Rich Lowry Labels The Attack On The U.S.S. Liberty A Conspiracy Theory

Rich Lowry, a political columnist, writes at the New York Post that "The latest anti-Israel conspiracy theory is decades old — and stupid as ever." He begins:

    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 now has renewed currency. 

[snip]

    The fact is that the devastating Israeli attack on the Liberty, which killed 34 American service members and wounded 171, was a woeful case of mistaken identification. 

Lowry is gaslighting you. A couple of years ago, the Forgotten History YouTube channel did a couple videos about the attack on the U.S.S. Liberty. The first was an overall review of the attack and what happened, while the second was an interview of one of the survivors of the attack. One of the points raised was that Israeli jets had overflown the Liberty and confirmed it was an American ship before Israel commenced its multiple attacks (aircraft and torpedo boats). A 2023 paper, "The USS Liberty Incident: Accident or Intentional Attack," confirms this, relating (footnotes omitted):

On the morning of June 8th, the Liberty reached its position 13 miles off the shore of the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt. During this morning, multiple Israeli reconnaissance planes flew over the Liberty. The first of these flyovers occurred at approximately 6 AM when an Israeli naval pilot relayed to the Israeli naval command that he believed he spotted a “U.S. Navy cargo type ship” with a GRT-5 designation. Israeli Naval command would later confirm that this ship was indeed an American, and they would conduct seven more flyovers before the attack at approximately 1400. 

And (footnotes omitted):

In 2006, the Chicago Tribune released an article discussing the recordings of an EC-121 spy plane that was over the Liberty during her attack. The EC-121 spy plane recorded multiple Israeli messages proving that Israeli pilots knew the Liberty’s nationality. Additionally, analysts aboard the EC-121 also overheard the Israeli torpedo boats mention an American flag. The recordings obtained on the EC-121 directly contradict Israeli claims that a flag was not present on Liberty. While the National Security Agency would release three of these tapes that occurred after the attack, officials and analysts aboard the plane believe that more tapes exist that were captured during the attack. Michael Prostinak, a Hebrew linguist aboard a U.S. Navy EC-121, spoke of these tapes and said, “I can tell you there were more tapes than just the three on the Internet.” 

    The Liberty was built off of a converted freighter and was unarmed but for four .50 caliber machine guns--it obviously was not a destroyer nor capable of shelling targets in the Sinai, the reason Israel later gave for targeting the ship. It was flying an American flag and in international waters. Identification letters and numbering were clearly visible as the account above relates. 

    Moreover, as the paper cited above relates (footnotes omitted):

Multiple senior government officials at the time of the attack would share the survivor’s sentiments of a deliberate Israeli attack, including Secretary of State Dean Rusk, C.I.A. Director Richard Helms, and counsel to President Johnson Clark Clifford. All three would later state in their memoirs that they believed the attack was deliberate and details were left out of the official narratives. 

 While we do not know the motive for the attack, "[m]any of the survivors of the attack and officials, including Adm. Moorer, believe that Israel planned to sink the Liberty, blame Egypt, and draw the U.S. into the Six-Day War." Which would probably explain why the communication antennae were targeted first.