Comment by bigyabai
4 months ago
Alternatively, Israel may well have identified the ship and decided to sink it regardless. The USS Liberty was a SigInt ship that was well-known for monitoring wireless transmissions to hold nations accountable from offshore. Israel, at the time, was engaged in an internationally condemned and illegal military operation in the Golan Heights, and may just as well have sank it consciously to prevent the US from taking leverage of the situation.
We may never know the truth, taking Israel's Military Censor into account.
Your speculation seems a bit farfetched - there's no evidence that intelligence collected by USS Liberty was hurting Israel, and if Israel's goal was to avoid scrutiny, attacking an expensive asset of the world's superpower would have been rather counterproductive.
Israel captured the Golan Heights because it had been used to shell Israeli communities for decades, and that continued even after Syria officially accepted the ceasefire. It would be unreasonable to expect Israel to tolerate that sort of aggression; no capable military would do so.
> It would be unreasonable to expect Israel to tolerate that sort of aggression
It would also be unreasonable to allow Israel to colonize the annexed territory in violation of international law, especially if the goal is to reduce the exposure of Israeli citizens to reparation attacks. The Knesset isn't exactly known for reasonable decisions though, and I'm willing to extend that judgement to the upper echelons of Israeli leadership as well. Maybe I'm bigoted.
Again - evidence-based speculation would be of use if the IDF didn't directly censor all domestic reporting and investigations. An honest postmortum was never going to be an option, even if Israel bombed the Liberty with custards and coffee. Cui bono, you decide.
> if the IDF didn't directly censor all domestic reporting and investigations
This just seems like another double standard. What modern military doesn't censor reporting during a war in its own territory?
> An honest postmortum
Israel and the US settled the matter (with the help of substantial reparations) and went on to become allies. Why would they bother trying to convince anyone else?
And what would the convincing postmortum you're expecting look like? Some kind of third-party investigation? Can you name any military that willingly subjects itself to such investigations?
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That's ridiculous to anyone who has read the slightest bit about the lengths to which Israel goes to avoid actions against the US.
It seems to track with Seymour Hersh's accusations of Israeli intelligence holding the CIA over a barrel. If the Mossad wanted to maintain their access to satellite surveillance over Russia and Syria, letting the US blackmail them could have jeopardized their cooperation.
Taking into account the lengths to which Israel goes currying favor with the US, pretending to show remorse for a sunken ship is nothing compared to the sham Dimona investigation they put together for the Kennedy administration. Lying isn't beneath their means.