By Rich Lowry
Syndicated Columnist
No, the USS Liberty incident wasn’t Israeli treachery
For elements of the anti-Israel right, it’s a time when everything old is becoming new again. So, a half-century-old theory that the Jewish state deliberately attacked the USS Liberty during the Six-Day War has renewed currency.
Conspiratorial-minded influencers hostile to Israel, like Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens, have promoted the notion, and it was a topic of discussion at the recent TPUSA conference. One speaker said that the official explanation “doesn’t feel like it’s good enough,” and floated his own wild speculation (involving the complicity of LBJ).
The fact is that the devastating Israeli attack on the Liberty, killing 34 and wounding 171, was a woeful case of mistaken identification. The series of faulty judgments that led to the incident is so grievous that, taken altogether, it is, indeed, nearly incomprehensible. Yet, when operating with incomplete information in a shooting war, such accidents happen all the time. The Israelis apologized immediately upon realizing their ghastly mistake and offered restitution.
On June 8, 1967, the 6th Fleet was keeping its distance from the hostilities in the Six-Day War, fought between Israel and Egypt, Syria and Jordan. The USS Liberty, a spy ship, had come within 13 nautical miles of the Sinai coast, though. It requested a destroyer escort, which was denied, and orders to the Liberty to withdraw about 100 miles from the front were delayed in a communications tangle.
That morning, an ammunition dump ignited in the coastal city of El-Arish in the Sinai, and the Israelis (wrongly) believed the location had been shelled by Egyptian ships. The Israeli navy spotted the Liberty heading toward Egypt and (wrongly) concluded it had been one of the attackers. Two Israel Mirage jets saw no identifying markings on the Liberty (a later U.S. inquiry speculated that the flag might not have been visible for lack of wind) and strafed the ship. More Israeli jets napalmed the Liberty.
The absence of return fire puzzled the Israelis, who paused to ensure they weren’t hitting an Israeli vessel. Assured it wasn’t one of their own, they renewed the assault.
Still uneasy, they looked for identifying markers again. They saw no flag, but made out Latin, not Arabic, letters on the hull. That strongly suggested the vessel wasn’t Egyptian.
Yet, a squadron of Israeli torpedo boats determined that the Liberty’s silhouette matched an Egyptian supply ship. A request for identification from the Liberty received no affirmative reply.
The Liberty’s captain ordered his men not to shoot at the torpedo boats, but one gunner briefly fired and there were further discharges from exploding ammunition. Believing they were taking incoming from an Egyptian ship, the torpedo boats requested permission to fire and got reluctant assent. A torpedo slammed into the Liberty, blowing a hole 24 feet tall by 39 feet wide and killing more than two dozen sailors.
Eventually, an Israeli torpedo boat picked up a raft from the Liberty with U.S. naval markings and the Israelis realized their tragic error. They apologized instantly to U.S. naval attache Ernest Carl Castle, and an Israeli helicopter attempted to take him out to the Liberty (the effort was foiled by darkness). The Israeli torpedo boats offered assistance to the Liberty, which was rebuffed.
As Michael Oren points out in his history of the Six-Day War, none of the common conspiracy theories makes sense. There was no way that Israel — desperate for U.S. support and wary of Soviet enmity — was going to make an act of war against a friendly superpower. Nor did Israel need, as is sometimes posited, to hide its gains in the Sinai from the U.S., or its plans to hit Syria. It hadn’t executed Egyptian POWs, so that didn’t justify a murderous cover-up, either.
Both official Israeli and U.S. investigations determined that the attack was a friendly fire incident, but for Israel and the Jews in the current environment, the truth is no defense.
Rich Lowry is editor of the National Review.
(c) 2026 by King Features Synd., Inc.