Born in Jamaica and currently working in the United Kingdom, Lipton Matthews is a researcher, business analyst, and
contributor to Merion West, The Federalist, American
Thinker, Intellectual Takeout, mises.org, and Imaginative
Conservative. Visit his YouTube channel, with numerous interviews with
a variety of scholars, here.
He may be contacted at lo_matthews@yahoo.com or
on Twitter (@matthewslipton).
I first connected with Lipton via Mises.org, a great website which discusses Austrian economics and provides unique, even revisionist takes on American and World History.
I shared my article with Ryan McMaken, who has written about the USS Liberty incident, and the website even platformed USS Liberty veteran Phil Tourney.
Lipton wanted to interview me about my article, and we had a considerable conversation!
I appreciate
your article, as a Media Research Analyst for over 30 years.When the “intifada” of 1988 hit, I was
dumbfounded at the electronic and print media and their disgusting disregard
for truth and accuracy.I documented
and presented my findings.It was
shared with organizations, even Congress (whom I’m sure never read it) and a US
president departing a plane in Israel!
Finding so many
willing to believe Arab and leftist propaganda, I stopped my outreach
nationally and internationally.
Once again,
with October 7 horrors, I find myself flabbergasted at the increased level of
pure Jew/Israel/Conservative hatred.Makes me want to throw my hat back into the ring…
Since you were
kind enough to share your email,I
wanted to thank you for providing a truer perspective on the USS Liberty.
On October 30th, 2024, I debated Nick Taurus of Laguna Hills, CA about the Arab-Israeli conflict:
Here's the entire video of the debate:
I brought up one of the key points of contention of anti-Zionists: The USS Liberty Incident on June 8th, 1967 during the 6-Day War. I knew that anti-Zionists in the debate would bring up this event, as if one military tragedy justifies demonizing an entire country, and making the United States government somehow complicit in killing our veterans.
The more that I have heard anti-Israeli, anti-Zionist, and yes anti-Semitic types spout off about the USS Liberty, the more that I wanted to learn about the matter myself.
The research and evidence all point to the whole affair coming down to a massive clusterfark of miscommunications is unmistakable.
For the record, the anti-Israeli types all believe that Lyndon Baines Johnson and the Israeli government colluded together to sink the ship in order to blame the Egyptians and other Arab states in order to further a larger hot war against the Arab states in the region.
This motivation makes no sense, since the Israelis had decimated the Arabs, especially Egypt, before June 8th! Also, there were Israeli pilots who flew over, but we are talking about 8,000 feet about the water! It's not like anyone could have seen definitively that it was an American ship. Also, the United States government had announced prior to the incidentn that they had no presence in the region.
But more on that later.
Despite all the logical and evidentiary problems with the anti-Zionist conspiracy theories, that has not stopped them from complaining about the incident and accusing Israel of war crimes.
So, let's establish the fact that the US Government did not set up the USS Liberty to be destroyed.
James Scott, who wrote The Attack on the Liberty, documents that the United States Navy and NSA tried to contact the USS Liberty five times to get away from the Egyptian coastline, at least by 100 miles. The ship did not get the message. Most people don't understand that even the advanced technology possessed by the United States government at that time was still quite rudimentary compared to what everyday Americans possess today via email, smartphones, etc.
The fact is that the federal government tried to contact the USS Liberty to abandon its spy operations in the region and get away from the coastline. Commander McGonagle didn't get the message. In my view, one reason for all the logistics and communications issues was that two agencies were supervising this ship: the US Navy and the NSA. Right away, there are going to be problems. One direct authority should have been supervising and directing the ship the entire time.
Bear in mind that James Scott, a son of one of the veterans, is especially critical of Israel, and repeatedly asks the question "How could they mistake the American ship for an Egyptian ship?" We will address the confusion issue shortly, but for now, I just want to assert that the United States government did not set up the USS Liberty for destruction.
Not only do we have evidence that the United States tried to contact the ship, after the event the Israeli ambassador to the United States, Avraham Harman, furiously wrote to the Israeli prime minister, Levi Eshkol, telling him that Israel needed to:
1. Apologize for the event
2. Pay reparations to the United States and the veterans
3. Jail any of the Israeli leaders responsible for this huge mistake
Reckless endangerment is a criminal offense in common law. Harman's assertions clearly show that the Israeli government was not involved in some plot to take down an American ship.
There was no deliberate effort from American or Israeli forces, including the leaders, for the Israeli military to destroy an American ship.
Now, let's talk about "How could the Israelis have mistaken an American ship for an Egyptian ship?"
Let's start with Cam Higby's research on the incident:
The United States government announced to the UN General Assembly that they had no presence in the region during the Six Day War. Why? They believed that the USS Liberty had gotten the message!
So, when Israelis spot a ship in the region, even if there was an American flag on the ship, the Israeli military brass understandably concluded that it was an enemy ship posing as an American ship. This kind of deception happens all the time in war. On top of that, we have listened to radio communications from the Israeli fighter planes, and they mistook the identification GTR on the side of the ship to read CTR.
They misread the ship, and then they went along with the official statement of the United States. Keep in mind that they were in the midst of a hot war with five Arab states, including Egypt!
In early 2024, one of the members of the New Hampshire General Court reminded his colleagues, when they were debating a bill to host their own investigation into the USS Liberty incident, that the American flag actually fell off during the strafing!
Here's that entire hearing from last year:
It's also important to point out that the Israelis did not sink the ship. Cam Higby makes a mistake in his analysis when he claimed that the Israelis actually sunk the ship. He also got the number of dead wrong--it was 34 sailors, not 24, but the rest of Higby's analysis still withstands scrutiny.
Let me repeat: Israel did not sink the ship. If the goal was to maliciously destroy an American vessel, why not just finish the job? Because the Israelis realized, as the lifeboats came into their view, that it was an AMERICAN ship!
Here's another video affirming this account:
They realized that they made a mistake, a horrible mistake, but a mistake nonetheless.
Also, anyone can look at the transcripts of the inquiry into the incident, which took place on the island of Malta a week later. McGonagle asserts that was an attack of mistaken identity.
Here's some of the documentation, provided on X:
You mentioned McGonagle. Have you ever read his sworn testimony to the US Navy Inquiry? pic.twitter.com/kTUrs0HwRO
Of course, Joe Meadors, one of the most discredited members of the USS Liberty Veterans Association, and someone who commented on another one of my earlier blog posts, shared a video with me that McGonagle changed his story. I find this change of mind more improbable to believe. Why didn't he come forward five years after the event? Why wait thirty years?
Because McGonagle didn't change his story:
The makers of this video made a jump-cut at 0:21. Ask yourself why they cut out this very key and integral portion of McGonagle's Arlington speech...https://t.co/OEQnAaLKEEpic.twitter.com/KI0uxVHmWY
To me clear, McGonagle attributes the attack to "gross incompetence" on the part of the IDF (a sentiment with which I agree), but the makers of the video intentionally leave cut at "not a pure case of mistaken identity" so as to manipulate the audience.
There was a more recent investigation afterward, following a 2003 lawsuit against the NSA, in which that agency released more classified information on the incident. What more do the veterans want at this point?
Perhaps some of them have more sinister motives.
Last month, USS Liberty veteran Phil Tourney gave a big presentation on Candace Owens' program:
She hyped it up as a big disclosure, a "major announcement" first without listing the USS Liberty. In reality, it was cheap marketing to gin up engagement on YouTube. In this video, Phil Tourney trots out all the talking points blasting the Israeli government for "deliberately" attacking an American ship.
He doesn't just blast Israel, but he blasts all Jews. He peddles all the anti-Semitic tropes one could imagine, and then some. If he wants justice and answers, why does he attack every Jew, and not reserve his criticism for the Israeli government in 1967?
The USS Liberty incident was a tragic war-time error due to miscommunications. These fog of war tragedies happen more often than people realize. (More on that shortly).
Anti-Zionists love to leave out the fact that the Israeli government apologized and paid considerable reparations to the families of the veterans who were killed and to the veterans who were wounded. Also, a period of diplomatic stasis emerged between the United States and Israel, which remained until 1987.
Frankly, I am disturbed and outraged that one group of veterans thinks they have a monopoly on tragedy and pain, and they expect us to ignore other veterans who were harmed by friendly fire or who were harmed because of American governmental ineptitude.
Let's consider other incidents.
Six months after the USS Liberty incident, another American spy ship, the USS Pueblo, was captured by the North Koreans. Why was the ship there in the first place? What benefit did the Johnson Administration think they would gain by spying on North Korea? This was another directive of terrible judgment. While almost the entire crew was returned safely to the United States that same year, the ship remains in North Korea as a humiliation trophy of triumph against the United States.
Now, anti-Zionists will counter that no lives were lost. Wrong. One American navy man died.
May 17, 1987 (almost twenty years after the USS Liberty incident), another American ship was attacked by friendly forces, this time Iraq under Saddam Hussein. Yes, there was a time when Hussein was an ally of the United States, and our government was supporting him during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war.
The USS Stark incident occurred during the Iran–Iraq War on
17 May 1987 in the Persian Gulf, when an Iraqi jet aircraft fired two Exocet
missiles at the U.S. frigate USS Stark. A total of 37 United States Navy
personnel were killed or later died as a result of the attack, and 21 were
injured.
More American soldiers were killed in this friendly fire incident, and Hussein apologized because his fighters thought that the American ship was an Iranian ship (but no reparations). Why doesn't the USS Liberty crowd cry out about this?
October 12, 2000, Al-Qaeda sailed a boat loaded with explosives near this ship and detonated their bombs. Why don't the anti-Zionists care about this attack?
Just last month, an American ship shot down two navy pilots in another friendly-fire gaffe:
The F/A-18 shot down had just flown off the deck of the USS
Harry S Truman aircraft carrier, Centcom said. On 15 December Centcom
acknowledged the Truman had entered the Middle East, but hadn’t specified that
the carrier and its battle group was in the Red Sea.
“The guided missile cruiser USS Gettysburg, which is part of
the USS Harry S Truman carrier strike group, mistakenly fired on and hit the
F/A-18,” Centcom said in a statement. The incident was being investigated.
Why don't the people who complain about Israel raise hell about this gross incompetence?
Putting aside all of these terrible or tragic events, I find it unconscionable that the USS Liberty advocates bellow about what happened to them, when they ought to consider the example of their peers who were attacked--without warning--at Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941.
2,403 Americans died under Japanese airfighter assaults. This was a horrific attack, which included the actual sinking of the USS Arizona. Why don't the anti-Zionists care about this? There is even some speculation that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt knew about the attack and allowed it to happen without preparing the US Navy. One would think that the Woke Dissident Right would be up in arms about what Japan did to our veterans.
Let's consider what Japan has done, compared to Israel:
1. They launched a deliberate attack.
2. They killed two thousand plus American servicemen.
3. To this day, Japan has not apologized for the attack on Pearl Harbor.
4. To this day, Japan has not paid a dime to any of the veterans or their families.
Why don't the anti-Israeli factions care about these veterans?
What's more, Pearl Harbor veterans, what few still remain, don't complain about it every year demanding that the American government or the Japanese government pay big money. You don't see anti-Japanese rallies among their descendants, either.
Why are certain veterans obsessed with demonizing Israel, when other countries deserve much greate opprobrium for what they did?
The answer is simple: like Phil Tourney, Joe Meadors, and other anti-Zionist obsessives who complain about the USS Liberty, they simply hate Jews and they hate Israel. It's shameful.
What's really disgusting about all of this? The USS Liberty fanatics play the "veteran" card to shut down anyone who challenges or criticize stheir take on the whole incident.
"Well, I believe the veterans!"
This is more wokeness, where the focus is on feelings, identity politics, and conspiracy theories, all at the expense of the truth.
Former Congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham was a veteran, and he took millions of dollars in bribes. He literally played the veteran card at his sentencing hearing, and the judge dismissed those pleas. Just because he was a veteran did not excuse his criminal conduct and his betrayal of the truth of his constituents and his country.
Being a veteran does not make anyone immune to criticism. Being a veteran does not mean that anyone of them can lie to the public with impunity and demonize entire countries or people groups. Truth is still truth, and fighting for the truth must remain the highest value.
Conclusion
The more that I have studied the USS Liberty incident, the more I am convinced that the event was a conflux of miscommunications and mistaken identities. At the worse, it was an act of gross negligence, but it no wise can one state that the Israeli government deliberately attacked an American ship, or that the American government was under the thumb of the Israelis to do whatever they wanted.
What has also come to light in this investigation is the more critical eye I have to take when it comes to veterans and their testimonies on any matter. Yes, we should be thankful for the veterans and their service to our country, but that does not give them carte blanche to say whatever they want and we have to believe everything they say.
It's time to end the lies about the USS Liberty, and it's time to take another weapon out of the Anti-Zionists' arsenal of lies against the United States and Israel.
Here's my full debate with Nick Taurus, a pro-Palestinian Trump supporter from Orange County, CA.
Some people consider that an oxymoron. How can someone support the Palestinian movement, since so many of them are Leftists? Of course, his side, and many of his supporters, counter that Israel and Zionism are the greatest threat
The debate took place at the Laguna Hills Community Center on Wednesday, October 30th, 2024.
Nick reached out to me in the middle of Summer 2024. He was hoping to pair me off against another anti-Zionist speaker. He reached out to a number of left-leaning, pro-Palestinian groups, but none of them would step up.
I was glad to step in and stand for truth, stand for Israel, and expose the truth about the so-called Palestinian movement.
This was not as daunting a task, since I had debated Nick on the Arab-Israeli conflict shortly after the October 7th, 2023 Hamas massacre:
For the October 30th, 2024 debate, Nick provided all the questions in advance, which was great, since that gesture allowed both of us to study, research, and prepare more effectively.
He also provided ground rules, which included no interruptions. I admit that that is my weak point. CRINGE! It's true, and I can laugh at myself about that.
There were supposed to be two moderators, a pro-Zionist and an anti-Zionist, but the pro-Zionist could not make it at the last minute.
Lawrence of Europa served as the moderator, and like CBS or NBC moderators, he broke the rules and interrupted me a few times, but that conflict did not stop me from speaking out.
Some of my friends joined the event, including Rachelle Mand, a Persian Jew who fled Iran before the Ayatollah took over. Keith Hardine of South Los Angeles, John Willis of Upland (both former members of We the People Rising), and Eli Komai of the John Birch Society also attended.
It was a pleasant surprise to see Eli, who is also a friend of Nick Taurus.
GROUP PHOTOS!
The debate was fun!
It was great to stand for truth, to refute a lot of the anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist talking points.
Nick was definitely the more reserved debater, standing behind the podium the whole time. I was more active, moving around a great deal. I don't recall any rules of decorum regarding our behavior, so there is that.
I really enjoyed stepping forward and speaking to the audience directly. For the first time in a long time, I felt really confident about this subject. It was good to interact with people.
Nick referenced a great deal of books, resources, and authors. That did not bother me, since truth is truth, and if lots of information is based on a false premise, everything else is invalidated. I also referenced some books, websites, and authors. I will say this much: I want to work on memorizing more names and more sources for future debates.
Let me get the worst and the missed opportunities out of the way:
Nick pointed out that there are Jewish people in the Biden Administration who are part of the open borders agenda. But who put them there? Joe Biden! I should have responded to that, but there were so many other things I wanted to respond to.
He talked a great deal about "Jewish" NGOs pushing mass migration and open borders. Who funds them, though? Most of the funding comes from rich white liberal Gentiles.
He mentioned the Appollo Affair. Yawn. I had challenged that in the last debate, in which independent American and Israeli investigations confirmed that Schlomo Solomon did not steal any uranium. A third party, Seymour Hersh, did his own investigation and wrote his findings in The Sampson Option.
I neglected to point out that Amin al-Husseini, the grand Mufti of Jerusalem, along with other Arab interests in the Middle East and Muslims in Southeastern Europe, collaborated with the Nazis to exterminate the Jews in Europe instead of expelling them to the Middle East.
Some of the best moments (for me) in the debate:
Pointing out that Israeli police officers arrest hyper-Orthodox Jews when they spit at Christians. That fact deflated the whole talking point from the anti-Zionists in the audience.
Using the phrase "so-called Palestinians" and undermining the legacy and veracity of that term. It felt really good to inform the audience that Zionist founders like Golda Meir and David Ben-Gurion were also Palestinians!
Not breaking a sweat when one of the anti-Zionist members of the audience asked me about the Haavera Transfer Agreement. At that moment, I had not heard of that phrase, although I know that Hilter initially wanted to expel the Jews to the Middle East. Instead of getting flustered, I got to the heart of the issue: "Do you think that justifies pushing 6 million Jews into ovens?" I also stated, "Whatever that is, that does not delegitimize Israel." That's what all these obscure references are really all about.
Refuting the "Dancing Israelis" conspiracy by using the phrase "Dancing Palestinians." I wanted to underscore the reality that it's the so-called Palestinians and their Arab/Muslim allies who are harming this country. I really thank God for having that phrase on the tip of my tongue.
Referencing Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, who served in a foreign military in order to supporting allow American citizens to serve in Congress. Nick acknowledged that point as a good counter-argument, and I respect that.
Repeating the fact that Israel offered the so-called Palestinians a state FIVE TIMES. None on the Pro-Palestinian side can bellyache about fairness or lack of return, when so-called Palestinian leaders just want to push the Jews into the sea.
My favorite moment was turning the tables on a groyper wearing an American Flag jacket during the Question and Answer period. I think his name was Andrew, although I could be wrong. He referenced the Lavon Affair, which is a common anti-Zionist talking point. He went off about the USS Liberty, which I had mentioned before he did. He tried to interrupt me a few times, but I was relentless in pushing back on the anti-Zionist tropes.
I really like that I held him accountable for exploiting those veterans, and I also like that I could get the truth out about Lyndon Baines Johnson, one of the most consequential--and the worst--Presidents in our country's history.
Frankly, I think that the biggest problem for many of these anti-Zionist guys is that people simply do not let them talk, and they do not respond with simple facts or evidence. People get easily offended because of the controversial nature of the subject and just shut off all discussion. That is not the way to win (back) hearts and minds.
I liked that I was able to confront other anti-Semitic conspiracy theories in the audience, and Lawrence could not stop me. The whole situation reminded me of JD Vance, when he confronted the CBS moderator for "fact-checking" him, when the corporate media moderators were just lying. Nick backed me up when the moderator got out of line, which helped a great deal.
Post-debate was great, too. A number of people came up to me and thanked me for coming, including the pro-Palestinian groyper (?) wearing an American flag on his jacket. He came up to me and shook my hand, praising me for stepping into hostile territory and taking a stand for Israel.
I let him share his views on "The Jews did 9-11," and I was able to refute his arguments.
I think it's quite telling that during the Question and Answer period, Nick did not want to spend too much time responding to his question about invading and destroying Israel. Even for anti-Zionists, the American-Flag jacket guy's arguments were way too much!
Nick was very magnanimous and praised me efforts after the debate. I am grateful that I could come and speak up, too!
