Was Israel actually advancing against Arab League forces when the Liberty was attacked? That sort of deflates the theory I had held...
I understood that Egyptian and Syrian advances had been so fast and initially successful that Isreal's back was against the wall and they were about to use their hand full of nukes as a last resort. Liberty had the capability to detect the nukes being armed and readied for use. Israel's use of nukes would not have been tolerated, maybe even to the point of the US destroying them before they could be launched. So the Liberty was taken out of the equation.
That sounds good, but I have no idea if it jibes with the facts.
"they were about to use their hand full of nukes as a last resort."
In 1967, Israel was working on nuclear weapons, but had not yet developed them. In 1979, one of the US' Vela satellites designed to pick up nuclear tests, picked up a large "flash" in the South Indian Ocean that was (possibly) a nuclear explosion - this is subject to debate as it was fairly clean with little radiation. It is known that Israel and South Africa worked together on the development of nuclear weapons and South Africa actually built a nuclear test site in the Kalahari Desert (with possible Israeli cooperation) but the site was closed on being revealed international. It is postulated that the South Indian Ocean explosion in 1979 was the actual test.
In any event, Israel did not have nuclear weapons in 1967 (they were working hard on them and had completed several critical components).
