Editor's Note: The following Timeline is fully documented. There is no ranting here. The empiricism of it is impeccable.
1987: Hamas Forms with the Support of Israeli Intelligence
Sheikh Ahmed Yassin forms Hamas as the military arm of his Islamic Association, which had been licensed by Israel ten years earlier (see 1973-1978). According to Charles Freeman, a former US ambassador to Saudi Arabia, “Israel started Hamas. It was a project of Shin Bet, which had a feeling that they could use it to hem in the PLO.” [CounterPunch, 1/18/2003; Dreyfuss, 2005, pp. 191, 208] Anthony Cordesman, a Middle East analyst for the Center for Strategic Studies, states that Israel “aided Hamas directly—the Israelis wanted to use it as a counterbalance to the PLO.” A former senior CIA official speaking to UPI describes Israel’s support for Hamas as “a direct attempt to divide and dilute support for a strong, secular PLO by using a competing religious alternative.” Further, according to an unnamed US government official, “the thinking on the part of some of the right-wing Israeli establishment was that Hamas and the other groups, if they gained control, would refuse to have anything to do with the peace process and would torpedo any agreements put in place.” Larry Johnson, a counterterrorism official at the State Department, states: “The Israelis are their own worst enemies when it comes to fighting terrorism. They are like a guy who sets fire to his hair and then tries to put it out by hitting it with a hammer. They do more to incite and sustain terrorism than curb it.” [United Press International, 2/24/2001 Sources: Larry C. Johnson, Unnamed former CIA official]
Entity Tags: Israel, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, Bin Laden Family
Timeline Tags: Alleged Use of False Flag Attacks
Category Tags: Terrorism Financing, Israel
Autumn 1992: Influential Neoconservative Academic Advocates Breaking Up Middle Eastern Countries, Including Iraq
Bernard Lewis. [Source: Princeton University]
Princeton University professor Bernard Lewis publishes an article in the influential journal Foreign Affairs called “Rethinking the Middle East.” In it, he advocates a policy he calls “Lebanonization.” He says, “[A] possibility, which could even be precipitated by [Islamic] fundamentalism, is what has late been fashionable to call ‘Lebanonization.’ Most of the states of the Middle East—Egypt is an obvious exception—are of recent and artificial construction and are vulnerable to such a process. If the central power is sufficiently weakened, there is no real civil society to hold the polity together, no real sense of common identity.… Then state then disintegrates—as happened in Lebanon—into a chaos of squabbling, feuding, fighting sects, tribes, regions, and parties.” Lewis, a British Jew, is well known as a longtime supporter of the Israeli right wing. Since the 1950s, he has argued that the West and Islam have been engaged in a titanic “clash of civilizations” and that the US should take a hard line against all Arab countries. Lewis is considered a highly influential figure to the neoconservative movement, and some neoconservatives such as Richard Perle and Harold Rhode consider him a mentor. In 1996, Perle and others influenced by Lewis will write a paper for right wing Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu entitled “A Clean Break” that advocates the “Lebanonization” of countries like Iraq and Syria (see July 8, 1996). Lewis will remain influential after 9/11. For instance, he will have dinner with Vice President Cheney shortly before the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. Some will later suspect that Cheney and others were actually implementing Lewis’s idea by invading Iraq. Chas Freeman, former US ambassador to Saudi Arabia, will say in May 2003, just after the invasion, “The neoconservatives’ intention in Iraq was never to truly build democracy there. Their intention was to flatten it, to remove Iraq as a regional threat to Israel.” [Dreyfuss, 2005, pp. 330-337]
Entity Tags: Chas Freeman, Bernard Lewis, Richard Perle, Harold Rhode, Richard (“Dick”) Cheney
Timeline Tags: Events Leading to Iraq Invasion, Neoconservative Influence
Category Tags: Counterterrorism Policy/Politics, US Dominance, Israel
September 1, 1992: US Misses Opportunity to Stop First WTC Bombing and Discover Al-Qaeda
Ahmed Ajaj. [Source: FBI]
Al-Qaeda Operatives Ahmad Ajaj and Ramzi Yousef enter the US together. Ajaj is arrested at Kennedy Airport in New York City. Yousef is not arrested, and later, he masterminds the 1993 bombing of the WTC. “The US government was pretty sure Ajaj was a terrorist from the moment he stepped foot on US soil,” because his “suitcases were stuffed with fake passports, fake IDs and a cheat sheet on how to lie to US immigration inspectors,” plus “two handwritten notebooks filled with bomb recipes, six bomb-making manuals, four how-to videotapes concerning weaponry, and an advanced guide to surveillance training.” However, Ajaj is charged only with passport fraud, and serves a six-month sentence. From prison, Ajaj frequently calls Yousef and others in the 1993 WTC bombing plot, but no one translates the calls until long after the bombing. [Los Angeles Times, 10/14/2001] Ajaj is released from prison three days after the WTC bombing, but is later rearrested and sentenced to more than 100 years in prison. [Los Angeles Times, 10/14/2001] One of the manuals seized from Ajaj is horribly mistranslated for the trial. For instance, the title page is said to say “The Basic Rule,” published in Jordan in 1982, when in fact the title says “al-Qaeda” (which means “the base” in English), published in Afghanistan in 1989. Investigators later complain that a proper translation could have shown an early connection between al-Qaeda and the WTC bombing. [New York Times, 1/14/2001] An Israeli Newsweekly later reports that the Palestinian Ajaj may have been a mole for the Israeli Mossad. The Village Voice has suggested that Ajaj may have had “advance knowledge of the World Trade Center bombing, which he shared with Mossad, and that Mossad, for whatever reason, kept the secret to itself.” Ajaj was not just knowledgeable, but was involved in the planning of the bombing from his prison cell. [Village Voice, 8/3/1993]
Entity Tags: Ramzi Yousef, Ahmad Ajaj, World Trade Center, Al-Qaeda
Category Tags: Warning Signs, 1993 WTC Bombing, Ramzi Yousef, Israel, Other Possible Moles or Informants
1996: Mossad Supposedly Plans to Kill Bin Laden
Israeli spy agency Mossad supposedly plots to kill Osama bin Laden. According to the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Aharonoth, it recruits a female confidante of his and assigns her the mission of killing him. Mossad has been trailing bin Laden while assisting the US and Egypt in investigating a failed assassination attempt on Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak (see Shortly After June 26, 1995). But the plan is aborted due to tensions between Israel and the woman’s country. [Associated Press, 1/27/2006]
Entity Tags: Osama bin Laden, Israel Institute for Intelligence and Special Tasks (Mossad)
Category Tags: Hunt for Bin Laden, Israel
July 8, 1996: Neoconservative Think Tank Advocates Aggressive Israeli Foreign Policy
Richard Perle. [Source: Public domain]
The Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies, an Israeli think tank, publishes a paper titled “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm.” [Washington Times, 10/7/2002; Chicago Sun-Times, 3/6/2003] The paper, whose lead author is neoconservative Richard Perle, is meant to advise the new, right-wing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Other authors include: influential neoconservative academic and former Bush adviser Richard Perle, primarily responsible for the content of the paper; Meyrav Wurmser, the future director of the neoconservative Hudson Institute’s Center for Middle East Policy; her husband David Wurmser, the future chief adviser for Middle East policy for future vice-president Dick Cheney; neoconservative Douglas Feith, who will be the prime architect of the Iraq war; and a number of lesser-known neoconservatives, including James Colbert, Charles Fairbanks, Jr., Jeffrey T. Bergner, Jonathan Torop, and Robert Loewenberg.
Rebuilding Zionism by Abandoning Past Policies - It advocates making a complete break with past policies by adopting a strategy “based on an entirely new intellectual foundation, one that restores strategic initiative and provides the nation the room to engage every possible energy on rebuilding Zionism.…” [Guardian, 9/3/2002]
Aggressive, Militant Israeli Policy towards Arab Neighbors - Much along the lines of an earlier paper by Israeli Oded Yinon (see February 1982), the document urges the Israelis to aggressively seek the downfall of their Arab neighbors—especially Syria and Iraq—by exploiting the inherent tensions within and among the Arab States. The first step is to be the removal of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. A war with Iraq will destabilize the entire Middle East, allowing governments in Syria, Iran, Lebanon, and other countries to be replaced. “Israel will not only contain its foes; it will transcend them,” the paper says. [Perle, 7/8/1996; Guardian, 9/3/2002; Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 3/19/2003] Iraq is first on the list of nations to be transformed. Saddam Hussein must be overthrown, the authors say. But Iraq has long served as a counterweight to the Shi’ite theocracy of Iran; with the two at loggerheads, neither could pose as serious a threat to Israel as it could if not opposed by the other. To counter this, Perle and his co-authors propose restoring the Hashemites (an ancient Arab dynasty; King Faisal I of Iraq was a Hashemite) to power. Instead of the largely Shi’ite Iraqis aligning themselves with their fellow Shi’a in Iran after Hussein’s overthrow, the Hashemite government would align itself with the pro-Western Jordan, long a Hashemite regime. Unfortunately, the authors propose no plan to actually make such an extraordinary regime succession happen, nor do they seem concerned with some Iraqi Shi’ites’ alignment with Islamist terrorists or with many Shi’ites’ close ties to Iran. [Unger, 2007, pp. 145-148]
Abandoning Oslo Accords, Militant Palestinian Policy - Other suggestions for Israel include abandoning the Oslo Accords, developing a foreign policy based on a traditional balance of power strategy, reserving its right to invade the West Bank and Gaza Strip as part of a strategy of “self-defense,” abandoning any notion of “land for peace,” reestablishing a policy of preemptive strikes, forging closer ties to the US while taking steps towards self-reliance, and seeking an alternative to Yasser Arafat as leader of the PLO. [Perle, 7/8/1996]
'Seeds of a New Vision' - All these questions need not be answered right away, according to co-author Meyrav Wurmser. The document is “the beginning of thought,” she says, “… the seeds of a new vision.”
Similar to American Christian Right's Vision - According to author Craig Unger, the ideology of “ACB” is, in essence, a secularized version of the theology of the American Christian Right. Christian Zionists insist that Jews were ordained by God to reclaim the Biblical land of Judea and Samaria in the West Bank; the paper asserts that claim as well. The paper echoes Christian fundamentalists by demanding “the unconditional acceptance of Arabs of our rights, especially in their territorial dimension.” Perle and his fellow neoconservatives want to push the boundaries even further: the Bible can be interpreted to countenance Jewish dominion over all or parts of Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, and even Saudi Arabia. Thusly, the authors claim that Israel and the US, by waging war against Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon, would reshape the “strategic environment” in the Middle East and greatly expand Israel’s influence in the region.
Influence in Upcoming Bush Administration - Perle will later become chairman of President Bush’s influential Defense Policy Board and will be instrumental is moving Bush’s US policy toward war with Iraq after the 9/11 attacks, as will Feith and the Wurmsers. [Unger, 2007, pp. 145-148]
Entity Tags: Richard Perle, Robert Loewenberg, Meyrav Wurmser, Jonathan Torop, Richard V. Allen, James Colbert, Charles Fairbanks, Jr., Benjamin Netanyahu, David Wurmser, Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies, Jeffrey T. Bergner, Douglas Feith
Timeline Tags: Events Leading to Iraq Invasion, US International Relations, Neoconservative Influence
Category Tags: US Dominance, Israel
(1997-2002): State Department Official Allegedly Helps Turkish and Israelis Plant ‘Moles’ in Nuclear Facilities
An unnamed high-ranking State Department official helps a nuclear smuggling ring connected to Pakistani nuclear scientist A. Q. Khan and Pakistan’s ISI plant “moles” in US military and academic institutions that handle nuclear technology, according to FBI translator Sibel Edmonds. Edmonds will later leave the FBI, becoming a whistleblower, and will say she knows this based on telephone conversations she translated shortly after 9/11. The moles, mostly PhD students, are planted by Turkish and Israeli elements in the network, which obtains nuclear technology for Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program and for re-sale by Khan. Edmonds will later say she thinks there are several transactions of nuclear material every month: “I heard at least three transactions like this over a period of 2½ years. There are almost certainly more.” She will also say that the network appears to obtain information “from every nuclear agency in the United States.” The State Department official apparently arranges security clearance for some of the moles, enabling them to work in sensitive nuclear research facilities, including the Los Alamos nuclear laboratory in New Mexico, which is responsible for the security of the US nuclear deterrent. [Sunday Times (London), 1/6/2008] The high-ranking State Department official who is not named by the Sunday Times is said to be Marc Grossman by both Larisa Alexandrovna of Raw Story and former CIA officer Philip Giraldi, writing in the American Conservative. [Raw Story, 1/20/2008; American Conservative, 1/28/2008]
Entity Tags: Philip Giraldi, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Larisa Alexandrovna, Pakistan Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, Sibel Edmonds, US Department of State, Marc Grossman
Timeline Tags: A. Q. Khan's Nuclear Network
Category Tags: Sibel Edmonds, Israel, Pakistani Nukes & Islamic Militancy
1998-1999: Israeli Spy Operation in US Reportedly Discovered, Said to Cause ‘Incredible Damage’ for US Security
In 2004, it will be reported, “A former very senior CIA counterintelligence official told UPI that in 1998-99, the CIA discovered an Israeli couple, who were subcontracted to a US phone company, were working for Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service. ‘They did incredible damage—they got incredibly sensitive data, including key words identifying individuals or projects,’” this source said, adding he himself gave the case to the FBI. Additional details are not known. [United Press International, 12/9/2004] In 2005, a US criminal indictment will reveal that the FBI began monitoring some Israeli diplomatic officials in the US by April 1999 (see April 13, 1999-2004), but is it not known if there is any connection between that and this case.
Entity Tags: Israel Institute for Intelligence and Special Tasks (Mossad), Central Intelligence Agency, Federal Bureau of Investigation, United Press International
Category Tags: Israel
April 13, 1999-2004: US Officials Illegally Pass on Highly Classified Information about Al-Qaeda and Other Matters to Israel
A 2005 US indictment will reveal that two employees for a pro-Israeli lobbying group had somehow obtained classified US information about al-Qaeda and was passing it on to Israeli officials. The two employees are Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman; both work for AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) until 2004. On April 13, 1999, Rosen gives Rafi Barak, the former deputy chief of mission at the Israeli embassy in Washington, what he calls a codeword-protected “extremely sensitive piece of intelligence” about terrorist activities in Central Asia. On June 11, 1999, Weissman tells Barak about a classified FBI report on the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing, which has been blamed on al-Qaeda and/or Iran (see June 25, 1996). In retrospect, FBI officials will determine that some, but not all, of this classified information comes from Larry Franklin, a Defense Department analyst on Iran known to be in favor of a tougher US policy regarding Iran (see 2000-2001). It is not known how or why US surveillance of Rosen and Weissman began. [National Public Radio, 8/4/2005; Eastern District of Virginia, 8/4/2005 ; Jerusalem Post, 8/15/2005; Jerusalem Post, 8/17/2005]
Connection to Earlier Investigation? - However, there may be a connection to an earlier investigation. In 1997 and 1998, the FBI monitored Naor Gilon, an official at the Israeli embassy in Washington, as part of an investigation into whether a US intelligence official was illegally giving US spy plane film and other secret material to the Mossad. [Los Angeles Times, 9/3/2004]
Accusations Spark Further Investigation - The US will later accuse Rosen and Weissman of passing classified information given to them by Franklin to Gilon. In any case, the investigation will continue and grow. National Public Radio will later note that from 1999 to 2004, “Franklin, Rosen, and Weissman had regular discussions about the Middle East and about al-Qaeda with a variety of contacts,” sometimes illegally sharing highly classified information. Franklin will plead guilty to sharing classified information in 2005 (see October 5, 2005) while Rosen and Weissman are expected to be tried in 2007 or thereafter. [National Public Radio, 8/4/2005]
Entity Tags: Rafi Barak, Naor Gilon, Keith Weissman, Larry Franklin, American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Steven Rosen
Category Tags: Israel
January 2000: Israeli Spy Ring Begins Penetrating US
A DEA government document later leaked to the press [Drug Enforcement Agency, 6/2001] suggests that a large Israeli spy ring starts penetrating the US from at least this time, if not earlier. This ring, which will later become popularly known as the “art student spy ring,” is later shown to have strange connections to the events of 9/11. [Insight, 3/11/2002]
Entity Tags: “Israeli art students”, Drug Enforcement Agency, United States
Category Tags: Israel
February 6, 2000: Apparent Mossad Attempt to Infiltrate Al-Qaeda Thwarted
India’s largest Newsweekly reports that it appears a recent Mossad attempt to infiltrate al-Qaeda failed when undercover agents were stopped on their way to Bangladesh by Indian customs officials. These 11 men appeared to be from Afghanistan, but had Israeli passports. One expert states, “It is not unlikely for Mossad to recruit 11 Afghans in Iran and grant them Israeli citizenship to penetrate a network such as bin Laden’s. They would begin by infiltrating them into an Islamic radical group in an unlikely place like Bangladesh.” [Week, 2/6/2000]
Entity Tags: Al-Qaeda, Israel Institute for Intelligence and Special Tasks (Mossad)
Timeline Tags: Alleged Use of False Flag Attacks
Category Tags: Israel, Other Possible Moles or Informants
April 19, 2000: Reports Indicate Israeli Organized Crime Units Dominate Ecstasy Distribution
USA Today reports that “Israeli crime groups… dominate distribution” of Ecstasy. [USA Today, 4/19/2000] The DEA also states that most of the Ecstasy sold in the US is “controlled by organized crime figures in Western Europe, Russia, and Israel.” [United Press International, 10/25/2001] According to DEA documents, the Israeli “art student spy ring” “has been linked to several ongoing DEA [Ecstasy] investigations in Florida, California, Texas, and New York now being closely coordinated by DEA headquarters.” [Insight, 3/11/2002]
Entity Tags: “Israeli art students”, Drug Enforcement Agency
Category Tags: Israel
December 2000-April 2001: Israeli Investigators Deported After Identifying Two Hijackers
According to later German reports, “a whole horde of Israeli counter-terror investigators, posing as students, [follow] the trails of Arab terrorists and their cells in the United States.… In the town of Hollywood, Florida, they [identify]… Atta and Marwan Alshehhi as possible terrorists. Agents [live] in the vicinity of the apartment of the two seemingly normal flight school students, observing them around the clock.” Supposedly, around April, the Israeli agents are discovered and deported, terminating the investigation. [Der Spiegel (Hamburg), 10/1/2002]
Entity Tags: Marwan Alshehhi, Mohamed Atta, Israel Institute for Intelligence and Special Tasks (Mossad)
Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline
Category Tags: Israel, Mohamed Atta, Marwan Alshehhi
2001: FBI Discovers ‘Massive’ Israeli Spy Operation Inside US
Sometime this year, the FBI discovers a new and “massive” Israeli spying operation inside the US. In 2004, UPI will report that, according to a former senior US government official, the FBI learned of a spy operation in the East Coast of the US, including New York and New Jersey. The FBI begins intensive surveillance on certain Israeli diplomats and other suspects. As part of this surveillance, in 2003 the FBI will be videotaping Naor Gilon, chief of political affairs at the Israeli Embassy in Washington, when they will discover Gilon is meeting with Larry Franklin, Defense Department analyst. In 2005, Franklin will plead guilty to passing classified secrets to Israeli officials (see October 5, 2005). It appears that the surveillance of some Israeli diplomatic officials in the US actually began by April 1999 (see April 13, 1999-2004), though details remain murky. [United Press International, 12/9/2004] It is not known if this discovered spy operation is connected to or the same as the Israeli art student and moving van spy rings, which appears to have been discovered in 2001 (see March 23, 2001 and June 2001), or something completely different. It is also not clear if the discovery came from an investigation of media leaks begun two days before 9/11 (see September 9, 2001), or if it predated that and the 9/11 attacks.
Entity Tags: Larry Franklin, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Israel Institute for Intelligence and Special Tasks (Mossad), Naor Gilon
Category Tags: Israel
March 23, 2001: DEA Issues Alert to Look Out for Israeli Spies
The cover of the DEA report, as depicted on television. [Source: Fox News]
The cover of the DEA report, as depicted on television. [Source: Fox News]The Office of National Drug Control Policy issues a National Security Alert describing “apparent attempts by Israeli nationals to learn about government personnel and office layouts.” This later becomes known through a leaked DEA document called “Suspicious Activities Involving Israeli Art Students at DEA Facilities.” A crackdown ensues and by June, around 120 Israelis are apprehended. More are apprehended later. [Drug Enforcement Agency, 6/2001]
Entity Tags: “Israeli art students”, Office of National Drug Control Policy
Category Tags: Israel
Summer 2001: Israel Warns US of ‘Big Attack’
The Associated Press will report in May 2002, “Israeli intelligence services were aware several months before Sept. 11 that bin Laden was planning a large-scale terror attack but did not know what his targets would be, Israeli officials have said. An Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity, tells the Associated Press shortly after the attacks that ‘everybody knew about a heightened alert and knew that bin Laden was preparing a big attack.’ He said information was passed on to Washington but denied Israel had any concrete intelligence that could have been used to prevent the Sept. 11 attacks.” [Associated Press, 5/19/2002] The claim that Israel lacks concrete intelligence is contradicted by other media reports (see August 8-15, 2001) (see August 23, 2001) (see September 4, 2001).
Entity Tags: Israel, Osama bin Laden, Israel Institute for Intelligence and Special Tasks (Mossad)
Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline
Category Tags: Israel, Warning Signs, Key Warnings, Foreign Intelligence Warnings
June 2001: DEA Draws Up Report on Israeli Spies
States the Israeli spy ring were known to have operated in, according to a June 2001 Drug Enforcement Administration report (this Fox news graphic was based on information from that report). [Source: Fox News]
States the Israeli spy ring were known to have operated in, according to a June 2001 Drug Enforcement Administration report (this Fox news graphic was based on information from that report). [Source: Fox News]The DEA’s Office of Security Programs prepares a 60-page internal memo on the Israeli “art student spy ring.” [Drug Enforcement Agency, 6/2001] The Memo is a compilation of dozens of field reports, and was meant only for the eyes of senior officials at the Justice Department (of which the DEA is adjunct), but it is leaked to the press around December 2001. The report connects the spies to efforts to foil investigations into Israeli organized crime activity involving the importation of the drug Ecstasy. The spies also appear to be snooping on top-secret military bases. For instance, on April 30, 2001, an Air Force alert was issued from Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma City concerning “possible intelligence collection being conducted by Israeli art students.” Tinker AFB houses AWACS surveillance craft and Stealth bombers. By the time of the report, the US has “apprehended or expelled close to 120 Israeli nationals” but many remain at large. [Le Monde (Paris), 3/5/2002; Salon, 5/7/2002] An additional 20 or so Israeli spies are apprehended between June and 9/11. [Fox News, 12/12/2001]
Entity Tags: US Department of Justice, “Israeli art students”, Office of Security Programs
Category Tags: Israel
August 8-15, 2001: Israel Reportedly Warns of Major Assault on the US
Ephraim Halevy was head of the Israeli Mossad from 1998 to 2002. [Source: Associated Press]
Ephraim Halevy was head of the Israeli Mossad from 1998 to 2002. At some point between these dates, Israel warns the US that an al-Qaeda attack is imminent. [Fox News, 5/17/2002] Reportedly, two high-ranking agents from the Mossad come to Washington and warn the FBI and CIA that from 50 to 200 terrorists have slipped into the US and are planning “a major assault on the United States.” They say indications point to a “large scale target,” and that Americans would be “very vulnerable.” They add there could be Iraqi connections to the al-Qaeda attack. [Daily Telegraph, 9/16/2001; Ottawa Citizen, 9/17/2001; Los Angeles Times, 9/20/2001] The Los Angeles Times later retracts its story after a CIA spokesperson says, “There was no such warning. Allegations that there was are complete and utter nonsense.” [Los Angeles Times, 9/21/2001] Other newspapers do not retract it.
Entity Tags: Israel Institute for Intelligence and Special Tasks (Mossad), Central Intelligence Agency, Al-Qaeda, Federal Bureau of Investigation
Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline
Category Tags: Israel, Warning Signs, Foreign Intelligence Warnings, Key Warnings
August 23, 2001: Mossad Reportedly Gives CIA List of Terrorists Living in US; at Least Four 9/11 Hijackers Named
According to German newspapers, the Mossad gives the CIA a list of 19 terrorists living in the US and say that they appear to be planning to carry out an attack in the near future. It is unknown if these are the 19 9/11 hijackers or if the number is a coincidence. However, four names on the list are known, and these four will be 9/11 hijackers: Nawaf Alhazmi, Khalid Almihdhar, Marwan Alshehhi, and Mohamed Atta. [Die Zeit (Hamburg), 10/1/2002; Der Spiegel (Hamburg), 10/1/2002; BBC, 10/2/2002; Ha'aretz, 10/3/2002] The Mossad appears to have learned about this through its “art student spy ring.” Yet apparently, this warning and list are not treated as particularly urgent by the CIA and the information is not passed on to the FBI. It is unclear whether this warning influenced the decision to add Alhazmi and Almihdhar to a terrorism watch list on this same day, and if so, why only those two. [Der Spiegel (Hamburg), 10/1/2002] Israel has denied that there were any Mossad agents in the US. [Ha'aretz, 10/3/2002]
Entity Tags: Nawaf Alhazmi, Mohamed Atta, Marwan Alshehhi, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Central Intelligence Agency, “Israeli art students”, Khalid Almihdhar, Israel Institute for Intelligence and Special Tasks (Mossad)
Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline
Category Tags: Israel, Warning Signs, Foreign Intelligence Warnings, Key Warnings, CIA Hiding Alhazmi & Almihdhar, Search for Alhazmi/ Almihdhar in US
August 29-September 6, 2001: Bush Tries to Repair Relations with Saudis, But Policy Change Halted by 9/11 Attacks
The Bush administration attempts to repair its relation with Saudi Arabia after a dramatic letter from Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah. On August 27, 2001, Abdullah, the de facto leader of Saudi Arabia, sent a message to President Bush threatening to end the Saudi alliance with the US because of what they see as US favoritism towards Israel (see August 27, 2001). Two days later, Bush sends a two-page letter to Abdullah: “Let me make one thing clear up front: nothing should ever break the relationship between us. There has been no change in the strategic equation. I firmly believe the Palestinian people have a right to self-determination and to live peacefully and securely in their own state, in their own homeland, just as the Israelis have the right to live peacefully and safely in their own state.” Journalist Bob Woodward will later note that this “was a much bigger step than President Clinton had taken. Even as Clinton had tried to fashion a Middle East peace agreement as his legacy, he had never directly supported a separate Palestinian state.” On September 6, Abdullah replies, “Mr. President, it was a great relief to me to find in your letter a clear commitment confirming the principle in which the peace process was established. I was particularly pleased with your commitment to the right of the Palestinians to self-determination as well as the right to peace without humiliation, within their independent state.” The Saudis appear appeased. [Woodward, 2006, pp. 77-79] Also on September 6, Bush holds a meeting with his top advisers and suggests a change of policy towards Palestine, including public support for a separate Palestinian state. However, days before Bush is to announce these new policies, the 9/11 attacks take place. None of the planned US policy changes materialize (see September 6, 2001).
Entity Tags: George W. Bush, Abdullah bin Abdulaziz al-Saud
Category Tags: Israel, Saudi Arabia
September 4, 2001: Israeli Company Moves Out of WTC
The Zim-American Israeli Shipping Co. moves their North American headquarters from the 16th floor of the WTC to Norfolk, Virginia, one week before the 9/11 attacks. The Israeli government owns 49 percent of the company. [Virginian-Pilot, 9/4/2001] Zim announced the move and its date six months earlier. [Virginian-Pilot, 4/3/2001] More than 200 workers had just been moved out; about ten are still in the building making final moving arrangements on 9/11, but escape. [Jerusalem Post, 9/13/2001; Journal of Commerce, 10/18/2001] The move leaves only one Israeli company, ClearForest, with 18 employees, in the WTC on 9/11. The four or five employees in the building at the time manage to escape. [Jerusalem Post, 9/13/2001] One year later, a Zim ship is impounded while attempting to ship Israeli military equipment to Iran; it is speculated that this is done with the knowledge of Israel. [Agence France-Presse, 3/29/2002]
Entity Tags: Zim-American Israeli Shipping Co., World Trade Center, ClearForest
Category Tags: Israel
September 4, 2001: Mossad Gives Another Warning of Major, Imminent Attack
“On or around” this day, the Mossad give their “latest” warning to the US of a major, imminent attack by al-Qaeda, according to sources close to Mossad. One former Mossad agent says, “My understanding is that the warning was not specific. No target was identified. But it should have resulted in an increased state of security.” US intelligence claims this never happened. [Sunday Mail, 9/16/2001]
Entity Tags: United States, Israel Institute for Intelligence and Special Tasks (Mossad)
Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline
Category Tags: Israel, Warning Signs, Foreign Intelligence Warnings
September 6, 2001: US Considers More Favorable Policy Towards Palestinians; But Change Is Halted by 9/11 Attacks
According to a New York Times article several days later, on this day President Bush holds a National Security Council meeting with Secretary of State Powell, National Security Adviser Rice, and others, to consider how to change his Middle East policy. This potential change in US policy comes after the Saudis threatened to end their alliance with the US because of US policy towards Israel and Palestine (see August 27, 2001 and August 29-September 6, 2001). It is reported that he is considering meeting with Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat when Arafat is scheduled to come to New York for the opening of the United Nations General Assembly two weeks later. Bush has so far been firm in refusing to meet with Arafat. According to the New York Times, at this meeting, “Bush discussed the wisdom of changing tack, officials said. While no clear decision was made, there was an inclination to go ahead with a meeting with Arafat if events unfolded in a more favorable way in the next 10 days or so…” Additionally, it is reported that Israeli foreign minister Shimon Peres will meet with Arafat in mid-September, in what it is hoped will be “the first of a series that could start a process of serious dialogue” between Palestine and Israel. [New York Times, 9/9/2001] Reporter Bob Woodward will add in 2006, “Bush agreed to come out publicly for a Palestinian state. A big rollout was planned for the week of September 10, 2001.” [Woodward, 2006, pp. 77] But after the 9/11 attacks a few days later, Bush and Peres do not go forward with any meetings with Arafat and US policy does not change. The Nation will later comment, “In the aftermath of [9/11], few people recalled that for a brief moment in the late summer of 2001, the Bush Administration had considered meeting with Arafat and deepening its political involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” [Nation, 7/14/2005] The leak to the New York Times about this September 6 meeting will result in a wide FBI investigation of Israeli spying in the US (see September 9, 2001).
Entity Tags: Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell, Yasser Arafat, Shimon Peres, George W. Bush
Category Tags: Israel, Saudi Arabia
September 9, 2001: Media Leak Leads to Investigation into Israeli Spying in US
National Security Adviser Rice, upset with a media leak, orders an investigation that will uncover evidence of widespread Israeli spying in the US. The Saudis had recently threatened to end their close alliance with the US (see August 27, 2001 and August 29-September 6, 2001), and on September 6, 2001, President Bush held a meeting attended by Rice and others to work on how to appease Saudi concerns (see September 6, 2001). Just three days after the meeting, there is a story by Jane Perlez in the New York Times accurately detailing what was discussed in the meeting. It will later be reported that Rice is furious about the leak to Perlez and immediately demands a clampdown on leakers. The determination to improve secrecy increases in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. This leak investigation focuses on Israelis in the US. No one is ever prosecuted for the leak to Perlez, but the investigation will takes on a life of its own and continue for years. [New York Times, 9/9/2001; JTA (Jewish Telegraphic Agency, 5/17/2005; Nation, 7/14/2005] It appears the FBI had been investigating Israeli spying in the US since at least 1999 (see April 13, 1999-2004), and there are reports of a discovery of a “massive” Israeli spy operation in the US in 2001 (see 2001) and/or the discovery of the Israeli art student spy ring (see March 23, 2001 and June 2001). It is unclear if there is any connection between these investigations and this media link investigation or not.
Entity Tags: Jane Perlez, Condoleezza Rice
Category Tags: Israel
September 10, 2001: Army School Peacekeeping Report Says Mossad Can Target US Forces with False Flag Attacks
A group of second-year students at the Army School of Advanced Military Studies (SAMS) produces a 68-page plan for sending peacekeepers to Israel in the event that the Israelis and Palestinians agree to a peace plan and the creation of a Palestinian state. Though the cover of the report indicates that the report has been written for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Maj. Chris Garver, a Fort Leavenworth spokesman, says that it was only an academic exercise. An article about the report appears in the Washington Times on September 10, 2001. The report refers to Israel’s armed forces as a “500-pound gorilla in Israel” that is “well armed and trained” and is “known to disregard international law to accomplish mission.” Of the Mossad, the report says: “Wildcard. Ruthless and cunning. Has capability to target US forces and make it look like a Palestinian/Arab act.” It describes Palestinian youths as “loose cannons; under no control, sometimes violent.” The SAMS officers write that US goals for the first 30 days of such a mission would be to “create conditions for development of Palestinian State and security of Israel”; ensure “equal distribution of contract value or equivalent aid” that would help legitimize the peacekeeping force and stimulate economic growth; “promote US investment in Palestine”; “encourage reconciliation between entities based on acceptance of new national identities”; and “build lasting relationship based on new legal borders and not religious-territorial claims.” [Washington Times, 9/10/2001]
Entity Tags: Chris Garver, Army School of Advanced Military Studies
Timeline Tags: Alleged Use of False Flag Attacks
Category Tags: Israel
(6:00 a.m.) September 11, 2001: Two Hours Before Attacks, Israeli Company Employees Receive Warnings
Odigo’s logo. [Source: Odigo]
Two employees of Odigo, Inc., an Israeli company, receive warnings of an imminent attack in New York City about two hours before the first plane hits the WTC. Odigo, one of the world’s largest instant messaging companies, has its headquarters two blocks from the WTC. The Odigo Research and Development offices where the warnings were received are located in Herzliyya, a suburb of Tel Aviv. Israeli security and the FBI were notified immediately after the 9/11 attacks began. The two employees claim not to know who sent the warnings. “Odigo service includes a feature called People Finder that allows users to seek out and contact others based on certain interests or demographics. [Alex] Diamandis [Odigo vice president of sales and marketing] said it was possible that the attack warning was broadcast to other Odigo members, but the company has not received reports of other recipients of the message.” [Ha'aretz, 9/26/2001; Washington Post, 9/27/2001] Odigo claims the warning did not specifically mention the WTC, but the company refuses to divulge what was specified, claiming, “Providing more details would only lead to more conjecture.” [Washington Post, 9/28/2001] However, a later newspaper report claims that the message declared “that some sort of attack was about to take place. The notes ended with an anti-Semitic slur. ‘The messages said something big was going to happen in a certain amount of time, and it did—almost to the minute,’ said Alex Diamandis, vice president of sales for the high-tech company… He said the employees did not know the person who sent the message, but they traced it to a computer address and have given that information to the FBI.” [Washington Post, 10/4/2001] Odigo gave the FBI the Internet address of the message’s sender so the name of the sender could be found. [Deutsche Presse-Agentur (Hamburg), 9/26/2001] Two months later, it is reported that the FBI is still investigating the matter, but there have been no reports since. [Courier Mail, 11/20/2001]
Entity Tags: World Trade Center, Odigo Inc., Israel, Federal Bureau of Investigation
Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline
Category Tags: Israel, Warning Signs, Key Warnings, All Day of 9/11 Events
September 11, 2001: The 9/11 Attack: 3,000 Die in New York City and Washington, D.C.
The September 11, 2001 attacks. From left to right: The World Trade Center, Pentagon, and Flight 93 crash. [Source: unknown]
The 9/11 attack: Four planes are hijacked, two crash into the WTC, one into the Pentagon, and one crashes into the Pennsylvania countryside. Nearly 3,000 people are killed.
Entity Tags: World Trade Center, Pentagon, Al-Qaeda, United Airlines, American Airlines
Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline
Category Tags: Warning Signs, Pipeline Politics, Al-Qaeda in Germany, Alhazmi and Almihdhar, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, Israel, Alleged Iraq-Al-Qaeda Links, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the ISI, US Dominance, Zacarias Moussaoui, Nabil Al-Marabh, Counterterrorism Action Before 9/11, Ali Mohamed, Able Danger, Mohamed Atta, Robert Wright and Vulgar Betrayal, Military Exercises, Mamoun Darkazanli, BMI and Ptech, Osama Bin Laden, Phoenix Memo, Remote Surveillance, Al Taqwa Bank, Terrorism Financing, Al-Qaeda Malaysia Summit, Yemen Hub, Alleged Al-Qaeda Linked Attacks, Counterterrorism Policy/Politics, Training Exercises
(8:20 a.m.) September 11, 2001: Israeli Special-Ops Passenger Shot or Stabbed by Hijackers?
Daniel Lewin. [Source: Akamai Technologies]
An FAA memo written on the evening of 9/11, and later leaked, suggests that a man on Flight 11 was shot and killed by a gun before the plane crashed into the WTC. The “Executive Summary,” based on information relayed by a flight attendant to the American Airlines Operation Center, stated “that a passenger located in seat 10B [Satam Al Suqami] shot and killed a passenger in seat 9B [Daniel Lewin] at 9:20 am.” (Note that since Flight 11 crashed at 8:46, the time must be a typo, probably meaning 8:20). A report in Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz on September 17 identifies Lewin as a former member of the Israel Defense Force Sayeret Matkal, Israel’s most successful special-operations unit. [United Press International, 3/6/2002] Sayeret Matkal is a deep-penetration unit that has been involved in assassinations, the theft of foreign signals-intelligence materials, and the theft and destruction of foreign nuclear weaponry. Sayeret Matkal is best known for the 1976 rescue of 106 passengers at Entebbe Airport in Uganda. [New Yorker, 10/29/2001] Lewin founded Akamai, a successful computer company, and his connections to Sayeret Matkal remained hidden until the gun story became known. [Guardian, 9/15/2001] FAA and American Airline officials later deny the gun story and suggest that Lewin was probably stabbed to death instead. [Washington Post, 3/2/2002; United Press International, 3/6/2002] Officials assert that the leaked document was a “first draft,” and subsequently corrected, but declines to release the final draft, calling it “protected information.” However, an FAA official present when the memo was drafted will dispute the FAA’s claim, asserting that “[t]he document was reviewed for accuracy by a number of people in the room, including myself and a couple of managers of the operations center.” [WorldNetDaily, 3/7/2002]
Entity Tags: Sayeret Matkal, American Airlines, Daniel Lewin, Satam Al Suqami, Federal Aviation Administration
Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline
Category Tags: Israel, All Day of 9/11 Events, Flight AA 11
Shortly After 8:46 a.m. September 11, 2001: Neighbor Sees Suspicious Men Documenting First WTC Attack and Cheering, Calls Police
A homemaker living near Liberty State Park, Jersey City, New Jersey sees three men behaving strangely on a nearby roof and alerts the authorities. This homemaker, who has given only her first name Maria, is called by a neighbor shortly after the first plane has hit the WTC and is told about the impact. She has a view of the WTC from her apartment building so she gets her binoculars and watches the disaster. However, she also notices three young men kneeling on the roof of a white van in the parking lot of her apartment building. Maria will later recall, “They seemed to be taking a movie.” They are taking video or photos of themselves with the WTC burning in the background. But what strikes Maria is their expressions: “They were like happy, you know… They didn’t look shocked to me. I thought it was very strange.” She writes down the license plate number of the van and calls the police. [ABC News, 6/21/2002] Apparently the men leave the area a few minutes after the first attack is over. [CounterPunch, 2/7/2007] An FBI lookout bulletin for the van will be issued later in the day (see 3:31 p.m. September 11, 2001) and the three men (plus two more discovered with them) will be detained (see 3:56 p.m. September 11, 2001). When the men detained, one of them will be found with pictures of the group standing with the burning wreckage of the WTC in the background. [Forward, 3/15/2002] At least some of the pictures were taken while standing on top of the van. [New York Times, 10/8/2001] The lawyer for the five men will later note that one photograph developed by the FBI shows one of the men, Sivan Kurzberg, holding a lighted lighter in the foreground, with the burning WTC in the background. [New York Times, 11/21/2001] It will apparently be determined at least two of the men are Israeli spies, but what they were doing and why will remain in dispute. One of these Israelis will later say, “our purpose was to document the event.”-emphasis added.[ABC News, 6/21/2002]
Entity Tags: World Trade Center, Sivan Kurzberg, Urban Moving Systems, Scott DeCarlo, Maria, Omer Marmari, Paul Kurzberg, Israel Institute for Intelligence and Special Tasks (Mossad), Oded Ellner, Yaron Shmuel
Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline
Category Tags: All Day of 9/11 Events, Israel
Shortly after 10:28 a.m. September 11, 2001:: Suspicous Hebrew-Speaking Witnesses to the WTC Collapse Allegedly Observed at Liberty State Park
According to an editorial written in the Black Agenda Report by executive editor Glen Ford written in 2008, Ford claims that he observes two presumably Israeli witnesses to the collapse of the second World Trade Center tower who exhibit suspicious behavior. They are already positioned at the river bank when he arrives at the scene on foot after having rushed past police, who had blocked all vehicular entrance to the park. They are thus the apparent owners of the only vehicle in the lot, having arrived prior to its closure, at an unknown time. The so-described athletic, military-aged duo is clicking away with two very expensive-looking cameras. They speak excitedly to each other in Hebrew—a language Mr. Ford instantly recognizes from his two decades as a Manhattanite—but clumsily claim to be “Polish” when asked where they are from. Informed by Ford that he is a reporter, they claim, “Yes, we are reporters, too!” They display two laminated New Jersey press cards that appear genuine except they are the wrong color, and cheerfully admit they are phony. “They are easy to make,” one says, laughing. When prompted, one states with pleasure that “yes, everything has changed” by the events just witnessed. [Ford, 10/8/2008]
Entity Tags: Glen Ford
Category Tags: All Day of 9/11 Events, Israel
September 11, 2001: Former Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu: 9/11 Very Good for Israeli-US Relations
Former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, when asked what the 9/11 attacks means for relations between the US and Israel, replies, “It’s very good.” Then he edits himself: “Well, not very good, but it will generate immediate sympathy.” [New York Times, 9/12/2001] A week later, the Village Voice states, “From national networks to small-town newspapers, the view that America’s terrible taste of terrorism will finally do away with even modest calls for the restraint of Israel’s military attacks on Palestinian towns has become an instant, unshakable axiom.… Now, support for Israel in America is officially absolute, and Palestinians are cast once again as players in a global terrorist conspiracy.” [Village Voice, 9/19/2001]
Entity Tags: Israel, United States, Benjamin Netanyahu, Palestinians
Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline
Category Tags: Israel
3:31 p.m. September 11, 2001: FBI Issues Lookout Warning for White Van Possibly Connected to 9/11 Attacks
Yaron Shmuel, one of the five Israelis found in the van. [Source: Public domain via Israeli television]
Yaron Shmuel, one of the five Israelis found in the van. The FBI issues a BOLO (be on lookout) bulletin for three suspicious men who were seen leaving the New Jersey waterfront minutes after the first hijacked plane hit the WTC (see Shortly After 8:46a.m. September 11, 2001). Law enforcement officers in the greater New York City area are warned in a radio dispatch to watch for a “vehicle possibly related to New York terrorist attack.” The bulletin reads, in part: “White, 2000 Chevrolet van…with ‘Urban Moving Systems’ sign on back seen at Liberty State Park, Jersey City, NJ, at the time of first impact of jetliner into World Trade Center…. Three individuals with van were seen celebrating after initial impact and subsequent explosion. FBI Newark Field Office requests that, if the van is located, hold for prints and detain individuals.” The van is located a short time later and five men inside it are arrested (see 3:56 p.m. September 11, 2001). [CounterPunch, 2/7/2007]
Entity Tags: Yaron Shmuel, Sivan Kurzberg, Oded Ellner, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Urban Moving Systems, Omer Marmari, Paul Kurzberg
Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline
Category Tags: Israel
3:56 p.m. September 11, 2001: Five Apparent Israeli Spies Arrested for Puzzling Behavior at Time of First WTC Attack
The white van used by five Israeli agents as they were leaving New York on 9/11.
Five Israelis are arrested for “puzzling behavior” related to the WTC attacks. Shortly after an FBI lookout bulletin was issued for a van with the words “Urban Moving Systems” written on the side, officers with the East Rutherford Police Department in New Jersey stop the van after matching the license plate number with the one given in the bulletin. According to the police report, Officer Scott DeCarlo and Sgt. Dennis Rivelli approach the van and demand the driver exit the vehicle. The driver, Sivan Kurzberg, does not obey after being asked several more times, so the police physically remove Kurzberg and four other men from the van and handcuff them. They have not been told the reasons for their arrest, but Kurzberg tells them, “We are Israeli. We are not your problem. Your problems are our problems. The Palestinians are the problem.” Again before the police have made any mention of the 9/11 attacks, another one of the arrested men says, “[W]e were on the West Side Highway in New York City during the incident.” In fact, it will later be determined they were on the roof of a building at Liberty State Park, watching and videotaping the first crash into the WTC (see Shortly After 8:46 a.m. September 11, 2001). [Bergen Record, 9/12/2001; Ha'aretz, 9/17/2001; CounterPunch, 2/7/2007] The FBI and additional police quickly arrive. They shut down the section of Route 3 in East Rutherford where the van was stopped and evacuate a nearby hotel as a security precaution. [Bergen Record, 9/12/2001] One man is found with $4,700 in cash hidden in his sock, another has two foreign passports on him, and a box cutter is found in the van. [ABC News, 6/21/2002] Another has pictures of the men standing with the burning wreckage of the WTC in the background. [Forward, 3/15/2002] All five identify themselves as Israeli citizens and claim to be working for the New Jersey-based Urban Moving Systems company. In addition to the driver Sivan Kurzberg, the others are identified as Paul Kurzberg (Sivan’s brother), Oded Ellner, Omer Marmari, and Yaron Shmuel. The men are detained but not charged. [Forward, 3/15/2002; ABC News, 6/21/2002] The next day it will be reported that “bomb-sniffing dogs reacted as if they had detected explosives.” An investigator high up in the Bergen County law enforcement hierarchy will say in 2006, “There are maps of the city in the car with certain places highlighted…. It looked like they’re hooked in with this [referring to the 9/11 attacks]. It looked like they knew what was going to happen.…It looked like they knew what was going to happen when they were at Liberty State Park.” [Bergen Record, 9/12/2001] The FBI will later conclude at least two of the five are Mossad agents and that all were on a Mossad surveillance mission. The FBI interrogates them for weeks. [Forward, 3/15/2002] They are held on immigration violation charges, but will be released 71 days later (see November 20, 2001). [ABC News, 6/21/2002]
Entity Tags: Yaron Shmuel, Sivan Kurzberg, Urban Moving Systems, World Trade Center, Paul Kurzberg, Scott DeCarlo, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Dennis Rivelli, Omer Marmari, Oded Ellner, Israel Institute for Intelligence and Special Tasks (Mossad)
Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline
Category Tags: All Day of 9/11 Events, Israel
September 12-November 9, 2001: Two More Movers Arrested in US; Suspected to Be Israeli Spies
From left to right: Oded Ellner, Omer Marmari, and Yaron Shmuel. Three of the five accused Israelis briefly appear on Israeli television in November 2001 after being released and deported. [Source: Public domain via Israeli television]
Five Israeli men working for the Urban Moving Systems company had been arrested on 9/11 over suspicions that they had foreknowledge of the 9/11 attacks (see 3:56 p.m. September 11, 2001), and now two more Israeli men working for the same company are arrested. The two men, Roy Barak and Motti Butbul, are driving one of their company’s moving vans in northern Pennsylvania when they are pulled over and arrested at around noon on September 12, 2001. Barak has overstayed his six-month visa and Butbul has no work permit. Both were in the Israeli military, Barak as an ex-paratrooper and Butful as a cook. Barak says he worked for Urban Moving Systems since the summer of 2000. The two are detained and sometimes kept in solitary confinement, but they later claim no ill treatment. Barak will later recall that US interrogators were most interested if he was connected to the Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency. “They asked if someone sent me to the United States. They asked me if I worked in a moving company so I could monitor people’s movements.” He is given polygraph tests and claims to have satisfied his questioners except on the issue of who sent him to the US. On November 9, 2001, both are deported back to Israel. [Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 11/18/2001]
Entity Tags: Israel Institute for Intelligence and Special Tasks (Mossad), Israel, Urban Moving Systems, Motti Butbul, Roy Barak
Category Tags: Israel
September 14, 2001: Head of Shadowy Company Flees US
Dominick Suter, owner of the company Urban Moving Systems, flees the country to Israel. The FBI later tells ABC News, “Urban Moving may have been providing cover for an Israeli intelligence operation.” Suter has been tied to the five Israeli agents caught filming the WTC attack. The FBI had questioned Suter around September 12, removing boxes of documents and a dozen computer hard drives. However, when the FBI returns a few days later, he is gone. [New Jersey Department of Law and Public Safety, 12/13/2001; Forward, 3/15/2002; ABC News, 6/21/2002]
Entity Tags: Dominick Suter, Federal Bureau of Investigation
Category Tags: Israel
September 29-30, 2001: Suspected Mossad Agents Detained, Released
Police in the Midwest stop six men carrying suspicious documents. They possess photos and descriptions of a nuclear power plant in Florida and the Trans-Alaska pipeline, and have “box cutters and other equipment.” All six have Israeli passports. They are released the same day after their passports are shown to be valid, but before anyone interviews them. The FBI is reportedly furious about their release. [Miami Herald, 10/3/2001; Knight Ridder, 10/31/2001; London Times, 11/2/2001] The six men may have been Mossad agents. In addition to snooping on the DEA and Islamic militants, some Mossad agents in the “art student spy ring” have been caught trying to break into military bases and other top-secret facilities (see March 23, 2001). [Salon, 5/7/2002]
Entity Tags: Federal Bureau of Investigation
Category Tags: Israel
October 10, 2001: Two Israelis Are Detained in Mexican Legislature Building after Behaving Suspiciously and Found To Be Carrying Arms
Two Israelis, Salvador Gersson Smike, 34, and Sar Ben Zui, 27, are arrested in the Mexican Congress Building in Mexico City. Smike is carrying a plastic 9 mm sophisticated Glock 9 mm pistol tucked into his underwear in his lower back. Glock pistols are made with a special plastic material and are very easy to smuggle. [Correo, 10/11/2001; El Heraldo de Mexico (Mexico City), 10/11/2001; Cronica de Hoy (Mexico City), 10/12/2001] He also has with him a briefcase reported to contain 58 bullets, bomb-making materials, three detonators, and nine grenades. [El Heraldo de Mexico (Mexico City), 10/11/2001] The two were apprehended after ex-sugarcane workers, who were waiting for a congressional hearing, saw the two Israelis behaving strangely at around 4:00 p.m. They were reportedly photographing the workers below the belt. When the workers demanded that the two men identify themselves, the Israelis said they were press photographers. The workers dismissed their claims, overcame them, and then discovered they were armed with pistols and other high caliber arms. The two men had apparently also been seen the day before taking pictures. [Cronica de Hoy (Mexico City), 10/12/2001] Security guards soon arrived, disarmed the men, and took them to the security office. At around 6:00 p.m., it is learned that the two men are Israelis and that one of them, Salvador Gersson, is a former colonel of the Israeli Special Forces. [Correo, 10/11/2001; Diario de Mexico (Mexico City), 10/11/2001 ] Soon after, a man claiming to be a supervisor from the company, Desarrollo de Sistemas de Seguridad Privada (Private Security Systems Development), says the two men are employees at the firm and that they were taking pictures because they are “vacationing.” The journalists who are present scoff at the claim. [Correo, 10/11/2001; El Heraldo de Mexico (Mexico City), 10/11/2001] After October 13, no additional information is reported about the incident.
Entity Tags: Salvador Gersson Smike, Sar Ben Zui, Private Security Systems Development
Timeline Tags: Alleged Use of False Flag Attacks
Category Tags: Israel
October 16, 2001: Several Israelis Arrested for Curious Sears Tower Surveillance
Two men, Moshe Elmakias and Ron Katar, are arrested in rural Pennsylvania after being found with a detailed video of the Sears Tower in Chicago. In addition, a woman named Ayelet Reisler is found with them, carrying conflicting identification information. They are arrested for illegal dumping, using a van with the name Moving Systems Incorporated. The video contains extensive zoom in shots of the Sears Tower; it is not known when the video was filmed. [Mercury (Philadelphia), 10/17/2001]
Entity Tags: Ron Katar, Sears Tower, Ayelet Reisler, Moshe Elmakias
Category Tags: Israel
Late October 2001: Intense Political Pressure to Release Suspected Israeli Spies Arrested on 9/11
Three of the five accused Israelis (Oded Ellner, Omer Marmari, and Yaron Shmuel) briefly appear on Israeli television in November 2001 after being released and deported. Around this time intense political pressure is put on US officials holding five Israeli men arrested for suspicious behavior at the time of the 9/11 attacks (see 3:56 p.m. September 11, 2001). According to the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage and two unidentified “prominent New York congressmen” lobby heavily for their release. According to a source at ABC News, well-known criminal lawyer Alan Dershowitz also becomes involved as a negotiator to help get the men released. (Dershowitz will later refuse to comment on the matter.) [CounterPunch, 2/7/2007] ABC News will later report that was “high-level negotiations between Israeli and US government officials” over the five men, resulting in a settlement. [ABC News, 6/21/2002] Apparently the political pressure will succeed because the men will be released a few weeks later (see November 20, 2001]).
Entity Tags: Sivan Kurzberg, Yaron Shmuel, Paul Kurzberg, Oded Ellner, Alan M. Dershowitz, Omer Marmari, Richard Armitage
Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline
Category Tags: Israel, Counterterrorism Policy/Politics
November 20, 2001: Israelis Who Videotaped WTC Attack Are Released and Deported
Oded Ellner, one of the five Israelis arrested on 9/11. [Source: Public domain via Israeli television]
The five Israelis arrested on 9/11 for videotaping the WTC attack and then cheering about it (see 3:56 p.m. September 11, 2001) are released and deported to Israel. Some of the men’s names had appeared in a US national intelligence database, and the FBI has concluded that at least two of the men were working for the Mossad, according to ABC News. However, the FBI says that none of the Israelis had any advanced knowledge of the 9/11 attacks, and they were released as part of a deal between the US and the Israeli government. After their release, they claim to have been tortured. [Forward, 3/15/2002; ABC News, 6/21/2002]
Entity Tags: Sivan Kurzberg, Paul Kurzberg, Oded Ellner, Israel Institute for Intelligence and Special Tasks (Mossad), Israel, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Omer Marmari, Yaron Shmuel
Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline
Category Tags: Israel
November 23, 2001: More Israelis Arrested in Wake of 9/11
The Washington Post reports that “[a]t least 60 young Israeli Jews have been arrested and detained around the country on immigration charges since the September 11 attacks, many of them held on US government officials’ invocation of national security.” An INS official who requested anonymity says the use of the term “special interest” for Israelis being held in Cleveland, St. Louis, and other places means the case in question is “related to the investigation of September 11th.” [Washington Post, 11/23/2001] Most of them are deported. However, Intelligence Online claims that “For the overwhelming majority of the ring’s members expelled, there was no problem at all with visas, and in the lists we only found a few minor cases of expired visas.”” [Agence France-Presse, 3/6/2002]
Entity Tags: Immigration and Naturalization Service
Category Tags: Israel
Late 2001: Israeli Government Reportedly Privately Admits to Running Spy Operation in US Before 9/11
The Forward, a popular Jewish weekly in the US, will later report that at the end of 2001, the Israeli government admits to having conducted a large-scale spying operation in the US before 9/11, using art students and moving vans as cover stories. The Forward quotes an anonymous former US official said to have been regularly briefed about the US investigation into Israeli spying: “The assessment was that Urban Moving Systems was a front for the Mossad and operatives employed by it. The conclusion of the FBI was that they were spying on local Arabs but that they could [be deported] because they did not know anything about 9/11.” He further claims that US officials confront the Israeli government at this time and Israel privately admits the operation while continuing to publicly deny it. Israel privately apologizes for violating a secret gentlemen’s agreement between the two countries under which espionage on each other’s soil is coordinated in advance. The Forward notes, “Most experts and former officials interviewed for this article said that such so-called unilateral or uncoordinated Israeli monitoring of radical Muslims in America would not be surprising.” [Forward, 3/15/2002] In 2007, Mark Perelman, the author of the 2002 Forward story that made these claims, will say he still stands by his story and his sources in the Mossad don’t deny it. CounterPunch also will claim to independently confirm Israel’s admission through two former CIA officers. [CounterPunch, 2/7/2007]
Entity Tags: Marc Perelman, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Israel, Israel Institute for Intelligence and Special Tasks (Mossad)
Category Tags: Israel
December 12-15, 2001: News Reports Raises Israeli Spying Questions
Two stills from Carl Cameron’s Fox News report on potential Israeli spying in the US. [Source: Fox News]
Fox News reports, “Investigators within the DEA, INS, and FBI have all told Fox News that to pursue or even suggest Israeli spying… is considered career suicide.” “A highly placed investigator says there are ‘tie-ins’ between the spy ring and 9/11. However, when asked for details, he flatly refuses to describe them, saying, ‘evidence linking these Israelis to 9/11 is classified. I cannot tell you about evidence that has been gathered. It’s classified information.’” The report also reveals that Amdocs, an Israeli company, is recording virtually every phone call in the US and could be passing information on to the Israeli government (similar claims were first raised in 2000 [Insight, 5/29/2000] ). Fox News suggests that the position of this company might impede the 9/11 investigation. [Fox News, 12/12/2001]
Entity Tags: Israel, Amdocs, Immigration and Naturalization Service, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Drug Enforcement Agency
Category Tags: Israel
December 16, 2001: Fox News Removes Controversial Story from Website, but Story Nonetheless Makes an Impact
Fox News removes its series on the “art student spy ring” from its website after only two days, in response to pressure from The Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) and others. CAMERA suggests the reporter “has something, personally, about Israel.… Maybe he’s very sympathetic to the Arab side.” [Salon, 5/7/2002] The head of the ADL calls the report “sinister dangerous innuendo which fuels anti-Semitism.” [Forward, 12/21/2001] Yet there does not appear to be any substance to these personal attacks (and Forward later reverses its stance on the spy ring (see March 15, 2002)). Fox News also never makes a formal repudiation or correction about the series. The contents of the series continues to be generally ignored by the mainstream media, but it makes a big impact inside the US government: An internal DEA communiqué from December 18 mentions the Fox report by name, and warns of security breaches in telecommunications as described in the Fox report. [Salon, 5/7/2002]
Entity Tags: “Israeli art students”, Anti-Defamation League (ADL), Drug Enforcement Agency, Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America, The Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, Fox News
Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline
Category Tags: Israel, Media
March 5, 2002: Israeli Spies Reportedly Tracked 9/11 Hijackers
It is reported that many spies in the uncovered Israeli spy ring seemed to have been trailing the 9/11 hijackers. At the very least, they were in close proximity. For instance, five Israeli spies are intercepted in the tiny town of Hollywood, Florida, and four 9/11 hijackers are known to have spent time in Hollywood, Florida. [Le Monde (Paris), 3/5/2002; Reuters, 3/5/2002; Jane's Intelligence Digest, 3/15/2002] In one case, some Israeli spies lived at 4220 Sheridan Street, only a few hundred feet from where Mohamed Atta was living at 3389 Sheridan Street. Israeli spies appear to have been close to at least ten of the 19 9/11 hijackers. [Salon, 5/7/2002]
Entity Tags: Israel Institute for Intelligence and Special Tasks (Mossad), Mohamed Atta
Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline
Category Tags: Israel
March 6, 2002: US Officials Deny and Media Downplay Existence of Israeli Spy Ring
A Washington Post article, relying on US officials, denies the existence of any Israeli spy ring. A “wide array of US officials” supposedly deny it, and Justice Department spokeswoman Susan Dryden says: “This seems to be an urban myth that has been circulating for months. The department has no information at this time to substantiate these widespread reports about Israeli art students involved in espionage.” [Washington Post, 3/6/2002] The New York Times fails to cover the story at all, even months later. [Salon, 5/7/2002] By mid-March, Jane’s Intelligence Digest, the respected British intelligence and military analysis service, notes: “It is rather strange that the US media seems to be ignoring what may well be the most explosive story since the 11 September attacks—the alleged breakup of a major Israeli espionage operation in the USA.” [Jane's Intelligence Digest, 3/15/2002]
Entity Tags: US Department of Justice, Susan Dryden, “Israeli art students”
Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline
Category Tags: Israel, Media
March 11, 2002: Suspected Israeli Students Reportedly Served in Military
A newspaper reports that the DEA study on Israeli “art students” determined the “students” all had “recently served in the Israeli military, the majority in intelligence, electronic signal intercept, or explosive ordnance units.” [Palm Beach Post, 3/11/2002]
Entity Tags: Drug Enforcement Agency, “Israeli art students”
Category Tags: Israel
March 15, 2002: Jewish Magazine Says Israelis Spied in US on Radical Muslims
Forward, a US publication with a large Jewish audience, admits that there has been an Israeli spy ring in the US. [Forward, 3/15/2002] This is a reversal of their earlier stance. [Forward, 12/21/2001] But, “far from pointing to Israeli spying against US government and military facilities, as reported in Europe last week, the incidents in question appear to represent a case of Israelis in the United States spying on a common enemy, radical Islamic networks suspected of links to Middle East terrorism.” [Forward, 3/15/2002]
Entity Tags: “Israeli art students”
Category Tags: Israel
May 7, 2002: Sloppy Israeli Spy Ring Could Have Been Smoke Screen
Salon reports on the Israeli “art student spy ring.” All the “students” claim to have come from either Bezalel Academy or the University of Jerusalem. A look in the Bezalel database shows that not a single “art student” appears to have attended school there. There is no such thing as the University of Jerusalem. In fact, the article points out that the sheer sloppiness and brazenness of the spy operation appears to be a great mystery, especially since the Mossad is renowned as one of the best spy agencies in the world. One government source suggests a theory to Salon that the “art students” were actually a smoke screen. They were meant to be caught and connected to DEA surveillance so that a smaller number of spies also posing as art students could complete other missions. One such mission could have been the monitoring of al-Qaeda operatives. [Salon, 5/7/2002] Shortly afterwards, a major Israeli newspaper publishes a story about the spy ring, but does not come to any conclusions. [Ha'aretz, 5/14/2002]
Entity Tags: “Israeli art students”, Israel Institute for Intelligence and Special Tasks (Mossad), Drug Enforcement Agency, Al-Qaeda
Category Tags: Israel
May 7, 2002: Explosives Detected on Illegal Israelis
A Fox News report on the Oak Harbor truck incident. [Source: Fox News]
A moving truck is pulled over for speeding in the middle of the night in Oak Harbor, Washington, near the Whidbey Island Naval Air Station. The base is the home of the advanced electronic warfare Prowler jets. A bomb-sniffing dog detects explosives on one of the men and inside the truck. High-tech equipment is then used to confirm the presence of TNT on the gearshift and RDX plastic explosive on the steering wheel. Both men turn out to be Israeli (one with an altered passport) and in the country illegally. [Fox News, 5/13/2002] However, the FBI later clears the two men, saying both the dog and the tests just detected false positives from “residue left by a cigarette lighter.” [Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 5/14/2002; Jerusalem Post, 5/14/2002] The “art student spy ring” frequently uses moving vans as cover, and has been caught spying on the most top secret military bases. [Salon, 5/7/2002] In a possibly related story, the Seattle FBI office that handled this case will be broken into a few weeks later, and even a room containing evidence will be penetrated. [Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 7/29/2002]
Entity Tags: Federal Bureau of Investigation, “Oak Harbor Israelis”
Category Tags: Israel
November 2002: Saudi Interior Minister Blames Jews for 9/11 Attacks
Saudi Interior Minister Prince Nayef blames Zionists and Jews for the 9/11 attacks. He tells journalists, “Who has benefited from September 11 attacks? I think [the Jews] were the protagonists of such attacks.” Nayef is in charge of the Saudi investigation into the attacks, and some US congresspeople respond to the comments by questioning how strongly Saudi Arabia is investigating the involvement of the 15 Saudi 9/11 hijackers. [Associated Press, 12/5/2002]
Entity Tags: Nayef bin Abdul-Aziz, Israel
Category Tags: Israel
May 2004: More Israelis Are Arrested in Suspicious Circumstances, Again Traveling in Moving Vans
The truck stopped in Kings Bay, Georgia. [Source: Kings Bay Periscope]
On May 9, two Israelis are arrested after a high-speed chase in Tennessee. They are found with false documents. [WCYB 5 (Bristol, Va), 5/9/2004] On May 27, two others are arrested after trying to enter an Atlanta military base. Explosives are possibly discovered in their van. [Kings Bay Periscope, 5/27/2004]
Category Tags: Israel
May 3, 2004: Future Saudi Arabian King Claims Israel Is behind Saudi Dissidents
Following an attack on an oil company’s office in Yanbu, Saudi Arabia, in which six Westerners were killed (see May 1, 2004), Saudi officials say Israel played a role in the attacks. Crown Prince Abdullah, who will become king in 2005 (see August 1, 2005), says he is 95 percent sure “that Zionism is behind everything.” Foreign Minister Prince Saud says it is “well known” that Saudi dissidents based in London “have contacts and are financed by parties that are linked to Israel.” Although such allegations have been made before, this is the first time a figure as senior as Crown Prince Abdullah has repeated them. The suspected mastermind behind the attacks, Mustafa al-Ansari, was a member of the London-based Committee for the Defense of Legitimate Rights (CDLR) in the mid-1990s. However, prominent Saudi dissident Mohammed al-Massari, who founded the CDLR, dismisses the accusations of Israeli support. Newsweek notes that, “No evidence of such links has ever been made public,” and another prominent dissident, Saad al-Fagih, comments, “This is like saying George Bush is sponsoring bin Laden.” [Associated Press, 5/4/2004; Newsweek, 5/4/2004]
Entity Tags: Mohammed al-Massari, Mustafa al-Ansari, Abdullah bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, Saud al-Faisal, Saad al-Fagih
Category Tags: Israel, Saudi Arabia, Londonistan - UK Counterterrorism
September 3, 2004: Report: Israel Maintains ‘Huge, Aggressive’ Spy Operations Inside US
The Los Angeles Times reports that US officials claim, “Despite its fervent denials, Israel secretly maintains a large and active intelligence-gathering operation in the United States that has long attempted to recruit US officials as spies and to procure classified documents….” In turn, US agents have long monitored Israeli diplomats and agents in the US. An intelligence official who had recently left government says, “There is a huge, aggressive, ongoing set of Israeli activities directed against the United States.… Anybody who worked in counterintelligence in a professional capacity will tell you the Israelis are among the most aggressive and active countries targeting the United States.… The denials are laughable.” The Times adds, “Current and former officials involved with Israel at the White House, CIA, State Department, and in Congress had similar appraisals, although not all were as harsh in their assessments.” Officials note that Israel is considered a very close ally and is frequently given highly classified information. But it is also noted that US and Israeli intelligence agencies do not completely trust each other. [Los Angeles Times, 9/3/2004]
Entity Tags: US Congress, Central Intelligence Agency, Israel Institute for Intelligence and Special Tasks (Mossad), White House, US Department of State
Category Tags: Israel
September 16, 2004: New Israeli Art Student Ring in Canada Has Unexplained Link to Islamic Fundamentalist Fundraising
In a curious echo of reports of an Israeli “art student spy ring” in the US before 9/11, it is reported that numerous young Israelis claiming to be from non-existent art schools in Israel are being arrested and deported for selling art in Canada. Unlike the earlier events in the US, there are no reports of government offices and workers being targeted. Rather, it appears to be a money making scam to sell cheap Asian art for vastly inflated prices in numerous Canadian cities. However, it is reported these Israelis “may be linked to a group fronting for Islamic fundamentalist fundraisers.” The nature and detail of the connection between the Israelis and Islamic fundamentalists is not explained in the newspaper accounts of this scam. [Ha'aretz, 9/16/2004; Jerusalem Post, 9/16/2004]
Category Tags: Israel
September 16, 2004: Israelis Arrested on 9/11 Sue the US, Claiming Mistreatment and Torture
Omer Marmari. [Source: Public domain via Israeli TV]
Four of the five Israelis arrested on 9/11 (see 3:56 p.m. September 11, 2001), Paul and Sivan Kurzberg, Omer Marmari, and Yaron Shmuel, file a multimillion dollar lawsuit against the US Justice Department. They claim they were arrested illegally, then held without charge and interrogated and tortured for months. Their lawyer claims the case will serve as a venue to debunk theories that Israel was behind the 9/11 attacks. [Ha'aretz, 9/16/2004; Jerusalem Post, 9/16/2004] Forward, a publication geared towards the Jewish population in the US, reported in 2002 that the FBI concluded at least two of the five were Mossad agents and that all were on a Mossad surveillance mission. [Forward, 3/15/2002] As of early 2008, there have been no further media reports about this lawsuit.
Entity Tags: Yaron Shmuel, Sivan Kurzberg, Israel Institute for Intelligence and Special Tasks (Mossad), Federal Bureau of Investigation, “Israeli art students”, Omer Marmari, Paul Kurzberg
Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline
Category Tags: Israel, 9/11 Related Lawsuits
July 7, 2005: British Allegedly Give Israelis Advanced Warning of 7/7 London Bombings; Accounts Conflict
Several hours after the 7/7 London bombings (see July 7, 2005), the Associated Press reports: “British police told the Israeli Embassy in London minutes before Thursday’s explosions that they had received warnings of possible terror attacks in the city, a senior Israeli official said.… [Israeli Finance Minister and former Prime Minister] Benjamin Netanyahu had planned to attend an economic conference in a hotel over the subway stop where one of the blasts occurred, and the warning prompted him to stay in his hotel room instead, government officials said.… Just before the blasts, Scotland Yard called the security officer at the Israeli Embassy to say they had received warnings of possible attacks, the official said. He did not say whether British police made any link to the economic conference.” [Associated Press, 7/7/2005] Israeli Army radio also reports that “Scotland Yard had intelligence warnings of the attacks a short time before they occurred,” and “The Israeli Embassy in London was notified in advance, resulting in Finance Minister Binyamin Netanyahu remaining in his hotel room rather than make his way to the hotel adjacent to the site of the first explosion.” [IsraelNationalNews, 7/7/2005]
Israel Denies Reports - Several hours after that, Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom officially denies reports that Scotland Yard passed any advanced warning to Israel about the bombings, and British authorities deny they had any advanced warning at all. The Associated Press withdraws its earlier report and replaces it with one containing denials from Shalom and others about any warning. It states that Netanyahu was warned to stay in his hotel room, but the warning came shortly after the first bombing. [Stratfor, 7/7/2005; Associated Press, 7/7/2005]
Stratfor: Other Way Round - Later that same day, Stratfor, a respected private intelligence agency, notes the denials, but reports “Contrary to original claims that Israel was warned ‘minutes before’ the first attack, unconfirmed rumors in intelligence circles indicate that the Israeli government actually warned London of the attacks ‘a couple of days’ previous. Israel has apparently given other warnings about possible attacks that turned out to be aborted operations. The British government did not want to disrupt the G-8 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland, or call off visits by foreign dignitaries to London, hoping this would be another false alarm. The British government sat on this information for days and failed to respond.” [Stratfor, 7/7/2005]
Denial from Netanyahu - The next day, Netanyahu will call the report of his advanced warning “entirely false.” He says: “When the first bomb went off, we were departing our hotel. While we were on our way out, the security people said there was an explosion near the area I was scheduled to speak. They asked us to go back and stay put in our hotel.” [WorldNetDaily, 7/8/2005]
Call from Sharon - An Israeli newspaper also reports that “Shortly after the first explosion in London yesterday morning, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon called Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was scheduled to give a speech in the British capital, to inquire about his well-being and that of his entourage.” [Ha'aretz, 7/8/2005]
Warning Too Late - On July 11, the German newspaper Bild am Sonntag will report that the Mossad office in London received advance notice about 7/7 bombings, but only about six minutes before the first bombing. As a result, it was impossible to take any action to prevent the bombings. One Mossad source says, “They reached us too late for us to do something about it.” [Israel Insider, 7/11/2005]
Entity Tags: Silvan Shalom, Israel Institute for Intelligence and Special Tasks (Mossad), Ariel Sharon, Benjamin Netanyahu
Category Tags: 2005 7/7 London Bombings, Israel, Londonistan - UK Counterterrorism
October 5, 2005: Defense Department Official Pleads Guilty for Passing Secrets to Israel
Defense Department analyst Larry Franklin pleads guilty to passing government secrets to two employees of a pro-Israel lobbying group and to an Israeli government official, a violation of the Espionage Act. He is later sentenced to 12 and a half years in prison. [Washington Post, 10/6/2005; Washington Post, 1/21/2006; Savage, 2007, pp. 173] Franklin, an Iran specialist, gave details of US policy towards Iran to Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman, two members of AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) which the Washington Post calls “one of Washington’s most influential lobbying organizations.” He also admits to giving classified information directly to Naor Gilon, chief of political affairs at the Israeli Embassy in Washington. Gilon returned to Israel, but Rosen and Weissman have been charged in what prosecutors claim was a conspiracy to obtain and illegally pass classified US information to foreign officials and news reporters. Franklin reportedly has been cooperating with investigators in return for a relatively lenient sentence. [Washington Post, 10/6/2005; Washington Post, 1/21/2006] It appears that Franklin was caught by accident in 2003 as part of a larger FBI investigation into Israeli spying that began in 2001 (see September 9, 2001). Investigators had been monitoring Gilon and were reportedly “floored” to watch Franklin sit down and eat lunch with him. [United Press International, 12/9/2004]
Entity Tags: Naor Gilon, Keith Weissman, American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Larry Franklin, Steven Rosen
Timeline Tags: US confrontation with Iran
Category Tags: Israel
November 9, 2005: Three Simultaneous Suicide Bombings in Jordan; Israeli Tourists Evacuated in Advance
Saijida Mubarak Atrous al-Rishawi confesses on Jordanian television to attempting to be one of the suicide bombers. Her bomb belt is also shown. [Source: BBC / Jordanian Televison]
Three hotels in Amman, Jordan are simultaneously bombed. Sixty people, including three bombers, are killed and 115 others are injured. The explosions take place at the Grand Hyatt Hotel, the Radisson SAS Hotel, and the Days Inn, which are hotels often frequented by Western military contractors and diplomats. The bomb at the Radisson explodes in a ballroom where a wedding reception is taking place. The Jordanian government soon announces that the group Al-Qaeda in Iraq, which is supposedly led by the Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, took credit for the attack in an Internet statement. [CNN, 11/12/2005] Within days, an Iraqi woman accused of being a failed fourth suicide bomber confesses to participating in the attack on Jordanian television. CNN notes that “Many people were expressing doubt [whether the woman] really was involved…” [CNN, 11/14/2005] Two leading Palestinian security officials - West Bank military intelligence chief Maj Gen. Bashir Nafeh and his aide Col. Abel Allun - are among those killed. [BBC, 11/10/2005] The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports, “The Radisson is known to be popular with Israeli tourists,” yet no Israelis were killed in the bombings. “Hours before the bombings, many Israelis were evacuated from the Radisson… apparently due to a specific security alert.” (The Haaretz report about this is retracted and then later reinstated.) [Ha'aretz, 10/11/2005] The Los Angeles Times also notes that Haaretz report and adds that Amos N. Guiora, a former leader of the Israel Defense Forces, told the Times that “sources in Israel had also told him about the pre-attack evacuations. “It means there was excellent intelligence that this thing was going to happen.… The question that needs to be answered is why weren’t the Jordanians working at the hotel similarly removed?” [Los Angeles Times, 11/10/2005] The deaths of the Palestinian intelligence officials and warning to Israeli tourists cause some, especially in the Muslim world, to claim that the attacks were an Israeli false flag operation. [Washington Post, 11/15/2005]
Entity Tags: Al-Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Amos N. Guiora
Timeline Tags: Alleged Use of False Flag Attacks
Category Tags: Israel, Alleged Al-Qaeda Linked Attacks
November 30, 2007: CIA and Mossad Committed 9/11, Says Former Italian President Francesco Cossiga
Francesco Cossiga, former president of Italy, says in an interview, “All of the democratic circles of America and of Europe […] now know well that the disastrous [9/11] attack was planned and realized by the American CIA and Mossad with the help of the Zionist world to put under accusation the Arabic Countries and to persuade the Western powers to intervene in Iraq and Afghanistan.” [Corriere della Sera (Milan), 11/30/2007] Cossiga was president of Italy in the early 1990s, when the NATO-led Gladio “stay behind” network was exposed. Gladio was a decades-long secret right wing effort to prevent left wing forces from taking power in Europe, and the network sometimes staged false-flag bombings and assassinations blamed on left-wing groups to discredit them. Cossiga admitted his long involvement in the network in 1990, adding, “I am proud of the fact that we have kept the secret [of Gladio] for 45years.” [Guardian, 3/26/2001; Ganser, 2005, pp. 14]
Entity Tags: Francesco Cossiga
Category Tags: Israel, US Government and 9/11 Criticism
April 17, 2008: Former Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu Says 9/11 Attacks and Iraq War Good for Israel
Former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tells an audience at Bar Ilan university in Israel that the 9/11 attacks were beneficial for Israel. “We are benefiting from one thing, and that is the attack on the Twin Towers and Pentagon, and the American struggle in Iraq. […] [The attacks] swung American public opinion in our favor.” [Ha'aretz, 4/17/2008]
Entity Tags: Benjamin Netanyahu
Category Tags: Iraq War Impact on Counterterrorism, Israel
November 2008: Cousin of 9/11 Hijacker Ziad Jarrah Arrested in Lebanon, Accused of Spying for Israel
Ali al-Jarrah. [Source: New York Times/Public Domain]
Ali al-Jarrah, a cousin of 9/11 hijacker Ziad Jarrah, is arrested by the Lebanese military. He is accused of spying for Israel since the early 1980s. According to Lebanese investigators interviewed by the New York Times, he was recruited in 1983—a year after Israel invaded Lebanon—by Israeli officers who had imprisoned him. Jarrah, 50, worked as a school administrator. He is accused of providing information on Palestinian forces and Syrian troop movements. He is also suspected of involvement in the assassination of Imad Mughniyeh, a Hezbollah commander killed in Damascus in February 2008. His brother Yusuf, who is accused of helping him spy, is also arrested. Ali and Ziad Jarrah were “20 years apart in age and do not appear to have known each other well.” [Jerusalem Post, 11/3/2008; London Times, 11/9/2008; Independent, 11/13/2008; New York Times, 2/19/2009]
Source: History Commons
ADDITIONAL NOTE: Let us not forget the mysterious collapse of Building 7 at 5:25 pm. This event received very little coverage on the news. In fact, I wasn't even aware of it until I started the research on the Internet. Mind you, Building 7 was not hit by a plane. This is unmistakably a controlled demolition job. Watch the video below:
Take a close look at the manner in which WTC 7 collapses straight down. For the building to collapse in this fashion, all of the load bearing supports would have had to fail at exactly the same time.
The claim that the collapse was the result of a fire requires the fire be equally distributed throughout the entire floor of the building, providing equal heat for an equal amount of time, so that all the load bearings members would fail at the exact same moment.
Do you find this plausible?
Note the obvious rectangular area of windows blown out just as the collapse starts. While many blown windows are explained by the bellowing of air escaping outwards as ceiling crash down onto floors, this clearly synchronized event suggests explosives being used to cut not only the load bearing members but to sever the lateral supports as well, causing the endfs of the buildings to collapse in towards the center, minimizing damage to adjacent buildings. Again, this is a sign of a controlled demolition.
The above comments are borrowed from another source.
Here are the ABC and CBS News Broadcast Transcripts:
9/11/2001 ABC News broadcast
John Miller: "If there can be any good news about a day like today the collapse of 7 World Trade Center, the building they were so worried about injuring rescue workers, has freed up rescue workers to go into the area and they are now moving in in groups of 20 and 50 as their teams are designated..."
Peter Jennings: "So the principal danger to the rescue teams has been eliminated..."
John Miller: "The biggest danger has literally removed itself."
CBS:
Amazing, incredible, pick your word. For the third time today, it’s reminiscent of those pictures we’ve all seen too much on television before, where a building was deliberately destroyed by well placed dynamite to knock it down.”
CBS News anchor Dan Rather commenting on the collapse of Building 7 - September 11, 2001 at approx 5:30pm EST.
9/11/2001 radio broadcast (unspecified): "...I was just standing there, ya know... we were watching the building [WTC 7] actually 'cuz it was on fire... the bottom floors of the building were on fire and... we heard this sound that sounded like a clap of thunder... turned around - we were shocked to see that the building was... well it looked like there was a shockwave ripping through the building and the windows all busted out... it was horrifying... about a second later the bottom floor caved out and the building followed after that... we saw the building crash down all the way to the ground... we were in shock."
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