The Attack on the USS Liberty
The Attack on the USS Liberty
By Jack Kinsella
In early June of 1967, at the onset of the Six Day War, the Pentagon sent the USS Liberty from Spain into international waters off the coast of Gaza to monitor the progress of Israel’s attack on the Arab states. The Liberty was a lightly armed surveillance ship.
Only hours after the Liberty arrived it was spotted by the Israeli military. The IDF sent out reconnaissance planes to identify the ship.
A few hours later more planes came. These were Israeli Mirage III fighters, armed with rockets and machine guns. The fighters then opened fire on the defenseless ship with rockets and machine guns.
A few minutes later a second wave of planes streaked overhead, French-built Mystere jets, which not only pelted the ship with gunfire but also with napalm bomblets, coating the deck with the flaming jelly. By now, the Liberty was on fire and dozens were wounded and killed.
The Liberty’s radio team tried to issue a distress call, but discovered the frequencies had been jammed by the Israeli planes with what one communications specialist called “a buzzsaw sound.” Finally, an open channel was found and the Liberty got out a message it was under attack to the USS America, the Sixth Fleet’s large aircraft carrier.
Two F-4s left the carrier to come to the Liberty’s aid. Apparently, the jets were armed only with nuclear weapons. When word reached the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara became irate and ordered the jets to return.
Following the Israeli fighter jet attack, three Israeli attack boats approached the Liberty. Two torpedoes were launched at the Liberty. One tore a 40-foot wide hole in the hull, killing more than a dozen American sailors.
After more than two hours of unremitting assault, the Israelis abruptly halted their attack. One of the torpedo boats approached the Liberty. An officer asked in English over a bullhorn: “Do you need any help?” The Liberty’s wounded commander replied with an unprintable expletive.
Within three weeks, the Navy put out a 700-page report, exonerating the Israelis, claiming the attack had been accidental and that the Israelis had pulled back as soon as they realized their mistake.
Assessment
For forty years, the attack on the USS Liberty has been surrounded by myth and conspiracy, with the most popular theory stating the Israeli attack had been deliberate and that the Israelis knew they were attacking Americans.
This theory raises a lot of unanswerable questions. The most obvious, (and most often ignored), is also the most obvious one: Why?
Why would Israel repeatedly attack a ship belonging to Israel’s closest ally at the very moment it was going into a war in which it needed all the friends it could get? Especially since the only friend it had in that war was the United States?
Yesterday, the State Department hosted a conference on the 1967 war, including the Liberty incident, to mark the release of a new volume of historical papers from the Johnson Administration.
The 542 declassified documents, roughly 1100 pages in length, were culled from the archives of the White House, State Department, Pentagon and various intelligence agencies. They cover May through November 1967.
Along with the release of the documents, the historian for the top-secret National Security Agency said Monday he believed available evidence “strongly suggested” Israel did not know it was bombarding an American ship.
The US Navy reached that same conclusion in 1967, but the explanation was widely rejected by the conspiracist view as being ‘a coverup’.
Adding to the question, “Why would Israel attack a US ship” we can add the question, “Why would the US Navy want to cover it up?”
The newly released documents reveal several previously unknown facts. Among them was evidence Navy mistakenly sent the Liberty too close to the war zone. It also failed to notify Israel of the ship’s presence in the area.
The only conspiracist argument that seemingly answered the ‘why’ question was that the Liberty was spying on Israel, and Israel tried to destroy it to keep whatever the Liberty found out a secret.
But since most of the Liberty’s crew survived, as did the ship itself, if the US had found out anything damaging about Israel, it seems logical that we’d know what it was. Nobody, not even the crew, produced any evidence that Liberty’s mission was to spy on the Israelis. It was assumed to be true since it provided a partial answer to the ‘why’ questions.
While the newly released documents don’t tell us what the Liberty WAS doing in the area, they do reveal that the bulk of linguists on board spoke Arabic or Russian and the ship had no Hebrew translators to monitor Israeli communications in real time. That would seem odd if the mission was to spy on Israel.
On the other hand, the event has to be seen in its historical context. The Russians were involved in arming the Arabs — the Cold War was at its height, and the Six Days War could conceivably have been the spark that launched a nuclear world war with the Russians. Having Russian and Arabic translators aboard fits the known historical scenario.
A total absence of Hebrew translators doesn’t lend itself to the theory the Liberty was spying on Israel, especially when factoring in the historical context.
The most significant documents, transcripts of tapes of communications between an Israeli air controller and helicopter pilots sent to rescue the wounded from the attack, were released last July.
Those intercepts showed that the Israeli rescue pilots first identified the ship as Egyptian and gradually realized, after spotting a US flag, that the ship was American.
“A CIA memo of June 13 reported they had no intercepts from the attacking planes and torpedo boats, but that the helicopter pilots’ communication left little doubt that the Israelis had failed to identify the Liberty as a US ship,” said Harriet Schwar, editor of the newly released volume.
“A follow-up CIA memo on June 21st noted that the Liberty had been identified prior to the attacks but concluded that the Israelis were not aware at the time of the attack that they were attacking a US ship. It concluded that the attack was not made in malice, but was by mistake, representing gross negligence. The Defense Intelligence Agency reached a similar conclusion,” Schwar added.
David Hatch, the National Security Agency Historian, said of the intercepted communications of the rescue pilots: “While falling short of proof, the intercepts to me suggest strongly the Israeli attackers did not know they were aiming deadly fire at a vessel belonging to the United States. The intercepted communications between the air controller at Hatzor and helicopters dispatched in the wake of the attack show a progressive reversal of perception on their part.”
There is also the sequence of events to consider. Earlier in the morning of June 8, the Israelis had surveyed and identified a ship in the area as the USS Liberty. A neutral green marker was placed on a model to represent the Liberty’s position.
Two hours later, the new documents reveal, the marker was removed since it was assumed that the ship’s position would have changed by then and a new senior Israeli official came on duty who was not informed of the Liberty’s presence in the area.
The removal of the marker, a miscalculation of the speed at which the Liberty was traveling that would have indicated it was not a warship, and a breakdown in communication between the Israeli Navy and Army were all clearly Israeli errors that contributed to orders to attack the ship.
In addition, there remains no credible motive for the Israelis to attack a United States vessel. As previously noted, Israel didn’t have a lot of friends apart from the US. It would have been an act of insanity for them to attack the US deliberately.
I receive a lot of emails from folks who have read the dozens of books put out over the years citing a conspiracy and questioning our support of Israel. Most of those letters also express sympathy and support for the plight of the Palestinians. As if Israel were responsible for Arafat’s failed leadership.
Was the 1967 Israeli attack on a US warship a deliberate and calculated act? If one is prepared to accept the evidence contained in the newly released documents, then clearly, it was not. It was a mistake. No other explanation makes sense.
But to those who claim a US-Israeli coverup, no amount of documentary evidence will change their minds. By definition, if it was covered up, then the documents MUST be faked.
But a knowing and deliberate Israeli attack on the US in the midst of a war in which Israel fought alone against the combined armies of the Arab world would be more than senseless; it would be a waste of much-needed ammunition.
Such an attack would place Israel’s most valuable alliance at risk. It would serve no discernible purpose, given Israel’s situation at the time. There is no answer to the question ‘why would they do that?’. It makes no sense.
There IS, however, a discernible purpose in alleging the attack was deliberate. It provides a good reason to hate Israel.
The mere fact that, forty years later, the conspiracist theory is the one most widely accepted is proof of the accuracy of Bible prophecy.
It also explains what the ‘Chosen People’ were chosen FOR. As an example to the heathen nations of the existence of God. Which also makes them a prime target for those who refuse to acknowledge Him and an excuse for hating anyone who does.
“Then will I pluck them up by the roots out of my land which I have given them; and this house, which I have sanctified for my name, will I cast out of my sight, and will make it to be a proverb and a byword among all nations,” says 2nd Chronicles 7:20.
Psalms 44:14, written at a time of Israel’s greatest prosperity but speaking prophetically, says,
“Thou makest us a byword among the heathen, a shaking of the head among the people.”
For two thousand years, the Jews have been hated and rejected by every nation in which they sought refuge. ‘The wandering Jew’ is a ‘proverb and a byword among all nations’, exactly as foretold by the Hebrew prophets.
The Jews were chosen by God to be the people from whom He would send His Redeemer, Jesus, but paradoxically, the Jews were also blinded to that fact by God Himself. Paul says it was for us, so that salvation could be open to ALL mankind, Jew or Gentile.
Romans 11:25 says,
“For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in.”
After all, had the Jews accepted Jesus as Messiah at the First Advent, Daniel’s 70th Week would have been fulfilled 2000 years ago. There would have been no Church Age, nor a reason FOR a Church Age.
Daniel’s 70th Week is called by Jeremiah “the time of Jacob’s Trouble.” It is during this period that Israel suffers the greatest period of antisemitism in its long and miserable history.
The antichrist pulls out all the stops in his effort to finish the job Hitler started. Zechariah says that in the last days, Israel will have no friends at all. Zechariah 12:3 says that, by the end of the Tribulation Period, ALL the people of the world would be gathered against Israel and Jerusalem.
Did the Israelis deliberately attack the USS Liberty? There is no discernible reason why they would, neither is there any credible evidence that indicates that they did. But it does provide one more reason to hate Israel. And one more bit of proof that any excuse will do.
Not that those already so inclined really need one.
Note: This brief was Originally Published January 13, 2004. With Israel constantly under the world’s microscope it is good to revisit this topic to be ready with the facts of such a tragic event.