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In late November, the Washington
Post ran a story that stopped me dead in my tracks: "60
Israelis on Tourist Visas Detained Since Sept. 11," but it
was the subhead that really got my attention: "Government
Calls Several Cases 'of Special Interest,' Meaning Related to
Post-Attacks Investigation." In addition to the 1000-plus Middle
Easterners of the Muslim persuasion swept up in Ashcroft's
post-9/11 dragnet, it seems, some 60 Israelis were in custody.
And these were no ordinary tourists: INS officials testified in
immigration court hearings that this group was "of special
interest to the government" – the same argument used to justify
the detention of Arabs in connection with the investigation into
9/11. Shortly thereafter, in a column dated 11/28/01,
I asked: "What, exactly, is the meaning of this?" Today, I
am relieved to note,
the rest of the
media is finally
catching up to Etherzone.com and Antiwar.com and
asking the same question.
THE
ISRAELI ANGLE
While my own answer has developed over at least half a dozen
subsequent columns, the core of my thesis has remained
essentially unchanged. As I put it:
"As long
as 60 Israeli citizens are being held – under conditions of
great secrecy – in connection with the 9/11 investigation, it is
no longer tenable to dismiss the possibility of an Israeli angle
in this story."
The
Post story went on to describe the Israeli detainees as
having served in special anti-terrorist and intelligence units.
"Something tells me these guys are no ordinary tourists," I
averred. While "we just don't know" because of the secrecy
surrounding the government's actions, I thought that the whole
point of the Ashcroft round-up was not only to sweep up
potential suspects but to gather information that could lead
them to Al Qaeda's underground network in the US. Therefore, I
theorized,
"It could be that the Israelis, or at least some of them, fall
into this category: while not being directly involved, maybe
they know something. Nothing else could account for the
government's 'special interest.'"
A TRAIL OF
CLUES
The
suggestion of an Israeli connection to the events surrounding
9/11 did not spring, full blown, like Minerva from the head of
Zeus. It had been hovering in the background, implied in odd
accounts such as the one about the group of Israelis picked by
the FBI after they were spotted in Liberty State Park, Jersey
City, NJ, laughing and giving each other high-fives as the World
Trade Center burned on the other side of the river. In
an astonishing story in the Bergen Record, we learn
that 5 men described as "Israeli tourists," were picked up 8
hours after the WTC attack, "carrying maps linking them to the
blasts." "Sources close to the investigation said they found
other evidence linking the men to the bombing plot. "There are
maps of the city in the car with certain places highlighted,"
the source said. "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."According to this account, the 5 "tourists"
had been picked up by local police after receiving the following
alert from the FBI:
"Vehicle
possibly related to New York terrorist attack. White, 2000
Chevrolet van with New Jersey registration 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."
INSTANT
MESSAGE
Then
there was the story about the two employees of the Odigo
Company, an Israeli-based "instant-messaging" software company,
with New York offices in the vicinity of the WTC, who
received messages in the hours before disaster struck that
the World Trade Center would be hit. I was so skeptical of this
report, published in Ha'aretz, an Israeli daily
newspaper, that I wrote the author: he confirmed the contents of
these mysterious missives and cited his sources. In this
context, the Washington Post story fit into an eerie
pattern: it was not the final but the definitive piece of the
puzzle: the piece that, once found and put in place, evokes an
exclamation of "so that's what it is!" I was alone, at
the time, in raising the possibility of an Israeli angle to the
story of 9/11 – but not for long.
CAMERON'S
BOMBSHELL
On
December 11, Fox News ran the first of
a four-part series by Carl Cameron that offered yet more
evidence to support my contention that the Israelis had some
rather specific foreknowledge of the 9/11 atrocity. Citing
sources in law enforcement, Cameron dropped a bombshell:
"A
handful of active Israeli military were among those detained,
according to investigators, who say some of the detainees also
failed polygraph questions when asked about alleged surveillance
activities against and in the United States. There is no
indication that the Israelis were involved in the 9-11 attacks,
but investigators suspect that they 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.' Fox News has learned
that one group of Israelis, spotted in North Carolina recently,
is suspected of keeping an apartment in California to spy on a
group of Arabs who the United States is also investigating for
links to terrorism."
The
detained Israelis, reported Cameron, had been part of a vast spy
operation that had very possibly been tracking the hijackers,
and had both the means and the opportunity to discover the
terrorist plot. Over four nights, he detailed extensive Israeli
penetration of US defense and government facilities revealed in
the documents of a secret task force within the government that
has been collecting evidence on this case since the early 1990s.
ART FOR
ART'S SAKE?
Posing as "art students" selling cheap handicrafts and
paintings, as many as 120 young Israelis – the majority of whom
"stated they served in military intelligence, electronic
surveillance intercept and or explosive ordinance units" in the
Israeli army – made contact with US government officials and
personnel in "hundreds of incidents and towns across the
country." Indeed, there had been so many news reports in local
media, concentrated especially in Texas and Florida, detailing
this activity that the National Counterintellligence Center (a
dot-gov site) issued
the following alert:
"In the
past six weeks, employees in federal office buildings located
throughout the United States have reported suspicious activities
connected with individuals representing themselves as foreign
students selling or delivering artwork. Employees have observed
both males and females attempting to bypass facility security
and enter federal buildings."
WANNA SEE
MY ETCHINGS?
These
"students," the NCC observed, who "have been described as
aggressive," didn't seem too interested in selling anybody
anything, and instead seemed intent on simply gaining access.
Two were arrested (in Texas) and, lo and behold, it was
discovered that their work visas and green cards were
counterfeit. One particularly eerie aspect of all this is these
"students" turning up at "the private residences of senior
federal officials under the guise of selling art." On October 2,
KHOU-TV of Houston, Texas,
reported that, earlier in the year, these guys were caught
sneaking into "federal buildings and defense sites," and, in
Dallas, "The so-called students hit early this year at the
city's FBI building, the Drug Enforcement Administration and at
the Earle Cabell Federal building, where guards found one
student wandering the halls with a floor plan of the building."
THE
MARRIAGE OF ART AND HI-TECH
The Fox
News exposé also reported on the
near-total penetration of US communications facilities by
Israel, through two "private" Israeli telecommunications
companies, Amdocs, Ltd., and Comverse Infosys, which, together,
handle virtually all the billing records and government wiretaps
in the US. Indeed, many of the "art students" not only had
"intelligence expertise," but also worked for Amdocs "or other
companies in Israel that specialize in wiretapping."
THE SOUND
OF SILENCE
Cameron's
report, which was immediately denied by the Israelis, spread
pandemonium throughout the government, and official spokesmen
stonewalled. Ari Fleischer was unusually laconic, referring
questions from reporters to an unresponsive Justice Department
and other equally uncooperative government agencies. As for the
rest of the American media – a stunning silence. You could hear
a pin drop. As Cameron
put it in an interview with CSPAN:
"The
biggest story of our time, of Israel spying on all branches of
the government, on all our intelligence agencies – in the CIA
[Central Intelligence Agency], the DEA and the White House
itself, is not picked up by the leading newspapers like the
New York Times and the Washington Post."
BREAKTHROUGH
Ah, but
the Post, at least, would eventually be forced to pick up
the story, if only to serve as a conduit for official government
denials. In the meantime, for months, the only place you could
read about this story was on Etherzone.com and Antiwar.com, and
specifically right here in this space: that is,
here, and
here, and
here, and
here – and also
here. Not to mention
here. (And don't forget
here.) Until, finally, the story was picked up overseas, by
LeMonde, a major French newspaper, which based
its story [go
here for the French version] on a report published in the
Online Intelligence newsletter. The editor of the
newsletter,
Guillaume Dasquié – co-author of
Bin Laden: The Hidden Truth – was recently
taken to task in this space for positing the 9/11 conspiracy
as being part of a plot by Saudi Arabia, which, after all,
"since the 18th century … has been focused on conquering the
world." I am glad to see, however, that the direction of his
investigation has now taken a radically different turn….
STUMBLING
ON A RATTLESNAKE
This turn
was helped along, it seems, by yet another "leak" from a US
government agency, this time the Drug Enforcement Administration
(DEA). Dasquié had somehow gotten his hands on a classified
61-page report drafted by an interagency task force charged with
summarizing information gleaned from the nearly 120 Israelis
rounded up in the wake of 9/11. The DEA, it seems, took the lead
in the investigation because its Office of Security Programs –
responsible for internal security – first stumbled on "unusual
behavior of young Israeli nationals who had gained access to DEA
circles." As it turned out, nearly all these "art students"
belonged to a particular school of art – that is, if
espionage and spying in general can be considered an art, albeit
a black one.
NAMING
NAMES
What I
like best about Online Intelligence is that it names
names,
"A few
of the operatives are well known in the Israeli intelligence
community. The report cited the names of Peer Segalovitz
(military registration number 5087989) and Aran Ofek, son of a
renowned two-star general in the Israeli army. The network
targeted some of the most sensitive sites in the U.S., such as
Tanker Air Force Base near Oklahoma City. Indeed, the U.S. Air
Force's Office of Special Investigation sent a letter to the
Justice Department on May 16 of last year to ask for assistance
in a case against four Israelis suspected of spying: Yaron Ohana,
Ronen Kalfon, Zeev Cohen and Naor Topaz."
ISRAEL'S
UNDERGROUND ARMY
Acccording
to the DEA, Israel's underground army in the US consisted of
"around 20 units composed of between four and eight members
each." More names are named: Michael Calmanovic headed up the
team in Irving, Texas, while Florida was the domain of Hanan
Serfaty. Legum Yochai had charge of the Miami operation.
Online Intelligence also notes the Amdocs connection: it
seems these "art students" "cultivated contacts with Israeli
information technology companies based in the US and serving as
regular suppliers to various U.S. federal agencies, such as
Amdocs" and others. The Fox News series is cited, by Online
Intelligence and Le Monde, and the former
even provides a convenient map of the Texas chapter of the
"art students" underground apparatus, complete with not only
names, but arrival dates, corporate connections, when and where
they were arrested, and their specific functions in the Israeli
military-intelligence apparatus. How much more evidence do we
need before the editorialists and the pundits start calling
government officials on their lies – and Congress begins an
investigation?
TRUTH WILL
OUT
As I said
in
my first column on this subject, written before Fox News
expanded on the story and introduced it to a wider public,
"truth will out" in spite of government stonewalling and
obsessive secrecy:
"In
these days of the Internet, and the instant dissemination of
information, the gatekeepers have to resort to quasi-legal means
to keep the truth from coming out. But it will come out, sooner
rather than later – in which case, the question, 'Haven't we had
enough of Israel?' may be definitively answered."
This story
was really too big to keep under wraps for long, which is why I
kept flailing it week after week, certain that sooner or later
it would find its way into the major media and have a decisive
impact on the public debate over this war, and our relations
with the rest of the world in general. It is a nice feeling to
be vindicated, and, if you'll permit me to indulge myself for a
moment, let me just remind my regular readers: you read it
here first!
AN 'URBAN
MYTH' – MY EYE!
As
the embargo on the Israeli spy story began to break down, with
reports from the
British media filtering
into the US and
Canada, the Washington Post – the original source of
the news that 60 Israelis had been detained – ran what is fated
to become
the prototypical denial coming from the US and
Israeli governments:
"'This
seems to be an urban myth that has been circulating for months,'
said Justice Department spokeswoman Susan Dryden. 'The
department has no information at this time to substantiate these
widespread reports about Israeli art students involved in
espionage.'"
An "urban
myth" – oh, that's rich! Confronted with the evidence, the
denialists equate documented reports from reputable news sources
with
stories of alligators in the New York City sewer system.
Faced with a leaked government document that reveals names,
places, and military identification numbers, government
spokesmen resort to characterizing the (so far unknown) leaker
as a "disgruntled" DEA employee who single-handedly wrote the
memo. We don't know what person or persons authored the DEA task
force report on Israeli spook activity in the US prior to 9/11,
but, in any case, what loyal American wouldn't be
disgruntled at this administration's increasingly unsuccessful
effort to bury this deeper than the lowest rung of Hell?
SOPHISTRY,
WASHINGTON-STYLE
As the new
revelations were met with a barrage of denials in Washington and
Israeli consulates around the country, Dasquié stuck by his
story. The FBI was engaging in sophistry, he said, when it
denied that the "art students" had been arrested for carrying
out espionage on behalf of a foreign power in the US: all were
expelled, the FBI piously averred, for routine visa violations.
But that is precisely how a cover-up of spying by a "friendly"
government would be accomplished, Dasquié points out: especially
by the Israel-friendly Bush administration, which is doing
everything it can to tamp down the growing scandal. Haul them
into immigration court, get them out of the country quick – and
no one's the wiser. Except, for once, they are….
IF I
LISTEN LONG ENOUGH TO YOU
Ms.
Dryden's smug arrogance in dismissing serious charges as "urban
myth" may have backfired. Denigrating your opponent when he has
the goods on you is not a smart strategy. As long as US and
Israeli officials continue to lie straight-faced, while gullible
journalists look to find a reason to believe government lies,
Intelligence Online
is threatening to publish the leaked DEA report in its entirety:
"'It seems
irresponsible for us to publish it, but if the denials go on, we
could put the report on our Internet site and in so doing
possibly blacken the names of the people most exposed,' the
editor of the Intelligence Online site, Guillaume Dasquié, said.
… 'The document we have in our possession details not only the
identities of the members of this network, but also their
activities in the Israeli army, and even their serial numbers in
the intelligence services, their passport numbers and their
validity, and their visas and their validity."
Au
contraire, messieurs Dasquié, et al, it would
be irresponsible to refrain from publishing it. Don't we
have a right to know the full context of the biggest terrorist
attack in American history – an attack that signaled the start
of a rapidly expanding war? As for "blackening the names of the
people most exposed" – isn't that what we mean by justice?
FUN, FUN,
FUN!
But of
course the responsibility for all this goes much higher than the
son of an Israeli general and a few high-ranking intelligence
officers – including responsibility for the ongoing cover-up.
That is why we are seeing both the US and Israeli governments
going into full "spin" mode, the signal that a real panic is
going on behind the scenes. This should provide us with plenty
of entertainment for the next few weeks, and
I see by this item in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel
that the fun has already started….
KNOCK,
KNOCK – WHO'S THERE?
Reiterating the basic facts of the story – Israeli spies
penetrating government facilities posing as "art students" – the
Sun-Sentinel reports that, in South Florida, these
suspicious characters were employed by an outfit known as
"Universal Art," with addresses in South Miami and Southrise:
"On
Wednesday, there was no sign of a company called Universal Art
Inc., at 10873 NW 52nd St. in Sunrise. The address in Florida
incorporation documents came back to a light industrial complex
next to the Sawgrass Expressway and south of Commercial
Boulevard. No one answered the door, and several occupants had
not heard of the company. The company's officers, Yitzchak Shish
and Chava Sagi, are not listed. They were not among those who
were deported…."
Nobody
answered the door, eh? Well, then we ought to be knocking a
little harder. And if no one answers, then why not break down
the door and see who or what is inside? After all, the
authorities haven't hesitated to do this in the case of
Arab-Americans and other non-Israeli Middle Eastern visitors and
immigrants. Why the reluctance in this case?
DON'T HOLD
YOUR BREATH
As the
hijackers were training for their deadly mission in South
Florida, the resident Israeli cell, all of whom lived nearby,
could have easily kept a close watch on their activities. If
anyone ever catches up with Yitzchak Shish and Chava Sagi,
perhaps we will learn more about what the Israelis knew about
the events surrounding 9/11, and when they knew it. But if we're
depending on the FBI and our own intelligence services to find
these two, and make their story public, then I'm afraid we are
in for a long wait indeed. |