From: "Raanan Bavli" To: Subject: My opinion Date: Sat, 17 May 1997 09:37:28 +0300 X-Msmail-Priority: Normal Dear Jim, This is probably the best site I've ever seen. I wish I could say the same about its content. I would greatly appriciate it if you could post the following. First I would like to state that I am an Israeli citizen. The attak on the USS Liberty, although I beleive it was an accident, is one of the darkest points in our military history. I think that although people should weigh the testemonies of the survivors, they should also look for a motive for committing such a crime. Sofar no one has come up with a convincing theory. I read the link titled "Why did Israel attack? A new report based on eyewitness accounts from the Israeli press", in this site. Anyone who knows something about Israeli army, politics and culture, understands that nothing written there can be true. Let me list my objections to the points raised there : 1) The invasion to the Golan was not planned. It has just rolled on. Even if it was planned, the damage, in military and political levels, caused by USS Liberty revealing this, would be very close to zero, considering the fact that within several hours the whole world would know it. Even if all information gathered by USS Liberty had been handed to the Syrians, there was nothing they could do, since all of their military was already committed to the Golan front. 2) The issue of revealing execution of POW's is even weaker. I can't say that it's impossible that even one such event takes place, but 150, no way. Moreover, even if 5 Egyptions were executed, there is no way we would'nt here about this from several sources. 3) Let's say for a moment that the executions did happen. It is extremely unlikely that a ship would detect that. Moreover, it is even more unlikely that the Israelis know that this has been detected. Moreover, Even if they new for sure that the Liberty has detected this, and decided to destroy the ship in order to hide this crime, they had to assume that the US will be willing to ignore the second crime. Would'nt be safer to assume that the US would ignore the first crime ? As a typical Israeli (who does'nt approve execution of POW's) I would rather take the heat for murdering 150 Arabs rather than 34 Americans. Does'nt this make sence to you ? 4) Coordinating an attak on a ship, using air and naval forces, based on information originating from ground forces (who could'nt see the ship), sounds strange. This would reuire too many people knowing too much, and would include political levels. If this was true we would hear something about this from Israeli sources. I restate my position that the was no motive for committing such a crime ! Aitan