(JTA) — Republican Rep. Thomas Massie took to the House floor Monday to call for an investigation into Israel’s 1967 attack on an American spy ship, giving new prominence to a decades-old conspiracy theory that has become a touchstone for critics of Israel.

“It’s my great honor, maybe one of the biggest honors of my lifetime, to stand here on the floor and do something that’s 59 years overdue, to recognize the survivors and those who gave their lives on the USS Liberty,” Massie said. “Fifty-nine years ago today when they were viciously attacked by IDF jets and also after that by torpedo boats.”

The attack on the USS Liberty occurred on June 8, 1967, in the midst of Israel’s Six-Day War. The intelligence-gathering ship was stationed off the shore of the Sinai Peninsula during the conflict when it came under attack by Israeli forces, killing 34 crew members and injuring 171 more.

Israel later apologized for the attack, explaining it had mistaken the boat as Egyptian, and paid damages to the United States and the families of the victims. Multiple U.S. investigations, including by the CIA, have since determined that the attack was a mistake.

Still, the incident has become a rallying point for critics of Israel who claim the attack was deliberate and gained more adherents lately as anti-Israel sentiment has swelled. On Friday, Massie cited a host of U.S. military and intelligence officials he said had cast doubt on the outcomes of the U.S. investigations.

“None of these distinguished men think this was an accident,” Massie continued. “They think it was intentional murder by the country of Israel, either as a false flag operation or because they simply didn’t want anybody observing what they were doing that day.”

Massie, who will be departing Congress next year after losing his primary in Kentucky, used the anniversary of the incident to call for Congress to pass a resolution honoring the victims of the attack and for a new investigation into the circumstances surrounding it.

The USS Liberty Veterans Association praised Massie’s remarks in a post on X, writing that it was a story that “NO other member of Congress will even listen to.”

Massie is far from the only critic of Israel to use the attack as broader evidence of Israeli misconduct.

Last year, the far-right influencer Candace Owens interviewed a survivor of the attack and tweeted that there was “perhaps no story that can more enlighten you to the deceitful and despicable nature of the modern state of Israel — and its stranglehold on the American government.”

Florida gubernatorial candidate James Fishback has called for the attack to be taught in schools, and the antisemitic streamer Nick Fuentes has claimed that Israel initiated the attack to “conceal their troop movements.”

During his speech at Amfest in December, conservative pundit Tucker Carlson, who devoted part of his podcast last year to elevating the conspiracy theory that the attack was a false flag operation on the part of Israel, told attendees that asking “why a foreign government tried to sink one of our ships in 1967” does not “make you an antisemite.”

Oren Segal, the ADL’s vice president of counterextremism and intelligence, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that his organization had been concerned about the “normalization” of Carlson’s views, including his rhetoric on the USS Liberty attack.

“No one’s been a bigger boon to the USS Liberty conspiracy of late than Tucker Carlson,” Segal said.

Following Carlson’s remarks at Amfest, the annual conference of the right-wing group Turning Point USA’s, the ADL denounced conspiracy theories about the attack that it said had swirled for decades.

“Despite official findings that the attack was a tragic case of mistaken identity, these narratives continue to be amplified by actors seeking to inflame distrust and undermine U.S.-Israel relations,” the ADL said in a post on X.

At the conference, the Jewish pundit Ben Shapiro was also asked about the attack by an audience member, and responded that “the vast majority of people who bring this up are doing so to suggest that Israel deliberately attacked an American ship because Israel deliberately wants to harm America.”

Some of Massie’s fellow critics of Israel praised him for bringing up the incident on the floor of Congress on Monday.

“Thank you Thomas Massie for recognizing the heroic members of the USS Liberty, which was attacked by Israel, where 34 crew members were killed and 174 were wounded,” tweeted Marjorie Taylor Greene, the former member of Congress. “Why did our ‘greatest ally’ attack us??”

Other right-wing figures, including at least one member of Congress, criticized Massie’s gambit.

Rep. Dan Crenshaw of Texas tweeted that he had previously believed that Massie was “standing on heartfelt principles and had intellectual backing” even as they did not always agree.

“But comments like this make me question his authenticity,” Crenshaw wrote. “The USS Liberty incident is a tragic one, but it’s an incident with a clear conclusion if one uses any objective analysis of the facts. … Perhaps we are simply witnessing another example of the irresistible incentive to jump on the bandwagon of grifters that guarantee you a specific kind of social media audience and attention that ultimately results in profits.”

Adam Mossoff, a former legal fellow of the right-wing Heritage Foundation, took aim at Massie’s address in a post on X, writing that the Kentucky Republican had “fully gone down the rabbit hole of antsemitism and Jewish conspiracy theories — via the modern American antisemite’s favorite boogeyman, Israel.”

“For the American woke left and woke right, the USS Liberty is the equivalent of the Dreyfuss Affair in France,” Mossoff wrote. “It’s the cause celebres of nationalism and bigotry in which history’s greatest villains — the Jews — can be smeared again with nefarious and evil motives.”

This article originally appeared on JTA.org.

The post Thomas Massie calls for USS Liberty probe, elevating anti-Israel conspiracy theory to House floor appeared first on The Forward.

(JTA) — The Tribeca Festival has denounced jokes alluding to allegations of rape against Israeli prison guards made on the red carpet by the comedian and actor Elon Gold and pro-Israel influencer Lizzy Savetsky.

The two Jewish figures made the jokes at the world premiere of Gold’s new film “The Wedding Entertainer (The Tale of Moishe Badhan)” on Thursday, and Savetsky included them in a highlights reel that she posted to Instagram on Friday.

In the reel, Gold notes that it’s significant that the Tribeca Festival, one of the most prestigious film festivals in the world, included a movie that was made in Israel. The implication was that at a time of surging anti-Israel sentiment, he would not have expected films with an Israeli connection to be admitted.

Then he joked about his time in Israel: “I was only raped by two Israeli dogs.”

Savetsky responded, “I thought they only raped Palestinians.”

“No,” Gold answered, laughing. “I got also a dog.”

The pair were alluding to allegations of sexual abuse by Israeli prison guards against  Palestinian prisoners that The New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof surfaced in an opinion column last month. One of the most sensational claims, which Israel rejected along with all the others, was that Israeli prison guards use dogs to rape prisoners.

After the comments drew criticism online, the Tribeca Festival said in a statement Saturday that it “unequivocally condemns the offensive and unacceptable remarks” made by Savetsky and Gold.

“Sexual violence and human suffering should never be mocked or minimized,” the festival said. “The comments do not reflect the Tribeca Festival’s values, and we regret the hurt and offense they have caused. We have not been able to reach the filmmakers.”

Pro-Israel activists have condemned the column, Kristof and the newspaper for airing the allegations against Israel, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened to sue the newspaper over the claims.

In an Instagram video response to a New York Times reporter asking for comment over email, Savetsky compared the allegations made in Kristof’s column to an antisemitic blood libel.

In a comment to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Savetsky denied that the jokes she made on the red carpet were “about rape” as the festival alleged.

“It was a joke mocking the NYT story with a horrific blood libel,” she said in a message to JTA. “Any other interpretation is ridiculous and a deflection from the actual issue here which is irresponsible journalism meant to villainize Zionists. Comedy and the arts have always been used to address real issues—the issue here should not be dog rape, which is biologically impossible, it should be the blood libel spread by the NYT.”

She added, “I stand by it with no regrets. The outrage only exposes how the press and those poisoned by anti-Israel propaganda will twist anything to blame the Jews … even when it means justifying a story with zero evidence about something biologically impossible.”

Gold, who also served as executive producer on the film, did not respond to JTA’s request for comment.

“The Wedding Entertainer (The Tale of Moishe Badhan)” is an Israeli comedy about a Hasidic ex-comedian who re-enters the comedy world after a battle with addiction to earn enough money to marry off his daughter.

This article originally appeared on JTA.org.

The post Tribeca Festival denounces pro-Israel celebrities’ red-carpet jokes about Israeli dog rape allegations appeared first on The Forward.

(JTA) — TEL AVIV — As missiles flew toward Israel on Sunday night, beleaguered Israelis once again took to Facebook from their safe rooms.

“Whoever is in charge of naming wars over here, please do not give it a fierce animal name this time,” one Israeli wrote in an English-language group. “The last military operation was called ‘Roaring Lion,’ and the Twelve Day War in June 2025, ‘Rising Lion.’”

Another replied with a suggestion: “I hope it’s something like ‘The One Day War.’”

The idea may not have been far off. U.S. President Donald Trump said early Monday that he hoped both Iran and Israel would halt their fire. By mid-morning, Iran’s military announced the strikes were on pause, saying it had sufficiently retaliated for the Israeli strikes in Beirut, a tit-for-tat exchange. By Monday evening Israel time, Netanyahu, too, said the fighting was halted, but warned that Israel would respond “with force” to any future attacks.

Despite the tenuous pause — not quite a ceasefire — Home Front Command restrictions remained in place by Monday evening, touching every layer of daily life in Israel. Schools were closed through at least Wednesday. Or Erez, head spokesperson for Clalit, Israel’s largest health care network, told JTA, “We will continue to remain operating in shelters until the Home Front Command restrictions change.”

By 10 p.m. Sunday, NICU infants and those in critical care were already being moved to bunkers beneath Beilinson hospital, home to the largest emergency room in the Middle East.

“This is the third time within a year that we have carried out such a transition,” said Dr. Erez Barenboim, director of Beilinson and Hasharon Hospitals.

Hospital staff were visibly fatigued but resilient. Soroka University Medical Center was struck by an Iranian ballistic missile during the June 2025 conflict, and as is standard during attacks, health care staff canceled non-essential visits and moved operations to shelters.

Alexi Wirpel, a student at the University of Mary Washington in Virginia, was on a Birthright trip in the Galilee when the first sirens rang out. “We could hear the dome working, so we knew we were going to be relatively okay,” she said.

It was not Wirpel’s first trip to Israel, but it was her first time hearing sirens signaling incoming missiles. Others on the Birthright trip were more anxious and had to be consoled by staff, she said.

When word came of a tenuous pause, Wirpel said, she and others didn’t believe it would last long.

“All day today we’ve all kind of been just waiting for something to go off again,” she said. “It’s become a very real reality that this is something that my family has to go through instead of just hearing about it.”

Caroline Flannery manages an after-school program at a Tel Aviv middle school and has watched the cumulative toll of two and a half years of conflict reshape an entire generation of Israeli children. Added to the time lost during the pandemic, students in those grades have missed the equivalent of a year of school.

“We have kids in fifth and sixth grade that still don’t know the alphabet,” Flannery said.

Israel’s education system has been among the hardest hit since Oct. 7. Leaked results of a government aptitude test found that only 3% of Israeli ninth graders met the national benchmark for science, and just 22% met the benchmark for English, figures that prompted opposition leaders to call for a declaration of a “national educational emergency.”

The disruption extends to staff, who are just as rattled as students when a siren sounds and a week of lesson plans is suddenly worthless.

Flannery moved to Israel in 2019 and hadn’t planned to stay, but the impact she could make on Israeli children convinced her to commit to another year, and then another, until she was running the after-school program herself.

The conclusion she has come to in the wake of Oct. 7 is that many of her students, faced with constant disruption, will never fully catch up.

“It’s not just that they miss school, so now they have to work extra hard and catch up,” she said. “Their whole routine was disrupted and they come back. They’re not ready, not used to, not prepared to sit, to come into class, to sit in their seats, to learn. Their minds aren’t there.”

With Trump pressing Israel and Iran to return to the negotiating table, Flannery discussed contingency plans already on the table — such as Zoom classes, home visits — should the war return to its March tempo.

“This,” she said, “is sort of their normal.”

The post ‘This is sort of their normal’: Israelis confront yet another wartime flare after Iranian fire appeared first on The Forward.