My father used to work in Naval Intelligence during the Vietnam war, stationed in Istanbul. He told me about the Israeli attack on a US intelligence ship at the conclusion of the 6-Day War in 1967. He apparently never set foot in a boat in his time in the Navy, but he was supposed to. He was going to relieve the crew of the USS Liberty but the ship was attacked by Israeli torpedo boats and fighter jets before he had the opportunity. Thirty-four men died and 172 were wounded. I found a good website on it today: http://www.ussliberty.org/ The Israelis insist it was just a mistake; that they thought it was an Egyptian horse cavalry transport. The crew insists that the Israelis could not have made that mistake and intentionally attacked a relatively-unarmed American target. Many (including that website) believe the US government is covering something up because they readily accept Israel's position, despite serious flaws in the argument. Why a thread? Not any particularly good reason. I hadn't really heard of the event before (I can see our older posters just shaking their heads in dismay) and I have a somewhat tenous personal relationship to it. My father is very empassioned with it (of course, I don't think there is anything he doesn't have strong feelings on). And, I can empathize with the sailors on that ship being betrayed by an ally -- intentionally or accidentally -- and being slaughtered on an unarmed ship. So I figured I'd share.
Jew haters and the Arab press love this story, and they use it frequently to encourage hatred toward Israel. Recently declassified intelligence seems to exonerate Israel. http://hnn.us/comments/14889.html NSA RELEASES USS LIBERTY RECORDS In an extraordinary release of raw intelligence records, the National Security Agency has declassified and disclosed audio intercepts and related documents concerning the 1967 Israeli attack on the U.S.S. Liberty, an American intelligence vessel, that led to the deaths of 34 American sailors during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. The release came in the course of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by A. Jay Cristol, an historian who authored a book on the subject, The Liberty Incident (Brassey's, 2002). Cristol said the contents of the new release were consistent with the position advanced in his book that the Israeli attack on the Liberty was accidental and unwitting, attributable to the fog of war. Some Liberty survivors and others have contended that the attack was deliberate. The newly released intercepts record conversations between two Israeli helicopter pilots and their control tower. (No communications from the attacking aircraft or torpedo boats were acquired, the NSA said.) According to the transcript, the U.S.S. Liberty was initially thought to be Egyptian. Only later, over an hour into the attack, was an American flag spotted on the ship. Even before that, however, the control tower advised oddly that if any rescued survivors spoke English rather than Arabic, they were to be taken to Lod, in Israel, rather than to nearby El Arish. Whether or not the new release answers all possible questions about the attack on the Liberty, which is unlikely, it appears to be the last known piece of hard evidence. The NSA told a federal court that it has now declassified and released to Cristol "all of the actual recordings and English translations (including summaries of those translations) held by the NSA that relate to the USS Liberty incident." The NSA releases are posted here in rather large PDF and audio files: http://www.nsa.gov/docs/efoia/released/liberty.html The NSA's July 2 letter to Cristol, together with a mirrored copy of the compiled transcripts, may be found here: http://www.fas.org/irp/nsa/liberty.html
I don't know if anyone has suggested a possible motive for the Isrealis. I can see where one could be built, since it was a spy ship 13 miles off the Sinai coast during a war. Johnheath, I read some of the transcripts and whatnot. I don't know if they really indicate the Isrealis were right. It certainly seems that some in the Israeli military were under the impression that the ship was Egyptian. But, the conversation between the helicoptor and the tower is a second-hand account. What the crew has been arguing -- which is what gives me pause -- is that there is no way the boats and planes actually involved in the attack could have mistaken the ship for an Egyptian ship. It had no weapons except 4 heavy machine guns. It had its name and marks painted on the hull. It was flying an American flag (the Israelis insist they were not flying a flag). I read an article called Friendless Fire? that did a good job demonstrating how close planes and ships came before and during the attack that makes it hard to believe that the participants couldn't have known. It may well have been an accident, but I wouldn't be so quick to say. It seems essentially that all the evidence 'from the ground' indicated a deliberate attack, while the after-the-fact evidence points to a mistake.
I can't know for sure what happened, but common sense tells me that Israel had no motive, and would not benefit in any way by attacking the Liberty. In fact, Israel stood to lose a great deal by deliberately attacking the Liberty, including risking a military conflict with the United States. People make terrible mistakes in the heat of battle, and this looks like one to me. I do agree with you though, that it is an interesting topic.
