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Politics : Foreign Policy Discussion Thread -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (3276)	2/4/2003 8:02:48 AM
From: skinowski	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 15987

There were reports that Israelis were executing prisoners at El Arish on June 8th (General Tal's division)... Hawk, Oren does mention the prisoner-shooting theory… Among the more far-fetched theories that have been suggested is the possibility that the Liberty was attacked because it had learned of the Israeli execution of Egyptian POWs; or that it had picked up Israeli attempts to draw Jordan into the war so that Jerusalem might be brought under Israeli control.43 But no document, American or Israeli, contains any reference to prisoner executions; neither are they mentioned in any Arabic source that has come to light to date.44 By the same token, the Jordanian attack on Israel on June 5 and the fall of Jerusalem to Israeli forces on June 7 took place well before the Liberty's arrival off the Gaza coast, and none of the documents now available in any way link the Liberty incident on June 8 to these events. shalem.org.il I am no expert on this incident, but I doubt that any Israeli leader would risk a conflict with the USA in the midst of the 6 Day War – or at any other time, for that matter, even if they did have a reason, which – to my knowledge – they never ever did.

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (3276)	2/6/2003 9:49:34 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 15987

Hawk, I know that some members of Johnson administration did not believe the Liberty incident could be a screwup, despite the Israeli and US commisions of inquiry that concluded it was. But this purported motive There were reports that Israelis were executing prisoners at El Arish on June 8th (General Tal's division)... Even if it had been true (it wasn't), how does it stack up as a motive? Oops, the Americans might find out we killed some Egyptian prisoners and might get mad at us, so let's sink one of their observation ships, that won't bother them too much; they'll be less sensitive to dead American sailors than to dead Egyptian POWs. I mean, hello? Does this make any kind of sense to you? As Oren says in Six Days of War pp 270-271: ...A navy court of inquiry, convened in Malta by Rear Adm. Isaac C. Kidd, Jr., shortly after the attack, posited that, for lack of sufficient wind, the Liberty's flag might not have been visible to Israeli pilots, and that the attack appeared to be "a case of mistaken identity." Further reviews were conducted by the CIA, Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the House Appropriations Committee, and the NSA. But at no time were answers sought to the questions of who sent the Liberty, lightly armed and incognito, into the middle of somebody else's war zone, and for what purpose. Never was it suggested, much less charged, that the Liberty's mission was an egregious mistake. The absence of such answers would later give rise to a mélange of conspiracy theories purporting to explain the incident. Israel was said to have launched the attack to prevent the Liberty from reporting on its gains in Sinai, its alleged execution of Egyptian prisoners, or its interception of messages between Cairo and King Hussein. The most widespread of the charges held that Israel--Dayan, in particular--wanted the Liberty destroyed in order to conceal preparations for the coming thrust into Syria. None of these theories withstood historical scrutiny, however, or even made much sense. Israel did little to hide from the Americans either its progress in Sinai or its intentions vis-à-vis the Golan. Jordan was already hors de combat by June 8. No evidence was found that Israel conducted mass executions of POW's or that it sought to disguise that act by killing Americans. Indeed, with their obsessive concern for U.S. opinion and their ingrained fear of the Soviets, the Israelis would have been loath to antagonize, much less make war against, their sole superpower protector. And while the IDF could have easily sunk the Liberty, the fact remained that it did not; it ceased firing the instant the mistake was realized, and offered to assist the ship. The logic of these arguments would be employed by Arab and Soviet commentators--ironically--who asserted that the Liberty had been spying for Israel during the war and was only erroneously attacked.