The Israeli Story in a Nutshell

By Ken Halliwell (September 15, 2005)

In a nutshell, here's Israel's version the USS Liberty attack story:

Army complains of shoreline being shelled by an unidentified ship.
Navy sends three motor torpedo boats (MTBs) to investigate the complaint.
Navy MTB radar detects unidentified ship, in international waters, headed west at 30 knots.
Navy assumes unidentified ship is enemy warship ship due to its high-speed and direction.
Navy calls for air support.
Air force arrives and cannot identify ship, but pilots believe the slow-moving ship looks like a non-Israeli warship.
Air force attacks unidentified ship with cannons, rockets, and napalm bombs.
Air force eventually realizes unidentified ship is not an enemy warship ship and stops attack.
Communication foul-up results in stand-down message not being received by navy MTBs.
Navy MTB's arrive and commanders believe extensively damaged, unidentified ship (declared to be a warship by both the air force and navy) looks like El Quseir, an old Egyptian cargo ship (i.e., not a high-speed warship), regardless of large "GTR5" identification markings painted on the ship's bow and other unique identifying attributes.
Navy attacks extensively damaged ship with torpedoes, cannons and machine guns after inability to establish signal light communication and seeing a few machine gun rounds being fired from the damaged ship.
Navy eventually realizes ship is not El Quseir and stops attack.
Government of Israel declares the attack was due to mistaken identity and apologizes.

Notice how an unidentified ship morphs from being an unidentified high-speed warship into being a low-speed cargo ship, presumed to be El Quseir, without any apparent head-scratching by the MTB commanders. This incredible story is not about an attack due to mistaken identity, it's a story of a willful and wanton attack on an unidentified ship, in international waters that resulted in the destruction of a US Navy ship, and the murder of 34 and the wounding of 173 of its crew.