agh, this shows a bit of the isreali position some of us see.
http://www.antiwar.com/justin/j100402.html
Israel had foreknowledge of 9/11 – that was Carl Cameron's explosive contention, made last year in a blockbuster series of reports on Fox News exposing an Israeli spy ring in the U.S. New evidence confirms his story – and points to a rather ominous conclusion….
Reporting the round-up and deportation of scores of Israeli agents – masquerading as "art students" – Cameron noted last December that several were "active Israeli military" and the rest had skills that one normally associates with spies: electronic interception, explosives, and special operations. Several failed polygraph tests when asked if they were engaged in "surveillance activities against and in the United States." Aside from trying to penetrate U.S. government facilities, this network, which went into high gear in the months prior to 9/11, was also watching the Al Qaeda terrorists, according to Cameron:
"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.'"
This was denied up and down by the U.S. and Israeli governments, and the story was derided as an "urban myth," denounced as an "anti-Semitic" canard, and subsequently banished from the pages of the "mainstream" media. But evidence began to pile up: reports of hundreds of Israelis descending on U.S. government facilities, and a massive round-up of these operatives claiming to be "art students," began to leak out.
The story refused to die. A secret government report (originating with the Drug Enforcement Agency) detailing the highly suspicious activities of these aspiring Israeli "artists" was subsequently uncovered, and a series of stories appeared in the international media: Le Monde, the British media, and then leaping across the Atlantic. An excellent article in Salon, by Christopher Ketcham, and wire stories detailing the leaked contents of the DEA report raised awareness of a possible Israeli connection to the events surrounding 9/11.
I've been covering this since November of last year, when I noticed a story in the Washington Post reporting the detention of some 60 Israelis under the same legal rubric as the Arabs being held on suspicion of terrorist connections. These guys, said the Justice Department lawyers, were of "special interest" to the government; and, as their role in the events leading up to 9/11 begins to come into clearer focus, I can see why…..
A report in Die Zeit, a German newspaper, outlining the glitches and outright obstructionism that led to the greatest intelligence failure in our history reveals a stunning bit of information. The BBC reports:
"The paper has uncovered details of a major Israeli spy ring involving some a 120 agents for the intelligence service Mossad operating across America and some masquerading as arts students."
The Israeli "art student" story has come a long way since the days when it could be airily dismissed: the whitewashers have been forced back to their second line of defense, which is admitting that, yes, there was an Israeli spy ring in the U.S., but they had no foreknowledge of 9/11. That was the conclusion reached by a recent article in the Forward, as well as an ABC News report, "The White Van." But the latest revelation goes further:
"The ring was reportedly hard on the heels of at least four members of the hijack gang, including its leader Mohammed Atta."
The whitewashers, it seems, have retreated to their third line of defense, as iterated by the BBC:
"But the Israeli agents were detected by their American counterparts and thrown out of the country, it says. The US authorities said then that they were students whose visas had expired.
"Just a month before the deadly attacks, the paper said, Mossad handed over to the Americans a detailed report naming several suspects they believe were preparing an attack on the United States."
So the Mossad has an alibi, after all. Or maybe not. For, according to these same reports, including one in Der Spiegel:
"An entire troop of Israeli terror investigators disguised as students took to the tracks of Arabic terrorists and their cells in the USA between December 2000 and April 2001. During their undercover investigations, the Israelis came very close to the later perpetrators of September 11. In Hollywood, Florida they located both of the former Hamburg students and later terrorist pilots Mohammed Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi as potential terrorists. Agents settled down in immediate proximity of their apartment and observed the seemingly normal flight school students around the clock."
So they were living next door to the terrorists, including the leader of the 9/11 hijackers, watching their every move – but didn't tell us what they were up to until August, 2001.
The list turned over to the FBI by the Israelis apparently contained the names of at least four of the nineteen hijackers, but the warning was non-specific: only that these were potential terrorists. It stretches the bounds of credulity to believe that, after observing them up close for an extended period of time – and perhaps monitoring them in other ways – the Israelis knew no more than this...snip>
http://www.antiwar.com/justin/j100402.html
sorry this is old.. i'd heard this stuff from other sources.. some of which have fallen off the interenet.