2007-06-08 15:29:54 -
JERUSALEM (AP) - In the dramatic story of Israel's lightning victory over three Arab armies 40 years ago, one incident stands out as a stain _ a deadly attack by Israeli jets and torpedo boats on a U.S. spy ship on June 8, 1967.
Widely accepted to have been a mistake made in the heat of
battle, the attack on the USS Liberty nonetheless still fuels persistent charges of a cover-up by the Israeli and American governments.
The Liberty was off the coast of Egypt's Sinai desert at the war's height, equipped with advanced intelligence hardware, when it was strafed and bombed by Israeli jets, then torpedoed by an Israeli vessel. The assault left 34 American servicemen dead and 173 wounded, out of a crew of 294.
Israel has always maintained that its forces thought they were attacking an Egyptian ship, and official inquiries in Israel and the U.S. revealed a series of mistakes on both sides but no malicious intent.
A U.S. Navy directive ordering the Liberty to remain 100 miles (160 kilometers) from shore was never received because of a communications malfunction, putting the ship in a war zone between Israeli and Egyptian forces, and the U.S. Navy did not apprise the Israeli military of the ship's position, both sides agree.
In Israel's account, its naval observers did identify the Liberty that morning, but shifts changed at Israeli naval headquarters and the ship's marker on the war maps was removed.
Later in the day, when Israeli paratroopers on the Sinai coast thought they were being shelled from the sea, the air force sent jets to investigate. Unaware of any neutral ships in the area and unable to see any markings, the pilots assumed the vessel was hostile and attacked. Israeli torpedo boats arrived shortly afterward, and an officer misidentified the Liberty as the El-Quseir, an Egyptian transport ship, Israel says.
Only when a pilot finally spotted the ship's hull markings did the Israelis realize their mistake and cease fire.
Israel immediately apologized and paid reparations to the families of the dead and wounded servicemen. The U.S. government accepted Israel's explanation for the incident.
But some Liberty survivors maintain the assault on their ship was no mistake. The survivors gathered Friday for a conference in McLean, Virginia, to mark the 40th anniversary.
James Ennes, today a 74-year-old resident of Seattle, Washington, was a lieutenant on the Liberty's bridge when the jets swooped over on their first strafing run.
«Orange flashes began appearing under their wings,» Ennes recalled from the conference. The crewmen were shocked to be attacked by Israeli forces, he said. «The Israelis were supposed to be our friends, and we were celebrating their victories,» he said.
After about 20 minutes of attack from the air, he said, Israeli torpedo boats circled close to the ship and continued firing machine guns, even though he thinks they couldn't have missed the ship's insignia or U.S. flag.
«All of the men on the ship saw enough during the attack _ there is no way it could have been an accident,» Ennes said.
After the attack, he said, Navy officials ordered the Liberty crewmen to remain silent.
The veterans' cause was taken up by some prominent U.S. officials like former Secretary of State Dean Rusk, and more recently in books, articles and on dozens of web sites run by conspiracy theorists and critics of Israel.
In an op-ed marking the attack's 40th anniversary, Ward Boston Jr., who served as chief counsel to the Navy's inquiry into the attack, wrote in the San Diego Union Tribune that «clear» evidence indicated «that this attack was a deliberate effort to sink an American ship and murder its entire crew.
«I am certain the Israeli pilots and commanders who had ordered the attack knew the ship was American,» Boston wrote.
He offered no motive. But some theories have Israel attacking the ship so U.S. intelligence would not learn of its plans to attack Syria later in the war, or to cover up an alleged massacre of Egyptian prisoners in Sinai, or to pin the attack on Egypt and draw the U.S. into the war on Israel's side. None of the charges has ever been backed up by documentary evidence.
Ironically, Israel's success in the war and the infallible image of its military, which vanquished the armed forces of Egypt, Syria and Jordan in six days, gave credence to the charges that the attack was deliberate, said Michael Oren, an Israeli historian at the Shalem Center in Jerusalem.
«Many continued to believe that the Israelis who were so proficient in winning the war could not have done this by mistake,» Oren said. But no evidence exists to back up the allegations, Oren said, and in fact friendly fire incidents abounded during Israel's 1967 campaign.
«All the evidence that has been declassified substantiates the claim that this was a case of friendly fire. There's nothing to suggest otherwise,» Oren said.
Eytan Gilboa, an expert on Israel-U.S. relations at Bar-Ilan University, said the incident caused no lasting harm to ties.
«It didn't cause any damage _ on the contrary, after 1967 there was a great improvement in U.S.-Israel relations, and the U.S. became Israel's main patron,» Gilboa said.
«In a historic perspective, the attack is a minor black spot,» Gilboa said.
