I respect what you have to say.
The IDF did attack the Liberty. But I don't think it was deliberate, for a lot of reasons. And I base that on my US Army experience and my discussions while in the Army and the evidence available today.
I'm not a politician, but someone with operational experience and a good working knowledge of Middle East military history.
The USNI article conveniently leaves out quite a bit. The wiki article is a lot better and the author has done a good job or gathering most of the material. It's worth a read. People should read both then go read about the USS Pueblo, which was attacked by the NORKS seven months later.
I personally know an the old school ASA guy who was in an EC121 in the ME during the war. He was a mentor of mine when I got to my first assignment. He had some classmates on the Liberty. He did not fault the IDF for the attack. He faulted the US Navy, the Sixth Fleet, and the Captain of the Liberty, which in violation of orders, went in close inshore in range of CAS and the speedboats and generally larked around. The Liberty could just as easily have been hit by an Egyptian missile or air.
The only motive for the Israelis to attack the Liberty was to hide both the operation around the heavy armor positioning and any war crimes. But the US had numerous collection platforms in the ME - from listening posts on land, air, and longer range systems in Europe, to assets on the ground. We sucked up a lot. And the Russians had much of the same. The Israelis had also asked for a much broader liaison effort with the US , but the US military had declined. So this motive does not hold water.
That leaves the "fog of war" and the incompetence of the US Navy surface operations.
Many Israelis have transparently said they knew the ship was somewhere offshore, but many did not know it was there as well. The NSA transcripts of the Israeli military communications intercepts during much of the attack are now online. They paint a picture of a very confused command and control. Here is a screenshot of one below in communication with the helicopter pilot. They corroborate that the IDF was under the belief the liberty was Egyptian. One of the pilots in the transcript who flew out in a helicopter is a noted Leftist in Israel and he has stated in numerous interviews that he thought it was Egyptian as well. Only near the end of the transcripts do they begin to realize it's American due to the flag.
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