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Arguments

There have been a number of arguments offered for each aspect of the Israeli attack on USS Liberty. Here, you can read and examine these arguments.

In addition to the official arguments by the Government of the United States of America and the Government of Israel, we have also created a list of unofficial American arguments. Though these arguments were not put forward by the United States of America, we present them as a mock-up of such. We do this because had the United States not effectively stopped inquiring into the matter in July of 1967, we imagine that the official arguments would be very similar to these arguments. They should be viewed as the comprehensive American arguments.

These unofficial yet comprehensive American arguments were formed just as others have formed similar Israeli arguments, a prime example being The Liberty Incident by A. Jay Cristol. (For someone to suggest that Cristol only argued the truth, and not the Israeli position, we suggest closely analyzing his work. You don't even need to do that: it speaks volumes that the number of survivors he interviewed is less than the number of trips he took to Israel.) In the interest of fairness, we made an offer to publish, unedited, arguments of the Israeli position, but the offer has yet to be accepted. So, as a substitute, we have provided links to web sites that contain unofficial Israeli arguments.

• Arguments unofficially put forward by the United States of America
  These comprehensive arguments were assembled by an experienced lawyer as sample official American arguments of all evidence currently available. Had the United States not effectively stopped investigating the matter in July 1967 and instead decided to pursue justice on behalf of the crew, we imagine that the official arguments would be very similar to these. If our offer is met, we hope to also host the same comprehensive, unofficial arguments for the Israeli position.
• Official Position of the United States of America
  This page is part of the series of unofficial American arguments. Only one formal position has ever been taken by the United States, set forth in a formal diplomatic note from Secretary of State Dean Rusk to the Israeli Ambassador on 10 June 1967. With the exception of minor modifications to the note, it has not been withdrawn or modified since. To the contrary, there have been other official U.S. documents that enhanced what was set forth in the note. The position is very simple: the attack was, at a minimum, an "act of military recklessness reflecting wanton disregard for human life."
  Arguments put forward by the Government of the State of Israel
  The position taken by Israel, not surprisingly, is quite the opposite of the American position: no military personnel committed any negligent or criminal conduct, malfeasance, recklessness, or even deviated from the standard of resonable conduct.

  In 1982, the Government of Israel published a document that styled itself as "the official Israeli version of the facts." It also includes the most comprehensive official Israeli arguments. Hence, the link above will open a new window displaying the document textually reproduced in full. To review a scan of the original instead, visit our Evidence area.

• Arguments put forward by the Supporters of the Israeli Position
  Because our offer has not been accepted, we have compiled some of the more comprehensive web sites that support the official position of the Government of Israel.