TLDR: Israel deliberately attacked the USS Liberty spy ship in 1967 during the Six-Day War, with the intention of sinking it, for 3 reasons:
- To stop the ship's crew from informing the USA that Israel had started the Six-Day War via their surprise attack on Egypt
- To stop the ship from overhearing their plans to invade the Golan Heights, which might prompt the USA to stop them and slow their acquisition of more Lebensraum
- As a Gulf of Tonkin style false-flag operation, with the goal of pinning blame on the Egyptians for sinking the ship in order to get the US to help them invade Egypt for even more Lebensraum.
After failing to sink the ship, which would have killed all crew and witnesses, Israel used AIPAC and associated organizations to lobby for the view of the attack as an "Israeli mistake".
The Israel-USA relationship seems mutually parasitic. The USA uses Israel as a military base, but gets to use Israeli settlers surrounding it as human shields. In return, Israel can kill Americans for their own goals.