The Liberty Incident Revealed by A. Jay Cristol

Author:A. Jay Cristol [Cristol, A. Jay]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781612513874
Publisher: Naval Institute Press
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 15

RED HERRINGS AND MYTHS

Few relevant facts are in dispute regarding the Liberty incident. The Liberty arrived near the Sinai coast on June 8, 1967, as a result of outdated orders. New orders directing the ship not to approach her original assigned position had been mistakenly dispatched elsewhere. She was attacked by the Israel Air Force and Israel Navy. Thirty-four U.S. crew members died, and another 171 were wounded. There were acts of heroism on board the Liberty. There were numerous blunders by both Israel and the United States. The major debate is not about the individual events that took place but about whether the Israeli attackers knew they were attacking a U.S. ship or, in a tragic mistake, identified their target as an enemy ship.

A very important question must be considered before reaching a final conclusion. If Israel attacked a ship known to be American, what was the motive for the attack? Various motives attributed to the Israelis for attacking a ship known to be a U.S. ship have already been discussed. No Israeli has stated or testified that the attack was other than a tragic case of mistaken identity. When considering the issue of motive, one must remember that in 1967 the state of Israel stood alone against its Arab enemies, without a single friendly nation in the world supporting her in any way—except the United States! Assuming that Israel did not want the Liberty positioned where she was for any reason, is it reasonable that Israel would commit an act of war against the only nation in the world offering any support? On this point, Ambassador Ephraim Evron was quoted as saying, “I’ll take up the challenge of the Liberty with your permission. Why would Israel do such a terrible thing? We may be crazy, but we are not fools.”1

Furthermore, if eliminating the Liberty was so important to Israel, is it not reasonable to assume that a military force that four days earlier had destroyed all the air forces of the Arab confrontational states within one day and hundreds of Egyptian tanks in the Sinai and that had routed the Jordan Legion in the West Bank and Jerusalem could not have easily sank an old tub of a ship, lacking any armor and armed with four inadequate machine guns?

An analysis of the air and naval attacks demonstrates that they were neither well planned nor effective. Kursa Flight was not armed to attack a ship. The primary standard weapon for attacking a ship was in 1967, as it had been during World War II, the five-hundred-pound conventional iron bomb. In the battle of Midway during World War II, in ten minutes the U.S. Navy sank three heavily armored Japanese aircraft carriers and seriously damaged a fourth using such bombs.2 Kursa was armed with 30 mm cannons and a couple of air-to-air missiles.3 Although Kursa’s gunfire was accurate and started multiple fires on the Liberty, the ship continued under way and was in no danger of sinking. The attack

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