Reanalysing Claims That Israel Had Prior-Knowledge of the 9/11 Terrorist Attacks
By: Michael East
Tags: September 11, Palestine, Espionage, Mossad, Middle East Politics

Now, the very concept that Mossad operatives would be broadcasting to the entire world that they knew what was about to transpire is obviously absurd and should immediately cast this claim into the dust. If common sense wasn’t enough, the above images originate at this blog and are clearly stated as being photoshopped and an artistic interpretation.

Given the panic created by the nature of the attacks, New Yorkers were understandably jumpy and the “mural van” is more likely to have depicted something else entirely. One witness states it was a patriotic painting of a jet-fighter sweeping up with the twin towers in the background. While the van was indeed reported to the police and was reported to contain two middle eastern men, there is no evidence to link it to the dancing Israelis beyond the fact it was also a van with alleged occupants from the Middle East.

The New York Times reported on September 16 that the van was abandoned, highlighting the panic that had enveloped the city by pointing out that “in first the hours and then the days ahead, every parked, abandoned truck loomed as a potential bomb.”

“One hour after the second tower tumbled, unnerved passers-by just south of Houston Street scattered as a police bomb squad towed away a large panel truck that had been abandoned on King Street, a street of row houses on the edge of Soho.” New York Times

The Jewish Weekly Forward later reported that the FBI had later ascertained that at least two of those detained were agents of Mossad and the group “were conducting a Mossad surveillance mission and that their employer, Urban Moving Systems of Weehawken, NJ, served as a front.” The suspects were charged with illegally residing in the United States and working without permits, they were deported in November. Reports say that some kind of deal was arranged between the US and Israeli governments, something that certainly doesn’t suggest a simple deportation matter.

“Israeli and US government officials worked out a deal — and after 71 days, the five Israelis were taken out of jail, put on a plane, and deported back home. ABC News, June 21, 2002

One of the men, as quoted in a variety of mainstream media outlets, would later make a startling admission as to why he’d been in the United States. There seems to be little room for misinterpretation.

“The fact of the matter is we are coming from a country that experiences terror daily. Our purpose was to document the event.” One of the dancing Israelis, as quoted by ABC News.

Quoted on 9/11 itself, current Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu felt the attacks were a “good” thing.

“It’s very good… Well, not very good, but it will generate immediate sympathy… [They will] strengthen the bond between our two peoples because we’ve experienced terror over so many decades, but the United States has now experienced a massive haemorrhaging of terror.” Benjamin Netanyahu, New York Times

What’s interesting about the quote from Netanyahu is not the hawkish and realist insensitivity, but rather it was almost the exact same line that one of the five dancing Israelis gave to the police.

“Israel now has hope that the world will now understand us. Americans are naive, and America is easy to get inside. There are not a lot of checks in America. And now America will be tougher about who gets into their country.” “Dancing Israeli” Omer Marmari to police.

Events Following 9/11

The Investigation into the arrested Israelis led the FBI to a company by the name of Urban Moving Systems owned by Dominik Suter, the owner of the vans driven by the suspects.

“The FBI searched Urban Moving’s offices for several hours, removing boxes of documents and a dozen computer hard drives. The FBI also questioned Urban Moving’s owner. His attorney insists that his client answered all of the FBI’s questions. But when FBI agents tried to interview him again a few days later, he was gone.” ABC News

Suter immediately fled to Israel and CIA chief of operations for counterterrorism Vince Cannistraro believed that the company had been a front for Mossad.

“According to Cannistraro, many people in the US intelligence community believed that some of the men arrested were working for Israeli intelligence. Cannistraro said there was speculation as to whether Urban Moving had been “set up or exploited for the purpose of launching an intelligence operation against radical Islamists in the area, particularly in the New Jersey-New York area.” ABC News, June 21, 2002

As early as September 12, the 9/11 attacks were being used by hawks to push their own agenda, one formulated by the Project for the New American Century think tank. It was on the 12th that Donald Rumsfeld, still without any evidence of who the hijackers were, demanded that America attack Iraq.

“Condoleezza Rice told [investigative reporter Nicholas Lemann] she had called together senior members of the National Security Council and asked them “to think about ‘how do you capitalize on these opportunities’”, which she compared with those of “1945 to 1947″: the start of the cold war.” John Pilger, New Statesman

Immediate moves to expand the coming war away from merely Osama Bin Laden and al-Qaeda were underway, with the conflict becoming a “war on terror” very quickly. By coincidence, it happened to centre in the Middle East. Nobody had any interest in declaring war on Northern Irish, Catalonian or South American terror groups, of course.

On September 20, PNAC wrote to President Bush calling for action against Iraq, Hamas and Hezbollah. They stated that “US policy must aim not only at finding the people responsible for this incident but must also target those ‘other groups out there that mean us no good’ and ‘that have conducted attacks previously against US personnel, US interests and our allies.’”

Indeed, PNAC seemed to be seeking to lessen the importance of Osama Bin Laden while trumpeting the need for action against Iraq and Israeli’s other enemies, saying that Bin Laden was “by no means the only goal” of the war on terror.

“Iraq: We agree with Secretary of State Powell’s recent statement that Saddam Hussein “is one of the leading terrorists on the face of the Earth….” It may be that the Iraqi government provided assistance in some form to the recent attack on the United States. But even if evidence does not link Iraq directly to the attack, any strategy aiming at the eradication of terrorism and its sponsors must include a determined effort to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq. Failure to undertake such an effort will constitute an early and perhaps decisive surrender in the war on international terrorism. The United States must therefore provide full military and financial support to the Iraqi opposition. American military force should be used to provide a “safe zone” in Iraq from which the opposition can operate. And American forces must be prepared to back up our commitment to the Iraqi opposition by all necessary means.” Hezbollah: Hezbollah is one of the leading terrorist organizations in the world. It is suspected of having been involved in the 1998 bombings of the American embassies in Africa, and implicated in the bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983. Hezbollah clearly falls in the category cited by Secretary Powell of groups “that mean us no good” and “that have conducted attacks previously against US personnel, US interests and our allies.” Therefore, any war against terrorism must target Hezbollah. We believe the administration should demand that Iran and Syria immediately cease all military, financial, and political support for Hezbollah and its operations. Should Iran and Syria refuse to comply, the administration should consider appropriate measures of retaliation against these known state sponsors of terrorism. Israel and the Palestinian Authority: Israel has been and remains America’s staunchest ally against international terrorism, especially in the Middle East. The United States should fully support our fellow democracy in its fight against terrorism. We should insist that the Palestinian Authority put a stop to terrorism emanating from territories under its control and imprison those planning terrorist attacks against Israel. Until the Palestinian Authority moves against terror, the United States should provide it no further assistance. Project for the New American Century, September 20, 2001

In early October, George Bush publicly backed an independent Palestinian state in what would go on to be the Road Map For Peace, stating that “the idea of a Palestinian state has always been part of a vision, so long as the right of Israel to exist is respected.” Despite being a life-long opponent of a Palestinian state, Ariel Sharon curiously backed the suggestion and the moves eventually led to the failed Road Map to Peace.

Just days later, with the world still standing in solidarity with the United States and President Bush receiving record highs in terms of popularity, Israel chose a very curious moment to unleash an unprecedented attack on Bush and United States foreign policy. The attack came as Bush attempted to build an Arab coalition.

“Don’t repeat the terrible mistake of 1938 when the enlightened democracies of Europe decided to sacrifice Czechoslovakia for a temporary solution. Do not try to placate the Arabs at our expense… Israel will not be Czechoslovakia.” Ariel Sharon, October 5, 2001, quoted in The Guardian

Sharon’s comments sent US and Israeli relations plunging “to their lowest point in a decade” and left Bush and the Americans furious. Sharon coupled his “contempt” for US foreign policy by launching a murderous attack on Gaza, killing five Palestinians in the process.

“Ariel Sharon further signalled his contempt yesterday for the US diplomatic strategy of mending fences with the Arab world, by launching the heaviest Israeli military offensive since the start of the Palestinian uprising last year. In a pre-dawn assault, Israeli tanks and armoured bulldozers, helicopters, paratroopers, and ground forces seized the strategic rise of Abu Sneineh in Hebron, West Bank. The city was awarded to Palestinian control under US-sponsored peace accords in 1997.” The Guardian, October 5, 2001

In December of 2001, two months after the 9/11 attacks, Fox News aired a four-part exposure of the Israeli spying network in the United States, claiming that Israel operators “may have known things they didn’t tell us before September 11”.

The broadcast revealed that 60 Israelis had been detained since 9/11, either under the Patriot Act anti-terrorism law or for immigration offences. A number of those arrested were serving with the Israeli military and failed polygraph tests when asked whether they were involved in surveillance operations against the US. While investigators didn’t believe there was involvement in the attacks themselves, they did believe that Israel had “gathered intelligence about the attacks in advance, and not shared it.”

“Evidence linking these Israelis to 9–11 is classified. I cannot tell you about evidence that has been gathered. It’s classified information.” A highly placed investigator speaking with Fox News in 2001

Israel condemned the Fox News broadcast, denying all the allegations made during the four-part report.

“The report on Fox News contains no quoted source, it has in no way demonstrated anything more than anonymous innuendo and should be regarded accordingly. Israel does not spy on the United States of America.” Mark Regev, then American Embassy spokesman, December 2001

All four videos were subsequently removed from the Fox News website and were never broadcast again.

The Facts

1: Israel had an extensive and known spying network in the United States. [Washington Report]

2: Israel warned the US of an impending attack, yet investigators believed they’d been deliberately vague and had “gathered intelligence about the attacks in advance, and not shared it.” [Fox News]

3: The Bush administration was about to unveil a new Middle East peace plan featuring an independent Palestinian state. [LA Times]

4: The Project for the New American Century had openly stated that a Pearl Harbour style event could be manipulated to ensure American hegemony. [New Statesman]

5: On September 11, 2001, five Israeli citizens were arrested by the NYPD/FBI after being seen “celebrating” the attacks. [ABC News]

6: At least two of those citizens were identified as being members of Mossad. [Jewish Weekly Forward]

7: Reports indicate that these Israelis were travelling in a van that sniffer dogs indicated had contained explosives. [Jerseluem Post]

8: Further reports suggest that there was more than one van. [CNN]

9: 60 Israelis were arrested under anti-terrorist or immigration laws after 9/11. [Fox News]

10: 9/11 investigators in the immediate aftermath of the atrocity believed Israel had prior knowledge of the attacks. [Fox News]

11: A mere three weeks after the attacks, with world sympathy still hugely behind the US, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon launches a shocking attack on President Bush, lowering American-Israeli relations to their lowest point in ten years. [The Guardian]

Hypothesis

Could it be that on September 11, 2001, American law enforcement successfully stopped a terrorist attack on their soil? An action for which nobody will ever be commended and nobody will ever receive thanks?

While many, particularly those who defend the state of Israel, dismiss allegations of Israel having prior-knowledge of 9/11 as a “conspiracy theory”, the fact is that this was the clear working hypothesis of investigators in the immediate aftermath of the atrocity. The dancing Israelis story was given a reasonable amount of coverage in the mainstream media. Such was the confidence of the allegation that staunchly conservative and pro-Israel Fox News broadcast such allegations over the now expunged four-part series.

While events seem to be naturally confused, one explanation of events would seem to fit with the established facts. This is, of course, mere speculation based on the facts already outlined, it seeks not to offer a truth nor deny the many other theories regarding the real facts of 9/11. Readers are invited to make their own judgments and read other theories and speculation before coming to their own conclusions.

Ariel Sharon and other hawks in the Israeli Likud Party and military have always been opposed to an independent Palestinian state, with some of the furthermost right-wing elements wanting nothing less than genocide for the Palestinian people. Likud had fully expected the Bush administration to support them on Palestine. Indeed, it was a shock when, in fact, it was revealed that Bush was moving toward publicly announcing plans for a Middle East peace endeavour. The project would have given US backing for an independent Palestinian state with Bush planning on meeting with Yasser Arafat at either the White House or Camp David. Although this plan would still come to fruition in the aftermath of 9/11, public opinion and political discourse had been shifted strongly to the right after the attacks.

Donald H. Rumsfeld and Ariel Sharon | Department of Defense

Knowing that a significant terrorist attack was being carried out that morning in New York and, given that nobody believed the Twin Towers would collapse, not quite comprehending the scale of what was about to transpire, a Mossad cell was ready to carry out a terrorist attack of its own in New York that same morning.

Using the al-Qaeda attack as a smokescreen, the Mossad cell would bomb either the George Washington Bridge or Lincoln Tunnel, perhaps even the World Trade Center itself. They would leave behind significant “evidence” that the attack had been carried out by Palestinians, potentially linked to fundraisers out of New Jersey. One of these vans, containing two men, was carrying the bomb and had been transferred from the other van where sniffer dogs later picked up the scent of explosives. The possibility also exists that the entire plan may have been abandoned when the full scale of the atrocities became evident upon the collapse of the World Trade Center.

Ground Zero, New York City, N.Y. (Sept. 17, 2001) | U.S. Navy Photo

Ask the question, as highly trained Mossad operatives, just how likely would it be that they would sit filming the 9/11 attack in full view of the public, jumping for joy repeatedly and drawing explicit attention to themselves. These are hardly the actions of Mossad agents. The fact they were seen in several locations indicates, again, that there more than three men involved and that it was not a genuine show of joy. Instead, it was a deliberate attempt to draw attention to themselves.

Ensuring that reports of Palestinians celebrating the attacks are spread, anonymously tipping off the police and directing them toward the Holland Tunnel, well away from both the George Washington Bridge and Lincoln Tunnel, the Mossad cell would have detonated their device and swiftly made off. Even today urban-legends of “Muslims celebrating 9/11” regularly appear online in far-right circles.

Investigators believed that the Urban Moving Systems Mossad cell had been involved in operations against those linked to Hamas and Islamic Jihad funding in the NY-NJ area. Even when the CIA and other intelligence services successfully linked the primary attacks to al-Qaeda, it would be almost impossible for Palestine to deny that they had been involved in the overall day of infamy.

Fallguy? Yasser Arafat | Hans Jørn Storgaard Andersen

The effect that Palestine being linked to 9/11 would have had on political and social attitudes to the Palestinian struggle is evident. A successful operation would have forever linked Palestine with al-Qaeda and the 9/11 atrocity, creating a bond of solidarity between the US and Israel, both nation’s being victims of Palestinian “terror”. Any possibility of a Palestinian state would have been forever off the agenda, and few would have objected to Israel taking punitive measures against those implicated in the 9/11 attacks nor America clamping down on funding for the likes of Hamas and Hezbollah within its borders.

It is interesting to note that in 1993 following the bombing of the World Trade Center, radical preacher Omar Abdel-Rahman conceived of a follow-up plot to bomb the UN headquarters, the Lincoln Tunnel, the Holland Tunnel, the George Washington Bridge, the St. Regis, the UN Plaza Hotels, and the FBI’s main New York office. The plotters intended to drive bomb-laden vehicles into the middle of the tunnels and detonate them three minutes after making their escape. With knowledge of this plot widely known, an attack on the Lincoln Tunnel or the George Washington Bridge alongside a simultaneous bombing campaign by militants was highly feared by law enforcement long before 9/11. There would be little reason to suspect that another attack on 9/11, despite the different methodology, was not linked to the main series of attacks.

Exposing the cell and making a public spectacle of Mossad’s actions would have severed relations between the United States and Israel for a generation. As pro-Zionists, warhawks and evangelicals began to dominate the Republican Party under George W. Bush, that was never going to be an option. As Fox News stated in December of 2001, a number of the 60 Israelis arrested and deported after 9/11 were done so under the Patriot Act anti-terrorism law, the US quietly cleaning up.

The infamous Israeli attack on the USS Liberty shows that the US is unwilling to sanction Israel even for the murder of 34 of its servicemen, let alone for a failed plot that got lost amidst the jingoistic clamour for war against Afghanistan. Both Israel and the US found that the attack had been a “mistake” despite surviving crew members of the Liberty attack rejecting the conclusion and maintaining that the attack was deliberate.

Perhaps it is a case that the great truth of 9/11 is not there were missile strikes, holographic planes or miniature nuclear weapons being utilized. It is not that some other nation carried out the attacks or it formed part of a conspiracy to take over the world with reptiles, the truth is far more Prozac and a fact that has been successfully silenced through a twenty-year campaign of disinformation. Through the release of ever-increasingly unlikely claims such as those above, those with interest in hiding the truth have successfully portrayed doubters of the official narrative as fringe conspiracy theorists taken to wild theories and speculation.

Ask, what is more likely — that thousands of people across several international states were involved in the greatest conspiracy of all time, or that five individuals were planning an insidious attempt to implicate their enemies in the atrocity. An atrocity that the United States and Israeli hawks took full advantage of after it happened. Given the long track record of Mossad in engaging in black-ops, false flags and out and out terror attacks, there is little question that they would willingly engage in such an operation.