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The High-Fivers
More proof the Israelis were shadowing the 9/11 hijackers
By Justin Raimondo
16/02/07 -- "Antiwar"
-- It was the tail-end of a bleak November 2001: a pall of
shocked numbness hung over the country, and a rising war
hysteria had
nearly everyone cowed. Americans were just beginning to pick
themselves up,
dust themselves off, and focus on what had happened, and how
to react. It was very early on the morning of the 23rd when,
scanning the headlines, I came across a Washington Post
story by John Mintz: "60
Israelis Detained on Tourist Visas Since Sept. 11." Odd, I
thought, why go after the Israelis, probably the least
likely suspects?
The subhead was even more
intriguing: "Government Calls Several Cases 'of Special
Interest,’ Meaning Related to Post-Attacks Investigation."
Apparently organized groups of Israelis had been arrested, and
"dozens" held without bond. Inquiries to the Justice Department
had yielded this response:
"In several cases, such as
those in Cleveland and St. Louis, INS officials testified in
court hearings that they were 'of special interest to the
government,’ a term that federal agents have used in many of the
hundreds of cases involving mostly Muslim Arab men who have been
detained around the country since the terrorist attacks.
"An INS official who
requested anonymity said the agency will not comment on the
Israelis. But he said the use of the term 'special interest’
means the case in question is 'related to the investigation of
September 11th.’"
It wasn’t some
anti-Semitic
conspiracy crank sitting in his parents’ basement, or
Iranian President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who first linked Israeli nationals to
the events of 9/11: it was the U.S. government, specifically its
law enforcement arm.
This I found utterly
astonishing, because it was clear to me, at that point, that
there was a link, albeit one largely unknown in its
specifics. Why else were the feds casting their nets around for
Israelis rather than Arabs, Persians, and, yes, Muslims?
There was more. The original
Post piece was updated: the number of detained Israelis had
risen to 120. I had been
following
the story in this space, and noting its significance, in the
weeks before Carl Cameron broadcast his famous
four-part
report on Fox News, which exposed the extensive Israeli spy
network in this country and opened with this electric charge:
"There is no indication that
the Israelis were involved in the 9-11 attacks, but
investigators suspect that the Israelis may have gathered
intelligence about the attacks in advance, and not shared it. A
highly placed investigator said there are – quote – 'tie-ins.'
But when asked for details, he flatly refused to describe them,
saying, – quote – 'evidence linking these Israelis to 9-11 is
classified. I cannot tell you about evidence that has been
gathered. It's classified information.'"
The story, as it developed in
the months – and years – to come, sent me down an investigative
path that has yet to reach its endpoint. What we know is
this: in the months prior to 9/11, bands of Israelis posing as "art
students" [.pdf] had carried out what seemed like a
coordinated probing of U.S. government facilities, including
locations not known to the public. A
secret government
report detailing the activities of the "art students" – and
their background as highly trained in explosives and the art of
telecommunications interception – was leaked to the media, and
the story was again in the headlines. But not for long.
This is potentially one of the
most important 9/11-related stories ever reported, and yet the
number of serious investigative pieces done on it can hardly be
counted on the fingers of one hand. Antiwar.com has been
following this from the outset, and you can
go here
for a complete archive of my columns on the subject, plus
mainstream media pieces.
Of
particular
interest is the coverage by
The Forward, the oldest newspaper of the Jewish
community in North America. They reported on one key aspect of
the Israeli-9/11 connection: the story of the five employees of
a moving van company apprehended hours after the twin towers
were struck. They had been observed in Liberty State Park, New
Jersey, overlooking the Hudson, with a clear view of the burning
towers. A woman had seen them from the window of her apartment
building overlooking the parking lot: they came out of a white
van, and they were jumping up and down, high-fiving each other
with obvious glee. Their mood, it could be said, was
celebratory. They were also filming the towers as they burned,
and taking still photos.
The woman called the cops, who
put out a "be on the lookout" alert. I’ll let
Christopher Ketcham,
author of a blockbuster new report appearing in
Counterpunch,
tell the rest of the story:
"At 3:56 p.m., twenty-five
minutes after the issuance of the FBI BOLO, officers with the
East Rutherford Police Department stopped the commercial moving
van through a trace on the plates. According to the police
report, Officer Scott DeCarlo and Sgt. Dennis Rivelli approached
the stopped van, demanding that the driver exit the vehicle. The
driver, 23-year-old Sivan Kurzberg, refused and 'was asked
several more times [but] appeared to be fumbling with a black
leather fanny pouch type of bag’. With guns drawn, the police
then 'physically removed’ Kurzberg, while four other men – two
more men had apparently joined the group since the morning –
were also removed from the van, handcuffed, placed on the grass
median and read their Miranda rights. They had not been told the
reasons for their arrest. Yet, according to DeCarlo’s report,
'this officer was told without question by the driver [Sivan
Kurzberg], 'We are Israeli. We are not your problem. Your
problems are our problems. The Palestinians are the problem.’
Another of the five Israelis, again without prompting, told
Officer DeCarlo – falsely – that 'we were on the West Side
Highway in New York City during the incident.'"
This is, I believe, the most
detailed account yet published of what actually happened that
fateful day, and Ketcham clearly shows that the Israelis were
certainly aware of why they had been stopped. The cops
practically had to drag them out of the van at gunpoint, and it
is surely suspicious that they immediately starting denying any
role in "the incident." How did they know they weren’t being
stopped for a traffic violation? No wonder they were held for 71
days, mostly in solitary confinement, and interrogated. Some
repeatedly failed polygraph tests when questioned about possible
surveillance activities. The FBI agents who interrogated them
reportedly called them "the high-fivers," because of their odd
behavior at Liberty State Park.
The Forward confirmed
that the company they ostensibly worked for, Urban Moving
Systems, of Weehawken, New Jersey, was in all likelihood a
Mossad front. Dominik Suter,
the owner, fled to Israel the day after a police raid on his
office. The five detained Israelis were sent back to Israel,
where they claimed to be innocent victims of harassment.
Here they
are on an Israeli talk show. Of course they don’t mention
any of the above, or that they were found to have multiple
passports in their possession, along with $4,700 stuffed in a
sock and
maps of New York City highlighted in certain spots. Ketcham
quotes one local law enforcement official as saying
"It looked like they’re
hooked in with this, it looked like they knew what was going to
happen when they were at Liberty State Park."
Ketcham, utilizing the public
record, news reports, and his own sources, has painted the
clearest portrait yet of the "urban mover" Mossad cell, and how
they shadowed
the five hijackers who took over American Airlines flight
77, which struck the Pentagon to
such devastating effect. Living, working, and socializing
within a six-mile radius of Bergen County, these two groups
circled each other until, on 9/11, as a dark pall fell over
Manhattan and much of the rest of the world, one applauded the
others’ handiwork.
Ketcham’s story of how the FBI
investigation was scotched by high-ups ought to outrage every
patriotic American citizen. He cites a source at ABC News –
which covered this story on 20/20 in
a
treatment I consider
a whitewash
– as saying "They feel the higher echelons torpedoed the
investigation into the Israeli New Jersey cell. Leads were not
fully investigated."
The same source agrees with the
general assessment of CIA officers, and intelligence experts
such as James Bamford and
Vincent Cannistraro, that Urban Moving Systems was a covert
Israeli intelligence-gathering operation, most likely engaged in
electronic interception and other means of spying on radical
elements within Northern New Jersey’s Muslim milieu.
In the course of this, and given
their geographical proximity, it is not beyond reason to posit
that the Urban Movers were watching the future hijackers,
listening to their phone conversations, reading their emails,
and otherwise keeping fully apprised of their activities. What
made the Israelis jump for joy, as one counterintelligence
officer is said to have put it, is that "The Israelis felt that
in some way their intelligence had worked out – i.e., they were
celebrating their own acumen and ability as intelligence
agents."
The story of how this line of
investigation was suppressed, both in the law enforcement
community and in the media, is a saga in itself. I know that
Ketcham worked on this story long and hard, and
had supposedly firm commitments from both Salon.com and
The Nation to publish his work. Both projects were killed at
the last minute, in one case an hour before it was scheduled to
run. What’s particularly stupid, in the case of Salon, is that
they ran his previous piece, on the "Israeli
Art Student Mystery," years ago – and now refuse to follow
up their own story.
As for why the government
investigation into the Israeli connection was scotched, Ketcham
cites a former CIA counter-terrorism officer: "There was no
question but that [the order to close down the investigation]
came from the White House."
I have to tell you that it
hasn’t been easy following this story over the years. I was told
in the beginning, and in no uncertain terms, that this line of
investigation is forbidden, that it’s "too hot to handle," and,
implicitly, that the truth and the facts have to take second
place to political correctness. To even mention this story, in
certain quarters, is considered prima facie evidence of
anti-Semitism. Case closed.
In spite of a determined effort
on the part of some to
redefine
anti-Semitism to constrain critics of Israeli government
actions, there is an equally determined pushback – a real
movement to treat Israel as a nation like any other. That is, as
a nation with its own interests, which, if truth be told, it
pursues aggressively, and not only
in the occupied territories and
Lebanon,
but also right here in the U.S. The story of Israel’s
underground army in America – and its foreknowledge of
the 9/11 terrorist
attacks – is based on facts, not fantasies, and it has
nothing whatsoever to do with anti-Semitism – and everything to
do with establishing the full context of the worst terrorist
attack in our history.
9/11 was the opening shot of a
battle we are still fighting to this day, as
our soldiers fall in Iraq, and the hints of a new front in
our endless "war on terrorism" –
Iran – are hardly subtle. That signal event launched the war
hysteria that has only lately begun to peter out.
One of the major reasons why the
public has turned against the Iraq war has been the revelation
that the "intelligence" we acquired about Iraq’s alleged
"weapons of mass destruction" was
manipulated, cherry-picked, and outright falsified in order
to make the case for the invasion. If it turns out that the
Israelis really did know – that they picked up "chatter" from
the groups they were watching, and gained fairly detailed
knowledge of the hijackers’ plans – it will alter how we think
about 9/11, and change our perception of the
perpetual war that ensued.
Go here to order the
Ketcham piece, which is not yet online. You can only get it on
dead-tree, but, believe me, it’s worth it. [Editor's note:
Ketcham's piece is now online.]
And, while you’re doling out
cash, remember the Antiwar.com
fundraising drive is
going into high gear. I won’t tout our fearlessness in covering
this controversial story all these years, because the record
speaks for itself, and far more eloquently than any sales pitch.
In a era when the "mainstream" media has failed, and failed
miserably, Antiwar.com isn’t a luxury – it’s a necessity. You
know you ought to contribute today – so, go ahead,
do it.
Justin Raimondo is the
editorial director of Antiwar.com. He is the author of
An Enemy of the State: The Life of Murray N. Rothbard
(Prometheus Books, 2000). He is also the author of
Reclaiming
the American Right: The Lost Legacy of the Conservative Movement
(with an Introduction by Patrick J. Buchanan), (Center for
Libertarian Studies, 1993), and Into the Bosnian Quagmire: The
Case Against U.S. Intervention in the Balkans (1996).
He is a contributing editor
for The American Conservative,
a Senior Fellow at the Randolph Bourne Institute, and an Adjunct
Scholar with the Ludwig von
Mises Institute, and writes frequently for
Chronicles: A
Magazine of American Culture.
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