Mondoweiss
Israeli paper investigates 50-year-ago attack on 'USS Liberty,' while US
papers leave it in the letters column
(((James North)))and Philip Weisson July 13, 201780 Comments
USS Liberty, after the attack in June 1967
Earlier this week Haaretzonce again showed itself to be head and shoulders
above U.S. media in addressing issues of Israel's influence inside U.S.
politics when it published a major inquiryinto one of the lingering
mysteries of the 1967 Six-Day War: Why did Israeli jets and boats attack the
USS Liberty, a spy ship, on the fourth day of the war, killing 34 Americans
and wounding scores of others?
The article reaches no fresh conclusions about the reason for the attack, or
why it was swept under the rug with an apology and a handshake, but its
headline is enormously provocative -
'But Sir, It's an American Ship.' 'Never Mind, Hit Her!'
And those lines are taken from a new American book on the case, a study that
the U.S. press is ignoring. That's the problem here; Haaretzis confronting a
U.S. mystery head on during an important anniversary when no US media will
touch the story.
Our business here is not to credit one theory or another about the attack on
the Liberty. We could accept the view, which the Haaretzarticle endorses,
that the attack was a mistake or "screw-up" in the fog of war. But as
Haaretzstates, the evidence is ambiguous, and conspiracy theories about the
attack still abound. And the chief adherents of these theories are survivors
of the attack or family members, or U.S. Navy supporters.
What is unquestionable is the magnitude of the attack: it was a grave blow
to the burgeoning U.S.-Israel special relationship, yet President Lyndon
Johnson, who was far more friendly to Israel than John Kennedy, was willing
to let the matter pass without a blow-up. That pattern, of letting the
Liberty attack go as just some kind of misunderstanding, has persisted to
this day in the American media silence about the case even on its 50th
anniversary.
The coverage has largely been international. Three years ago Al Jazeera did
an investigation of the case, concluding:
The top Israeli commanders, [former CIA official Bobby Ray Inman] explained,
had known exactly what they were doing when they attacked the Liberty and
when it came to holding them to account, the US government rolled over for
them.
Google news results for the USS Liberty today, and it's fascinating. Our
leading journals have nothing to say about the 50th anniversary of the
Liberty. Besides the Haaretzstory, all the leading results are for letters
to the editor from people who can't forget the Liberty. Like this from Allan
Gehring in Floridato the Berkshire Eagle, alleging an official coverup:
News media that learned of the attack were warned not to run stories on the
assault by powerful forces within our society and, as a result of that
suppression, most Americans still do not know about the assault.
Or this one from Frank Malone in the Spokane Spokesman-Review, echoing our
point and going further:
We have recently remembered a number of notable anniversaries, including
D-Day. However, I saw no coverage of the 50th anniversary of the Israeli
attack on the USS Liberty, which was in international waters during the Six
Day War. Thirty-four Americans were killed and 171 were injured. This attack
included the war crime of machine-gunning Americans who were in the water.
Israel apologized and made the explanation that it was a mistake. After 50
years, the National Security Administration will not release its
confidential details. If the Israeli narrative were true, no one would have
an objection to transparency.
Or this juicy one from Les Jordan to the Register-Guard in Eugene, Oregon,
also alleging a coverup.
Adm. Thomas Moorer called the attack "pre-meditated murder." Capt. Ward
Boston said that he was outraged that anyone, let alone "apologists for
Israel," could call the Liberty incident a case of mistaken identity. The
CIA's Richard Helms observed that "few in Washington" could believe that the
attack was a fluke.
Then there was President Johnson, who ordered a stand-down of any Liberty
defense during the two-hour aggression. At the time he was entertaining
Mathilde Krim in the White House. Krim was a former Irgun operative and one
of his watchers.
Again, we're not endorsing the conspiratorial view, but what a pity that
only Haaretz can touch the story on this anniversary, as more and more
principals vanish from the scene.
Here are two interesting passages from the Haaretzstory. One quotes at
length from a new US book on the matter. That book must be hard to find in
the United States!
Israel apologized and paid compensation to the victims' families. Israeli
and American commissions of inquiry found that the attack was a mistake. But
naturally, as often happens in such events, to this day there are some who
believe Israel attacked the ship with malicious intent. . .
A new book published in May in the United States (its authors include
several survivors of the attack) promises that "the truth is being told as
never before and the real story revealed." The 302 pages of "Remember the
Liberty!: Almost Sunk by Treason on the High Seas" include quite a number of
documents, testimonies, arguments and information that were gathered in the
subsequent 50 years . . .
The book includes, among other things, a CIA document from November 1967
that is still partially censored. In the document, which is also on the
official CIA website, an anonymous source is quoted as saying: "They said
that [then-Israeli Defense Minister Moshe] Dayan personally ordered the
attack on the ship, and that one of his generals adamantly opposed the
action and said, 'This is pure murder.'". . .
On the other hand, the new book quotes a story reported by former U.S.
Ambassador to Lebanon Dwight Porter, who recounted a conversation between an
Israeli pilot and the Israel Air Force war room, which was allegedly picked
up by an NSA aircraft and inadvertently cabled to CIA offices around the
world:
Israeli pilot to IDF war room: This is an American ship. Do you still want
us to attack?
IDF war room to Israeli pilot: Yes, follow orders.
Israeli pilot to IDF war room: But sir, it's an American ship - I can see
the flag!
IDF war room to Israeli pilot: Never mind; hit it.
Haaretzis not convinced the attack had higher-ups' approval, but it cites an
Israeli historian's diggings raising questions about that narrative, and
documents the Israeli belief that the attack could open a "malignant wound"
in U.S.-Israel relations:
In response to a recent request by historian Adam Raz. . . the Israel State
Archives posted hundreds of documents on its website related to the USS
Liberty affair. . .
[Raz] refuses to accept the assertion that the claims Israel hit the ship
deliberately are a conspiracy.
One of the documents Raz found among the hundreds of papers published by the
State Archives is the Israeli Foreign Ministry correspondence that was sent
from New York to Jerusalem.
"Menashe informed us we had better be very careful. He doesn't have complete
information but he knows that Issaschar is very angry about our letter. The
reason is apparently that the Americans have findings that show our pilots
were in fact aware the ship was American," according to the document.
And later: "Menashe believes there is a recording on the ship of the
conversations between the ship and our pilots, in which the ship's crew said
the ship is American. Menashe says that, in his opinion, our only chance of
getting out of the crisis is to punish someone for negligence."
In another document, which is also now posted online by the State Archives,
the Israeli Embassy in Washington writes to the Foreign Ministry in
Jerusalem under the heading "Urgent."
"We must change the abovementioned letter, because we certainly won't be
able to say there is no basis for the accusation that the identity of the
ship was determined by Israeli planes prior to the attack," it declares.
In other documents, which are fascinating in themselves, there is
documentation of Israeli preparations for the U.S. investigation and the
demands for compensation that were to follow.
"The issue has turned into a malignant wound, which involves serious dangers
for all of our relationships on all levels here, whose friendship was ours
until now and which are crucial to our status in the United States. In other
words, the president, the Pentagon, public opinion and the intelligence
community. Do you realize that the president is also the supreme commander
of the U.S. armed forces?" wonders the Israeli Embassy in Washington, in a
telegram to the Foreign Ministry.
The piece concludes in the camp of Amir Oren and Tom Segev, Israeli
historians who have treated the event as a mistake without malicious
intention. Credit Haaretz with the courage to raise the question - which is
more than we can say for the New York Timesand the Washington Post.