The USS Liberty Incident

The USS Liberty incident was an attack on a United States Navy technical research ship, USS Liberty, by Israeli Air Force jet fighter aircraft and Israeli Navy torpedo boats, on June 8, 1967, during the Six-Day War. The combined air and sea attack killed 34 crew members (naval officers, seamen, two Marines, and one civilian), wounded 170 crew members, and severely damaged the ship. At the time, the ship was in international waters north of the Sinai Peninsula, about 25.5 nmi (29.3 mi; 47.2 km) northwest from the Egyptian city of Arish.

Both the Israeli and U.S. governments conducted inquiries and issued reports that concluded the attack was a mistake due to Israeli confusion about the identity of the USS Liberty. Attack survivors contacted in 2007, by John M. Crewdson for a Chicago Tribune article about the attack, "to a man" rejected Israel's mistaken identity explanation. Also, the Tribune article said that most senior U.S. government officials, involved with the incident, did not believe that the attack was a mistake. The attack remains "the only maritime incident in U.S. history where [U.S.] military forces were killed that was never investigated by the [U.S.] Congress."

James Bamford, a former ABC News producer, in his 2001 book Body of Secrets, proposes a different possible motive for a deliberate attack: to prevent the discovery of a massacre by the IDF of Egyptian prisoners of war that was allegedly taking place at the same time in the nearby town of El-Arish. In 1995, mass graves of Egyptian soldiers were discovered outside of El-Arish, and IDF veterans have admitted that up to 1,000 unarmed civilians and prisoners of war were murdered in the 1967 War. According to Israeli reporter Gabriel Bron, a former IDF soldier who witnessed the massacre, "The Egyptian POWs were ordered to dig pits, then army police shot them to death". Deputy Foreign Minister, Eli Dayan offered compensation to the victims families in 1995, but explained that Israel was unable to pursue those responsible due to the statute of limitations.

The press release for the BBC documentary film Dead in the Water states that new recorded and other evidence suggests the attack was a "daring ploy by Israel to fake an Egyptian attack" to give America a reason to enter the war against Egypt. Convinced that that attack was real, President of the United States Lyndon B. Johnson launched nuclear-armed planes targeted against Cairo from a U.S. aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean. The planes were recalled only just in time, when it was clear the Liberty had not sunk and that Israel had carried out the attack. The video also provides hearsay evidence of a covert alliance of U.S. and Israel intelligence agencies. (read more)