Outgoing anti-Israel Rep. Thomas Massie used a House floor speech Monday to call for a new investigation into Israel’s 1967 attack on the USS Liberty, lending rare congressional prominence to a decades-old episode that has become a rallying point for critics of Israel.

Marking the 59th anniversary of the attack, the Kentucky Republican honored the crew of the intelligence-gathering ship and urged Congress to pass a resolution recognizing the dead and wounded. Twelve survivors watched from the House gallery; Massie said he had met with them before taking the floor. He called the moment “one of the biggest honors of my lifetime” and said the recognition was long overdue.

The USS Liberty was struck on June 8, 1967, during Israel’s Six-Day War, while stationed off the Sinai Peninsula. Israeli jets and torpedo boats attacked the vessel, killing 34 American crew members and wounding 171. Israel apologized, saying its forces had mistaken the ship for an Egyptian vessel, and later paid damages to the United States and to victims’ families. A US Navy court of inquiry and multiple subsequent investigations, including by the CIA, concluded the attack was a case of mistaken identity.

Massie, of course, disputed that conclusion. He described the Liberty as unarmed and flying a clearly visible American flag, and asserted that the assault was an intentional effort to leave no survivors, citing what he said were eyewitness accounts of Israeli forces firing on lifeboats and on crew members on deck. He argued that former US intelligence and military officials had cast doubt on the official findings, contending the attack was deliberate rather than accidental.

Massie, who lost his Republican primary in May and is set to leave Congress next year, has increasingly broken with party leadership on Israel and US foreign policy.

Former Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, Massie’s ally in anti-Israel arms, thanked Massie and questioned why a close US ally had attacked an American ship. Other figures on the right pushed back. Rep. Dan Crenshaw of Texas wrote that the incident had a clear conclusion under any objective reading of the facts and suggested Massie was chasing online attention.

The episode has gained renewed traction online as a vehicle for anti-Israel sentiment. The Anti-Defamation League has warned for years about efforts to recast the attack as a deliberate act, saying such narratives are amplified to sow distrust and undermine US-Israel relations despite the official finding of mistaken identity. ADL counterextremism official Oren Segal told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that conservative commentator Tucker Carlson, who has devoted segments to the theory, has done more than anyone recently to spread it. Carlson has argued that questioning the attack does not make someone antisemitic. The far-right streamer Nick Fuentes and influencer Candace Owens have also promoted claims of a deliberate Israeli strike, and Florida gubernatorial candidate James Fishback has called for the attack to be taught in schools.

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