lieman@brahms.BERKELEY.EDU (Dan &) (03/12/86)
Someone just brought up the example of the Israeli sinking of the Liberty as justification for claiming that the Israelis will attack without provocation. I don't want to get into an arguement about whether Israel would attack without provocation, but I do want to clear up the half-statements made about the Liberty. First, the Liberty itself. Public belief says it was a CIA spy ship. Many, however, believe it was a NSA SIGINT gathering ship. (_Puzzle_Palace_). In any event, it had been ordered three times by the Navy and Intelligence high commands to change its location. Why those orders never reached it is a serious question. Three separate times the US military failed to properly execute orders. Israel had warned the US to move the ship unoffically, since the ship was listening in on important Israeli military orders. Remember: Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia are also allies of the U.S. If the U.S. had information that Israel was planning a strategic thrust in some area, it is not at all unthinkable that a sympathetic American State or Defense official would pass that info. along to the Arabs. The Liberty was not a commercial vessel. It was a military ship. It was in a war zone. It had been ordered to move. This is not an unprovoked attack. This is a part of a war. If the U.S. had sunk a communist intelligence ship 5 miles off South Korea during the war, would this be unprovoked? Better come up with a better example to justify your claim. -Dan Lieman
hijab@cad.UUCP (Raif Hijab) (03/13/86)
In article <12345@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>, lieman@brahms.BERKELEY.EDU (Dan &) writes: > Israel had warned the US to move the ship > unoffically, since the ship was listening in on important Israeli > military orders. > > The Liberty was not a commercial vessel. It was a military ship. It > was in a war zone. It had been ordered to move. This is not > an unprovoked attack. This is a part of a war. > > -Dan Lieman The above remarks fly in the face of Israel's claim of a 'strategic alliance' with the U.S. For the full story of what happened to the Liberty, I recommend the book "Assault on the Liberty," by James M. Ennes, Jr., a U.S. Navy officer (now retired) who served on the Liberty at the time it was attacked by Israeli aircraft and torpido boats on June 7, 1968. I quote from the epilogue to Ennes' book, "Mr. Johnson wanted Mr. Eban to understand, and to inform his government, that the United States would not support Israel if Israel initiated hostilities. The president chose his words carefully as he said,'The central point, Mr. Minister, is that your nation not be the one to bear responsibility for any outbreak of war. "Not surprisingly, Israel claimed that nearly everything she did was in self defense. The preemptive strikes of the fifth of June were in self defense. The capture of El Arish, the naval and paratroop assault on Sharm el-Shaikh, the sweep through Sinai, and the armed penetration of Jordan were all in self defense. Now, with the war virtually over and with the world crying for peace, could Israel put troops in Syria without being seen as an agressor. Probably not. NOT WITH THE USS LIBERTY SO CLOSE TO SHORE AND PRESUMABLY LISTENING. LIBERTY WOULD HAVE TO GO. (my emphasis) "On November 9, 1967, a confidential source reported clearly and unequivocally that General Moshe Dayan ordered the attack. The message read, '[The source] commented on the sinking [sic] of the US Communications ship Liberty. They said that Dayan personally ordered the attach on the ship ..' (CIA information report)" A less benevolant view is presented in Lilienthal's book, "The Zionist Connection II," where a report by British jounalist Anthony Pearson is mentioned. According to Lilienthal, he reports that, "CIA officers, the Israeli general staff, certain Israeli politicians and inner members of Johnson's administration agreed to promote a contained war between Israel and Egypt, which would not affect territorial lines between Israel, Syria and Jordan. "... [Deputy Israeli Ambassador] Eppy Evron was [Israel's] liason in Washington, dealing directly with [head of CIA intelligence James] Angleton and Eugene Rostow of the State Department. "The Israelis assured the Americans that the ensuing war would be fought to the predesigned American plan of containment. "On June 7 Eugene Rostow called [Israeli Ambassaador] Avraham Harmann to the State Department and warned him that the Israeli attack must stop immediately; ... hours after that, [the Israelis] ordered that the ship be sunk. "Defense Minister Moshe Dayan, according to Israeli author Zeev Schiff, had masterminded the great 'Befuddle Plan,' which called for a news blackout on Israeli victories so as to prevent the intervention of a cease-fire inspired by the U.S.S.R. or the U.N. The Liberty, with its extremely sophisti- cated intelligence eqwiupment, ... was keeping the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Washington directly informed of the overwhelming Israeli victory, that by now included Jerusalem and the West Bank." The key fact relevant to US citizens, apart from possible foreign policy machinations by their elected officials, is the scale of the official coverup of the Liberty story. Ennes writes, "Details of the attack were hushed up in both countries. Israel claimed that her forces mistook the Liberty for an Egyptian ship, and our government quietly accepted that excuse despite evidence to the contrary. Then our government downplayed the intensity of the [Israeli] surveillance and the severity of the attack, and imposed a news blackout to keep the story under control." References: (1) "Assault on the Liberty," by James M. Ennes Jr., Random House, New York, 1979. (2) "The Zionist Connection II," by Alfred Lilienthal, North American, New Brunswick, 1982.