Talk:USS Liberty incident

Template:Skip to talk Template:Talk header Template:ARBPIA Template:Article history Template:WikiProject banner shell Template:Old move

Survivors of The USS Liberty dispute Naval investigation

BBC has produced an alternative story to what really happened in regards to the Israei attack on The USS Liberty. "USS Liberty:Dead in the Water" 2002 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjOH1XMAwZA Along with the BBC the vertrans of The USS Liberty has a website dedicated to the events that took place on that fateful day. http://www.gtr5.com/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kevoconnor16 (talk • contribs)

RfC: "Incident" or "Attack"?

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Both. Participants found reliable sources commonly describe this as the "USS Liberty incident" and as "an attack on the USS Liberty". The question the RFC asks is vague, but from the previous discussion and some of the responses, I gather this is an implied request to change the article title. Participants cited conflicting title policy reasons - common, concise, and precise. There was no clear consensus as to which was most important, nor a clear consensus in favor of changing the article title. -- Beland (talk) 01:35, 4 January 2026 (UTC)

---

Should this be considered an incident, or an attack? NotJamestack (✉️|📝) 16:42, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

Option A: Incident

Option B: Attack

Survey (USS Liberty incident)

Option A. I feel like since this was confirmed to be a mistake, then it wouldn't be far-fetched to call this an incident. NotJamestack (✉️|📝) 16:51, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

• Option B Calling it an incident is confusing. The ship was attacked, as stated by multiple reliable sources; it didn't experience engine trouble and spontaneously combust. Neutrality requires us to state facts over inflammatory language and euphemisms. Neutrality also demands usage of the most widely reported/accepted reliable sources, not cherry picking. Penguino35 (talk) 18:38, 2 December 2025 (UTC)
• Weak Option B - (coming from NPOVN) In references, I see a few more talks about it as an attack, and a few sources calling it an incident. I think Attack on USS Liberty explains it best. User:Bluethricecreamman (Talk·Contribs) 18:43, 2 December 2025 (UTC)
• Option B per WP:PRECISE. Using "incident" is euphemistic and would only be appropriate if it were the WP:COMMONNAME. Per ChristianKl that is definitely not the case, as "attack on the USS Liberty" is used most commonly. EvansHallBear (talk) 19:20, 2 December 2025 (UTC)
• Option B I support “attack” because the term accurately reflects what occurred regardless of whether the action was accidental. Reliable sources consistently describe the event as an attack on USS Liberty, and the fact that Israel misidentified the vessel does not change the nature of the act. Their forces intended to attack the ship they believed they were engaging, which meets the plain meaning of an attack even if the target was mistaken. The dispute in sources concerns motive and culpability, not whether an attack happened. Using “incident” obscures this basic, undisputed fact and introduces unnecessary vagueness. “Attack” is more precise per WP:PRECISE and aligns with the most common terminology per WP:COMMONNAME. Neutrality is preserved by explaining in the lead and body that some sources characterize it as a tragic error, while the title should reflect the clear consensus of reliable sources on what physically took place. Docmoates (talk) 20:17, 2 December 2025 (UTC)
• Option B with "Attack on the USS Liberty" as my preferred title per WP:COMMONNAME. ChristianKl ❪✉❫ 22:14, 2 December 2025 (UTC)
• B. The ship was indisputably attacked, and it's a more precise descriptor than option A. VQuakr (talk) 22:26, 2 December 2025 (UTC)
• Option A. This article is about the broader diplomatic incident, not just the attack. — BillHPike (talk, contribs) 23:17, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

  @BillHPike Are you saying that you mean with the word "incident" a timespan of multiple decades? Otherwise, when do you think the incident ended happening? ChristianKl ❪✉❫ 03:35, 3 December 2025 (UTC)

  Per the US official history, the intense diplomatic correspondence lasted a few months. [1] I feel that this is within the timeframe covered by diplomatic incident. — BillHPike (talk, contribs) 03:49, 3 December 2025 (UTC)

• Template:Summoned by bot Option A. Incident better describes the article as the article is not just about the attack but the attack and the aftermath and the consequences of the attack diplomatically . GothicGolem29 (Talk) 00:27, 3 December 2025 (UTC)
• Option B. Our article calls it an attack like everywhere, it makes no sense not to represent this fact in the title. Katzrockso (talk) 04:52, 3 December 2025 (UTC)

Option A. It was a diplomatic incident for which this the more frequent COMMONNAME, comparable to Bridgeton incident, USS Stark incident, Pueblo incident, Amethyst incident, USS Panay incident, Mukden incident, Marco Polo Bridge incident, Niʻihau incident. BobFromBrockley (talk) 08:17, 3 December 2025 (UTC)

Checking again: Attack might have slightly more overall hits than incident, because attack is the term favoured by the massive community of conspiracy theorists and antisemites who publish massively on the incident. But incident has 92 Google Scholar hits versus attack's 30 (the latter including conspiracy theorists and cranks at blogs, Counterpunch, Tehran Times, Ray McGovern, etc). Brittanica goes with incident. The US government's official publications go with incident. If you look at books, incident gives us serious books while attack gives us various sensationalist and conspiracist self-published books. In short, incident is the COMMONNAME used by serious sources. BobFromBrockley (talk) 16:28, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

While "USS Liberty attack" only gives 30 hits on Google Scholar, "Attack on the USS Liberty" gives 344 hits. It is also not the case that the US Government only uses incident and not attack, see eg [2] and [3]. If there is a COMMONNAME, it is most definitely "Attack on the USS Liberty" and not "USS Liberty incident". EvansHallBear (talk) 17:28, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

Interestingly, when I do that search the first hit is entitled “A Critical Examination of the USS Liberty Incident Through Documentary Film and Literature” and the seventh “The USS Liberty Affair”. Again a lot of hits here that use “attack” in the title are cranky or fringe sources such as Counterpunch or Aegean Park Press. On the second page, there’s a cluster of articles with “incident” and it’s striking that these ones are actually published in serious journals. Nobody here is disputing that it was an attack, so it’s not surprising reliable articles include the long term “attack on….” in their bodies. But what we should be looking at is the name given to it in reliable sources, and here incident has an obvious edge. BobFromBrockley (talk) 06:50, 9 December 2025 (UTC)

• Weak Option A - Echoing some of BobFromBrockley's thoughts; Option A is right for two reasons; 1) the most important naming policy is WP:COMMONNAME and a quick search engine test makes it looks like "USS Liberty Incident" is moderately more common than "USS Liberty Attack", and 2) an WP:OTHERCONTENT argument; if you look at articles about similar friendly fire/mistaken identity stuff, the word used almost always seems to be "Incident" (e.g. Dogger Bank incident, Laconia incident, Niš incident). NickCT (talk) 16:15, 3 December 2025 (UTC)

  After reading some of the arguments above; "Attack on the USS Liberty" does seem to possibly be more common, but it's obviously less WP:CONCISE. NickCT (talk) 16:34, 3 December 2025 (UTC)

  Which is why, in the clear absence of a common name, "USS Liberty attack" is the best title as it meets both precision and concision WP: CRITERIA. EvansHallBear (talk) 17:10, 3 December 2025 (UTC)

  Hmmmmmm.... I mean "USS Liberty Incident" seems like it's clearly the most common concise title. Plus, I think those arguing for "Attack" really need to explain why, in essentially every other similar article, the word is "Incident". NickCT (talk) 17:16, 3 December 2025 (UTC)

  I agree that "Incident" is often used for similar articles. However, there are several counterexamples to that pattern, e.g. United States bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, Kunduz hospital airstrike, Tudun Biri drone strike, 1994 Iranian Air Force C-130 shootdown. EvansHallBear (talk) 18:01, 3 December 2025 (UTC)

  United States bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade! Talk about concision. Well..... I guess counter points do exist, but it seems like the number of "Incident" articles we have here is a little overwhelming. I'll change from A to Weak A given that I guess there is a precision argument, but A still strikes me as the right answer. NickCT (talk) 18:22, 3 December 2025 (UTC)

• Weak Option A - Both are correct, both are used in academic works. Option A because incident is still used in official and diplomatic language.Michael Boutboul (talk) 21:42, 3 December 2025 (UTC)
• Option B - It's an attack regardless of whether it was a mistake or not. The intention was to down the ship 𐩣𐩫𐩧𐩨 Abo Yemen (𓃵) 05:56, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

  An attack can also be an incident and an incident can also be an attack. We're not arguing over whether it was an attack or not, or a mistake or not; we're arguing over how it is most commonly and concisely described. BobFromBrockley (talk) 16:14, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

• Weak B/bad RFC it is both an attack and an incident. The RFC needs to make explicit that this is a question about the article title, which I am inferring from the edit request above. Going by COMMONNAME, the highest quality sources cited seem to lean toward "attack", although both are used. —Rutebega (talk) 22:01, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

Thank you for noting this! I had assumed this was a naming discussion but that's not specifically stated. Certainly I would (and I'm sure many others would also) oppose find-replacing a bunch of words throughout the article based on this RfC! VQuakr (talk) 07:23, 15 December 2025 (UTC)

• Option A It's an Incident. We know from the way it was documented it was an accidental attack-making it a mistake. There needs to be documented intent behind an attack, and in the case of the USS Liberty the documented evidence available is that it was an unfortunate mistake--making it an "incident." Agnieszka653 (talk) 03:35, 8 December 2025 (UTC)
• Option B. It was an attack regardless of motivation. "Incident" is an unjustifiable euphemism. Zero^talk 08:39, 8 December 2025 (UTC)
• Option BTemplate:TQ per EvansHallBear. The 'it was a mistake therefore not an attack' argument has no basis in any WP policy I know of and no credibility in any real world scenarios. The fact there was extended diplomatic "fallout" from the attack is incidental, that is often the case with such events, but isn't the primary focus of this article. Pincrete (talk) 07:24, 9 December 2025 (UTC)
• Option B per the others. Stating there were events unrelated to the attack is not relevant; you can have an article have a main focus while including background details. Wikieditor662 (talk) 18:02, 12 December 2025 (UTC)

Discussion started in violation of the Arab-Israeli conflict's extended confirmed restriction. 45dogs (they/them) (talk page) (contributions) 09:11, 13 December 2025 (UTC) The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

• Option A If the US mistakenly attacks a Columbian ship in the current 2025 military engagement in Venezuela and then apologizes as it becomes a major political issue I would expect all of us good little supposed NPOVs to call it an incident and not an attack because a handful of people that I call conspiracy theorists might otherwise point out that Wikipedia calling it an attack is support for conspiracy theories. It's the only correct way to describe such an event. ~2025-40148-72 (talk) 22:04, 12 December 2025 (UTC)

  You said "If the US mistakenly attacks a Columbian ship", even in your own definition you used the word attack. Not to do a "gotcha", but goes to show the word doesn't imply any "conspiracy theories". Wikieditor662 (talk) 23:31, 12 December 2025 (UTC)

• Option B When considering ngrams as a quantifiable approach, "USS Liberty incident" is clearly favored over "USS Liberty attack" in this ngram (although that seems to be waning). However, as @EvansHallBear pointed out, when "Attack on the USS Liberty" is considered, that is by far the most common. So COMMONNAME would favor "attack on the USS Liberty", and the WP:CONCISE version of that is "USS Liberty attack". ButlerBlog (talk) 11:57, 15 December 2025 (UTC)

  Ngram results are not a reliable way to apply WP:COMMONNAME, because they only reflect Google Books (not RS in general) and are very sensitive to phrasing variants. More importantly, all sources use “USS Liberty incident” as the label while also describing it as an “attack on the USS Liberty” in the text. So the presence of both terms in books does not by itself show which is the common name. Michael Boutboul (talk) 15:41, 3 January 2026 (UTC)

• Option A For starters, both parties agreed it wasnt a deliberate attack, but a case of mistaken identity. A similar example is actually the Laconia incident. Google Scholar says 93-30 for "uss liberty incident", however without quotes is the opposite, but that is a bit more muddled in what might be used (some might use both). See also Gulf of Tonkin incident. Attack also seems to be a subset of the incident. ← Metallurgist (talk) 22:42, 15 December 2025 (UTC)
• Option A - The fact that this event is construed as an accident due to misidentification justifies it to be classified as an "incident". "Attack" is a loaded term that does not convey the lack of intent and suggests that this event has diabolical roots/ connotations of malice. Besides, as an editor noted, this article covers the broader incident rather than framing it as some malevolent attack. _signed, Kvinnen (talk) 09:23, 30 December 2025 (UTC)
• Option B per ButlerBlog. - Amigao (talk) 12:16, 30 December 2025 (UTC)
• Option A - Describing the USS Liberty incident as an “attack” is imprecise, as the term implies deliberate intent. Official U.S. and Israeli government inquiries concluded that the incident resulted from mistaken identity rather than a planned or intentional action, and it occurred within the context of ongoing U.S.–Israel cooperation during the Six-Day War. The lead is also wrong BTW, since it's not an "attack" but rather an incident. ScottyNolan (talk) 13:26, 30 December 2025 (UTC)

  Official U.S. and Israeli government inquiries are primary sources. Secondary sources, which is what we rely on, call it an "attack" by far ButlerBlog (talk) 14:54, 30 December 2025 (UTC)

  I believe this link shows a rise in usage of “USS Liberty incident” beginning in the 2000s peaks around 2010–2015. Remains fairly stable after. _signed, Kvinnen (talk) 13:03, 3 January 2026 (UTC)

  The claim "secondary sources call it an 'attack' by far" does not automatically settle WP:COMMONNAME, because many secondary/tertiary sources use "USS Liberty incident" as the established label while describing it as an attack in the definition. For example, Encyclopaedia Britannica’s headword is "USS Liberty incident" and it glosses it as an "attack on the USS Liberty."

  On the Google Books Ngram link: it is books-only, and it has well-documented corpus limitations, so it is a weak proxy for COMMONNAME. Also, your Ngram mainly shows the longer phrase "attack on the USS Liberty" (a descriptive construction), which does not justify the shortened title "USS Liberty attack". Michael Boutboul (talk) 15:59, 3 January 2026 (UTC)

• Option B the ship was strafed, torpedoed, and deliberately fired upon by armed forces who believed they were engaging a hostile target. That series of actions plainly meets the sourced, plain-language definition of an attack, regardless of later conclusions about intent. "Incident" is vague and euphemistic. Paprikaiser (talk) 00:09, 31 December 2025 (UTC)
• Option A: Incident This article dates its creation to 1 month and 1 day after the attacks of September 11, 2001. That was an attack, no one disputes that. This was an "incident", any claim otherwise is in fact disputed. Curious history related to that timing of this article's creation I might add. Iljhgtn (they/them · talk) 02:57, 1 January 2026 (UTC)

  "Incident" is also both the more WP:COMMONNAME as well as the stable article title with a deeply established conventional title. Iljhgtn (they/them · talk) 02:59, 1 January 2026 (UTC)

• Option B: Attack: WP:COMMONNAME leans towards 'Attack'. The article itself mentions 'attack' 165 times, and 'incident' 65 times. Google Ngram data also shows 'Attack' to be the more common usage. Dualpendel (talk) 11:49, 1 January 2026 (UTC)
• Option A: Incident: WP:COMMONNAME. Ngrams consistently shows "USS Liberty incident" over "USS Liberty attack". The word "attack" appears inside of the articles on the incident because the word "attack" is a verb. You can't say the ship was "incidented" by a plane. But you can say the ship was "accidentally attacked" by a plane. Guz13 (talk) 02:28, 3 January 2026 (UTC)

Discussion (USS Liberty incident)

• The first "incident" that occurred to me for comparison was Gulf of Tonkin incident, which is also titled "incident". Other articles with "incident" in the title here Placeholderer (talk) 18:03, 2 December 2025 (UTC)
• Google NGram suggests that "Attack on the USS Liberty" would be the most common use and "USS Liberty incident" has seen steadily reduced use since 2014.

The "Gulf of Tonkin incident" is called that way because it's not clear whether or not ships were actually attacked on the other hand it's quite clear that the USS Liberty was attacked. Just whether it was done accidently or on purpose is a question where different sources disagree. ChristianKl ❪✉❫ 18:16, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

• "Incident" here appears to be in the sense of "international incident", i.e. a dispute between states. And from a non-exaustive comparison of articles with "incident" in the title to articles with "attack" in the title, similar articles tend to use "incident" when it took place between states or was precipitated by a state actor, and "attack" when it was by a non-state actor. That convention is not uniform, but would be in line with the meaning of an "international incident". Carleas (talk) 18:29, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

  Template:TQ Errr would that be like the Pearl Harbor incident? Numerous other articles use the "Attack on … " format for events during wars. Pincrete (talk) 08:18, 9 December 2025 (UTC)

  Numerous other articles use the "Attack on … " format for events during wars - and this ngram confirms "Attack on the USS Liberty" as far more common than the other possibilities. ButlerBlog (talk) 12:46, 16 December 2025 (UTC)

• Israeli Navy#USS Liberty incident says The USS Liberty incident was an attack.... Shrug. ☆ Bri (talk) 18:34, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

  @NotJamestack why did you start this RFC if you agree with the existing title? ← Metallurgist (talk) 22:43, 15 December 2025 (UTC)

  I already knew that the title could be controversial, and although I agree with it, not everyone has the same opinion. Because of this, I decided to open up this RfC. NotJamestack (✉️|📝) 23:34, 15 December 2025 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 22 February 2026

Template:Edit extended-protected "Though Egyptian warships were known to disguise their identities with Western markings, they usually displayed Arabic letters and numbers only."

The claim that Egyptian warships were known to disguise identity with western markings has no source. That's a claim that I would believe a source should be required ~2026-11873-94 (talk) 22:25, 22 February 2026 (UTC)

 Done I've added a citation needed tag for now, without prejudice to the statement being removed entirely. The source for this claim seems to be Michael Oren's article cited in reference 70, but this isn't a reliable source (see WP:RSPJVL) and its use in this article is an issue right now. Day Creature (talk) 22:42, 22 February 2026 (UTC)

Merge consensus for Ward Boston to this article

There was a weak consensus in 2021/2022 to merge the article Ward Boston to this page - see the conversations here: Talk:USS Liberty incident/Archive 8#Proposed merge of Ward Boston into USS Liberty incident and here: Talk:USS Liberty incident/Archive 8#Proposed merge of Ward Boston into USS Liberty incident 2. Given how long its been I thought it would be better to reestablish consensus for the potential merge. I think there might be enough at the source article for a standalone article if its shortened a little, but also recognize the arguments made in the previous discussions. I'm neutral either way, but trying to clear out the merge backlog.

Template:Cp ScrubbedFalcon (talk) 12:35, 25 February 2026 (UTC)

Wow, it's been a hot sec. Back when I expressed my support for a merge, the article looked like this. It has since expanded significantly, so opening a new discussion was a good idea. It does however look like all the sources on this person are still about the USS Liberty incident, so I still support a merge. Toadspike [Talk] 12:46, 25 February 2026 (UTC)

The current article isn't really any different than when you expressed support to merge, @Toadspike. It appears to be essentially the same article with the addition of a single extended long quote, which should have been only briefly summarized, if not blockquoted, and it doubles the size of the article. ButlerBlog (talk) 13:38, 25 February 2026 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 16 March 2026

Template:Edit extended-protected "Though Egyptian warships were known to disguise their identities with Western markings, they usually displayed Arabic letters and numbers only.[citation needed]" This was a cute way to get around admitting there is no source for Egyptian ships disguising themselves with western markings. The whole clause "they usually displayed Arabic only" is totally unnecessary.

If you insist on keeping the statement it should simply read "Egyptian warships were sometimes known [by who?] to disguise their identities with Western markings [citation needed]." The qualifying statement "but USUALLY it was Arabic" is a cop out. Find a source or mark it as without one.

Sorry if I'm coming off pedantic but the twisting of words to try and keep the point looks petty. Let's keep things accurate with as little bias as possible for either side in the incident.

Thank you for your consideration ~2026-11873-94 (talk) 03:31, 16 March 2026 (UTC)

 Done SnowyRiver28 (talk) 04:59, 16 March 2026 (UTC)