Recordings Back Israel Claim on Spy Ship

AP ^ | July 9, 2003, 3:10 PM EDT | By PETER ENAV

[sakic]

JERUSALEM -- Newly declassified transcripts back up Israel's claim that its sinking of a U.S. spy ship during the 1967 Middle East war was an accident, a Florida judge who has been investigating the case for 16 years said Wednesday.

Israel has always maintained it thought the USS Liberty was an Egyptian military supply ship when it ordered its forces to attack on June 8, 1967, killing 34 American sailors and wounding 171. But critics charge Israel knew the ship was American. Questions about the case have long dogged U.S.-Israel relations.

[ASA Vet]

Why weren't they released then?

SI documents are not released just
to placate those without clearance and need to know.

The information was available to the National Command Authority and staff.

[Ancesthntr]

More BS. I'm not gonna bite, or read it. The Israel is always right crew slams anyone that so much as brings up the Liberty. Now you bring this report up as definative proof. To debate you is to be labeled an antisemite. I find it interesting how much it bothers you what I think. You just cannot tolerate a different position. Israel deliberately attacked an American ship. Deal with it.

OK, this is my last attempt to persuade you to look at things logically and reasonably, to have an honest debate instead of a shouting match. Read this or not, its your choice - but I want your statements and mine to be on the record for all to see.

More BS. I'm not gonna bite, or read it.

Yeah, why read or debate anything? After all, you might learn something, and you might even find out that your pre-conceived view of the world (or at least this incident) was wrong, and your fragile ego couldn't handle that.

The Israel is always right crew slams anyone that so much as brings up the Liberty.

As I've taken some time to explain earlier, I've never met the person that believes that "Israel is always right" - and I know some incredibly pro-Israel people. They, and I, are interested merely in seeing that this embattled country gets a fair shake on the world stage. And those that slam you on this issue - myself included - obviously disagree with you about the motivation behind the attack. What, it is OK for you to slam Israel's behavior in this and other incidents, but somehow beyond the pale for someone to respond?

Now you bring this report up as definative proof.

As a lawyer, as well as an observer of the human condition, I can tell you that there is virtually no such thing as definitive proof. However, when someone who is injured says to the person who did, in fact, injure them that "I know you didn't do it on purpose, that this was just a big mistake," I tend to believe that. After all, who in the entire world would have more of an ax to grind than the injured party?

To debate you is to be labeled an antisemite.

I neither explicitly said so, nor did I imply it. I think that you are willfully ignorant (you plainly don't want to look at facts, only to make accusations), but I'll reserve judgment on the antisemite part - I don't know you well enough to say for sure, either way. However, an objective observer might find it interesting that you are so defensive about a thing that has never been mentioned or insinuated.

I find it interesting how much it bothers you what I think. You just cannot tolerate a different position.

It bothers me that you, and people like you, reflexively blame Israel at every opportunity. Especially since a lot of people (not necessarily you) ARE anti-semites and seek to cloak that thoroughly-discredited and ignorant attitude under the socially acceptable guise of being anti-Israel. Again, I am NOT saying that you are one of these people - I don't know. But I like to combat attitudes and accusations that look this way in order to change the minds of anyone who is writing or reading them. To meet an accusation with silence signifies to others that the accusation is true, and that is unacceptable to me in this case.

Israel deliberately attacked an American ship. Deal with it.

Israel did deliberately attack a ship in early June of 1967, which everyone since the attack knows to have been the USS Liberty, but the attack itself is not the issue. No one has ever argued that the Israeli pilots thought that they were just clearing their guns over the open sea. The debate for the last 36 years has been about whether the Israeli pilots and leadership knew that this was the USS Liberty either before or during the attack. I can deal with this issue, and if it turns out that the Israelis did know the identity of the ship before or during the attack, then I will be glad to admit that I'm wrong - at which point I will demand answers from the Israeli government. However, the NSA transcripts - again, the product of the aggrieved party in this case - prove as much as it is possible to do so that Israel didn't know the ship's nationality until after the attack. That is something that YOU can't deal with.

[Ancesthntr]

Oh, and I'll refer you again to the questions that Poohbah raised in his post #39. Fair, logical and honest answers to them lead one inexorably to the conclusion that this was an accident.

[NYC Republican]

What you're saying asks us to believe that the fellows in the helicopter said these words because they somehow knew that there was an American spy plane above them. That seems hard to believe. If it is true why didn't the Israelis release this info long ago?

Excellent points!

[Ancesthntr]

I saw your post #45, the picture of the Israeli jet attacking the Liberty. A couple of things:

1) I don't know why it and your other posts were pulled - I disagreed with the substance of what you said, but I saw nothing offensive in them. ADMIN MODERATOR: I think that Kuleana should be re-admitted to this thread.

2) Once again I'll state that there is no question that Israel attacked the Liberty. That is what that picture shows, though I didn't need the picture (or the prior one) to know that. However, I will again emphasize that the fact of the attack is not the issue, the motivation behind it and the precise point in time when it became known to the Israelis that this was an American ship is.

I don't offer any excuses for the Israelis but try, just for a moment, to put yourself in their shoes at that time. You're involved in a 3-front war against nations that want to literally wipe your nation off of the map, and murder all of its inhabitants. They outnumber you by an order of magnitude, and your nation has no allies that will re-supply it and no ability to carry on a war for more than a couple of weeks. Suddenly, a couple of days after the war starts, there appears a ship of unknown origin near the border you share with your strongest enemy. You know it isn't yours and don't have the time to waste while your nation is in such a high pressure situation to verify exactly whose it is, so you (as a command-level decision-maker) order your air force to attack it. The AF guys who attack the ship are told that there's a ship, likely Egyptian, near the border with that country - attack it. They are tired as Hell after several days of war and several weeks of being on high alert status. They haven't memorized the silouette of every ship on earth and IF they saw an American flag and also radioed back to base about it, they were likely told that it was a false flag, and "sink the damned ship like we told you to."

Is that EXACTLY the way it happened? Certainly not. However, it is a possibility - one which illustrates the "fog of war" that I discussed in an earlier post.

So, let's review:

Did Israel attack the Liberty? Yes

Did Israel know for sure before or while actually attacking that this was a US ship? That's the issue, but I fail to see how it could possibly have been in Israel's interest to attack the ship and personnel of its only important ally.

Was this, therefore, a mistake - a huge one that killed a bunch of people? Apparently so.

Reasonable people, honestly expressing their opinions after looking at the same set of facts, can disagree. Deal with it.

In case the moderator won't allow you to respond on the thread, you can PM me - I'm not in the least afraid to be criticized or to have you disagree with me (again).

[Ancesthntr]

If this recording took place after the attack to check for survivors and the controller tells the pilots it is "now identified as Egyptian", what was it identified as WHILE the attack was taking place?

Perhaps it was unidentified. Perhaps, knowing that the ship wasn't theirs, the Israelis decided that it was less of a risk to attack and sink the ship, even if that was a mistake, than to take the time to find out for sure whose it was, i.e. better safe than sorry. Or: shoot first, ask questions later. This is, IMHO, the most likely scenario.

Ask yourself what could there have been in it for Israel to have attacked the ship and personnel of its only major ally? The Israelis may be many things, possibly including grossly or criminally negligent in this particular situation, but they are not suicidal.

[beelzepug]

Are you f’ing mental? You're giving a ration over a comment I made on a post twelve years ago? The Liberty was attacked; I was in the Army waiting to ship out for Vietnam at the time it happened. I couldn't give a rat's ass what some Florida judge has to say half a century later.

I have my sh*t straight, don't you worry about that. I'm not anti-Israel by any means but I don't trust them any more than I do any other country in the middle east. The United States is an ally of convenience, nothing more. Send them money, send them weapons, but get their way and we get turned on like a rabid dog. 34 American sailors died on a flagged U.S. Navy vessel because we dared to be in the area (in international waters) and that's OK with you? That was not a tragedy; it was nothing short of a war crime. The Israelis knew exactly what they were doing and we should have reacted accordingly. Get my sh*t straight, indeed. F.U.