Today in History: Israel's Shameful Attack on U.S.

William Joyce

Chemotherapy for PC
Jan 23, 2004
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USS Liberty was attacked by Israel in 1967.

Occidental Observer

Scott dissects several lingering myths that overshadow the Liberty incident.

Israeli pilots and naval personnel misidentified the USS Liberty.

The notion that the Liberty was fired on erroneously and mistaken for the Egyptian ship El Quseir, a vessel half as big as the Liberty, has been thoroughly discredited. Naval investigators, admirals, former Johnson administration officials, and National Security Agency and State Department officials reject the claim that Israel fired on the Liberty in error.

The Israeli attacks on a U.S. naval ship were accidental.

The actions of the Israeli forces and extent of the destruction indicate that Israeli perpetrators were neither randomly “trigger happy” nor unaware that the targeted ship was an American ship. The author’s father John Scott, a Liberty survivor, was on deck watch on the morning of the attacks and witnessed a reconnaissance plane which “made 3 runs fore and 2 aft in a figure eight pattern…and headed back towards Tel Aviv.”

The apology by the Israeli government and eventual settlement to the families of the Liberty’s dead crewmembers adequately resolved Israel’s culpability in the attacks.

Reparations were paid to the families of the dead and wounded Liberty sailors in two installments (one for $3.3 million and another in March 1969 for $3.5 million). Israel settled on $6 million to cover damages to the ship, a figure lower than the settlement U.S. officials requested.

The naval inquiry into the attacks absolved Israel’s actions.

Scott quotes Rear Admiral Thomas Brooks, a former director of naval intelligence, who “described the treatment of the Liberty’s crew as a ‘national disgrace.’ The Navy was ordered to hush this up, say nothing, allow the sailors to say nothing….The Navy rolled over and played dead.”

President Johnson ordered Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach to press the Israelis for reparations “to the injured and the families of the men killed and make sure the payments were generous.” Katzenbach, when asked by the book’s author if “he had ever demanded to know why Israel attacked….’No,’ he said. ‘What good would it do? What would it tell you?’”
 
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