Amit didn't have the authority. It was Dayan - he was the Defense Minister - and he acted on his own initiative, executing without consultation. On record, Dayan was initially opposed to breaking the cease-fire to take the Golan. Once the Liberty was taken out, he suddenly changed his mind, and Operation Hammer was launched. This is in alignment with AB's statement earlier in this thread.

In any case, I find that this thread is moving along a path that seems pre-determined with topics of this nature. Amongst the speculation and conspiracy theories, there are shades of topics for a couple of different substantive threads - which I encourage the members to intitiate. I applaud the members for their restraint on a subject which on other boards has frequently intiated flame-wars.

However, at this point I am going to make the utterly unfair move of locking the thread in a pre-emptive strike before it does move further downhill....