IF tommorow the Palestinian people peacably protested in the street+did so for month

[chequita guevara]

The arms embargo was in order to induce Israel to stop attacking. At first the US assumed it was a Soviet attack. Fighters were on the way to rescue the Liberty when Johnson found out it was the Israelis and orderd the fighters to turn back. The Soviets only started heading for Israel when Israel launched the attack on Syria.

[Edan]

Healthy criticism is one thing, but to assume that Israel's attack was other than a case of mistaken identity you need to examine motive (the US was aware of Israel's intentions with regard to the Golan Heights), and the potential for friendly fire incidents during war (IIRC, Israel had fired on it's own troops during the war due to friendly fire as well) Heck, even in todays wars, we don't alwasy get who we intend - or did America really intend to hit those Canadians and that wedding?

Besides, why would Israel want to alienate a superpower it was in good standing and one that had actually was helping Israel during a tense situation (unlike the French ) ?

For that matter, why not totally destroy the ship so there wouldn't be any witnesses?

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Edan
or did America really intend to hit those Canadians and that wedding?

Did they keep attacking the Canadians or the wedding for over an hour?

[Edan]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara At first the US assumed it was a Soviet attack.

Yes, in another case of mistaken identity.

[gsmoove23]

Edan, the questions you brought up were all addressed earlier by DinoDoc, Che and myself. Why not respond to them?

"Besides, why would Israel want to alienate a superpower it was in good standing and one that had actually was helping Israel during a tense situation (unlike the French ) ?"

The US wanted an end to hostilities before Israel rolled over all of the West Bank and the Golan. Remember, this doesn't have to be an official decision of the Israeli gov, it could have been initiated by hawks within the gov or military. Also, there is no reason to assume that this one action would significantly change the US stance which was primarily influenced by the need to counteract soviet influence in the region.

[Edan]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara

Edan, you are nothing but a mouthpiece for the "Israel is always innocent" crowd.

No. I'm just a fan of Okham's Razor. I don't like having conspiracy theories explain events that conspiracy theories aren't needed to explain.

[Edan]

Originally posted by gsmoove23

The US wanted an end to hostilities before Israel rolled over all of the West Bank and the Golan.

So Israel fires on an American ship to try to forestall a ceasefire by getting the Americans to join the war... America was already well aware of Israel's intentions w/ regards to the Golan Heights, and anyway, the boat was located off Egypt, not northern Israel, and was spying on the Egyptians, not the Israelis.

And the West Bank was already captured (or close to being captured) by that point, from what I remember.

[GePap]

Edan:

On the Liberty: If youu support Okam's Razor, then the idea that the attack was an accident is one theory you should not support. After all, as it was said, the Ship was flying a huge American flag. how does one accidentally miss that?

The US has never been interested in full Israeli victories: just look at the intense pressure put in 1973 to forestall the destruction of Egypt's third army in the Sanai. And Jordan has always been a western-friendly Arab state, so the US would not have any inetrest in any actions that would damage it. As for the timeline, what we need is someone to link to a detaled timeline so that the confusion ends.

As for Jordan: Take the facts as you have given them to me. The war starts on June 5th, you said that Israel mobilized its reserves three weeks before. That's going back to around May 16th, 1967. If Egypt was planning an offensive war, why did this allience with Jordan come only after Israel had been mobilized for war for 2 whole weeks? And as foir putting its troops under joint ccommand, it is the only thing that makes sense. jordan's army was small, at best it could only serve a support role, but the only way it could do this was if it was coordinated wth Egyptian actions. Since Egypt was the bigger power, it only makes sense that Egypt would take command. As for Syria, it and Egypt had been one state for three years. It hardly seems likely that even aftre their 1964 divorce, they would not stay allies against thier common foe, now does it? And Syria forces were not under Egyptian control.


Here is my version of what happened in 1967:

Prior to this, we have Palestinian fighters, backed by Egypt and Syria, carrying out cross border atatcks, with Israel retaliating for them. You also have a power struggle in the Arab world between radicals and conservatives (Egypt and Syria vs. Jordan and S.Arabia), which came to play itself out militarily in Yemen, as egypt and saudi Arabia sent troops to help their respective allies.
Now, early in 1967 tension between syria and Israel escalates. At this point Nasser recives info (incorrect info) that Israel is on the verge of carrying out a major straike vs. Syria. If such an attack happens, Israel will win, and Nasser's standing will further dcline in the Arab camp, as he is the leader of the radicals, and will have been shown to be impotent against Israel. So he takes a course of loud belligerancy against israel to deter a possible attack on Syria. But his campaign is a terrible one. He is TOO BELLIGERENT without making any serious planning for the consequences. Plus some things just go wrong, as when he calls for a partial pull-out of UN monitors but the commander of the UN force decides that he does not have that authority and pull all his forces out, not just in the sectors Nasser asked for. At first, israel ignores the situaion but as Nasser goes further and further, Israel begins to prepare for war. Now, by late May, things are getting out of hand, so Nasser moves to get jordan in, since war seem a likely possibility and he is either a) trying one last act to deter, by having Israel face a three front war or b) see's war coming, and needs everything he can to help him win it, given Israel superior forces.

Now, the war begins, and Israel's inital attacks are immensely succesfull. Now, a this point, the Israeli leadertship see the opportunity to defeat al its enemies and create a sitation for peace on its own terms by a total defeat of the arab armies. It does totally defeat the Arab armies, but it fails to get peace on its own terms (which is more to due with the post-war political consequences both in Israel and the arab world)

[gsmoove23]

"So Israel fires on an American ship to try to forestall a ceasefire by getting the Americans to join the war..."

Well, in the end Israel did fire on an American ship, the US didn't enter the war, they still supported Israel. Whatever Israel did, it seems to have worked.

The vessel was north of the Sinai yes, and I have no idea what the capabilities of its listening devices were. The US having full knowledge of Israel's intentions does not mean that they agreed with them.

[Ned]

While researching the issue of why Israel might have attacked the Liberty, I ran across a fascinating article I recommend all who are interested in this topic to read. The article describes the diplomatic archives of the Israeli government concerning 1967 that have been declassified and released. The article concludes that the primary fault for the '67 war was President Johnson who did nothing effective to carry out the American pledge to keep the Straits of Tiran open.

I find the following quote from the Chairman of the PLO particularly vivid.

"Questioned by reporters on the fate Israelis could expect after the Arabs won the coming war, PLO Chairman Ahmad Shuqayri replied, “Those who survive will remain in Palestine. I estimate that none of them will survive.”

Did Israel Want The Six Day War?

The newly released Israeli diplomatic documents from the period leading up to June 5, 1967 offer overwhelming evidence against any suggestion that Israel sought war with the Arabs. Nor do the tens of thousands of papers so far declassified contain a single reference to any desire to divert public opinion from the economic situation, to overthrow Arab rulers or to conquer and occupy the West Bank, the Sinai or the Golan Heights. On the contrary, the picture that emerges is one of a country and leadership deeply fearful of military confrontation, and desperate to avoid one at almost any price. The sole hope of doing so, the Israelis believed, rested with the United States. But the Johnson Administration, though favorably disposed to Israel, was severely limited by domestic political constraints and its all-consuming involvement in Vietnam. These limitations prevented the Americans from taking the measures that might have restored the status quo ante in the Sinai and the Straits of Tiran and stemmed the momentum toward war that Nasser had generated.

Moreover, it cannot be claimed that Israel was wrong in considering the use of force. Confronted with a harsh economic blockade, military pacts between heavily armed neighbors for the express purpose of aggression against Israel, and hundreds of thousands of enemy troops actually massed on its borders, it would have been the height of irresponsibility for Israel’s government not to plan for preemptive action. Nor can Israel be faulted for employing the threat of force to spur the United States to intervene diplomatically. The few measures Johnson did adopt—reiterations of America’s 1957 pledges on Tiran, the Red Sea Regatta proposal, the representations to Arab leaders—were directly attributable to those intimations by Israel. And, in the final analysis, the Israelis held back from acting militarily until the very last opportunity for a diplomatic settlement had passed, even though they knew that every day they waited was costing them dearly in resources, readiness and morale, and was likely to constrict their own maneuverability if war became unavoidable. "

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Edan
Healthy criticism is one thing, but to assume that Israel's attack was other than a case of mistaken identity you need to examine motive (the US was aware of Israel's intentions with regard to the Golan Heights),

Yes it was, and it was putting pressure on Israel to not to attack Syria by day four. In the UN, the US sponsored a ceasefire. The US didn't know yet what Israel was going to do, but if the electronic listening ship had been able to tell them, it could have yanked their chain harder, before the invasion began.

and the potential for friendly fire incidents during war (IIRC, Israel had fired on it's own troops during the war due to friendly fire as well)

They deliberately attacked the section of the ship with the electronic listening equipment. If they weren't deliberately attacking the Liberty why did they concentrate on that section of the ship, which wouldn't have existed in a horse carrier.

For that matter, why not totally destroy the ship so there wouldn't be any witnesses?

Because you can get away with saying you mistakenly attacked a ship. If they sank it, there is no way Johnson would have let the matter slip. Israel just needed it out of commission, not destroyed.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Edan
No. I'm just a fan of Okham's Razor.

No, you're a fanboy who can't accept your idol has feet of clay.

[chequita guevara]

Everyone keep talking about the military alliances between the three states, ignoring the fact that they were defensive. In other words, they only get activated if Israel attacks, not if Egypt attacks. Therefore, the military allainces cannot be considered a legitimate fear.

[GePap]

That was an excelent link Ned

The biggest roblem we have is the lack of access to egyptian and Syrian archives, as only in them do we have a notion of what their leaderships were thinking.

Hey! At least several of my theories pan out.. yeah.

[Az]

I agree with your analisys of 67', GePap.