In a nutshell, here's Israel's version of its June 8, 1967 attack on USS Liberty:

• Israel's Army complains of north Sinai shoreline being shelled by an unidentified ship.
• Israel's Navy sends three motor torpedo boats (MTBs) to investigate the complaint.
• Navy MTB radar detects an unidentified ship, in international waters, headed westward at a manually computed speed of 30 knots.
• Navy assumes unidentified ship is enemy (Egyptian) warship ship due to its computed high-speed and westward heading toward Port Said, Egypt.
• Navy calls for air support.
• Israel's Air Force arrives and cannot identify ship, but pilots believe the slow-moving ship appears like a non-Israeli warship.
• Air force begins repeatedly attacking unidentified ship with cannons, rockets, and napalm bombs.
• The unidentified ship quickly changes course from westward to northward (toward the open sea) and increases speed soon after the air attack begins.
• Air force eventually realizes unidentified ship may not be an enemy warship ship and stops attack.
• Communication foul-up results in stand-down message not being received by MTBs' Division Commander.
• Navy MTBs arrive and their captains believe extensively damaged, unidentified ship (declared to be a warship by both the Air Force and Navy) looks like El Quseir , an old Egyptian cargo ship almost one-half the length and width of USS Liberty (i.e., not a high-speed warship).
• Navy MTBs chase and attack extensively damaged ship -- as it heads northward toward the open sea -- with
  torpedoes, cannons and machine guns after inability to establish signal light communication and seeing a few
  machine gun rounds fired from the damaged ship.
• Navy eventually realizes ship is not El Quseir and stops attack.
• Government of Israel declares the attack was due to mistaken identity and apologizes.

Notice how an unidentified ship changes from being a high-speed warship into a low-speed cargo ship, presumed to be El Quseir, without any apparent head-scratching by the MTB captains.

This incredible (some say unbelievable) story is not about an attack due to mistaken identity; it's a story of a reckless, willful and wanton attack on an unidentified ship, in international waters that resulted in the destruction of a US Navy ship, and the killing of 34 and the wounding of 172 crew members.

Secertary of State Dean Rusk: "I didn't believe them then, and I don't believe them to this day. The attack was outrageous."