“The best planned accident” – Attack on the USS Liberty
The 1967 Six-Day War was used by Israel to snatch new territory from its neighbours, including the West Bank and East Jerusalem, then under Jordanian control.
On June 8th 1967, three days after the outbreak of war, Israel attacked and nearly sank the USS Liberty, an unarmed American communications and monitoring vessel. The Liberty, clearly flying the US flag, was assaulted by aircraft and torpedoes in broad daylight, as it sailed in international waters in the Mediterranean Sea close to the Sinai peninsula.
On the day of the attack Israel was in the process of wresting the Sinai from Eyptian control (land it would eventually hand back to Egypt a decade later in an Egypt-Israeli peace deal brokered by US President Carter).
USS Liberty torpedo hole
Thirty-four American servicemen were killed in the brutal two-hour blitz by Israeli warplanes and torpedo boats. 172 were injured. It was the largest single cause of casualties to the US naval personnel on any day – before or since – after World War Two. Even life-rafts were destroyed.
Featured below is the classic BBC Four Investigative Report about the USS Liberty – ‘Dead in the Water‘, produced and directed by Christopher Mitchell. It was broadcast on the BBC in Britain in 2002/3.
As far as I can tell, this poweful and well-researched documentary has never been shown on Australian TV.
Why not?
Mangled remains of the USS Liberty
A campaign to get ‘Dead in the Water’ shown on the ABC in prime time would be worthwhile, whether or not it succeeds.
- If successful – fine! It’s long overdue the Australian TV-viewing public learns the story of the USS Liberty!
- If Australia’s national broadcaster refuses to show it, the Zionist bias of our publicly-funded institution would come under greater public scrutiny.
- In either event, more people would become aware of this superb documentary and watch it online
Many theories have been proposed over the years as to why the Israelis attacked the USS Liberty. Israel has always claimed the incident was an accident, but as the documentary shows, that’s simply not credible.
Phil Tourney: Liberty survivor and hero
The most probable explanation, it seems to me, is that the USS Liberty attack was a ‘false flag’ operation gone wrong. If things had gone according to Israel’s plan, the USS Liberty would have been sunk without survivors, Egypt would have been blamed for the attack and the USA would have been drawn into direct military support for Israel, possibly bombing Egypt.
Miraculously most of the torpedoes missed (perhaps some of the Israeli naval personnel couldn’t bring themselves to fire straight?) The Liberty survived, due to heroic action by the crew.
Then the long, long cover-up began…
Dead in the Water was brilliantly researched by Peter Hounam. The film combines dramatic reconstruction of the events with interviews of former officers in the US and Israeli armed forces and intelligence services. Interviews include President Johnson’s Secretary of Defence Robert McNamara, former head of the Israeli navy Admiral Shlomo Errell and some surviving members of the USS Liberty crew.
A must see!
