To: jbn3 who wrote (17081 ) 6/4/2001 9:09:35 PM From: Zeev Hed Read Replies (3) | Respond to jbn, I am no privy to the decision made in 1967, I am pretty sure it was not a mistake (and the directives that did not reach the ship to move out 100 miles are probably correct). You got to remember that in 1967, the Israeli/US relationships where not particularly warm. After all, only a short eleven years before that, when the ill conceived coalition of Britain, France and Israel tried to reverse Nazer's nationalization of the Suez canal by force, Eisenhauer, when faced with Bulganin's nuclear ultimatum, told the three coalition parties, you cooked that meal eat it, don't expect the US nuclear umbrella to protect you (leading to France and probably Israel developing their own). I would believe that the Israeli goal was to prevent a cease fire until they took the Golan (a strategic goal, since the Golan was used for daily gunning of the villages in the Kineret valley below). So, I presume that that the IDF did not want any intelligence ship, American, Russian or Arab, close enough to make sense of the situation in the battle field, until that situation was resolved in a manner that could lead to an armistice. The difference between that episode and our recent spy plane near China is that there was an actual war going on in that region, and when shooting is taking place, 12 miles or not (they were actually near Egyptian waters, well Gaza was already captured, so may be not), the navy was smart to order the ship out of the region. It is quite unfortunate, and actually surprising (is it possible that different branches in our own government had different goals for that ship? Some wanting it there for State to have the info it needed, and the navy wanting it out of harm's way?) that the orders to move out were not received, not once, but twice. Politics stinks.
