Why Did Israel Attack Uss Liberty?

[drummer]

For former US seaman Gary Brummett, the 40th anniversary of the 1967 Middle East war has stirred painful memories.

As a 21-year-old third class petty officer, Mr Brummett was serving on board the USS Liberty off the coast of Egypt on 8 June, when, without warning, the vessel came under fire, first from fighter planes, then torpedo boats.

The attack, which lasted at least 40 minutes, resulted in the deaths of 34 of Mr Brummett's fellow crewmen, at least 170 injured and catastrophic damage to the ship.

Alarmingly, the assault had been carried out not by enemy forces, but by the US' closest regional ally, Israel.

Israel insists it mistook the Liberty for a hostile Egyptian ship, the El Quseir, and numerous US and Israeli inquiries have concluded the attack was accidental.

But for Mr Brummett and a growing body of conspiracy theorists, the authorities are guilty of a cover-up.

"I have more trouble with it today than when it happened because I know more of the facts about what was going on," said Mr Brummett.

"There's been an egregious wrong done here, there's been an extreme number of lies told to the American people and the American people do not know the truth about what happened."

'Sitting duck'

The attack on the Liberty - the gravest incident in the history of US-Israeli relations - has been a source of controversy for the past four decades.

Claim and counter-claim as to what happened have been fought out in every corner of the media, with the advent of the internet helping to reinvigorate the debate.

Israel's supporters say the incident is merely being used as a tool by critics to malign the Jewish state, while accusers say the attack was a war crime which has never come to light.

According to Israel, the incident was a tragic case of friendly fire occurring in the fog of war.

It says it believed the ship had been bombarding Israeli forces fighting in the Sinai, and that its pilots did not see any US flags (survivors say there were three) on the vessel before they opened fire.

Sceptics however claim the attack was premeditated and that the truth has been suppressed. The assertion of a cover-up was lent weight by a 2003 independent commission of inquiry which reported that the attack on the Liberty "remains the only serious naval incident that has never been thoroughly investigated by Congress".

Among the most popular theories as to why Israel would take such drastic action against its superpower ally is that the Liberty, a $40m state-of-the-art surveillance ship, was eavesdropping on an Israeli massacre of Egyptian prisoners of war.

Israel strongly denies its troops executed Egyptian POWs, saying those who died in an incident at that time were 250 armed Palestinian fighters killed in action.

Another is that the ship had learnt of secret Israeli plans to invade Syria's Golan Heights two days later and had to be destroyed.

'US collusion' theory

Perhaps the most sinister motive is that put forward by journalist Peter Hounam in his 2003 book "Operation Cyanide".

Mr Hounam claims secret elements within the US and Israeli governments colluded to bomb the ship and blame the attack on Egypt and their superpower ally, the Soviet Union, triggering massive retaliation which would ensure Israeli victory.

"The attack on the Liberty was pre-planned, perhaps from at least a year beforehand," Mr Hounam says.

"The Liberty was sent into a very dangerous situation, where it was, in my view, placed in a position to be attacked."

Mr Hounam says the intention was to sink the ship and kill everyone on board, but as the Liberty remained afloat the plan was aborted and has been hushed up ever since.

'Presidential order'

Successive US and Israeli inquiries, and the declassification of thousands of pieces of information, have done little to dampen suspicions.

One of the most powerful claims of a cover-up has come from retired US Navy lawyer Capt Ward Boston, counsel to the Navy Court of Inquiry into the incident conducted just days after the event.

Capt Boston says the court's original findings, which he signed, were changed afterwards by government lawyers.

He also claims the president of the court, Rear Adm Isaac Kidd, told him he was ordered by US President Lyndon Johnson and Defence Secretary Robert McNamara to conclude the attack was a case of mistaken identity.

However, Capt Boston's version of events - and the notion that what happened was anything more than a tragic accident - are disputed by numerous academics and authors who have investigated the incident.

"It was a series of blunders by both the United States and Israel that resulted in a terrible tragedy and nothing more," says Jay Cristol, a federal judge and author of the book The Liberty Incident.

"All the official reports came to the same conclusion.

"Unfortunately there are a number of people who are on the other side of the Arab-Israeli conflict who think this is a way to attack the otherwise very strong relationship between the US and Israel, and they keep stirring the pot.

'No evidence'

It is a view with which historian Michael B Oren, a senior fellow at the Shalem Center, a Jerusalem academic research institute, concurs.

"Many thousands of documents related to the Liberty have been declassified and in none of these documents will you find a scintilla of evidence to suggest any of these conspiracy theories are true," he says.

"The Golan one is the easiest to disprove because of where the Liberty was, not off the coast of Israel, but Egypt. Its listening devices weren't that powerful that they could listen in on communications in Tel Aviv.

"Moreover the Israelis were very upfront in telling the US that they planned to capture the Golan Heights and the Americans agreed to it.

"Regarding a massacre of Egyptian POWs, there's no evidence of that. And why would the Israelis try to cover up one atrocity by committing another?

He says the attack has remained a source of controversy because "it has all the ingredients of a good spy scandal. It involves espionage and it involves the Israelis, who are forever a focus of conspiracy theories.

"If I could prove the Liberty was attacked in a premeditated fashion, I would write it - it would be a great historical scoop - but the truth is far more mundane."

[rockclimber]

What tripe. What a friggin whitewash if there ever was one.

Quote:Israel insists it mistook the Liberty for a hostile Egyptian ship, the El Quseir, and numerous US and Israeli inquiries have concluded the attack was accidental.

That is one big lie right off the start. To begin with the author leaves out the fact that the ship had a HUGE American flag on it and raised yet another after the Israelis bombed the shit out of the first one. Also on the side of the hull were huges fucking letters that read; U.S.S. LIBERTY.

Quote:But for Mr Brummett and a growing body of conspiracy theorists, the authorities are guilty of a cover-up.

See how they lumped Brummet, a crew member who was on the ship, with OMG! CONSPIRACY THEORISTS! Yeah and we all know what they mean by conspiracy theorists, you know, the tin foil hat crowd. There is a whole site dedicated to the U.S.S Liberty coming from the actual men that were aboard the ship. James Ennes is one who comes to mind so he had first hand information, hardly a conspiracy theorist. No mention of him of course.

Here is the survivors website where you can pull down plenty of documentation. In fact they are still calling for an awaiting an investigation into this matter since there NEVER WAS ONE. If that in itself doesn't raise any suspicions, than you are a lost cause.

http://ussliberty.org/

Quote:"There's been an egregious wrong done here, there's been an extreme number of lies told to the American people and the American people do not know the truth about what happened."

Correct me if I'm wrong, but to my knowledge this was never reported to the American people by the lamestream media.

Quote:According to Israel, the incident was a tragic case of friendly fire occurring in the fog of war.

Sometimes Israel reminds of that spoiled brat kid who will never admit to it's mistakes even when he's wrong.

Quote:It says it believed the ship had been bombarding Israeli forces fighting in the Sinai, and that its pilots did not see any US flags (survivors say there were three) on the vessel before they opened fire.

Again, if you buy this...have your head examined.

Quote:Among the most popular theories as to why Israel would take such drastic action against its superpower ally is that the Liberty, a $40m state-of-the-art surveillance ship, was eavesdropping on an Israeli massacre of Egyptian prisoners of war.

Yep, and it's in the book Body of Secrets as well.

Quote:Israel strongly denies its troops executed Egyptian POWs, saying those who died in an incident at that time were 250 armed Palestinian fighters killed in action.

but of course they would lie, who would admit they committed war crimes?

Quote:"Regarding a massacre of Egyptian POWs, there's no evidence of that. And why would the Israelis try to cover up one atrocity by committing another?

Also in body of secrets, a book about the NSA

[rockclimber]

Quote:The following is from an article ("ISRAEL REPORTEDLY KILLED POWS IN '67 WAR: HISTORIANS SAY DEATHS OF HUNDREDS OF EGYPTIANS WAS COVERED UP") in The Washington Post on August 17, 1995:

"Israeli soldiers killed hundreds of Egyptian prisoners of war during the 1967 Middle East war - deaths that commanders who are now prominent leaders have known about for years, historians said today. The controversy involves some top politicians, including Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and legislator Rafael Eitan [who also gave us U.S. Navy spy Jonathan Pollard, and then lied about it], a former army chief. The allegations dominated news shows, shocking many Israelis who have long prized the notion that their army maintained high ethical standards throughout decades of warfare with the Arab world and military rule over Palestinians. The Army spokesman, Brig. Gen. Amos Gilad, refused to comment. Rabin, who was chief of staff when some of the 1967 killings allegedly were committed, walked away today when a reporter shouted a related question. His office later issued a statement denouncing the killings and calling them isolated incidents.

"Military historian Aryeh Yitzhaki said today that Israeli troops carried out several mass killings in 1967 in which about 1,000 Egyptian prisoners were slain in the Sinai. Yitzhaki, who worked in the army's history department after the war, said he and other officers collected testimony from dozens of solders who admitted killing POWs. He said a report on the killings submitted to his superiors has been locked in a safe at military headquarters.

"Another Israeli historian, Uri Milstein, said there were many incidents in the 1967 war in which Egyptian soldiers were killed by Israeli troops after they had raised their hands in surrender.

"It was not an official policy, but there was an atmosphere that it was okay to do it," Milstein said. "Some commanders decided to do it; others refused. But everyone knew about it."

The following is from an article ("HISTORIAN ALLEGES POW DEATHS IN 1956, 1967") posted by the Jewish Telegraph Agency on August 17, 1995:

"An Israeli military historian has said he knew of hundreds of Egyptian prisoners of war who were killed during the 1967 Six-Day War by Israel Defense Force troops, including a unit headed by the current Israeli housing minister. Military historian Aryeh Yitzhaki of Bar-Illan University told Israel Radio on Wednesday that the killings involved a crack unit led by now Housing Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer. Yitzhaki said the executions of 300 to 400 Egyptian commandos in El Arish was the worse case he knew, given that many of the Egyptians had surrendered. They were killed by members of the Shaked commando unit under the command of Ben-Eliezer, a lieutenant colonel at the time, he said. Ben-Eliezer said he was unaware of any prisoner killings.

"Referring to the Six-Day War, Yitzhaki said not only were the executions known, but a report he prepared in 1968 on the deaths was not released under instructions from higher authorities. Responding to the reports, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin said he thought such incidents were exceptions to the norm and that they should be condemned by all."

The following is from a front page article ("DEBATE TAINTING IMAGE OF PURITY WRENCHES ISRAELIS: A MORE OPEN SOCIETY TAKES UP KILLING OF POWS DURING WARS") in The Washington Post on August 19, 1995:

"This week, as more soldiers came forward to say they saw fellow Israelis kill unarmed enemies in decades past, a long-suppressed public reckoning began. The stakes are profound for an army whose "purity of arms" has been the core of its self-image through five wars. . . . Also Wednesday, military historian Arye Yitzhaki of Bar Ilan University accused a storied reconnaissance unit, known as Shaked (Almond), of killing hundreds of Egyptians who had abandoned their weapons and fled into the desert in the 1967 Middle East war. . . . One day after Yitzhaki's charge came a first-person account by Gabi Brun of Yedioth Aharonoth, the country's most widely read tabloid. He wrote of watching Israeli troops execute five Egyptian prisoners in the Sinai Desert town of El Arish in 1967. The first of the five, he wrote, was forced to dig the grave. Each of them in turn was shot dead in it. "For a Jew to read this description, I don't know what to say," said left-wing activist Uri Avinery, who is demanding prosecution of Israeli war criminals. "This is the typical SS technique. This is a Nazi story in the most literal sense of the word." . . . . [Ariel] Sharon, interviewed at home today, [described] the sudden debate of old war crimes as "a kind of national suicide. Israel doesn't need this, and no one can preach to us about it - no one," he said. "The Israeli armed forces are a model and symbol of high moral values . . . We speak about an event that took place 40 years ago. Now, when all of us live in a different condition, it's very hard sitting in armchairs and air-conditioned rooms to try and understand what happened on those battlefields. . . . I'm not justifying things like that." . . . . Rabin, too, described this week's traumatic debate as akin to 'national suicide.'"

The following is from an article ("RABIN REFUSES TO PROBE ALLEGED ISRAELI WAR CRIMES") in the Minneapolis Star Tribune on August 21, 1995:

"Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin rejected calls Sunday to investigate long-suppressed allegations of Israeli war crimes against Egyptian prisoners of war, saying both sides were guilty of aberrations.

"I'm not saying there were no aberrations," Rabin told the Cabinet in his first substantive remarks on the alleged atrocities. "There were aberrations on both sides. There is no purpose in raising events of the past, not on our side and not on theirs. . . . Cabinet Secretary Shmuel Hollander said Rabin stressed Sunday that "these events were real exceptions." Israel is reeling from two weeks of revelations that its soldiers killed prisoners and civilians in at least three Mideast Wars. The disclosures have shaken the widely held conviction among Israelis that their citizen-soldiers were morally superior to other armies. . . Military historian Aryeh Yitzhaki charged that Israeli troops carried out mass killings in the Sinai in 1967 in which 1,000 Egyptian prisoners died . . . Many questions remain unanswered, including the extent of the alleged crimes, why details were censored for so long and the involvement of senior Israeli officials, including Rabin, who was Army chief of staff during the 1967 war."

The following is from an article (AFTER A GENERAL TELLS OF KILLING POWS IN 1956, ISRAELIS ARGUE OVER ETHICS OF WAR) that appeared in The New York Times on August 21, 1995:

"At the same time, a reporter for Yediot Ahronot, Gabi Bron, described atrocities that he witnessed in the 1967 war: "The Egyptian prisoners of war were ordered to dig pits and then army police shot them to death. I witnessed the executions with my own eyes in the morning of June 8, in the airport area of El Arish."

The following is from a front page article (EGYPT SAYS ISRAELIS KILLED POWS IN '67 WAR) in The New York Times on September 21, 1995:

"Egypt said today that it had discovered two mass graves in the Sinai [near El Arish] containing the remains of Egyptian prisoners of war and unarmed civilians shot by Israeli soldiers during the 1967 war. . . . At the same time, an Israeli historian said that as many as 300 unarmed Egyptian were killed in both the 1967 war and in the war of 1956. Those reports led to other allegations and revelations. . . . "I saw a line of prisoners, civilians and military, and they opened fire at them all at once," Mr. [Abdelsalam] Moussa was quoted as saying. "When they were dead, they told us to bury them. . . Al Ahram [an Egyptian newspaper] also quoted a bedouin, Suleman Moghnem Salameh, who said he saw Israelis kill about 30 Egyptian soldiers and officers after they surrendered, leaving them for the Bedouins to bury. . . . President Mubarak has called for an investigation in Israel and punishment of those responsible. Israel responded by sending Elli Dayan, a Deputy Foreign Minister, to discuss the matter. During his visit here, he offered compensation to the victims but noted Israel's 20-year statute of limitations."

continued here:

James Bamford Responds to Charges Made In Secrecy News (author of Body of Secrets, about the NSA)

http://www.fas.org/sgp/eprint/bamford.html

[rockclimber]

Source is from the editorial:

Abba Eban with Footnotes
Michael Oren's Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East
Reviewed by Norman Finkelstein

http://ussliberty.org/orenbook.htm

Quote:Oren's account of events attendant on the June war frequently descends to vulgar propaganda. Deeming the Israeli combined air and naval assault on the U.S.S. Liberty, in which 34 U.S. Navy men were killed and 171 wounded, an "accident" and an "incident [of] faulty identifications," Oren rehashes official Israeli tales and embellishes on them with his own whoppers. He avers that Israeli reconnaissance pilots flying just overhead on a cloudless morning missed noticing the Liberty's five-by-eight-foot American flag fluttering in the wind because they "were not looking for the Liberty, but rather for Egyptian submarines"; that "the IDF could have easily sunk the Liberty," although with the IDF's extended air attack using missiles, cannon and napalm, followed by a torpedo attack followed by sustained fire on the crippled vessel that left 2/3 of the crew dead or wounded, the miracle is that the Liberty managed, just barely, to stay afloat; and that Israeli ships, after torpedoing the Liberty, "ceased firing the instant the mistake was realized and offered to assist the ship," although surviving members of the crew uniformly testify that the Israeli ships fired from close range after the torpedo explosion and after stopping near the fantail, where the Liberty's name and hull number appeared in large letters (a new oversized American flag had also been unfurled), finally firing on the life rafts in the water, and then left the area for more than an hour before returning to offer assistance (SDW: pp. 264, 271).

Oren claims that the IDF, unable to handle the throngs of Egyptian prisoners, dispatched them toward the Canal and was at pains not to harm them, and "no evidence was found" that Israel executed Egyptian POWs (SDW: pp. 259, 270-1). He is apparently unaware of the national debate that erupted in Israel a few years ago after the publication of unimpeachable eyewitness testimonies of Israeli soldiers as well as the testimony of an Israeli military historian that the IDF executed scores of Egyptian POWs during the June war. Oren also claims that only a "few" of the Palestinians who fled during the June war sought repatriation after it ended (SDW: 306), whereas a conservative Israeli scholarly source reports that fully 120,000 of these Palestinian refugees (half the total number) applied to return but only 21,000 were allowed to do so. Finally, in his survey of developments since the June war, Oren recalls that in the post-Oslo period "Palestinian terrorists killed dozens of Israeli civilians" (SDW: p. 313), but neglects to mention that Israeli forces killed a far greater number of Palestinians and that the "vast majority" of these killings were "unlawful" (Amnesty International).

[triplesix]

Thanks guys I always wanted to look more into this and you've provided a lot of information. Just one question. Since the US and Israel are obvious buddy-buddy, could this not have been a botched false flag? What if the ship had sunk and no one survived, could this have influenced the US to get involved in the Middle East that far back? I'm not very familiar with the US involvement in the Middle East in the 60's, but it sounds to me like this was just a failed false flag attempt, hence the bullshit excuses and lame response from the US. Just a thought. Let me know if I'm way off base.

Peace.

[byrd]

get the whole story from a man who was there, the captain of the deck that day, Captain Jim Ennes. there are multiple interviews here.

http://www.iamthewitness.com/DarylBradford...viewsEnnis.html

and note the lies from the others who try to tell the story. by misleading.

you know who im referring to :wink:

[byrd]

Quote:Thanks guys I always wanted to look more into this and you've provided a lot of information. Just one question. Since the US and Israel are obvious buddy-buddy, could this not have been a botched false flag? What if the ship had sunk and no one survived, could this have influenced the US to get involved in the Middle East that far back? I'm not very familiar with the US involvement in the Middle East in the 60's, but it sounds to me like this was just a failed false flag attempt, hence the bullshit excuses and lame response from the US. Just a thought. Let me know if I'm way off base.

Peace.

and yes, this was the plan. Israel attacks the ship, the plan was for it to sink and all on board to die. they also machine gunned the life rafts that were deployed. but even after attacking it for over an hour, it didnt sink. the story would have gotten out but the ppl on board, the survivors, were told to shut up about it or face life in jail.

as per usual, the states was Israels bitch. and went along with it. dont be fooled by ppl like alex jones when they try to have us believe it was all the US, and once again poor israel was just an innocent victim in all of it, and that the blame lays with the US.

its the same shit, the same M.O. by these zionists. false flag. attack someone or something, and frame arabs. they hoped America would see this as an attack by Egypt, and attack another of Israels enemies. like we are seeing in the middle east today.

same shit has been going on for a very long time. if only we had a media to tell us about it.

[Guest]

Quote:Also on the side of the hull were huges fucking letters that read; U.S.S. LIBERTY.

I don't think there was actually.

Evidence: http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/image...h66862.jpg

and after it has been attacked by the Israelis:

http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/images/...000/u123118.jpg

and 14 hours after the attack:

http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/images/...000/u123509.jpg

As you can plainly see - no "huges (sic) fucking letters". I'm not making excuses for what was a pretty reprehensible act but try not to slip into hyperbole.

There was a really interesting documentary on BBC4 a couple of nights ago called "Dead In The Water" about the furore around the torpedoing and bombing of the USS Liberty. It used interviews with most of the key players in the incident and was pretty even-handed and doesn't shy away from portraying some elements of the Israeli (and U.S) military as the shady bastards they are!! Worth a watch if you are into this topic.

[PSX]

Quote:There was a really interesting documentary on BBC4 a couple of nights ago called "Dead In The Water"

I'm guessing that's the 2002 docu, which can be found on nw0.info ? Certainly worth a watch as a starter

[rockclimber]

Quote:

Quote:Also on the side of the hull were huges fucking letters that read; U.S.S. LIBERTY.

I don't think there was actually.

Evidence: http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/image...h66862.jpg

and after it has been attacked by the Israelis:

http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/images/...000/u123118.jpg

and 14 hours after the attack:

http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/images/...000/u123509.jpg

As you can plainly see - no "huges (sic) fucking letters". I'm not making excuses for what was a pretty reprehensible act but try not to slip into hyperbole.

There was a really interesting documentary on BBC4 a couple of nights ago called "Dead In The Water" about the furore around the torpedoing and bombing of the USS Liberty. It used interviews with most of the key players in the incident and was pretty even-handed and doesn't shy away from portraying some elements of the Israeli (and U.S) military as the shady bastards they are!! Worth a watch if you are into this topic.

Thanks for the correction, helps me get my facts straight. I thought I had read that somewhere (misread it :unsure:), but in retrospect, I feel like a horses ass.

That was a huge error on my part after some hasty writing. The hull markings were what was very clear to read. I don't think any navy ship to my memory, at least not in recent times, have actually had the 'name' of the ship on them.