Enemy mine

EVERY now and then there seems to emerge a vague if transient realisation in some small circles of American polity that Israel may not be their absolutely best buddy of all time ever. The issue of the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty in 1967 in which 34 US soldiers were killed — suppressed and spared from scrutiny as it was — pops up now and then, as it did a few days back on the anniversary of the attack when US Rep Thomas Massie brought up the attack on the floor of the US House of Representatives and spoke about how this was a deliberate and planned assault by the Israelis and not, as Israel has long argued, a case of ‘mistaken identity’.’ Survivors of the attack have long argued this, with Richard Brooks, the Liberty’s chief engineer echoing other survivors by saying “it was a deliberate attack. They knew who we were. They wanted to sink us”. Naturally, the usual suspects popped up, calling it a conspiracy theory and accusing Massie and others of — you guessed it — antisemitism. After all, how could the self-declared Jewish state ever work against its greatest benefactor? But just a week before Massie spoke came another report, this time purportedly from the US Department of Defence, warning that the threat of Israeli spying on the US had gone from ‘high’ to ‘critical’, which is the highest such level. Israel, the report claimed, has been working overtime not only to collect information on US military personnel in the Gulf but also singled out high-level personnel such Steve Witkoff who was the lead negotiator in the nuclear talks along with the Pentagon’s top policy official Elbridge Colby and his deputy Michael DiMino. As part of these efforts, attempts were also made by Israel’s Shin Bet to plant listening devices of US secret service vehicles. US defence personnel working in Israel also reported discovering spyware on their phones. It’s by no means the first time Israel has tried to snoop on the US, despite a 1951 agreement to do nothing of the sort. The re