Because they were recording the pilots conversations back to HQ, the orders that involved strafing enemy soldiers after their machines of war were destroyed and the pilots were reporting white flags being shown and the orders were 'kill them all', major fuking war crime.Which gets us to the crux of the matter....why would the Israelis knowingly attack an American ship????
That simply makes no sense.....and the inavailibility of a suitable answer supports the idea that it was, against all odds, a simple mistake.
Does your book even cover the pilots telling HQ that the 'target was a US Warship in International water'. Why break off an attack on an enemy vessel just because a 'freighter shows up' and the US Prez had the 'rescue fighters' ordered back after they had been already launched.