon Affair happened. Little's 2018 speech happened.

The questions are what these events mean, what the evidence actually establishes, and how much influence they have on the way Americans understand the U.S.–Israel relationship.

Watch the clip. Check the dates. Read the historical record. Then make your own assessment.