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Debunking Candace Owens’ Lies About Israel Attacking the USS Liberty
Political activist Candace Owens in the spin room at the Fiserv Forum following the first Republican presidential primary debate in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on Aug. 23, 2023. Photo: Chris Dilts/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
In a tragic event during the 1967 Six-Day War, the USS Liberty, a US Navy spy ship, came under attack from Israeli forces — resulting in the deaths of 34 American servicemen.
More than 50 years after it occurred, the USS Liberty incident continues to inspire a host of rabid anti-Israel conspiracy theories and to inflame the conversation surrounding the relationship between the United States and Israel.
From antisemitic commentator Candace Owens recently driving a surge of conspiracy theories about the incident on social media, to a campaign of billboards claiming that Israel intentionally bombed the ship, the USS Liberty has been used by those on both the right and the left as a brush to tarnish Israel’s reputation, and turn American public opinion against the Jewish State.
But what exactly happened to the USS Liberty? Was it a case of mistaken identity in the fog of war, or a deliberate strike by Israel against American servicemen? Is there any validity to the conspiracy theories surrounding the incident, or are they all the machinations of a hate-filled imagination?
The USS Liberty Incident
In mid-May 1967, as Egypt ramped up tensions with Israel, the Sixth Fleet of the United States Navy was ordered to the eastern Mediterranean in an attempt to break through the Egyptian blockade of the Straits of Tiran.
One of the ships attached to the Sixth Fleet was the USS Liberty, a spy vessel that, while formally under the command of the Sixth Fleet, was in practice under the control of the National Security Agency (NSA).
Although not an original member of the blockade-breaking naval convoy (which never came to fruition), the USS Liberty was ordered on May 30 to sail from Spain to a half mile outside Egyptian and Israeli territorial waters. The Liberty’s mission was likely to spy on the Egyptian military and its Soviet advisers.
On June 5, 1967, after increasing hostilities on its southern border, Israel pre-emptively struck Egypt. The Six-Day War had begun.
Four days later, on June 8, as the Israeli capture of the Sinai Peninsula and Gaza Strip from Egypt was nearly complete, the USS Liberty finally arrived at the waters off the coast of Sinai.
In the early morning hours, an Israeli plane spotted the USS Liberty. After some uncertainty regarding the identity of this vessel, it was determined by the Israeli Navy to be the USS Liberty, and was designated as a “neutral ship.”
However, at 11:00 A.M., as the shifts changed at the navy’s headquarters, the “neutral” designation was removed from the ship as part of protocol, as the information was five hours old and considered to be no longer relevant.
At 11:24 A.M., a large explosion occurred in the coastal Sinai city of El-Arish. While it is now known that the explosion was likely caused by an ammunition dump, it was assumed by the IDF that Egyptian naval forces had fired at the city (as had occurred in recent days).
From that point, the search was on for which Egyptian ship had fired on El-Arish.
At 1:41 P.M., an officer aboard an Israeli torpedo boat erroneously noted a ship sailing towards Egypt at 30 knots. Since this was faster than the Liberty’s maximum speed, it was assumed that this was the Egyptian vessel in question. This miscalculation would have grave results.
Israeli jets were dispatched to the area and, after not seeing an American flag or distinguishing marks on the vessel, the order was given to bomb the ship.
At 1:58 P.M., two waves of Israeli jets bombarded (including with napalm) the American spy ship over the next 14 minutes, killing nine service members.
At 2:44 P.M., three Israeli torpedo boats approached the ship. With smoke from the earlier aerial bombardment obscuring the ship, the boats requested that the vessel identify itself. The response from the USS Liberty (which could not see the Israeli identity of the boats through the smoke) was for the Israeli boats to identify themselves. As a similar exchange had occurred with an enemy Egyptian naval ship during the 1956 Sinai War, the Israeli naval officers assumed that this was an Egyptian ship acting in the same manner. After consulting their intelligence, the Israelis determined it was the Egyptian freighter El-Quseir.
At the same time, a service member on the USS Liberty disobeyed the captain’s orders and opened fire on the Israeli torpedo boats. Now convinced that it was an enemy ship attacking them, the torpedo boats opened fire on the USS Liberty. Five torpedoes were fired at the ship and one made contact, killing an additional 25 servicemen.
At 3:30 P.M., the ship was positively identified as the USS Liberty. In the immediate aftermath of this incident, Israel accepted blame for firing on the Liberty and opened official investigations into what had occurred.
Since June 8, 1967, there have been three official Israeli investigations and 11 official American investigations (including by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the CIA, the US Navy, and Congress) into the matter. All investigations have determined that this was a tragic case of mistaken identity.
Israel has paid millions of dollars to the United States, families of those killed in the attack, and those service members who were wounded during the attack, as restitution for this friendly fire incident.
The Conspiracy Theories
Despite Israel’s almost immediate acceptance of blame and investigation of the incident (which was determined to be a tragic case of friendly fire), many in the American government felt that Israel was covering up what truly happened. It was only after several official American investigations that Israel was absolved of intentionally firing upon the USS Liberty.
However, some still refuse to believe the official narrative, stating that Israel intentionally attacked the American spy ship. Due to the top-secret nature of this incident, it took many years before most of the critical evidence regarding the USS Liberty was allowed to be released to the public. These decades of concealed evidence allowed for a wide variety of theories about why Israel intentionally bombed the Liberty to percolate within American and Israeli societies.
While the campaign to find Israel guilty of intentionally bombing the USS Liberty is largely driven by some former veterans who served on the vessel, this incident has also been co-opted by those seeking to harm Israel-United States relations and besmirch the Jewish State.
As one analyst put it, the skepticism of these veterans regarding the official narrative has “swung open the door for antisemites.”
Although many are certain that the American and Israeli governments are lying about Israel intentionally bombing the USS Liberty, there is no consensus among these theorists as to why Israel would bomb the US spy ship.
Here are just some of the theories that have been put forward about the bombing of the USS Liberty since 1967:
- Israel wanted to frame Egypt for the attack on the USS Liberty in order to draw the United States into joining its war against Egypt, Syria, and Jordan.
- American President Lyndon B. Johnson wanted to use the incident as a false-flag operation in order to advance his strategic goals for the Middle East, which included the toppling of the Egyptian government.
- Israel wanted to draw the United States into a third world war.
- Israel bombed the Liberty as the spy ship had picked up evidence of Israel killing Egyptian POWs.
- Israel bombed the Liberty because the American vessel had picked up the IDF’s plans to conquer the Golan Heights from Syria, which the United States was opposed to.
- Israel bombed the USS Liberty because the ship had picked up evidence of preparations at Israel’s nuclear reactor in Dimona.
These conspiracy theories, however, do not pass muster when confronted with the now-available evidence and a rational look at the context in which the USS Liberty incident occurred.
The Case Against the USS Liberty Conspiracy Theories
The following are some of the key points and pieces of evidence that cast doubt on the conspiracy theories surrounding the USS Liberty incident, and substantiate the findings that this was a case of friendly fire and not an intentional Israeli attack on an American naval ship:
- It is unclear if the American flag on the USS Liberty was visible to the Israelis. The winds were quiet on June 8, meaning the ship’s flag was drooped. For planes flying overhead at high speeds, it would have been non-discernible.
- The United States had informed Israel that no US ships were in the vicinity off the coast of Sinai. The USS Liberty actually had orders to move further out to sea but, due to communications issues, they did not arrive until a day later.
- Recordings captured during, and immediately after, the bombing of the USS Liberty show that Israel’s biggest fear was that it had accidentally attacked a Soviet ship, not an American one.
- One of the CIA documents includes the claim that the NSA picked up a discussion between an Israeli pilot and his commander ordering him to fire, knowing that it is an American ship. However, this claim is hearsay by the US ambassador to Lebanon and no recording has ever been produced.
- Similarly, in 1991, two Washington Post journalists claimed an American was in the Israeli war room when the decision was made to bomb the USS Liberty, knowing that it was an American ship. The American in question, Seth Mintz, wrote a response to the newspaper, saying he was misquoted and that he believed it to be a case of “mistaken identity.”
- Israel was already more than halfway through the war and had almost totally defeated the Egyptians by June 8. There was no need to attempt to trick the Americans into joining the war so late in the game.
- The Liberty only arrived off the coast of the Sinai Peninsula on June 8, making it unlikely to have possessed any secret Israeli recordings from days prior.
- Declassified documents show that Israel never concealed its plan to conquer the Golan Heights from the United States, disproving the conspiracy theory about the bombing as an attempt to hide the attack plan.
- If Israel had always intended to bomb the Liberty, it could have done so when the ship was first observed at 5:55 A.M. by an Israeli reconnaissance plane. There was no rationale for waiting 8 hours to attack the vessel during the day.
- Friendly fire incidents are common during war. During the Six-Day War alone, at least 50 IDF soldiers were killed in friendly fire incidents, including one that occurred a day before the USS Liberty incident.
While the case of the USS Liberty is used by those on both the left and the right to subvert the relationship between Israel and the United States and to question the integrity of the Jewish State, it is clear that this incident was a tragic case of friendly fire between two allies caused by error, miscommunication, and the fog of war.
The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.
The post Debunking Candace Owens’ Lies About Israel Attacking the USS Liberty first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Majority of New York City Hate Crimes Targeted Jews in 2024, New Data Shows
Anti-Israel protesters target a synagogue in Queens, New York on July 14, 2024. Photo: Screenshot
Jews were targeted in the majority of hate crimes perpetrated in New York City last year, according to new data issued by the New York City Police Department (NYPD).
On Monday, the NYPD released its end-of-year crime report, which recorded a precipitous drop in crime overall but also the disturbing numbers on antisemitic hate crimes. Out of the 641 total hate crimes tallied by the NYPD, 345 targeted Jews, which, in addition to being a 7 percent increase over the previous year, amounted to 54 percent of all hate crimes in the city.
As The Algemeiner previously reported, antisemitic hate crimes in 2024 posed a major threat to the quality of life of New York City’s Orthodox Jewish community, which was the target in many of the incidents. In just eight days between the end of October and the beginning of November, three Hasidim, including children, were brutally assaulted in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn. In one instance, an Orthodox man was accosted by two assailants, one masked, who “chased and beat him” after he refused to surrender his cellphone in compliance with what appeared to have been an attempted robbery.
In another incident, an African American male smacked a 13-year-old Jewish boy who was commuting to school on his bike in the heavily Jewish neighborhood. Less than a week earlier, an assailant slashed a visibly Jewish man in the face as he was walking in Brooklyn.
Days after the week-long antisemitic hate crime spree, three men attempted to rob a Hasidic man after stalking him through the Crown Heights neighborhood.
The explosion of hate continued a trend. In 2023, antisemitic incidents accounted for a striking 65 percent of all felony hate crimes in New York City, according to a report issued in August by New York state comptroller Thomas DiNapoli. The report added that throughout the state, nearly 44 percent of all recorded hate crime incidents and 88 percent of religious-based hate crimes targeted Jews.
Other major cities and states have recently reported increases in antisemitic hate crimes.
In Los Angeles County, antisemitic hate crimes rose 91 percent in 2023, from 127 the prior year to 242 in what the LA County Commission on Human Relations (LACCHR) described as “the largest number of anti-Jewish crimes ever” in the city.
Additionally, the state of Massachusetts saw more antisemitic hate crimes in 2023 than at any time since government officials began tracking such data eight years ago, according to a report issued by its Executive Office of Public Safety and Security (EOPSS).
A striking 119 antisemitic hate crimes were reported to law enforcement agencies, EOPSS said, a total which, in addition to eclipsing 2015’s total of 56 incidents, amounts to a 70 percent increase over the previous year. Antisemitic hate crimes also constituted 18.8 percent of all hate crimes reported in 2023, a figure which trails only behind the percentage of hate crimes which targeted African Americans.
The report added that 68.9 percent of the antisemitic incidents involved property destruction or vandalism, a total of 82, while another 19 percent involved intimidation. Some physical assaults, six, were recorded or reported to the police.
“The local increase reflects national trends. Our data showed that over 10,000 antisemitic incidents were recorded in the US since Oct. 7, 2023, an over 200 percent increase compared to incidents reported to us during the same period a year before,” Peggy Shukur, vice president of the ADL’s East Division, told The Algemeiner when the information became public. “Behind every one of these numbers are people who have experienced the harm, fear, intimidation, and pain that reverberates from each of these incidents. The fact that numbers increase by 70 percent is a grim reminder that antisemitism continues to infect our communities in real and pervasive ways.”
Overall, anti-Jewish hate crimes in the US spiked to a record high in 2023, and American Jews were the most targeted of any religious group in the country, according to a report released by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in September.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Majority of New York City Hate Crimes Targeted Jews in 2024, New Data Shows first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Trump Vows ‘Hell Will Break Out in the Middle East’ if Gaza Hostages Not Released by His Inauguration
US President-elect Donald Trump makes remarks at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, US, Jan. 7, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Carlos Barria
US President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday reiterated his threat to seek retaliation against Hamas if the Palestinian terrorist group does not release the remaining hostages in the Gaza Strip.
“If [the hostages] aren’t back by the time I get in office, all hell will break out in the Middle East, and it will not be good for Hamas. And it will not be good, frankly, for anyone. All hell will break out,” Trump told reporters.
Trump made the comments during a wide-ranging press conference at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida. He stood alongside Steve Witkoff, the recently appointed special envoy to the Middle East for his incoming administration.
“They should’ve never taken them. They should’ve never been the attacker of Oct. 7, but there was. Many people [were] killed. They’re no longer hostages,” Trump added.
On Oct. 7 of last year, Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists murdered 1,200 people and kidnapped 251 hostages to Gaza during their invasion of southern Israel. During the onslaught, 45 Americans were killed and 12 were abducted.
About 100 hostages, both dead and alive, remain in Gaza, including seven Americans. Three of them — Keith Siegel, Sagui Dekel-Chen, and Edan Alexander — are thought to still be alive. Three others — Itay Chen, Gadi Haggai, and Judi Weinstein Haggai — are believed to be murdered by the terrorist group, with their bodies still in the Palestinian enclave. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) revealed last month that Israeli-American hostage Omer Neutra was killed during the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks, and his body was taken by terrorists into Gaza. Neutra was initially presumed to be among the living captives.
In total, 100 hostages remain in Gaza, and at least a third of them are believed to be dead.
Trump said on Tuesday that families of hostages have approached him in tears, desperately begging for a deal to secure their loved ones’ release from captivity.
The president-elect emphasized the importance of dispatching a “great negotiator” to broker a ceasefire deal to halt fighting between Israel and Hamas in Gaza and free the remaining hostages, gesturing to Witkoff. Trump added that although he does “not want to hurt the negotiations,” he believes that reiterating his threats to unleash “hell” across the Middle East will incentivize Hamas to reach a deal in the upcoming weeks.
Trump has repeatedly vowed to take aggressive action to secure the return of the remaining hostages. He has previously promised that Hamas will have “hell to pay” if the terrorist group does not release those still held captive in the Gaza Strip.
“Everybody is talking about the hostages who are being held so violently, inhumanely, and against the will of the entire World, in the Middle East – But i’’s all talk, and no action!” Trump posted last month on the social media platform Truth Social. “Please let this TRUTH serve to represent that if the hostages are not released prior to January 20, 2025, the date that I proudly assume Office as President of the United States, there will be ALL HELL TO PAY in the Middle East, and for those in charge who perpetrated these atrocities against Humanity.”
“Those responsible will be hit harder than anybody has been hit in the long and storied History of the United States of America. RELEASE THE HOSTAGES NOW!” he added.
The post Trump Vows ‘Hell Will Break Out in the Middle East’ if Gaza Hostages Not Released by His Inauguration first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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US Lawmaker Says Washington Funding Taliban, Pens Letter Urging Trump to Halt Aid
US Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) on Dec. 5, 2024. Photo: Mattie Neretin / CNP/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
US Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) recently penned a letter to President-elect Donald Trump claiming that Washington is “funneling” money to the Taliban government in Afghanistan and calling on his incoming administration to stop such foreign aid, citing the Taliban’s extensive history of supporting Islamist terrorism.
“I write to express my strong concerns with foreign aid being funneled to the Taliban and my desire to work with your administration to stop tax dollars from going to terrorists,” Burchett wrote in the letter dated Jan. 2. “It was brought to my attention the US State Department, under the Biden administration, was funneling money to the Taliban.”
Burchett claimed that after questioning US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, the top American diplomat “admitted that non-governmental organizations paid nearly $10 million of foreign aid to the Taliban in taxes.”
The lawmaker said that sending foreign aid to the Taliban undermines US national security, arguing that American government agencies are incapable of tracking how the Islamist movement spends US dollars.
“The larger issue, which Secretary Blinken failed to acknowledge, is the shipments of cash payments in United States dollars to Afghanistan’s central bank,” Burchett wrote. “These cash shipments are auctioned off and after that, they are nearly impossible to track. This is how the Taliban is being funded and plans to fund terrorism around the world.”
We have got to quit funding the Taliban under @realDonaldTrump. $40 million a week to our enemies is a slap in the face to those who served. pic.twitter.com/MVgMnSo1Gn
— Rep. Tim Burchett (@RepTimBurchett) January 6, 2025
The lawmaker did not provide any direct evidence in the letter to support his claims, although the US has provided extensive aid to Afghanistan. According to an October 2023 report from the US Agency for International Development (USAID), the US has provided nearly $2 billion in humanitarian assistance for Afghans since mid-August 2021, making Washington the largest humanitarian donor in Afghanistan. It is unclear how much of that money has ended up in the hands of the Taliban, which the US and other countries have designated as a terrorist group.
“The United States of America should not fund its enemies abroad. I implore you to take action to put an end to wasteful foreign aid spending and to support efforts in Congress to put Americans first,” Burchett wrote. “I look forward to working with you during your second term as president.”
Burchett added that he plans on reintroducing legislation that would require the State Department to “discourage foreign countries from providing financial or material support to the Taliban, and to report on direct-cash assistance programs and Taliban influence over Afghanistan’s central bank.”
He claimed that while the bill — first introduced in 2023 — passed the US House “unanimously,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) refused to bring the bill to the floor for a vote.
Following the release of Burchett’s letter, billionaire and X/Twitter owner Elon Musk, who will serve in the Trump administration as co-head of the Department of Government Efficiency, sparked a debate online regarding the allegations.
“Are we really sending US taxpayer money to the Taliban?” Musk wrote on X on Monday.
The distribution of American taxpayer dollars to Afghanistan has emerged as a hot-button issue for Republicans in recent months. In December, US Rep. Brian Mast (R-FL) blasted Blinken over the transfer of US dollars to the country.
“There’s an American citizen out there, literally woke up this morning losing 30% of their paycheck. And a good percentage of that is going to the Taliban or other programs abroad,” Mast said. “And this is something that we all need to think about, and we will be thinking about deeply for the next two years. There’s a joke that’s made often out there about kids going to college to learn basket weaving, and what a joke that would be. But the United States right now is literally sending tens of millions of dollars to the Taliban. 14.9 million, to be exact, to teach Afghans how to do carpet weaving.”
“Even worse, by the numbers, we spent $9 billion to resettle 90,000 roughly Afghan refugees here since the fall of Afghanistan. My simple Army math tells me that’s about $100,000 a person. That’s absurd. So my question for you. We do not even have an embassy in Afghanistan. We have no diplomats there. What are we doing giving them $1?” Mast continued.
The Taliban infamously provided a safe haven for al Qaeda before the 9/11 attacks and was accused of sheltering Osama bin Laden and his terrorist group afterward. A US-led military coalition subsequently removed the Taliban from power in Afghanistan in 2001.
In 2021, however, the Taliban once again seized power in Afghanistan, amid US President Joe Biden’s military withdrawal from the country.
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