Responding to the USS Liberty calumny

"During the 1967 War with Egypt and Syria, the Israeli Air Force knowingly bombed the USS Liberty — an American surveillance ship — and blamed it on the Egyptians." link

The Liberty, operating just outside Egyptian waters, was indeed attacked by Israeli warplanes. It was a "fog of war" mistake:

The Liberty was not far away when an ammo dump on shore suddenly exploded - thought to be by a bombardment from ship. Although identified earlier as an American warship, the Israelis did not maintain contact - they were looking for Egyptian warships and subs - and the Israelis thought, talking to the U.S. naval attache, that the Liberty was gone from the area; however, these orders had been mis-routed. The Liberty remained offshore but after the explosion proceeded (by unhappy coincidence, having reached the eastern end of its patrol area) towards Egyptian waters at high speed, and was then mis-identified as an enemy vessel fleeing the scene of an attack.

These facts are available from both U.S. and Israeli official sources and U.S. documentation. [Ref: Michael Oren, Six Days of War] I hope all readers note that very few, if any, Pakistani, Muslim, or Arab writers exerted themselves in the slightest fashion to unearth the true story, as best as it is known.

Over and over even "liberal"-minded Pakistanis miss the truth about Israel and its actions, preferring to wallow in demonisation instead. How many realize that the mind-set necessary to do this is EXACTLY the mind-set that invents reasons to bomb mosques and rape and kill innocents in their own country? The same mind-set that gives the O.K. to corruption rather than good government? I guess such thoughts, too horrible to evaluate, simply vanish on contact - and so Pakistan's terrible decay continues and its citizens continue to sink into a vast moral morass.

The Arab writer, Abdulateef al-Muhim, formerly a Saudi naval commodore, has often wondered how history would have been different had the Arabs recognized Israel in 1948 instead of vowing to eliminate the country and exterminate its Jewish population.link So do I: perhaps there might never have been a Saudi-supported Pakistani curriculum promoting the distortion of fact and fraud on an ummah-wide level. Muslims would have realized that by supporting extermination-minded Muslims against Jews that they are supporting criminality, not justice. Can Pakistanis gather the strength to change their own nature?

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The Express Tribune refused to publish the comment.
UPDATE 11/21/11: My comment was published, after all.