Trump’s claim of 9/11 celebration in New Jersey is based on arrest of 5
‘laughing’ Israelis
US Politics
Philip Weiss on November 26, 2015 40 Comments
Trump at the Algemeiner gala, photo by Sarah Rogers
Donald Trump’s nutty/scary claim that he saw thousands of Muslims celebrating
the 9/11 attacks in Jersey City has been widely debunked in the media, but few
are pointing out the story on which Trump’s claim is likely based: the arrest
of five Israeli employees of a moving company who were said to have watched the
towers fall from Weehawken, NJ, with jovial expressions.
Trump himself has sought to back up his claim by tweeting a passage from an
article in the Washington Post on September 18. That article said:
In Jersey City, within hours of two jetliners’ plowing into the World Trade
Center, law enforcement authorities detained and questioned a number of people
who were allegedly seen celebrating the attacks and holding tailgate-style
parties on rooftops while they watched the devastation on the other side of the
river.
Who was detained? Jim Galloway at AJC.com remembers that it was Israeli
employees of a moving company:
They were Israeli and Jewish – young men making asses of themselves, as some
young men are wont to do…. apparently laughing, clowning and photographing
themselves
Politico has an article that mentions the Washington Post article but doesn’t
tell you that the arrested men were Israelis; while Slate downplays the
incident as the “strange tale of the dancing Israelis” in a piece on 9/11
legends. It says that story has taken on a life of its own among anti-Semitic
conspiracy theorists.
Whether the Israelis were making asses of themselves or whether the story is
repeated by conspiracy theorists is irrelevant. But the case was not a strange
tale or a legend. The men were held by US authorities for more than two months
before they were deported. This ABC News piece months later describes an
investigation of suspicious behavior by the men:
Five men were arrested after they were seen filming the attack and apparently
celebrating it too…
The driver of the van, Sivan Kurzberg, told the officers, “We are Israeli. We
are not your problem. Your problems are our problems. The Palestinians are the
problem.” The other passengers were his brother Paul Kurzberg, Yaron Shmuel,
Oded Ellner and Omer Marmari.
It was widely thought that the men were spies, ABC said:
Vince Cannistraro, a former chief of operations for counterterrorism with the
CIA who is now a consultant for ABCNEWS, said… many people in the U.S.
intelligence community believed that some of the men arrested were working for
Israeli intelligence. Cannistraro said there was speculation as to whether
Urban Moving had been “set up or exploited for the purpose of launching an
intelligence operation against radical Islamists in the area, particularly in
the New Jersey-New York area.”…
Many U.S. government officials still believe that some of them were on a
mission for Israeli intelligence. But the FBI told ABCNEWS, “To date, this
investigation has not identified anybody who in this country had pre-knowledge
of the events of 9/11.”
This piece published by the Forward (and republished at a WTC-truther site)
says the five men were likely Mossad and notes that they were deported to
Israel following their release.
According to one former high-ranking American intelligence official, who asked
not to be named, the FBI came to the conclusion at the end of its investigation
that the five Israelis arrested in New Jersey last September were conducting a
Mossad surveillance mission and that their employer, Urban Moving Systems of
Weehawken, N.J., served as a front.
After their arrest, the men were held in detention for two-and-a-half months
and were deported at the end of November, officially for visa violations.
I’ve heard about the Israeli movers’ story down through the years and never
been very interested in it, it’s in s being in a gray zone of unproveable
assertions. But the story certainly doesn’t reflect well on Israel; and what is
curious here is the media’s reticence about the Israeli movers as the basis of
Trump’s lie. The rules just don’t apply when it comes to Israel; Israeli forces
can do no wrong in the U.S. Consider: Last month the CIA co-hosted a conference
on national security and invited officials from the blessed trinity of Britain,
France and Israel. Gosh. If we had a normal relationship with Israel we might
see that they have a constitutional problem — millions of Palestinians can’t
vote for the Jewish state government that rules their lives — that is hurting
the United States across the Middle East. We can’t. Or consider Russia’s
response to Turkey’s shoot-down of its plane. BBC reported today that Russia
has already begun cutting off the importation of Turkish foods in a
semi-official protest of the attack. I thought of Rachel Corrie and Furkan
Dogan. Israeli forces killed these charitable American citizens under highly
dubious circumstances; and there have never been consequences to Israel for its
conduct. We really have no national interest when it comes to Israel; Israel’s
interest is our interest. The failure to report the simple facts around Trump’s
lie is yet another example.
Thanks to Peter Voskamp.
Trump’s claim of 9/11 celebration in New Jersey is based on arrest of 5
‘laughing’ Israelis
US Politics
Philip Weiss on November 26, 2015 40 Comments
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valid.
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Trump at the Algemeiner gala, photo by Sarah Rogers
Donald Trump’s nutty/scary claim that he saw thousands of Muslims celebrating
the 9/11 attacks in Jersey City has been widely debunked in the media, but few
are pointing out the story on which Trump’s claim is likely based: the arrest
of five Israeli employees of a moving company who were said to have watched the
towers fall from Weehawken, NJ, with jovial expressions.
Trump himself has sought to back up his claim by tweeting a passage from an
article in the Washington Post on September 18. That article said:
In Jersey City, within hours of two jetliners’ plowing into the World Trade
Center, law enforcement authorities detained and questioned a number of people
who were allegedly seen celebrating the attacks and holding tailgate-style
parties on rooftops while they watched the devastation on the other side of the
river.
Who was detained? Jim Galloway at AJC.com remembers that it was Israeli
employees of a moving company:
They were Israeli and Jewish – young men making asses of themselves, as some
young men are wont to do…. apparently laughing, clowning and photographing
themselves
Politico has an article that mentions the Washington Post article but doesn’t
tell you that the arrested men were Israelis; while Slate downplays the
incident as the “strange tale of the dancing Israelis” in a piece on 9/11
legends. It says that story has taken on a life of its own among anti-Semitic
conspiracy theorists.
Whether the Israelis were making asses of themselves or whether the story is
repeated by conspiracy theorists is irrelevant. But the case was not a strange
tale or a legend. The men were held by US authorities for more than two months
before they were deported. This ABC News piece months later describes an
investigation of suspicious behavior by the men:
Five men were arrested after they were seen filming the attack and apparently
celebrating it too…
The driver of the van, Sivan Kurzberg, told the officers, “We are Israeli. We
are not your problem. Your problems are our problems. The Palestinians are the
problem.” The other passengers were his brother Paul Kurzberg, Yaron Shmuel,
Oded Ellner and Omer Marmari.
It was widely thought that the men were spies, ABC said:
Vince Cannistraro, a former chief of operations for counterterrorism with the
CIA who is now a consultant for ABCNEWS, said… many people in the U.S.
intelligence community believed that some of the men arrested were working for
Israeli intelligence. Cannistraro said there was speculation as to whether
Urban Moving had been “set up or exploited for the purpose of launching an
intelligence operation against radical Islamists in the area, particularly in
the New Jersey-New York area.”…
Many U.S. government officials still believe that some of them were on a
mission for Israeli intelligence. But the FBI told ABCNEWS, “To date, this
investigation has not identified anybody who in this country had pre-knowledge
of the events of 9/11.”
This piece published by the Forward (and republished at a WTC-truther site)
says the five men were likely Mossad and notes that they were deported to
Israel following their release.
According to one former high-ranking American intelligence official, who asked
not to be named, the FBI came to the conclusion at the end of its investigation
that the five Israelis arrested in New Jersey last September were conducting a
Mossad surveillance mission and that their employer, Urban Moving Systems of
Weehawken, N.J., served as a front.
After their arrest, the men were held in detention for two-and-a-half months
and were deported at the end of November, officially for visa violations.
I’ve heard about the Israeli movers’ story down through the years and never
been very interested in it, it’s in s being in a gray zone of unproveable
assertions. But the story certainly doesn’t reflect well on Israel; and what is
curious here is the media’s reticence about the Israeli movers as the basis of
Trump’s lie. The rules just don’t apply when it comes to Israel; Israeli forces
can do no wrong in the U.S. Consider: Last month the CIA co-hosted a conference
on national security and invited officials from the blessed trinity of Britain,
France and Israel. Gosh. If we had a normal relationship with Israel we might
see that they have a constitutional problem — millions of Palestinians can’t
vote for the Jewish state government that rules their lives — that is hurting
the United States across the Middle East. We can’t. Or consider Russia’s
response to Turkey’s shoot-down of its plane. BBC reported today that Russia
has already begun cutting off the importation of Turkish foods in a
semi-official protest of the attack. I thought of Rachel Corrie and Furkan
Dogan. Israeli forces killed these charitable American citizens under highly
dubious circumstances; and there have never been consequences to Israel for its
conduct. We really have no national interest when it comes to Israel; Israel’s
interest is our interest. The failure to report the simple facts around Trump’s
lie is yet another example.
Thanks to Peter Voskamp.
