Last month, a new documentary broadcast a tape for the first time, of Israeli military transmissions during the attack, which established that the ship was confirmed to be U.S. by 2:14pm that day, local time. The timeline of the attack establishes that the attack continued for another hour after that time.

The existence of the tape is confirmed by transcripts published in the Jerusalem Post in 2004.

USS Liberty http://www.gtr5.com/ Like this image The cables obtained by the Tribune, and translated from Hebrew to English, are were published in a 2007 special report. They detail exchanges between the Israeli ambassador in Washington and the Israeli foreign minister in Tel Aviv. Five days after the attack, Israeli Ambassador Avraham Harman worried that the deliberate nature of the attack had been uncovered, and cabled Foreign Minister Abba Eban that a source, code-named “Hamlet,” had told him that the Americans had:

“clear proof that from a certain stage the pilot discovered the identity of the ship and continued the attack anyway.”

As the diplomatic uproar over the attack played out, Harman cabled three days later that:

“the Americans probably have findings showing that our pilots indeed knew that the ship was American.”

One of the sources of the information passed on by the Israeli ambassador was the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Arthur Goldberg, according to Israeli historian Tom Segev.

The 1967 attack, which the Israeli government said was an accident, has been festering, with survivors once again unanimously renewing their call for a congressional investigation. The survivors say the attack is the only incident involving major damage to an American ship and great loss of life which has never been accorded such an investigation.

Instead, the investigation was relegated to a U.S. Navy Court of Inquiry, presided over by Admiral John S. McCain, Jr., father of John McCain, the US senator and former presidential candidate. In 2003 the lead counsel for the Court, Captain Ward Boston, stepped forward to say that the Court had been ordered by President Lyndon B. Johnson and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara to conclude that the attack had been a case of mistaken identity, “despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.” Captain Boston resigned from the Court before the inquiry was complete. He passed away in 2008.

Thirty four US servicemen were killed in the attack, and hundreds wounded. In the new documentary “The Day Israel Attacked America,” survivors of the attack go on-camera to again recount their memories, and to reiterate their firm conviction, in which they have been joined by a long list of top military and political figures, that the attack was a deliberate attempt to sink an American ship.

Supporters include former NSA Director Bobby Ray Inman and the late US Secretary of State, under Lyndon Johnson, Dean Rusk. Supporters of the survivors, such as the late Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Thomas Moorer, say the reason for the attack may have been to blame the sinking of the ship on Egypt, with which Israel was at war at the time. This would have drawn the US into the Six Day War on the Israeli side.

There is little doubt, given the damage and the prolonged nature of the attack, that the Israeli military struggled to sink the ship. Over the course of the hour-and-a-half attack, numerous Israeli jet fighters and high-speed torpedo boats expended over 800 rounds of 30mm cannon, air-to-surface rockets, heat-seeking missiles, napalm bombs, and five torpedoes.

Toward the end of the attack, Israeli torpedo boats pulled up at close range and machine-gunned the life-boats that were being lowered into the water by the Liberty crew in preparation to abandon ship, beginning with the most severely wounded.

According to Geneva Article 12, the rules of war prohibit firing upon the wounded, or those attempting to evacuate them, at any time. Such action is considered an international war crime.

The new documentary, produced and directed by award-winning British film maker Richard Belfield, is riveting in the details recounted by the survivors of the Liberty, such as the clear memory of blood streaming down the hull of the ship, reddening the water. On decks slippery with blood and littered with body parts, the crew fought fires and ship damage in order to keep the Liberty afloat, and tended to wounded, all while many were wounded themselves. Numerous commendations for heroism were awarded to crew members by the Navy, including a Medal of Honor, and then the crew’s members ordered never to talk about the attack.