US warships again challenge Beijing's claims in South China Sea

[magicarpet]

19. The Liberty was clearly flying an American flag from its tallest mast...

The Israeli pilots dove down into very near the ship to bombard its decks. The American ship sent multiple radio signals identifying itself as an American vessel in international waters with no intent to cause anyone any harm.

It may have been intercepting radio signal traffic but that is not against international laws while in international waters of permissible ship travel.

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snip....

On 2 October 2007, The Chicago Tribune published a special report[7] into the attack, containing numerous previously unreported quotes from former military personnel with first-hand knowledge of the incident. Many of these quotes directly contradict the NSA's position that it never intercepted the communications of the attacking Israeli pilots, saying that not only did transcripts of those communications exist, but also that it showed the Israelis knew they were attacking an American naval vessel.

Two diplomatic cables written by Avraham Harman, Israel's ambassador in Washington, to Abba Eban, Israel's minister of foreign affairs, have been declassified by Israel and obtained from the Israel State Archive. The first cable, sent five days after the attack, informs Eban that a U.S. informant told him (Harman) that there was "clear proof that from a certain stage the pilot discovered the identity of the ship and continued the attack anyway."[14] The second cable, sent three days later, added that the White House is "very angry" because "the Americans probably have findings showing that our pilots indeed knew that the ship was American."[7]

Documents of the Israeli General Staff meetings, declassified in October 2008, show no discussion of a planned attack on an American ship.[101]

On 30 October 2014, Al Jazeera English broadcast a documentary film containing recent first-hand accounts by several survivors of the incident.[102] The documentary argues that Israel knew the ship was American, and planned to blame its sinking on Egypt in order to draw the US into the war on the Israeli side.

end snip,.. more at link

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Liberty_incident