Transcript [00:00] So today is June 8th. It is the [00:02] anniversary of one of the most cynically [00:04] weaponized events in modern history. On [00:08] June 8th, 1967, Israeli aircraft and [00:11] torpedo boats attacked the USS Liberty, [00:15] an American signals intelligence ship [00:18] operating off the Sinai coast during the [00:21] Six-Day War. 34 American sailors were [00:24] killed, 174 were wounded. [00:28] It was a terrible tragedy, and for over [00:29] 50 years people have used that tragedy, [00:33] it's almost 60 years actually next year, [00:35] people have used this tragedy to argue [00:37] that Israel deliberately targeted the [00:39] United States in a calculated act of [00:42] murder. [00:43] Now, I want to make a different kind of [00:44] argument today, not just the here's why [00:48] the evidence shows it was a mistake [00:49] argument, though it does overwhelmingly. [00:52] I want to ask a question that should [00:53] have ended the conspiracy theory from [00:56] day one. [00:57] What did Israel have to gain? [01:00] Because when you ask that question [01:01] seriously, the conspiracy theory doesn't [01:03] just fall apart, it becomes incoherent. [01:07] Now, to understand why the deliberate [01:09] attack theory makes no sense, you have [01:11] to understand what Israel actually was [01:13] in 1967 and what the US-Israel [01:15] relationship was at that moment. Because [01:18] it was nothing like what it is today. [01:21] In June 1967, [01:23] the strategic alliance between the [01:25] United States and Israel with you know, [01:27] foreign aid and military aid and and the [01:30] whole, you know, the the whole [01:32] intertwined relationship between the [01:33] United States and Israel did not yet [01:35] exist. A lot of people don't realize [01:37] that. That all starts after the Six-Day [01:39] War, not before it. Israel in 1967 went [01:43] to war essentially alone. The United [01:45] States repeatedly had refused Israeli [01:48] requests for military aid and refused to [01:51] approve their actions as well. [01:54] As Ambassador Michael Oren, former [01:57] Israeli Ambassador to the United States, [01:58] put it plainly, in the Six-Day War, [02:01] Israel did not receive a single bullet [02:03] from the United States. Israel's [02:05] airplanes and weapons were not American. [02:08] France had been Israel's primary arms [02:11] supplier through the late '50s and the [02:12] early '60s, and even that relationship [02:14] was not doing so great in 1967. Israel [02:17] was very diplomatically isolated, facing [02:21] a three-front war against [02:23] Soviet-equipped Arab armies. Back then, [02:25] for those of you who don't remember the [02:26] Cold War, the Arab countries were were [02:29] Soviet proxies, and they were Soviet [02:31] allies. And the United States had not [02:33] warmed up to Israel yet. They also had [02:36] relationships in the Arab world. And [02:38] they were And they And Israel was still [02:40] a a brand new young country that wasn't [02:43] so strong, and they weren't sure that [02:46] they could trust Israel as a reliable [02:48] ally in the Middle East. The Six-Day War [02:50] changed that, but this is But before the [02:52] Six-Day War, [02:54] Israel was was was not backed by any [02:57] superpower. This this whole deep [03:00] American commitment to Israel, [03:02] the security guarantees, military aid, [03:06] vetoing UN resolutions that harm Israel, [03:09] all of that starts after 1967 because [03:14] a lot of people attribute it to the the [03:16] fact that Israel's stunning victory in [03:19] 1967 demonstrated its value as a [03:22] regional power that America could rely [03:25] on as its forward ally in the Middle [03:28] East to counter the Soviet-backed armies [03:31] that were there. [03:33] So, the Six-Day War was, in a real [03:35] sense, it was Israel's audition, if you [03:38] will, for the relationship that would [03:40] follow, that we've come to know. [03:42] So, now let's ask the question [03:45] about motive. Israel's in the middle of [03:47] the war that will define its strategic [03:49] future. Okay, it's fighting without [03:51] American military support, and it's [03:53] hoping to emerge from it in a position [03:55] to finally build a deeper relationship [03:58] with Washington. [03:59] And someone proposes [04:02] deliberately attacking an American ship [04:05] and killing American sailors cuz that's [04:07] what the conspiracy theorists claim. [04:09] They claim that the sailors were killed [04:10] intentionally. [04:12] Now what's the conceivable logic here? [04:13] Let's play it out. [04:16] What outcome justifies that? [04:18] It was what outcome would the Israelis [04:20] be trying to get? What does Israel gain [04:23] that's worth torching the relationship [04:25] that it's trying to build cuz they were [04:27] courting the Americans? [04:30] What why would they do that? [04:35] Now there are theories [04:37] but none of them make any sense. [04:40] The conspiracy theorists [04:42] have floated a number of theories. The [04:43] most common one [04:45] is that Israel didn't want the US [04:47] intercepting communications about its [04:49] planned attack on Syria. So it attacked [04:52] an American ship [04:54] to silence [04:57] this signals intelligence ship, this one [05:00] ship. [05:02] Now think of what that actually means. [05:04] Attacking an American naval vessel [05:07] would not stop US intelligence [05:08] collection. The US had other platforms [05:10] in the region. And the moment that [05:11] Israel attacked an American ship, [05:13] Washington would be paying far closer [05:15] attention to everything Israel was [05:16] doing, [05:18] not less. [05:20] You don't keep secrets [05:23] by starting a kinetic confrontation with [05:26] a country whose support you're trying to [05:28] win. [05:30] And in any case, if that's what Israel [05:32] was trying to do, then it was a complete [05:34] failure because Israel didn't sink the [05:36] Liberty. The ship did not sink. The ship [05:38] survived. So under this theory, if we [05:41] follow this out, Israel committed an act [05:44] that killed soldiers and the objective [05:48] of the act, which was to sink the [05:50] Liberty, was was a failure. [05:53] And they risked destroying the US-Israel [05:56] relationship at a time when Israel had [05:58] no friends in the world and was [06:00] and was hoping and trying to get the US [06:04] on its side. [06:07] Okay? Does that have any logic to it at [06:09] all? [06:11] Now, there's also another theory which [06:12] we'll get to in a bit. There's another [06:14] theory that the Israelis were trying to [06:16] frame the Egyptians. They wanted the [06:17] Americans to think the Egyptians had [06:19] attacked them. We'll get to that in a [06:20] few minutes. But let's look at the [06:22] actual evidence because it lines up [06:23] perfectly with the only explanation that [06:26] actually makes any sense, which is that [06:27] this was a tragic case of [06:30] misidentification in the fog of war, a [06:32] friendly fire incident. These things [06:34] happen. [06:35] The CIA prepared a top secret [06:38] intelligence memorandum for President [06:40] Lyndon Johnson about this incident on [06:43] June 13th, 1967. [06:46] Just 5 days after it happened, they drew [06:49] on all the available sources, all the [06:51] available uh [06:52] uh [06:53] people they interviewed, uh but they [06:55] also included intercepted Israeli [06:57] communications. [06:58] And here's what they found. [07:00] At 9:58 a.m., [07:03] Israeli aircraft orbited the Liberty. [07:05] They did not identify it. [07:07] This was one of many ships that were [07:09] being tracked in a war zone where Egypt [07:12] had ships operating in the same waters. [07:14] Egypt had a lot of ships around there. [07:16] Egypt had a vessel called the El Quseir [07:20] in the region, [07:21] a ship that the CIA memo specifically [07:24] mentions that it had a similar hull, a [07:27] similar mast arrangement, and a similar [07:29] stack to the Liberty. [07:31] It could, according to the CIA memo, [07:34] be easily mistaken for the latter vessel [07:37] by an overzealous pilot. That's at 9:00 [07:39] in the morning. Later that day at 3:05 [07:42] p.m., the air attack began. Six strafing [07:44] runs the Liberty could not establish [07:46] communications with the Sixth Fleet [07:48] during the attack. [07:50] And then at 3:31, 26 minutes later after [07:53] the attack, Israeli air control at [07:56] Hatzor airbase radioed rescue [07:59] helicopters saying the following, and [08:01] this is all documented. Quote, "There is [08:04] a warship there which we attacked. The [08:07] men jumped into the water from it. You [08:09] will try to rescue them." Okay, they [08:11] sent a rescue helicopters [08:14] um to [08:16] to get the men out of the water. [08:18] Now, why would they do that? At this [08:20] point they still thought they were [08:22] Egyptian. Keep that in mind. [08:25] So, they probably wanted prisoners [08:26] because you know, you hit the ship, [08:28] there's men in the water, you want to [08:29] rescue them, you want to interrogate [08:31] them, you want to hold them as [08:32] prisoners, they're sources of [08:34] information. [08:38] They want Egyptian POWs. [08:40] That actually makes sense why they would [08:43] want to if they if they deliberately [08:45] open fire on this ship [08:47] which they did, they just thought it was [08:48] an Egyptian ship [08:50] it makes sense that they want to save [08:52] the men who are in the water. [08:56] Ah, you might think by then they already [08:57] knew it was American. No, they did not. [09:00] The records show that when they sent the [09:02] rescue helicopters [09:04] to save the men who were in the water, [09:06] they still thought it was Egyptian [09:08] because that makes sense. You hit the [09:10] ship, you think it's Egyptian, there's [09:12] men in the water, you want those men. [09:13] They are sources of information, they're [09:15] valuable. They're also prisoners which [09:18] become valuable in prisoner exchanges. [09:20] There's a reason why you want live enemy [09:22] men. [09:24] Egyptian POWs in the middle of the six [09:27] six-day war had obvious military value. [09:30] But what value would American prisoners [09:32] have? [09:33] If the goal was to take out this [09:34] American ship [09:36] why would you want to take American [09:38] prisoners? Why would these Israelis [09:39] would to get out of there, especially if [09:41] they were trying to frame the Egyptians [09:42] saying that it was Egyptians who did it? [09:44] The last thing you want to do is go in [09:45] and save the men. They'll know that you [09:47] were the ones who were attacking. [09:50] Taking American prisoners would have [09:51] been an unmitigated disaster for Israel. [09:53] It would be living proof of this attack [09:55] on the US vessel. [10:00] If you were if if the Israelis were [10:01] really that cold-hearted and were and [10:03] were really that strategic, they would [10:04] have wanted to wipe out every American [10:06] on the ship. [10:09] Right, if Israel had known that it was [10:10] attacking an American ship and wanted to [10:12] cover its tracks, taking American [10:14] survivors would be the worst possible [10:16] move. [10:18] The rescue mission only makes sense if [10:20] Israel genuinely believed that it hit an [10:22] Egyptian ship, which is exactly what the [10:23] intercepts show because 3 minutes later, [10:26] the helicopter pilot identifies the ship [10:29] as {quote} "definitely Egyptian." They [10:31] still thought that. [10:33] They still didn't know what they'd hit. [10:35] But then at 4:10 p.m. [10:37] It's about half an hour later. [10:39] The helicopter pilot sees the hull [10:41] number GTR-5 [10:43] on the ship's side and reports it. [10:46] The Israeli controller tells him the [10:47] number has no significance. He didn't [10:49] understand. They still did not know what [10:50] they hit. [10:52] At 4:12 p.m., 2 minutes later, 44 [10:55] minutes [10:56] after the attack had ended, Israeli air [10:59] control urgently asks, "Did it clearly [11:02] signal an American flag?" [11:04] And it tells the pilot to make another [11:06] pass to check. [11:08] It's only at this point that Israel [11:09] becomes convinced that the ship is [11:11] American. [11:12] And the CIA memo is explicit. [11:15] The attack had already been called off. [11:19] Not because the ship was identified. [11:20] They thought it was Egyptian. But [11:22] because it was sinking. [11:25] At 5:15 p.m., 5:14 p.m. actually, so 1 [11:29] hour after that, [11:31] Israel contacts the US defense attache [11:34] in Tel Aviv. It reports the attack [11:37] and says that they suspected it was an [11:38] American ship and expressed deep regret. [11:41] Again, if they were trying to frame the [11:42] Egyptians [11:45] or [11:48] you know, they or or or drag America [11:51] into the war somehow or prevent an [11:52] American surveillance ship from [11:54] conducting surveillance, this was a [11:56] total failure and why are they reporting [11:59] the attack to the US defense attache? [12:02] Now here's the detail from the US Navy [12:04] Court of Inquiry that I find most [12:06] striking of all. [12:08] The court found that during the torpedo [12:10] boat attack [12:12] cuz there was initially strafing from [12:14] the air [12:15] and then along came a torpedo boat, [12:16] okay? During the torpedo boat attack, [12:19] the Liberty's own commanding officer, [12:21] the captain of the ship being attacked [12:24] considered that the aircraft and boats [12:26] might be Israeli and that the attack [12:29] might be a mistake. [12:32] He yelled to his gun crew to hold their [12:34] fire. [12:35] In the middle of the battle, the man [12:37] being attacked thought this might be a [12:39] mistake. [12:41] This is not the [12:43] conclusion of a conspiracy theorist. [12:44] This is the real-time judgment of the [12:46] man under fire at the time recorded in [12:50] the official US Navy record that he [12:51] thought it was a mistake. [12:54] One more theory. [12:57] Um and uh well, the theory [13:01] Again, there's the theory that they [13:02] wanted to take out the US surveillance [13:05] ship and then there's the theory about [13:07] Egypt. So I want to talk about this [13:08] Egypt one. [13:10] And I want to credit this point to Cam [13:11] Higby. [13:13] He's a journalist and a popular [13:14] YouTuber. He's a friend of mine and he's [13:15] covered this topic pretty carefully. [13:20] So the theory goes again that Israel [13:21] attacked the Liberty intending to frame [13:23] Egypt to make it look like Egypt sank an [13:26] American ship and dragged the US into [13:28] the war on Israel's side and Cam has [13:30] debated like the head of the US [13:32] Liberty Veterans Association you know [13:34] the Liberty Veterans Association who is [13:36] adamant that Israel did this on purpose [13:38] and you can find it on YouTube it's a [13:40] fascinating debate. [13:42] But that's the theory okay the theory is [13:44] again that that Israel sank wanted to [13:46] sink the Liberty [13:49] um which they didn't they wanted to sink [13:51] the Liberty [13:52] and frame Egypt [13:54] and drag the US into the war but here's [13:56] the problem that Cam pointed out. [13:59] By June 8th the day of the Liberty [14:01] attack [14:02] Israel had already destroyed the [14:04] Egyptian Air Force. Israel destroyed 90% [14:06] of the Egyptian Air Force on the first [14:08] day of the Six-Day War. [14:11] On June 5th Israel wiped out hundreds of [14:14] Egyptian planes on the ground in a [14:16] matter of hours. By June 8th Egypt [14:19] didn't really have an Air Force. [14:22] So if you want to frame the Egyptians [14:26] for attacking the USS the USS Liberty [14:31] it's not really going to work because [14:32] the attack was from the air. [14:36] How does an air attack on an American [14:38] ship get blamed on Egypt when Egypt had [14:39] no planes? [14:41] Never mind the fact that the planes that [14:42] Israel was flying were French planes and [14:44] the Egyptians flew Russian MiGs. [14:48] So how would this framing even work? [14:53] Right I mean there was no there were no [14:55] Egyptian aircraft capable of conducting [14:57] it. The entire premise of the framing [14:59] theory collapses the moment you know the [15:02] most basic facts about the timeline of [15:04] the Six-Day War and the Egyptians [15:05] surrendered they surrendered early in [15:08] the Six-Day War. The war kept going with [15:09] Syria uh and Jordan surrendered I think [15:13] a day later but [15:15] the [15:16] the [15:16] the Egyptians surrendered like later [15:18] that day the The day as the attack on [15:21] the Liberty. [15:23] The whole thing doesn't make any sense. [15:28] Look, there was a whole bunch of [15:29] American investigations of this over the [15:31] years. They all reached the same [15:33] conclusion. The US Navy Court of Inquiry [15:36] convened within 48 hours of the attack, [15:38] took testimony from 19 witnesses. [15:41] It's 158 pages of official record [15:45] and found the attack was a case of [15:46] misidentification. [15:48] The Joint Chiefs of Staff fact-finding [15:50] team in a classified memo to the [15:51] Secretary of Defense McNamara found the [15:54] orders directing the Liberty to move 100 [15:57] miles from shore, [15:59] but those orders never reached the ship [16:01] before the attack. They were delayed due [16:03] to a human error [16:05] and a bureaucratic confusion. It was not [16:07] It was not a conspiracy. Clark Clifford, [16:09] one of the most respected foreign policy [16:11] figures in American history, [16:13] was personally directed by President [16:15] Johnson to examine the attack. And his [16:17] conclusion? Mistaken identity. [16:21] And in 2003, many years after the [16:23] attack, the NSA, whose own personnel [16:26] were aboard the Liberty, declassified [16:28] and publicly released all the material [16:30] related to the attack, including the [16:32] intercepted Israeli radio [16:34] communications. You could read all this [16:35] stuff. [16:36] I'm going to include links to to some of [16:38] these key documents in the comments to [16:41] this video. [16:42] Maybe in the description. I'll see. I'll [16:44] I'll send I'll try to get it in there. [16:47] Those intercepts confirm exactly what [16:49] the CIA the CIA found in 1967. Israeli [16:52] forces did not know what ship they were [16:54] attacking. It was a fog of war. They did [16:57] not know what they were attacking and [16:58] they spent the aftermath [17:00] desperately trying to find out. [17:03] The conspiracy theorists say all of this [17:04] is a cover-up. So, you can never [17:05] convince them. They say, "Oh, yeah, all [17:07] the documents are are fake and they're [17:08] all a cover-up and and the testimony was [17:11] you know, was you know, was doctored." [17:14] But think of what that requires you to [17:15] believe. And this gets into the whole [17:17] point of this video about the motive. [17:20] You have to believe that the US Navy, [17:23] the CIA, [17:25] the NSA, [17:26] the Joint Chiefs [17:28] of the US military, Clark Clifford, and [17:31] President Johnson himself, none of whom [17:34] had any reason to shield Israel. Israel [17:36] was not yet an American ally. [17:40] That that they [17:42] especially they wouldn't shield Israel [17:44] at the cost of 34 American sailors. [17:46] There's no [17:47] They again, they didn't have the [17:49] relationship that we know today as the [17:50] US-Israel relationship. You have to [17:52] believe that all of these entities and [17:54] all of these people all coordinated a [17:56] lie. [17:58] And then the NSA decades later released [18:00] the very intercepts that confirmed the [18:02] misidentification. This is not how [18:04] cover-ups work. [18:06] And when the evidence runs out, the [18:08] conspiracy theorists always reach for [18:09] their last card. Israel controls the US [18:12] government, and that's why there's been [18:13] a cover-up. That's how they explain away [18:15] every investigation, right? [18:18] Every document, every intercept, [18:20] everything in this case they say it's [18:21] because Israel controls the US [18:22] government and and and and there's a gag [18:25] order and the and the and that the and [18:27] that this and that the sailors were [18:28] threatened not to say anything. [18:32] But remember what we established at the [18:33] outset here. In 1967, the deep strategic [18:36] relationship between the US and Israel [18:38] did not exist yet. [18:40] Israel went to war without a single [18:42] American bullet. The US had spent the [18:45] preceding months pressuring Israel not [18:47] to act. [18:49] If there was ever a moment in history [18:50] when the Israel controls Washington [18:53] claim is just not wrong, but laughably [18:56] provably backwards, it was June 1967. [19:01] You The US and Israel did not have a [19:03] good relationship then. [19:05] The cover-up theory requires you to [19:07] believe that Israel had control over the [19:11] Johnson administration [19:13] at the precise moment that it had the [19:16] least influence over Washington it would [19:18] ever have. [19:22] So let's So let's bring this back to [19:23] motive. [19:24] Cuz I want to make the logic as clear as [19:26] possible. [19:27] The US-Israel relationship in 1967 was [19:30] new, it was fragile, Israel needed [19:33] America as a friend but didn't have them [19:36] yet. [19:37] >> [snorts] [19:37] >> Israel had no security umbrella from the [19:40] United States, it had no guaranteed [19:41] American arms pipeline, it had no [19:43] assured American veto at the UN. None of [19:46] what we know today, none of that [19:48] existed. All of those things were in the [19:50] future and they came about as a result [19:53] of 1967 because of how Israel conducted [19:56] itself. [19:57] Israel's entire strategic future [19:59] depended on demonstrating to Washington [20:02] and to the world that it was a reliable, [20:04] capable, serious actor. [20:08] That it could win wars without dragging [20:10] America in, that it was worth backing. [20:14] Deliberately killing American servicemen [20:17] in the middle of that [20:19] would have been the single most [20:20] self-destructive act in Israeli history. [20:23] And again, if they were trying to sink [20:25] the ship, they didn't even do that. [20:30] And had they done that, had they had [20:32] they accomplished what the conspiracy [20:34] theorists claim they wanted to [20:35] accomplish, they would have handed [20:37] Israel's enemies everything they wanted. [20:39] There would have been a rupture between [20:40] Jerusalem and Washington [20:43] cuz it would have come out that it was [20:44] deliberate. [20:45] And it would have been a rupture at the [20:47] moment that Israel needed the [20:48] relationship the most. No Israeli [20:51] leader, not Levi Eshkol, who was the who [20:53] was the prime minister at the time, not [20:55] Moshe Dayan, not Yitzhak Rabin, no one [20:57] would have ordered this. [20:59] Not because they're saints, but because [21:01] they were serious people who understood [21:03] what Israel needed to survive. This was [21:05] This would have been what like a [21:07] suicidal act by Israel [21:10] on a multiple levels. The conspiracy [21:12] theory requires us to believe that [21:15] Israel's leadership at its most [21:17] consequential moment made a decision of [21:20] staggering strategic stupidity and that [21:23] it didn't even work. [21:27] Okay, that's that's [21:29] that's what you're supposed to believe. [21:32] You know, I made a video a little while [21:34] ago what was it about a month ago [21:36] something like that about [21:38] anti-Israel conspiracy theories and when [21:41] you play them out [21:42] and sort of take them out to their [21:44] logical conclusion to see if they [21:46] actually worked [21:48] you discover that if the conspiracy [21:50] theory theorists are right Israel does [21:52] all these devious conspiracies but they [21:54] never work out. The USS Liberty [21:56] conspiracy theory is not a historical [21:58] debate. It's an information warfare [22:01] operation. [22:02] The fact that people even legitimately [22:04] debated is is [22:06] is tragic. [22:09] The purpose of this op is to plant a [22:12] specific idea in the minds of Americans [22:15] especially veterans, military families, [22:18] people who are otherwise sympathetic to [22:19] Israel and that is that Israel murders [22:21] American soldiers. Never mind the fact [22:22] that this we're talking about something [22:23] that happened 59 years ago. [22:26] The idea that it has anything to say [22:29] about the current US-Israel relationship [22:30] is nuts. [22:33] But be that as it may [22:35] this thing gets recycled all the time. [22:37] You hear it brought up [22:39] in all kinds of public forums. [22:42] And that's why I'm talking about it [22:43] today on June 8th. [22:45] But that's why they amplify it. They [22:47] amplify you know white nationalists and [22:50] Iranian state media and and and just the [22:54] anti-Israel wing of the of the America [22:57] First movement. Everyone loves to talk [22:59] about this the USS Liberty. [23:04] Whatever, it serves their purposes. [23:08] Look, the 34 American soldiers who died [23:12] on June 8th as a result of this [23:14] terrible, terrible error [23:17] on June 8th, 1967, they deserve better [23:19] to have the have their deaths used as a [23:21] weapon by people who have no interest in [23:23] them whatsoever. [23:26] They're they're props in someone's [23:28] information war. The historical record [23:30] is clear. Israel had nothing to gain and [23:33] everything to lose by this. [23:35] The evidence from American intelligence, [23:37] from American military investigations, [23:39] from intercepted Israeli communications, [23:41] all confirm what the Liberty's own [23:43] captain concluded at the time when it [23:47] was going on that this was a terrible [23:49] mistake. [23:50] And it was born of the fog of a chaotic [23:53] three-front war. [23:55] That's the truth. [23:57] Look, the sources that I've cited here, [23:59] I'm going to put them in the [23:59] description. [24:01] Uh the CIA the CIA top secret memo [24:03] prepared for President Johnson, the US [24:05] Navy Court of Inquiry record, the NSA [24:07] declassified Israeli radio intercepts, [24:10] the Joint Chiefs memo to McNamara, and [24:13] the Clark Clifford report, they're all [24:14] publicly available. You can read them [24:17] yourself. [24:19] So, [24:21] it's June 8th. [24:22] I thought this was worthwhile to go over [24:24] this cuz you hear about it a lot. I hope [24:26] you found this useful. [24:28] And uh [24:31] let's focus on truth. [24:32] God bless.
