The ADL prepared this major report. It includes this section on the Mossad.
Blaming the Mossad for the attacks
The biggest “villain” in anti-Semitic 9/11 conspiracy theories is the Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency. Its reputation for professionalism and effectiveness is turned against it by 9/11 conspiracy theorists, who argue that it had to have known about an operation like the terrorist attacks in advance. At the same time, the Mossad is represented as the only organization with the ability to carry out such devastating acts. This perverse respect for the Mossad derives in part from anti-Semitic notions that only Jews alone are sufficiently cunning, resourceful, and wicked to have carried out the 9/11 attacks and blamed them on their enemies. The implication is that “the Jews” are behind the attacks since the Mossad works on behalf of the “Jewish State,” and is run by Jews.
The biggest “villain” in antisemitic 9/11 conspiracy theories is the Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency.
Of course, the Mossad not only had to have the ability to orchestrate the 9/11 attacks, it had to have the motivation. To stress the point that Israel and Jews had not only the cunning but also the desire to carry out the 9/11 attacks, a number of far-right publications quoted an editorial from the Saudi newspaper, Okaz, which claimed that the “main purpose of the conspiracy is to undermine ties between Arabs and Muslims…and to turn the Muslim and Christian civilizations against each other and incite hatred between their adherents.” By trying to weaken the bonds between Muslims and Arabs, and by undermining Christian civilization, turning it against Islam so that the two will destroy each other, the Jews were allegedly plotting to gain total power over the world.
Conspiracy-oriented material also pointed to previous “treacherous” acts allegedly carried out by Israel as proof that the country has a history of clandestine terrorist operations against the U.S., and that its alleged actions on 9/11 were nothing new. The example cited most often is the 1967 attack on the U.S.S. Liberty, an American naval vessel that Israel mistakenly targeted in the Six Days War. Over 30 American servicemen stationed on the ship were killed in what official inquiries determined was a tragic accident.
Many conspiracists focus on the alleged brutality of the Mossad in carrying out secret plots to benefit Israel and the Jews. In his newsletter, David Duke asserted to his followers that the Mossad is “the most ruthless terrorist organization in the entire world.” He added that the Mossad prides itself on “infiltrating every sizable militant Palestinian and Arabic organization on
earth” and therefore it was likely that it had infiltrated the Al Qaeda network and knew about the 9/11 attacks in advance.
Duke and other far-right conspiracy theorists pointed to an article that appeared in The Washington Times the day before the attacks. The article reported on a study done by the Army School of Advanced Military Studies (SAMS) that assessed the problems an international peacekeeping force would face if the U.N. authorized such a force after Israelis and the Palestinians reached a peace agreement. According to the article, the SAMS report characterized the Mossad as: “Wildcard. Ruthless and cunning. Has the capability to target U.S. forces and make it look like a Palestinian/Arab act.” For many conspiracists, this article was a premonition of the events of September 11, and confirmation of the Mossad’s role in them.
A number of 9/11 conspiracy theorists use statements made by people with an alleged former association with the intelligence community, the implication being that they, by virtue of their knowledge of undercover operations, would know who was behind the attacks. In every case, these “experts” asserted that the Mossad was the likely perpetrator because it was Israel that would benefit from an anti-Arab, anti-Muslim backlash in the U.S.
A number of anti-Semitic publications and Web sites quoted Andreas von Bulow, identified as a former member of the German parliament who served on a commission overseeing three branches of the German secret service, as saying to a reporter that the Mossad carried out the 9/11 attacks “to turn public opinion against the Arabs and boost military and security spending.” The Arab media also joined the chorus of voices blaming the Mossad. Amin Hweidi, the ex-chief of the Egyptian Intelligence Service, said in an article in the Syrian Times, that “he did not rule out an Israeli role in the US bombings…because Israel is the only beneficiary of all what [sic] has taken place.” A columnist in an Egyptian newspaper focused on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as Israel’s motivation, claiming that the Mossad might be involved as part of “an attempt to shift attention from greater Israeli atrocities in the Palestinian territories.”
The Arabic wording in this cartoon from the newspaper Al Watan (Oman) reads: “The American September 11.” public opinion against the Arabs and boost military and security spending.” The Arab media also joined the chorus of voices blaming the Mossad. Amin Hweidi, the ex-chief of the Egyptian Intelligence Service, said in an article in the Syrian Times, that “he did not rule out an Israeli role in the US bombings…because Israel is the only beneficiary of all what [sic] has taken place.” A columnist in an Egyptian newspaper focused on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as Israel’s motivation, claiming that the Mossad might be involved as part of “an attempt to shift attention from greater Israeli atrocities in the Palestinian territories.”
Another Egyptian reporter for El-Osboa (The Week) made similar remarks when interviewing Nihad Awad, the executive director of the Arab-American organization, CAIR (Council on American Islamic Relations) in June 2002. According to The Weekly Standard, the reporter, Sanaa Al Said, said, “My belief is that the beneficiary is behind the attack and the biggest beneficiary of the
September 11th event is certainly Israel, as it took advantage of it in a wide scale.” Awad replied that “there are theories leading in this direction.” He also claimed to have had a discussion with President George W. Bush about the improbability of Muslims carrying out these attacks. Awad reportedly stated that “Bush said, ‘This means that if those that carried out the attack were Arabs, then non-Arabs and non-Muslims could be behind them.'” According to The Weekly Standard, the White House “denied the content of this conversation.”
Some conspiracists concede that while Muslims may have carried out the 9/11 attacks, in actuality they were working — knowingly or unknowingly — for the Mossad. The American Free Press and another anti-Semitic, far-right publication, the Free American Newsmagazine, admitted that “Muslim extremists” hijacked the planes that rammed into the World Trade Center and the
Pentagon but claimed that they were actually trained by the Mossad. “The truth is that Muslim extremists have proven useful (if often unwitting) tools in advancing Israel’s own geopolitical agenda,” wrote Michael Collins Piper in the American Free Press. In a later article, Piper claimed that “these hijackers could well have been Israeli-sponsored fundamentalist Jewish fanatics (posing as ‘bin Laden Arabs’) hoping to instigate an all-out U.S. war against the Arab world.”
Some conspiracy theorists contend that the U.S. government was complicit with Israel in the attacks while others, by contrast, said that Israel betrayed the U.S. government for its own purposes. In an article reprinted in Free American Newsmagazine, General Hameed Gul, identified as the former head of the Pakistani intelligence agency, explained that “the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks…were perpetrated by renegade U.S. Air Force elements working in conjunction with Mossad….” The Free American also presented other elaborate conspiracy theories involving a 9/11 plot by Israeli and American agents. One contributor, for instance, speculated that the Mossad and the CIA were involved in the “Afghan-opium-derived” heroin trade in order to protect “the multi-trillion-dollar money-laundered deposits backing the global investments of American and British merchant banks.” In other words, the attacks provided a pretext for an American overthrow of the Taliban, which gave the U.S. control of the country’s opium production.
“Israel is the only beneficiary of all [t]hat has taken place.”
This contributor also reported that the FBI offices at the World Trade Center needed to be destroyed because evidence of the
attempts by Russian and Kazakh mafias to establish pipelines in Central Asia, and of the plans of powerful American financial
figures and institutions (all Jewish) to fix gold prices, was stored there.
Other conspiracy theorists claim the U.S. government wanted the attacks to happen so that it could wage a war against its enemies in the Middle East, enemies it shared with Israel. As one writer for the anti-government Militia of Montana newsletter, Taking Aim, argued, “the attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center Towers were carried out for the purpose of preparing the American people to accept a major military action in the middle east [sic] in conjunction with Israel.”
More than a year after September 11, one anti-Semitic conspiracy theorist found a novel way to trumpet the supposed involvement of Israel and Jews in the attacks to a larger audience. Jim Condit, Jr., a long-time right-wing activist, repeated many elements of the above-mentioned conspiracy theories in radio ads that were run ostensibly to support his November 2002 bid for Congress in Ohio. In an e-mail to supporters, Condit explained that the law allows and guarantees federal candidates the right to run ads without censorship on FCC-licensed radio and TV stations. He also revealed that his real motivation for running the ads was to expose “Zionist” control of major TV and radio stations in the U.S. and the 9/11 attacks as a plot hatched by an “Israeli/Anglo-Secret-Society,” rather than by Muslims. Condit saw the attacks as part of a plot by the government and the Jews to impose on unsuspecting citizens a “New World Order” that would ultimately lead to the destruction of the United States. He encouraged people who were “serious about fighting the Zionist/Bush plans for World War III” to contribute to his campaign.
Condit ran 13 different ads, many of them dealing with the role of the Jews and the government in the 9/11 attacks. One ad discussed the possibility that government traitors operated remote control planes that destroyed the World Trade Center: “9-11 was an inside job, pulled off most likely by well placed pro-Israeli, pro-New World Order traitors right here at home, using remote control technology.” Another ad explained that 9/11 was just a prelude to a second attack that would allow the Jews to control Arab oil and create a “world tyranny,” including a police state in the U.S.:
Many competent researchers believe that pro-Israeli, pro-New World Order traitors pulled off the 9-11 terror attacks, and that these same traitors are also planning a 2nd COMING terrorist attack — this time a nuclear or biowarfare attack on an American or European city — designed to enrage Americans against the Arab world, trigger a massive war in the Middle East to destroy all the Arab states, grab Arab oil, greatly expand Israeli territory, lay the groundwork for a world tyranny headquartered in Jerusalem, and begin instituting police state rule here in the USA.
“The Sept. 11 terrorist attacks… were perpetrated by renegade U.S. Air Force elements working in conjunction with Mossad.”
Condit was by no means the only person promoting the involvement of the Jews in the 9/11 attacks as its one-year anniversary passed. The U.S. media reported, in December 2002, that the Saudi interior minister, Prince Nayef Ibn Abd Al-Aziz, told a Kuwaiti newspaper that “we put big question marks and ask who committed the events of September 11 and who benefited from
them. Who benefited from the events of 11/9? [sic] I think they [the Jews] are behind these events.” In the same interview, Prince Nayef told the newspaper that it was impossible for 19 young men to “carry out the operation of Sept. 11.” The interview with the prince was later reprinted in Ain-Al-Yaqin, an online Saudi publication.
this article is pure BS