missile said:
Israel even got away with attacking a USN ship,The USS Liberty,and killing a number of sailors back in Johnson's tenure as president. The Jewish Lobby in Washington cannot be underestimated. I could argue that Israel is no friend of the US,but just another of their dubious allies.
Yeah......the USS Liberty thing, which is trotted out by conspiracy theorists every time they want to throw a rock at Israel-USA relations. I mean this was 38 years ago
What happened is this:
On June 8, the third day of the Six Day War, the Liberty took up position 13 nautical miles off the Sinai coast, and began to ply back and forth between al' Arish and Port Said, probably electronically monitoring the fighting on shore. Orders had actually been issued by the JCS for the ship to maintain a 100 mile distance from the shore, but they were actually mis-directed to the Philippines.
At 11:24 AM there was an explosion at an ammo dump on al' Arish, which later turned out to be accidental. First reports were, however, that there was shelling from the sea, as there had been the day before. The Israeli Navy dispatched 3 torpedo boats to sink any interlopers.
At 1:41, one of these boats spotted the Liberty at 22 miles. She could not catch her, so vectored Israeli attack aircraft on her, leading to disaster.
This stuff happens, as the Americans understand.
From "Six Days at War" by Michael Oren