Refuting the Israeli Arguments

"Egypt had declared the area closed to neutrals."

The formal Israeli explanation for the attack on USS Liberty was made by Lt. Col. Michael Bloch in a telephone call to the Office of the Defense Attachè at the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv. Of relevance to this discussion is item number four:

"Tel Aviv, June 9, 19 67, 1520Z.

0845. At 09/1300Z the IDF Assistant Army Spokesman Lt Col Michael Bloch telephoned to ALUSNA following seven points as "Further information on yesterday's incident with the American ship."

. . .

4. Egypt had declared the area closed to neutrals.

. . ."

Though challeged repeatedly to produce any evidence of this allegation, and despite being unable to do so, Israel continues to maintain the fiction that the Egyptian government had declared the area closed to neutrals. In his excellent Naval Law Review (Winter, 1986) article, A Juridical Examination of the Israeli Attack on the USS Liberty, Lieutenant Commander Walter L. Jacobson, JAGC, USN, related his findings with respect to this particular allegation:

"Notices of hazards to mariners or NOTMARS, such as the ones broadcast by the Israelis and picked up by the Liberty, may be written or broadcast by radio. There are three kinds: 1) Local warnings broadcast by a state on its own and not as part of the international notice system and generally dealing with hazards peculiar to that state; 2) coastal warnings which are virtually the same as local warnings, except that they may pertain to a larger area - they, too, are issued nationally; and 3) long-range warnings issued under an international system and pertaining to a problem affecting a greater amount of the world's navigation. Additionally, the United States issues special warnings. These are promulgated after consultation by national government agencies and generally issued in response to major political events. Although other countries may issue information concerning political events, the term "Special Warnings" is a category label only in the United States. Because of the quickness of the Six Day War, only radio broadcast warnings would have been made. Local and coastal broadcasts are not recorded, except perhaps by the broadcasting state. Broadcasts of long-range hazards to mariners are recorded and compiled by the United States and bound chronologically. This American record also includes any special warnings then in effect and British recordings of broadcasts for the Eastern Atlantic, Mediterranean, and Black Sea (NAVEAMS). This information is based on an interview with Mr. Stephen Hall, Chief of the Notice to Mariners Branch in the Navigation Division of the Hydrography and Navigation Department of the Hydrographic/Topographic Center (HTC) of the U.S. Department of Defense Mapping Agency (June 1985). (The HTC was formerly in the U.S. Naval Oceanographic Office.)

A diligent search by the author for broadcast warnings in NOTMAR reports for the period from April 29, 1967, to July 22, 1967, revealed no special warnings and no long-range warnings that were broadcast by radio concerning any events from the Six Day War. Two British NAVEAMS were found announcing: "Cairo Radio reports Suez Canal closed to navigation." Both NAVEAMS were designated NAVEAM 8513 Mediterranean, and the broadcasts were both dated June 6, 1967. One was recorded in Notice to Mariners for the week of June 24, 1967, and the other in Notice to Mariners for the week of July 15, 1967.

Other than the local broadcasts picked up by the Liberty and the Cairo broadcasts published by the British, there was only one other warning published. In a December 1968 article published by the U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, the author mentions that, on May 23, 1967, an Egyptian radio broadcast indicated that, since Egypt and Israel were still technically at war, the Egyptian government had banned the passage of Israeli ships through Egyptian waters (notably the Straits of Tiran). See Salans, Gulf of Aqaba and Straits of Tiran-Troubled Waters, U.S. Naval Inst. Proc., Dec. 1968, at 54, 60.

The author concludes that, while there were internationally broadcast notices warning mariners of the closure of the Suez Canal and locally broadcast warnings about: 1) Israeli ships in Egyptian territorial waters; 2) the possibility that lights might be extinguished along the Israeli coast; and 3) a warning to stay away from the coast of Israel at night, there were no international, local, or coastal declaration of announcements of a war zone, exclusion zone, or any other type of maritime security zone along the coasts of Israel or Egypt before, or during, the Six Day War."

As is the case with the other explanations put forward by Israel, this allegation is pure fiction. There was no Egyptian declaration of a exclusion zone. The United States repeatedly pressed Israel for the source of its claim but Israel never provided it.

One would think that this fruitless search would have led the Israelis to conclude that the Egyptian warning had never been issued, at least that would be the expectation if this were an honest mistake. In 1982, however, the IDF History Report again made this allegation and cites, as authority, the documents the United States orginally questioned and for which the Israelis could offer no factual source.

The following was the legal opinion on this explanation of the Counsel for the Court of the U.S. Navy Court of Inquiry, Captain Ward Boston Jr., as written in Appendix VI to the Court's record:

Comment - Closing certain adjacent waters including those otherwise considered to be high seas, has some precedent in history as a belligerent practice, notably in World Wars I and II when most of the belligerents, including the United States, declared "war zones", Military areas", amid "defensive sea areas" and either attempted to close such areas completely and to severely circumscribe passage through them as a neutral [.] the consistent position of the United States has been to reserve generally all of its rights in the premises, including the right not only to question the validity of such "war zones" but to present demands and claims in relation to any American interests which may be unlawfully affected, directly or indirectly, by virtue of their enforcement. As a general proposition except for a previously announced blockade or other legitimate maritime control measure, closing or attempting to restrict any portion of the high seas has not been recognized in international law as a belligerent right.