From the October 2007 Idaho Observer:

Declassified Israeli documents prove 1967 attack on USS Liberty was no accident

Survivors of the unprovoked attack on the USS Liberty in international waters June 8, 1967, have always maintained that there was no mistaking the U.S. navy vessel and the attack by four Israeli fighter planes was a deliberate act of war. Thirty-four sailors died and 176 were wounded during the fourth day of what turned out to be the Six-Day War between Egypt and Israel.

Repeated calls for a thorough investigation were ignored by President Johnson and every U.S. president since. The National Security Agency, which at the time monitored all military communications, claimed that it never intercepted the communications of the attacking Israeli pilots—communications that proved the Israelis knew the Liberty was a U.S. Navy vessel.

The Chicago Tribune, which obtained the declassified documents and had them translated from Hebrew, stated, "The documents also suggest that the U.S. government, anxious to spare Israel’s reputation and preserve its alliance with the U.S., closed the case with what even some of its participants now say was a hasty and seriously flawed investigation."

Being more careful, the Tribune noted, "Perhaps the most persuasive suggestion that such [U.S. intelligence] transcripts [of the Israeli pilots’ communications] existed comes from the Israelis themselves, in a pair of diplomatic cables sent by the Israeli ambassador in Washington, Avraham Harman, to Foreign Minister Abba Eban in Tel Aviv.

According to the Tribune, five days after the USS Liberty was attacked, Harman cabled Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Eban that "a source the Israelis code-named ‘Hamlet’ was reporting that the Americans had ‘clear proof that from a certain stage the pilot discovered the identity of the ship and continued the attack anyway.’"

A second cable from Harman to Eban a few days later confirms the U.S. knew and was "angry."

Since the Tribune published the article October 15, 2007, announcing the new evidence, there has been no comment from the Bush administration or from Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

The official silence from Washington and Tel Aviv is being echoed by the corporate media.

In a legal sense, the documents show probable cause that Israeli fighter pilots murdered 34 Americans. There is no statute of limitations on murder and the declassified documents are enough evidence to open a rather large and expansive investigation.