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Just Get Out!
There must be balance. But only regarding the truth. There need not be balance in firepower. It is O.K. that Israel has nuclear weapons and Apache helicopters, paid for by American taxpayers who can't afford to pay for adequate health care. Don't mumble about how "difficult" or "complex" the situation is. It isn't. You are the oppressor. You are the occupier. You park your tanks on plundered land. You fill your swimming pools with stolen water. You kill and destroy in order to inherit. So don't bullshit about "the situation."
By Gabriel Ash
YellowTimes.org Columnist (United States)
(YellowTimes.org) – How many Palestinians are dead in Jenin? Dozens? Hundreds? How many hundreds? If the number turns out to be exactly 641, or exactly 139, will that be a PR "victory" for the Palestinians, or for the Israelis? As journalists are lining up to declare the "victor," CNN runs a web poll about each side's credibility. Soon we may see the dead jostling with the living in CNN's sordidly named "crossfire."
As a mental exercise, let each of us decide at exactly how many deaths the scale tips from the Israeli side to the Palestinian side, at what point an incursion becomes a slaughter, at what point a slaughter becomes a massacre, at what point a massacre becomes a genocide.
This is all very important, PR-wise.
For eleven days, IDF soldiers have been preventing journalists, medics, rescue teams and aid convoys from entering Jenin.
This is how they "protect" the truth inside from all those outside who might want to "misuse" it against Israel.
After all, the truth is such a terrible weapon. It would be wrong to allow one side to have more of it than the other. There must be balance. But only regarding the truth. There need not be balance in firepower, for example. It is O.K. that Israel has nuclear weapons and Apache helicopters, paid for by American taxpayers who can't afford to pay for adequate health care, while Palestinians fight with rifles and home-made explosives.
There need not be balance about land either. It is O.K. that Israelis control all the land and Palestinians none.
Nor is balance a requirement regarding liberty, or human rights, which Israelis enjoy and Palestinians do not. But there must be balance in describing what happened in Jenin.
That is why accuracy is very important in Jenin. Was it exactly a "massacre," as Perez called it and then denied, or a "devastation," or just an "incursion" that used "minimal force" to achieve "necessary goals," such as showing Palestinians who's the boss and what you get for upsetting him? If you use too strong a word, if you match the expression to the stench of the decomposing bodies, Israel will reprimand you, brand you an anti-Semite, maybe even expel you. Be forewarned.
But what can one do? Even the cautious and pro-Israeli The Economist saw clear evidence of war crimes. U.N. envoy Terje Roed-Larsen described the devastation in Jenin as "horrific beyond belief," and said it was "morally repugnant" that Israel blocked humanitarian emergency workers from entering Jenin for 11 days. Israel is still blocking rescue teams, while Perez is pondering whether to send Roed-Lansen home with a note to his parents or merely revoke his weekly allowance. The undiplomatic words of the Norwegian diplomat, but not the undiplomatic reality these words refer to, really hurt Israel's highly evolved moral sensibility.
Having agreed to it earlier, the government of Israel is now blocking the U.N. fact-finding mission to Jenin. The problem, according to Israel, is that too many of the members have "humanitarian" experience, and might not understand the requirements of warfare. It is easy to imagine the people and the resumes Israel would want to see instead: maybe a few Latin American death-squad leaders; or Lt. William Calley, whose experience at Mai Lai could prove invaluable in determining what is and what isn't a massacre; or perhaps the French General Paul Aussaresses, commander of the 1957 French paratroopers' attack on the Casbah of Algier. To top it all, war crimes connoisseur Madeleine Albright, or even Henri Kissinger, could provide moral leadership, as well as much needed verbal elasticity.
As long as there is balance.
For the Israeli public and politicians, the widespread, and very unbalanced, opprobrium is just one more affirmation that the "whole world is against us."
Echoing popular sentiment, Israel's President Moshe Katsav whines: "with all due respect and esteem for people of conscience and the bleeding-heart liberals of the world, I don't understand why they've clamped their mouths shut for a year and a half while the cruelest of unprecedented terrorist acts were committed against Israelis citizens everywhere."
President Katsav, are all the inhabitants of Jenin terrorists? Are most? Is God's own standard, of requiring only ten righteous men to save a city, too lax for you? What part of "collective punishment is a war crime" don't you understand?
The fact that the eruption of violence during the last eighteen months baffles you so much makes me wonder, President Katsav. Do you understand the idea of liberty? Have you ever read the universal declaration of human rights?
Do you understand that "universal" means "applies to everybody equally"?
Does the declination of possessive pronouns confuse you? Surely you are at ease with "mine" and "ours." But do you also understand the concepts behind "yours," "his," "hers," and "theirs"? When I look at the map of the land grab for your illegal settlements, I have serious doubts.
Are you troubled why "people of conscience" do not condemn terrorism? Even to make such an accusation you must be living in an alternate universe. But I will answer your whining twice nevertheless.
The long answer, President Katsav, "with all due respect and esteem," is that the suicide bombers did not land in Israel from outer space. The explosive belts might as well carry a label that reads "made in the Greater Eretz Israel."
The suicide bombs are the mutant flowers of Israel's brutalizing occupation, springing from the seeds of the 54-year-long dehumanization of Palestinians. They are the ghosts of your brutality coming back to haunt you, the mementos of your war against memory.
The massive and deliberate destruction of Palestinian civil records in the West Bank in the last weeks is but the most recent chapter in a war against Palestinian memory that began in 1948, with the annihilation of 400 Palestinian villages. But you seem to learn nothing from history, indeed from your own history: ghosts always return, each time more violently.
For those ready to die, their spiritless hatred towards you is what remains after you have bulldozed their past and their future. Whether you like it or not, they are your bastard offspring. Everything they know about hate, you taught them. Everything they forgot about humanity, you made them forget. Give them a hug now, as they have proven themselves worthy of their parents – you.
The short answer, President Katsav, is really short: just get out!
Call the army home. Call the occupation off. And get out of the Occupied Territories. Just get out!
Don't mumble about how "difficult" or "complex" the situation is. It isn't. You are the oppressor. You are the occupier. You park your tanks on plundered land. You fill your swimming pools with stolen water. You kill and destroy in order to inherit. So don't bullshit about "the situation." Just get out!
Stop abusing people. Stop abusing language. Stop spinning your own moral cocoon. Stop turning your country and your people into a metaphor of evil. Just get out!
Don't wait for Bush. Don't wait for Arafat. Don't wait to negotiate with the mythical Palestinian leader who will finally accept your dominion. There is nothing to negotiate about. Just get out!
Take your rabid Jewish fundamentalists from Kiriat Arba and Beit El with you. Load them on buses and pump the gas pedal until the hills of the West Bank vanish in the rear mirror. Just get out!
Gather your thugs from the borderless "border police," give them scholarships and send them to school again. Let them discover there is more to life than beating people to a pulp. Just get out!
Take your checkpoints, with all their petty humiliations and deadly snipers, with you. And just get out!
Send the Shin-Bet packing. After 35 years, the world had enough of your clever jailers and torturers. Take them with you and just get out!
Let your hideous bulldozers loose on the illegal settlements of Ma'ale Edomim, Har Homa and Gilo. There is plenty of demolition work for them there. Let them continue until the mountain line bears no more memory of your rape. Then just get out!
Don't apologize. Don't justify. Don't explain. There is nothing left to explain. Honestly. Just get out!
Don't even worry about the thousands of olive trees, symbols of peace, you uprooted. Someone will plant them again.
Just get out!
YellowTimes.org Columnist (United States)
(YellowTimes.org) – How many Palestinians are dead in Jenin? Dozens? Hundreds? How many hundreds? If the number turns out to be exactly 641, or exactly 139, will that be a PR "victory" for the Palestinians, or for the Israelis? As journalists are lining up to declare the "victor," CNN runs a web poll about each side's credibility. Soon we may see the dead jostling with the living in CNN's sordidly named "crossfire."
As a mental exercise, let each of us decide at exactly how many deaths the scale tips from the Israeli side to the Palestinian side, at what point an incursion becomes a slaughter, at what point a slaughter becomes a massacre, at what point a massacre becomes a genocide.
This is all very important, PR-wise.
For eleven days, IDF soldiers have been preventing journalists, medics, rescue teams and aid convoys from entering Jenin.
This is how they "protect" the truth inside from all those outside who might want to "misuse" it against Israel.
After all, the truth is such a terrible weapon. It would be wrong to allow one side to have more of it than the other. There must be balance. But only regarding the truth. There need not be balance in firepower, for example. It is O.K. that Israel has nuclear weapons and Apache helicopters, paid for by American taxpayers who can't afford to pay for adequate health care, while Palestinians fight with rifles and home-made explosives.
There need not be balance about land either. It is O.K. that Israelis control all the land and Palestinians none.
Nor is balance a requirement regarding liberty, or human rights, which Israelis enjoy and Palestinians do not. But there must be balance in describing what happened in Jenin.
That is why accuracy is very important in Jenin. Was it exactly a "massacre," as Perez called it and then denied, or a "devastation," or just an "incursion" that used "minimal force" to achieve "necessary goals," such as showing Palestinians who's the boss and what you get for upsetting him? If you use too strong a word, if you match the expression to the stench of the decomposing bodies, Israel will reprimand you, brand you an anti-Semite, maybe even expel you. Be forewarned.
But what can one do? Even the cautious and pro-Israeli The Economist saw clear evidence of war crimes. U.N. envoy Terje Roed-Larsen described the devastation in Jenin as "horrific beyond belief," and said it was "morally repugnant" that Israel blocked humanitarian emergency workers from entering Jenin for 11 days. Israel is still blocking rescue teams, while Perez is pondering whether to send Roed-Lansen home with a note to his parents or merely revoke his weekly allowance. The undiplomatic words of the Norwegian diplomat, but not the undiplomatic reality these words refer to, really hurt Israel's highly evolved moral sensibility.
Having agreed to it earlier, the government of Israel is now blocking the U.N. fact-finding mission to Jenin. The problem, according to Israel, is that too many of the members have "humanitarian" experience, and might not understand the requirements of warfare. It is easy to imagine the people and the resumes Israel would want to see instead: maybe a few Latin American death-squad leaders; or Lt. William Calley, whose experience at Mai Lai could prove invaluable in determining what is and what isn't a massacre; or perhaps the French General Paul Aussaresses, commander of the 1957 French paratroopers' attack on the Casbah of Algier. To top it all, war crimes connoisseur Madeleine Albright, or even Henri Kissinger, could provide moral leadership, as well as much needed verbal elasticity.
As long as there is balance.
For the Israeli public and politicians, the widespread, and very unbalanced, opprobrium is just one more affirmation that the "whole world is against us."
Echoing popular sentiment, Israel's President Moshe Katsav whines: "with all due respect and esteem for people of conscience and the bleeding-heart liberals of the world, I don't understand why they've clamped their mouths shut for a year and a half while the cruelest of unprecedented terrorist acts were committed against Israelis citizens everywhere."
President Katsav, are all the inhabitants of Jenin terrorists? Are most? Is God's own standard, of requiring only ten righteous men to save a city, too lax for you? What part of "collective punishment is a war crime" don't you understand?
The fact that the eruption of violence during the last eighteen months baffles you so much makes me wonder, President Katsav. Do you understand the idea of liberty? Have you ever read the universal declaration of human rights?
Do you understand that "universal" means "applies to everybody equally"?
Does the declination of possessive pronouns confuse you? Surely you are at ease with "mine" and "ours." But do you also understand the concepts behind "yours," "his," "hers," and "theirs"? When I look at the map of the land grab for your illegal settlements, I have serious doubts.
Are you troubled why "people of conscience" do not condemn terrorism? Even to make such an accusation you must be living in an alternate universe. But I will answer your whining twice nevertheless.
The long answer, President Katsav, "with all due respect and esteem," is that the suicide bombers did not land in Israel from outer space. The explosive belts might as well carry a label that reads "made in the Greater Eretz Israel."
The suicide bombs are the mutant flowers of Israel's brutalizing occupation, springing from the seeds of the 54-year-long dehumanization of Palestinians. They are the ghosts of your brutality coming back to haunt you, the mementos of your war against memory.
The massive and deliberate destruction of Palestinian civil records in the West Bank in the last weeks is but the most recent chapter in a war against Palestinian memory that began in 1948, with the annihilation of 400 Palestinian villages. But you seem to learn nothing from history, indeed from your own history: ghosts always return, each time more violently.
For those ready to die, their spiritless hatred towards you is what remains after you have bulldozed their past and their future. Whether you like it or not, they are your bastard offspring. Everything they know about hate, you taught them. Everything they forgot about humanity, you made them forget. Give them a hug now, as they have proven themselves worthy of their parents – you.
The short answer, President Katsav, is really short: just get out!
Call the army home. Call the occupation off. And get out of the Occupied Territories. Just get out!
Don't mumble about how "difficult" or "complex" the situation is. It isn't. You are the oppressor. You are the occupier. You park your tanks on plundered land. You fill your swimming pools with stolen water. You kill and destroy in order to inherit. So don't bullshit about "the situation." Just get out!
Stop abusing people. Stop abusing language. Stop spinning your own moral cocoon. Stop turning your country and your people into a metaphor of evil. Just get out!
Don't wait for Bush. Don't wait for Arafat. Don't wait to negotiate with the mythical Palestinian leader who will finally accept your dominion. There is nothing to negotiate about. Just get out!
Take your rabid Jewish fundamentalists from Kiriat Arba and Beit El with you. Load them on buses and pump the gas pedal until the hills of the West Bank vanish in the rear mirror. Just get out!
Gather your thugs from the borderless "border police," give them scholarships and send them to school again. Let them discover there is more to life than beating people to a pulp. Just get out!
Take your checkpoints, with all their petty humiliations and deadly snipers, with you. And just get out!
Send the Shin-Bet packing. After 35 years, the world had enough of your clever jailers and torturers. Take them with you and just get out!
Let your hideous bulldozers loose on the illegal settlements of Ma'ale Edomim, Har Homa and Gilo. There is plenty of demolition work for them there. Let them continue until the mountain line bears no more memory of your rape. Then just get out!
Don't apologize. Don't justify. Don't explain. There is nothing left to explain. Honestly. Just get out!
Don't even worry about the thousands of olive trees, symbols of peace, you uprooted. Someone will plant them again.
Just get out!
For more information:
http://www.yellowtimes.org/article.php?sid...
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Why should Americans pay thru the nose for the Jews' home away from home? For their exclusive JEWS ONLY vacation home? For their anti-democratic, racist, apartheid, immoral, repulsive state of Israel!
FREE PALESTINE! PALESTINE WILL BE FREE OF ZIONIST OPPRESSION!
We Americans must fight for freedom for the Palestinians and we must put American interests first, and that is NOT Israel.
We want justice for ALL people, including Palestinians. NOW!
FREE PALESTINE! PALESTINE WILL BE FREE OF ZIONIST OPPRESSION!
We Americans must fight for freedom for the Palestinians and we must put American interests first, and that is NOT Israel.
We want justice for ALL people, including Palestinians. NOW!
Who cheered when we were attacked on 911?
The five people who were caught cheering in a New York park while the attacks were taking place turned out to be Israelis and not Arabs as originally claimed by the mainstream media. Of course, they didn't correct this pointing out the truth.
Don't dodge the question. who cheered? who handed out sweets and candies and cakes?
Hundreds of Palestinians held candle light vigils for the victims; but all we get from the mainstream media is the images of that handful of kids played and replayed, over and over -- drumming it into our heads that they deserve everything Israel does to them.
Israeli Leaders were ecstatic. Benjamin Netanyahu, when asked what he thought, replied: "it's very good".
Israeli Leaders were ecstatic. Benjamin Netanyahu, when asked what he thought, replied: "it's very good".
There was more than kids out there cheering and you know it. Ever heard the expression about apples don't fall far from the tree? Maybe that explains where the kids learned it.
I just have to laugh my ass off when I see the trolls are forced by their lack of intelligence to steal Nessie's identity (albeit in a weak, obvious way). It speaks volumes about their ability to contribute to meaningful discussion as adults.
BABA WAWA'S WHITEWASH
ISRAELI SPIES CHEER AS WTC BURNS
By: Justin Raimondo
It was eerie to actually see the scene of a story I have written about on more than one occasion, to see and hear the people I had only read about and, vaguely, imagined. On Friday night, the ABC News program 20/20 broadcast "The White Van," which told the story of 5 young Israeli men apprehended in New Jersey hours after the World Trade Center was hit. They had been observed on 9/11 watching the burning of the World Trade Center from their vantage point in Liberty State Park, New Jersey, photographing each other as they rejoiced against the backdrop of the WTC aflame in the distance. Writing on March 15, I envisioned the scene, described in news stories and conjured in my mind's eye:
"As smoke billowed up into the pellucid sky, obscuring the sun, they laughed and joked and took pictures of each other against a backdrop of unspeakable horror. Outraged witnesses called the cops, who swooped down and picked them up. These Middle Eastern-looking men,' as witnesses described them, turned out to be Israelis: they were found with box cutters in their van, $4,000 in cash, and multiple passports. The van was registered as the property of 'Urban Moving Systems.' Police interrogated them for hours, and transferred them to a maximum security facility. A raid on the Urban Moving Systems warehouse (whose owner, Dominik Suter, has since fled to Israel) yielded computers, documents, and other evidence – of what?"
That's why a shiver of deja-vu passed through me as I watched the 20/20 news report. Listening to the New Jersey housewife who spotted the cheering Israelis from her highrise apartment, watching the baffled look on her face as she described the young Israelis:
"They were like happy, you know … They didn't look shocked to me. I thought it was very strange,"
It was like seeing a made-for-tv movie adaptation of a novel I'd read many times. Familiar but strangely truncated in certain key areas, abbreviated to conform to the supposedly short attention span of its audience, and, in true Hollywood style, not only bowdlerized but completely vulgarized. The result is a fairly interesting story studded with nuggets of new information, and saddled with a tacked-on – indeed, downright counterintuitive – moral at the end, as intoned by BaBa WaWa:
"I hope we've put all these woomers to west."
Much of the ABC report confirms my basic contention, and the contention of many others, that there was indeed, as Fox News reporter Carl Cameron puts it, a "vast Israeli spy operation" in the US in full operational mode prior to 9/ 11, engaged in watching the pro-Arab support network that operates in many major American cities.
What the 20/20 report amounts to is the Israelis' second line of defense, which basically boils down to this: well, yeah, they were Israeli spies, but they were just here defending Israel's interests and had no pre-knowledge of 9/11. In the process of spinning this new rationale, however, we have a series of damning admissions, as spun by ABC terrorism "expert" Vince Cannistraro, a "former chief of operations for counterterrorism with the CIA."
The arrested men's names were found in a search of a national intelligence database. We are also told by Cannistraro – as if we don't already know – that Urban Moving Systems was probably a Mossad front. Duh-uh! Gee, I guess that's why, shortly after the cops raided their New Jersey office, the Urban Movers got a move on, with owner Dominick Suter fleeing the country. The purpose of this spy nest, we are told in a reassuring tone, was
"Launching an intelligence operation against radical Islamists in the area, particularly in the New Jersey-New York area."
20/20 runs this "sure they were spies, but…" explanation up the flagpole in the hope that, awed by Cannistraro's "expertise" and connections, everyone will salute:
"Under this scenario, the alleged spying operation was not aimed against the United States, but at penetrating or monitoring radical fund- raising and support networks in Muslim communities like Paterson, N.J., which was one of the places where several of the hijackers lived in the months prior to Sept. 11."
The problem with this fallback story is that penetrating or monitoring New Jersey Muslims and having foreknowledge of 9/11 are not mutually exclusive. Indeed, such surveillance – to the degree it was successful – would have increased the likelihood that the Israelis would gain some knowledge of the 9/11 plot. If not all the details, at least a strong indication that 9/11 was bound to be a special day – one they would celebrate, shamelessly and carelessly, in full sight of others, unable to restrain their joy at the sight of the WTC emitting a black cloud over Manhattan.
A September 14 New York Times round-up of the nationwide investigation into the terrorist attacks seemed to imply not just foreknowledge, in the case of the 5 Israelis, but some form of collaboration:
"In New Jersey, where officials believe that the hijackers received assistance from accomplices, Sherri Evanina, a spokeswoman for the FBI. in Newark, said that five men were detained late Tuesday after the van in which they were driving was stopped on Route 3 in East Rutherford. She said witnesses had reported seeing the men celebrating the attack on the World Trade Center earlier in the day in Union City. 'They were seen leaving the location after they were celebrating,' Agent Evanina said. 'They were watching the entire event from their location.'"
If the best comedy is unintentional, then "The White Van" is chock full of yucks. The following had me rolling on the floor:
"For the FBI, deciphering the truth from the five Israelis proved to be difficult. One of them, Paul Kurzberg, refused to take a lie-detector test for 10 weeks — then failed it, according to his awyer. Another of his lawyers told us Kurzberg had been reluctant to take the test because he had once worked for Israeli intelligence in another country."
For the FBI, it seems, deciphering anything that isn't completely spelled out for them is well nigh impossible. So he wouldn't take the test for weeks, then took it and failed and then denied working for the Mossad – in this country, at any rate. As John Stossel, Barbara Walters' 20/20 colleague, ceaselessly reiterates: "Gimme a break!"
Why, in this case, is it so hard for the FBI to discover the truth – when they're being practically hit over the head with it? It's pathetic, really, to contemplate the utter cluelessness of our chief federal law enforcement agency, and the reporters who take their denials seriously. As 20/20 reports:
"Despite the denials, sources tell ABC News there is still debate within the FBI over whether or not the young men were spies."
No wonder Mohamed Atta and his fellow ghouls managed to sidestep our Keystone Kops so easily. If these jokers are still "debating" the obvious, then our government officials are right when they tell us that another massive terrorist attack is "inevitable." With these retards on guard duty, I'm surprised it hasn't happened already.
Our tone-deaf 20/20 reporter, John Miller, blathers on, oddly oblivious to the jarring effect of a conclusion that seems to contradict much of what came before. Okay, so "many U.S. government officials" concede the Urban Movers were Mossad spies, in the area on a specific mission, but don't worry, folks, because the FBI is telling us "To date, this investigation has not identified anybody who in this country had pre- knowledge of the events of 9/11." Note the curiously tentative nature of this disclaimer: to date, indeed….
The 20/20 technique is merely to drag Cannistraro out, who references mysterious "sources" to conclude that those lost little Israelis were just having some good clean fun that day, protecting Israel against terrorism (in New Jersey!):
"The investigation, at the end of the day, after all the polygraphs, all of the field work, all the cross-checking, the intelligence work, concluded that they probably did not have advance knowledge of 9/11."
Move along. Nothing to see here. Take it from me, the Expert. After all, would I lie to you?
The tale of the White Van, as told by 20/20, raises more questions than it settles. For what about those polygraphs? We are told that some of the Israeli detainees "were given as many as seven lie-detector tests." Why so many? The five were detained for over two months, 40 days of it in solitary confinement, time and opportunity enough for an awful lot of questions. Perhaps some of the answers contain a clue to help unravel the central unsolved mystery of 9/11, which is this:
How in Gehenna did a rag-tag bunch of Islamist nutballs, who were hoping to finance their terrorist plot with a US government loan, manage to pull off the biggest, deadliest, most spectacularly coordinated act of super-sabotage in modern history – without state support, all on their own?
The recent revelations by ex-FBI wiretap translator Sibel Edmonds of an unnamed "Middle Eastern country" with agents inside the FBI obstructing, mistranslating, and misdirecting official investigations make the question of "foreknowledge," "pre-knowledge," or whatever you want to call it moot. As I pointed out in my last column, the Edmonds allegations raise the ante considerably, from passive foreknowledge of 9/11 to the sinister possibility of Israel's active facilitation. As Edmonds wrote in a March letter to the inspector general's office:
"Investigations are being compromised. Incorrect or misleading translations are being sent to agents in the field. Translations are being blocked and circumvented."
It will take more than BaBa WaWa and her babbling yes-man to circumvent the facts and "spin" the Israelis out of this one. For what 20/20 conveniently left out was the entire context of the larger Israeli spy story, as uncovered by Carl Cameron in his 4-part series on Fox News, and since widely discussed both here and abroad.
We are supposed to look at five guys in a van, dancing for joy in the shadow of the burning WTC, in isolation, apart from the hundreds of Israeli "art students" who took such an ardent interest in entering government buildings in the months and weeks prior to 9/11.
Most absurdly, we are supposed to ignore a Federal Bureau of Investigation riddled with spies who owe their allegiance to a certain "Middle Eastern" country with an interest in compromising investigations, circulating misleading translations of wiretaps, and blocking what can't be botched. If all that is true today, then it was even truer prior to 9/11 – and now are you beginning to solve the central mystery of 9/11?
The intrepid reporters over at 20/20 look like they went to a lot of trouble to check out this story. They tracked down one of the original witnesses, went all the way to Israel to hear the young Israelis’ denials, and hauled out ABC’s highly-paid pet "expert" to spin away the obvious. But, somehow, they failed to do the elementary sort of research that would’ve mandated only a trip to their local library. There they might have read this astonishing story that appeared in the [September 12, 2001] Bergen Record, which describes the 5 Israeli detainees picked up 8 hours after the WTC attack as "carrying maps linking them to the blasts":
"[S]ources 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.’"
BaBa WaWa’s whitewash won’t wash. Those "woomers" are still circulating – and with good reason. We won’t know what really happened that fateful day until and unless Congress takes seriously its responsibility to investigate. For starters, let’s take a look at those highlighted maps – and then drag the rest of Israel’s spy operation out into the full light of day. Then and only then can we answer an increasingly important question about the background to 9/11: What did the Israelis know – and how did they know it?
http://www.etherzone.com/2002/raim070102.shtml
ISRAELI SPIES CHEER AS WTC BURNS
By: Justin Raimondo
It was eerie to actually see the scene of a story I have written about on more than one occasion, to see and hear the people I had only read about and, vaguely, imagined. On Friday night, the ABC News program 20/20 broadcast "The White Van," which told the story of 5 young Israeli men apprehended in New Jersey hours after the World Trade Center was hit. They had been observed on 9/11 watching the burning of the World Trade Center from their vantage point in Liberty State Park, New Jersey, photographing each other as they rejoiced against the backdrop of the WTC aflame in the distance. Writing on March 15, I envisioned the scene, described in news stories and conjured in my mind's eye:
"As smoke billowed up into the pellucid sky, obscuring the sun, they laughed and joked and took pictures of each other against a backdrop of unspeakable horror. Outraged witnesses called the cops, who swooped down and picked them up. These Middle Eastern-looking men,' as witnesses described them, turned out to be Israelis: they were found with box cutters in their van, $4,000 in cash, and multiple passports. The van was registered as the property of 'Urban Moving Systems.' Police interrogated them for hours, and transferred them to a maximum security facility. A raid on the Urban Moving Systems warehouse (whose owner, Dominik Suter, has since fled to Israel) yielded computers, documents, and other evidence – of what?"
That's why a shiver of deja-vu passed through me as I watched the 20/20 news report. Listening to the New Jersey housewife who spotted the cheering Israelis from her highrise apartment, watching the baffled look on her face as she described the young Israelis:
"They were like happy, you know … They didn't look shocked to me. I thought it was very strange,"
It was like seeing a made-for-tv movie adaptation of a novel I'd read many times. Familiar but strangely truncated in certain key areas, abbreviated to conform to the supposedly short attention span of its audience, and, in true Hollywood style, not only bowdlerized but completely vulgarized. The result is a fairly interesting story studded with nuggets of new information, and saddled with a tacked-on – indeed, downright counterintuitive – moral at the end, as intoned by BaBa WaWa:
"I hope we've put all these woomers to west."
Much of the ABC report confirms my basic contention, and the contention of many others, that there was indeed, as Fox News reporter Carl Cameron puts it, a "vast Israeli spy operation" in the US in full operational mode prior to 9/ 11, engaged in watching the pro-Arab support network that operates in many major American cities.
What the 20/20 report amounts to is the Israelis' second line of defense, which basically boils down to this: well, yeah, they were Israeli spies, but they were just here defending Israel's interests and had no pre-knowledge of 9/11. In the process of spinning this new rationale, however, we have a series of damning admissions, as spun by ABC terrorism "expert" Vince Cannistraro, a "former chief of operations for counterterrorism with the CIA."
The arrested men's names were found in a search of a national intelligence database. We are also told by Cannistraro – as if we don't already know – that Urban Moving Systems was probably a Mossad front. Duh-uh! Gee, I guess that's why, shortly after the cops raided their New Jersey office, the Urban Movers got a move on, with owner Dominick Suter fleeing the country. The purpose of this spy nest, we are told in a reassuring tone, was
"Launching an intelligence operation against radical Islamists in the area, particularly in the New Jersey-New York area."
20/20 runs this "sure they were spies, but…" explanation up the flagpole in the hope that, awed by Cannistraro's "expertise" and connections, everyone will salute:
"Under this scenario, the alleged spying operation was not aimed against the United States, but at penetrating or monitoring radical fund- raising and support networks in Muslim communities like Paterson, N.J., which was one of the places where several of the hijackers lived in the months prior to Sept. 11."
The problem with this fallback story is that penetrating or monitoring New Jersey Muslims and having foreknowledge of 9/11 are not mutually exclusive. Indeed, such surveillance – to the degree it was successful – would have increased the likelihood that the Israelis would gain some knowledge of the 9/11 plot. If not all the details, at least a strong indication that 9/11 was bound to be a special day – one they would celebrate, shamelessly and carelessly, in full sight of others, unable to restrain their joy at the sight of the WTC emitting a black cloud over Manhattan.
A September 14 New York Times round-up of the nationwide investigation into the terrorist attacks seemed to imply not just foreknowledge, in the case of the 5 Israelis, but some form of collaboration:
"In New Jersey, where officials believe that the hijackers received assistance from accomplices, Sherri Evanina, a spokeswoman for the FBI. in Newark, said that five men were detained late Tuesday after the van in which they were driving was stopped on Route 3 in East Rutherford. She said witnesses had reported seeing the men celebrating the attack on the World Trade Center earlier in the day in Union City. 'They were seen leaving the location after they were celebrating,' Agent Evanina said. 'They were watching the entire event from their location.'"
If the best comedy is unintentional, then "The White Van" is chock full of yucks. The following had me rolling on the floor:
"For the FBI, deciphering the truth from the five Israelis proved to be difficult. One of them, Paul Kurzberg, refused to take a lie-detector test for 10 weeks — then failed it, according to his awyer. Another of his lawyers told us Kurzberg had been reluctant to take the test because he had once worked for Israeli intelligence in another country."
For the FBI, it seems, deciphering anything that isn't completely spelled out for them is well nigh impossible. So he wouldn't take the test for weeks, then took it and failed and then denied working for the Mossad – in this country, at any rate. As John Stossel, Barbara Walters' 20/20 colleague, ceaselessly reiterates: "Gimme a break!"
Why, in this case, is it so hard for the FBI to discover the truth – when they're being practically hit over the head with it? It's pathetic, really, to contemplate the utter cluelessness of our chief federal law enforcement agency, and the reporters who take their denials seriously. As 20/20 reports:
"Despite the denials, sources tell ABC News there is still debate within the FBI over whether or not the young men were spies."
No wonder Mohamed Atta and his fellow ghouls managed to sidestep our Keystone Kops so easily. If these jokers are still "debating" the obvious, then our government officials are right when they tell us that another massive terrorist attack is "inevitable." With these retards on guard duty, I'm surprised it hasn't happened already.
Our tone-deaf 20/20 reporter, John Miller, blathers on, oddly oblivious to the jarring effect of a conclusion that seems to contradict much of what came before. Okay, so "many U.S. government officials" concede the Urban Movers were Mossad spies, in the area on a specific mission, but don't worry, folks, because the FBI is telling us "To date, this investigation has not identified anybody who in this country had pre- knowledge of the events of 9/11." Note the curiously tentative nature of this disclaimer: to date, indeed….
The 20/20 technique is merely to drag Cannistraro out, who references mysterious "sources" to conclude that those lost little Israelis were just having some good clean fun that day, protecting Israel against terrorism (in New Jersey!):
"The investigation, at the end of the day, after all the polygraphs, all of the field work, all the cross-checking, the intelligence work, concluded that they probably did not have advance knowledge of 9/11."
Move along. Nothing to see here. Take it from me, the Expert. After all, would I lie to you?
The tale of the White Van, as told by 20/20, raises more questions than it settles. For what about those polygraphs? We are told that some of the Israeli detainees "were given as many as seven lie-detector tests." Why so many? The five were detained for over two months, 40 days of it in solitary confinement, time and opportunity enough for an awful lot of questions. Perhaps some of the answers contain a clue to help unravel the central unsolved mystery of 9/11, which is this:
How in Gehenna did a rag-tag bunch of Islamist nutballs, who were hoping to finance their terrorist plot with a US government loan, manage to pull off the biggest, deadliest, most spectacularly coordinated act of super-sabotage in modern history – without state support, all on their own?
The recent revelations by ex-FBI wiretap translator Sibel Edmonds of an unnamed "Middle Eastern country" with agents inside the FBI obstructing, mistranslating, and misdirecting official investigations make the question of "foreknowledge," "pre-knowledge," or whatever you want to call it moot. As I pointed out in my last column, the Edmonds allegations raise the ante considerably, from passive foreknowledge of 9/11 to the sinister possibility of Israel's active facilitation. As Edmonds wrote in a March letter to the inspector general's office:
"Investigations are being compromised. Incorrect or misleading translations are being sent to agents in the field. Translations are being blocked and circumvented."
It will take more than BaBa WaWa and her babbling yes-man to circumvent the facts and "spin" the Israelis out of this one. For what 20/20 conveniently left out was the entire context of the larger Israeli spy story, as uncovered by Carl Cameron in his 4-part series on Fox News, and since widely discussed both here and abroad.
We are supposed to look at five guys in a van, dancing for joy in the shadow of the burning WTC, in isolation, apart from the hundreds of Israeli "art students" who took such an ardent interest in entering government buildings in the months and weeks prior to 9/11.
Most absurdly, we are supposed to ignore a Federal Bureau of Investigation riddled with spies who owe their allegiance to a certain "Middle Eastern" country with an interest in compromising investigations, circulating misleading translations of wiretaps, and blocking what can't be botched. If all that is true today, then it was even truer prior to 9/11 – and now are you beginning to solve the central mystery of 9/11?
The intrepid reporters over at 20/20 look like they went to a lot of trouble to check out this story. They tracked down one of the original witnesses, went all the way to Israel to hear the young Israelis’ denials, and hauled out ABC’s highly-paid pet "expert" to spin away the obvious. But, somehow, they failed to do the elementary sort of research that would’ve mandated only a trip to their local library. There they might have read this astonishing story that appeared in the [September 12, 2001] Bergen Record, which describes the 5 Israeli detainees picked up 8 hours after the WTC attack as "carrying maps linking them to the blasts":
"[S]ources 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.’"
BaBa WaWa’s whitewash won’t wash. Those "woomers" are still circulating – and with good reason. We won’t know what really happened that fateful day until and unless Congress takes seriously its responsibility to investigate. For starters, let’s take a look at those highlighted maps – and then drag the rest of Israel’s spy operation out into the full light of day. Then and only then can we answer an increasingly important question about the background to 9/11: What did the Israelis know – and how did they know it?
http://www.etherzone.com/2002/raim070102.shtml
Pro-Israelis have gone to a lot of effort to make a point that because some Palestinians cheered the 9/11 tragedy, then Americans should consider all Palestinians evi and not deserving any support.
The consideration needs to be taken that Palestians had been subjected for months to violent assaults by troops armed with American-made weaponry. An American-made F16 bombed a prison in Nablus killing 19 prison guards, tearing their bodies to fragments. Dozens others had been killed and hundreds injured by American-made tank shells and American-made bullets from heavy caliber machine gun shells.
There seemed to be no support from the American government for a peaceful solution. There was very little criticism of violent acts of the Israeli army and almost none of the settlers. Bush had met repeatedly with Ariel Sharon (a thug and murderer of thousands), but refused to meed with Yassir Arafat, who despite his faults, was the elected leader of the Palestinian people.
For many Palestinian in September of 2001, the any hopes of a viable future for their country were rapidly evaporating. And it was painfully obvious to them that the United States was in collaboratiing in the destruction of their future.
So some of them cheered when the United States was attacked. Many others mourned and felt sympathy for the innocent Americans who died in the attack.
Israeli and pro-Israeli pundits said that they could not show films of thousands cheering because the PA confiscated them or gave them death threats. This is a limp excuse. American and European journalists have been able to attain filmed records under far more threatening conditions (e.g. Tien an Min Square). Israelis had agents and collaborators all over the Occupied Territories, many no doubt, equipped with cameras. They had their chance. The only film footage shown in this country was the same group of 10-12 people and the same middle-aged lady dancing with the two glasses, a dozen people out of 3,000,000, nor was there any proof as two what these people were celebrating.
In situations in which Israeli actions are questionable, the media goes out of its way to excuse them or downplay any potentially incriminating facts. But if Palestinian actions are questionable, they are reported and re-reported, interpreted, column-nized, and discussed ad-nauseum, as well-as being deposited in the eternal gunny sack, to be hauled out whenever current news lacks enough material to damn the Palestinians.
Meanwhile the suffering continues and the hope for a peaceful, just solution languishes.
Bob N.
Bhiodh sonas aig an strodhaire na'm faigheadh e mar a chaitheadh e.
(Scottish Gaelic - A man's faults will be as large as a mountain ere he himself sees them.)
The consideration needs to be taken that Palestians had been subjected for months to violent assaults by troops armed with American-made weaponry. An American-made F16 bombed a prison in Nablus killing 19 prison guards, tearing their bodies to fragments. Dozens others had been killed and hundreds injured by American-made tank shells and American-made bullets from heavy caliber machine gun shells.
There seemed to be no support from the American government for a peaceful solution. There was very little criticism of violent acts of the Israeli army and almost none of the settlers. Bush had met repeatedly with Ariel Sharon (a thug and murderer of thousands), but refused to meed with Yassir Arafat, who despite his faults, was the elected leader of the Palestinian people.
For many Palestinian in September of 2001, the any hopes of a viable future for their country were rapidly evaporating. And it was painfully obvious to them that the United States was in collaboratiing in the destruction of their future.
So some of them cheered when the United States was attacked. Many others mourned and felt sympathy for the innocent Americans who died in the attack.
Israeli and pro-Israeli pundits said that they could not show films of thousands cheering because the PA confiscated them or gave them death threats. This is a limp excuse. American and European journalists have been able to attain filmed records under far more threatening conditions (e.g. Tien an Min Square). Israelis had agents and collaborators all over the Occupied Territories, many no doubt, equipped with cameras. They had their chance. The only film footage shown in this country was the same group of 10-12 people and the same middle-aged lady dancing with the two glasses, a dozen people out of 3,000,000, nor was there any proof as two what these people were celebrating.
In situations in which Israeli actions are questionable, the media goes out of its way to excuse them or downplay any potentially incriminating facts. But if Palestinian actions are questionable, they are reported and re-reported, interpreted, column-nized, and discussed ad-nauseum, as well-as being deposited in the eternal gunny sack, to be hauled out whenever current news lacks enough material to damn the Palestinians.
Meanwhile the suffering continues and the hope for a peaceful, just solution languishes.
Bob N.
Bhiodh sonas aig an strodhaire na'm faigheadh e mar a chaitheadh e.
(Scottish Gaelic - A man's faults will be as large as a mountain ere he himself sees them.)
all I can say was that people of every nationality and in every country around the world cheered about 911. You can always find some.
Hell there are thousands of far-right American sites out there which praise 911. As in the article above, Israelis cheered. There was cheering from the streets of Belfast to guerrilla camps in Angola to Nazi dens in New York itself.
How come none of this was ever pointed out in the press?
Similarly there was alot of Arab condemnation of the attacks.
It really proves nothing; its a total non-issue, a distraction.
Hell there are thousands of far-right American sites out there which praise 911. As in the article above, Israelis cheered. There was cheering from the streets of Belfast to guerrilla camps in Angola to Nazi dens in New York itself.
How come none of this was ever pointed out in the press?
Similarly there was alot of Arab condemnation of the attacks.
It really proves nothing; its a total non-issue, a distraction.
Anti-Semitic rantings like above are most likely the final, desperate attempts by Zionists to steer people away from the real issues and try to squelch debate on this topic.
They don't know how to argue against calls to end the Israeli Occupation -- because there are none, it should be ended -- so they resort instead to this sort of thing.
Of course, it could be an actual neonazi, but we'll never know because this is completely anonymous.
They don't know how to argue against calls to end the Israeli Occupation -- because there are none, it should be ended -- so they resort instead to this sort of thing.
Of course, it could be an actual neonazi, but we'll never know because this is completely anonymous.
It could be a zionist. It could be a neo-nazi.
There is certain and 100% proof we have actually had quite a few neo-nazi posters. Just go look at the posts under the Washington DC anti-fascist rally story.
It also illustrates a widespread attempt by the right to link itself to the Palestinian cause.
Aryan Nations maintains an Islamic page.
I don't have time at the moment but if you'd like I could compile a MUCH more comprehensive list for you.
On the other hand we also have a few pro-Israelis lurking around for sure. They post out in the open too. Its almost inconceivable they aren't using some black propaganda as well.
But to be so dismissive of neonazi disruptors is more than dishonest. It's a bit telling about your agenda.
There is certain and 100% proof we have actually had quite a few neo-nazi posters. Just go look at the posts under the Washington DC anti-fascist rally story.
It also illustrates a widespread attempt by the right to link itself to the Palestinian cause.
Aryan Nations maintains an Islamic page.
I don't have time at the moment but if you'd like I could compile a MUCH more comprehensive list for you.
On the other hand we also have a few pro-Israelis lurking around for sure. They post out in the open too. Its almost inconceivable they aren't using some black propaganda as well.
But to be so dismissive of neonazi disruptors is more than dishonest. It's a bit telling about your agenda.
"Anti-Semitic rantings like above are most likely the final, desperate attempts by Zionists to steer people away from the real issues and try to squelch debate on this topic."
i came here looking for honesty once. all i found was a bunch of pussarchists making up shit to cry about.
now i come here to poke fun at the hallucinating pity parties they have.
honest debate ? here ? what a load of crap.
nessie runs this place like a nickle and dime drug operation. if he cant cut the coke with baby vitamin he cant make a profit. you will never see undiluted crap coming out of his head. he aint about the real. hes all about the thrill of thinking someone takes his dope serious.
i came here looking for honesty once. all i found was a bunch of pussarchists making up shit to cry about.
now i come here to poke fun at the hallucinating pity parties they have.
honest debate ? here ? what a load of crap.
nessie runs this place like a nickle and dime drug operation. if he cant cut the coke with baby vitamin he cant make a profit. you will never see undiluted crap coming out of his head. he aint about the real. hes all about the thrill of thinking someone takes his dope serious.
let's take your assertions and see if they make any sense at all.
1) nessie is the only guy here,except you
2)nobody listens to nessie
3)you are here to warn all of the people who don't come here (i.e. don't exist because its only you and nessie) not to listen to nessie. At the same time you are defending free speech by making sure all of the people who don't come here, don't listen to nessie and don't get to express their views.
4)you won't stop until all of the people who don't exist, don't come here and don't listen to nessie stop coming here and stop listening to nessie
hmmm doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me.
Well you haven't won me over with your arguments.
Maybe you could try again?
Better yet.
Yeah, its only nessie here - nobody else comes here and nobody listens to him. Anybody else who does happen to come here is unimportant.
Now maybe you can go disrupt a basket-weaving forum or something.
So you can go away now. Mission complete. Bye-bye!
1) nessie is the only guy here,except you
2)nobody listens to nessie
3)you are here to warn all of the people who don't come here (i.e. don't exist because its only you and nessie) not to listen to nessie. At the same time you are defending free speech by making sure all of the people who don't come here, don't listen to nessie and don't get to express their views.
4)you won't stop until all of the people who don't exist, don't come here and don't listen to nessie stop coming here and stop listening to nessie
hmmm doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me.
Well you haven't won me over with your arguments.
Maybe you could try again?
Better yet.
Yeah, its only nessie here - nobody else comes here and nobody listens to him. Anybody else who does happen to come here is unimportant.
Now maybe you can go disrupt a basket-weaving forum or something.
So you can go away now. Mission complete. Bye-bye!
You could call it viciously racist, dehumanizing, odiferous, pustulent garbage and that the person who posted it is no friend of Palestinians or the Palestinian cause. You could suggest that in a truly just world, such words would be crammed back down the gullet of the lizard that spewed them forth, the mouth of which would be thence sewn shut.
Of course, you're probably too emotionally detached to resort to such language.
Bob N.
Is minic a bádh long láimh le cuan.
(Irish - Often a ship sank right beside the harbour.)
Of course, you're probably too emotionally detached to resort to such language.
Bob N.
Is minic a bádh long láimh le cuan.
(Irish - Often a ship sank right beside the harbour.)
Who is that pompous Chomskyite, with his gaelic talk? Some fruit cruising for a date?
Do you mean you disagree with my comments on the post by someone named 'Truth.?
Bob N.
Is binn béal ina tost
(A silent mouth is sweet.)
Pronunciation: iss binn baal in-ah tohst
Bob N.
Is binn béal ina tost
(A silent mouth is sweet.)
Pronunciation: iss binn baal in-ah tohst
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