Picasso Dreams

Israel Continues Its Assault on Human Rights

Joseph, the fifteen-month-old Palestinian Prisoner

by Iqbal Tamimi

May 10, 2009

The Palestinian prisoner Fatima Alziq is a mother of nine children one of them is baby Joseph. Her children are deprived of their right of meeting their mother and their baby brother Joseph who was born fifteen months ago inside the prison. Her children suffer a collective punishment like most Palestinian children. All children need their mothers; Fatima’s children are no exception.

Fatima a 40 year old mother from the Gaza Strip was deprived of her right to see any of her children since the day she was arrested two years ago by the Israeli authorities. She and her niece Rawda Habeeb were arrested at the Eretz crossing in Bait Hanoun when they were on their way to a hospital in Israel for a medical operation needed for Rawda.  Her husband Mohammed is suffering and struggling day in day out  since then with 8 children who keep requesting to see their mother and their baby brother who was born a prisoner too.

'My wife Fatima was detained in the Telmond-Hasharon prison two years ago, she used to work as a social worrker helping women’ Mohammad said. 'She was accused of the intent to carry out a suicide attack against the Israeli occupation forces, this accusation shocked us all and she is still detained with our 15 months old baby Joseph’ he explained. Mohammad never saw his baby son because the Israeli authorities denied him this right too.
Fatima who used to work in the Women's office in the Gaza Strip have been imprisoned on charges of trying to implement a martyrdom operation, besides being charged of belonging to the Islamic Jihad movement through her work in the department.

Fatima’s nine children suffered her abscence badly. Mahmoud, Sumayyah, Sara, Bilal, Ali, Zakaria, Othman , and Suleiman demand to see their mother and their baby brother Joseph. Mahoud her eldest was a student in the university when his mother was detained, he spoke of his pain when his brother Suliman kept asking 'where is Mama’?’ Isn’t she in prison’ Suliman used to ask. 'I see her every night in my dream, I see that I visit her in a prison and that I reach out to touch her hand but I can’t touch her’ says Suliman.

Sara is in class 9. 'I remember the last day I saw my mother; she made my sandwiches for school and put them in my school bag’ says Sara.’ My mother was my best friend; I used to tell her everything’ Sarah sighs.’ I keep praying to God to release her and bring her home’ Sara says in pain. Sara had to bear all the responsibility of running the house chores since she is the only sister in a home full of boys, her eldest sister is married and she pops in every now and then to the house that no more feels like home without her mother.

Zakaria says he used to earn full marks at school because his mother used to supervise his study, 'I no longer take full marks, and I got 18 of 20 'says Zakaria. Suliman interrupts to say ' the prison is not a nice place, it is dark and it has locked doors and keys’.

Her husband said that neither he nor any of his children were allowed any visits to see Fatima or baby Joseph. 'Unfortunately we could not see Joseph since his birth, we know him only through photos taken by lawyers visiting the prisoners’ the tormented father said. When he was asked if he was allowed to phone her he said he was only allowed to call her three times since she was detained, and that means one phone call every seven months. In general all prisoners from Gaza are denied family visits by the Israeli authorities including young children. ' I was worried about her safety when she was so desperate that she decided a hunger strike while she was still pregnant, she used to turn food down but request to keep the salt only because she had low blood pressure’ he said. She was desperate to get support from any human rights organization, but it seems no one cared enough about Palestinian women prisoners.

Most affected by Fatima’s detention is her six year old son Suleiman who needs his mother’s care and tenderness. He was only four when his mother was imprisoned. 'We are now trying to manage on our own after they arrested my wife but I can’t keep pretending that I am managing on my own, it has been an extremely difficult situation’ Mohammad said, 'Fatima left a vacuum in our lives, she was working inside the home and outside  before she was arrested’ he explained.’ I have been playing both roles the mother and the father since her detention, taking care of the eight children and working at the same time to provide for them’ he said.

Fatima pleaded to meet her eight children to a lawyer during his visit to the prison, she suffers like all prisoners from the Gaza Strip, and she is disappointed of the lack of interested human rights organizations in Palestinian prisoners’ suffering.  She said that the prisoners lack many basic needs, and that the Israeli prison administration refuse to provide them with the essentials, besides preventing them from gaining access to such needs sent to them by their families, besides being denied visits, she herself has not seen any member of her family for more than 20 months.  Fatima was distressed because the prison administration confiscates the prisoner’s letters as well which are considered the only means of communication with their families considering the fact that the family visits are banned.

Fatima managed to send  only one letter to her family when she was first detained: "the first cell they put me in is more like a grave under the ground, the sewage are overflowing, attracting lots of insects and the smell stinks.  I developed skin infections and pimples all over my head, the place are a health hazard’ wrote Fatima.

Regarding the treatment she was receiving by the Israeli female prison wardens she wrote 'the female soldiers used to ask me …since when I became a practicing Muslim, I told them since a long time when I was a little girl because I was raised in a practicing family…they used to shout in my face and call me a terrorist’ she wrote. 'They tried to force me to miscarriage by offering me different medicines I refused to take, I told them babies are a blessing from God’ she explained in her letter.
 
Fatima and other Palestinian women prisoners have sent dozens of letters through the Red Cross to their families but none was delivered to their families they said, and they did not receive any letters sent to them by their families either, such procedures left the Palestinian women isolated totally suffering emotional distress. Such isolation was described by the prisoners as a tragedy. But Fatima’s tragedy is greater than any of the other women because her baby "Joseph" suffers the lack of many essentials that she could not provide him with in such state of total isolation, besides the fact that he was deprived of a normal life or enjoy seeing his father or any of his brothers being brought up in the most unusual way a child can be brought up in.

Ra'fat Hamduna Director of the Centre for Studies of prisoners called upon the authorities of the prisons and the legal system to facilitate a meeting between Fatima and her children, and is pressuring the occupation authorities to free her and her baby "Joseph", and ensure the essential needs of the prisoners must be met, especially providing them with the clothing needed, but until the writing of this article no accomplishments were made in this respect, and baby Joseph is still in prison with no contact of other children. I am worried, what kind of vocabulary he will pick up in prison. He never heard a bird, or giggles of other children, he is only used to hearing the doors of the cells slammed close.

www.uruknet.info?p=54129

Link: palestinethinktank.com/2009/05/10/iqbal-tamimi-joseph-the-fifteen-month-old-pale
   stinian-prisoner/

Insider Tells the Truth About the Cover-up of the Attack on the USS Liberty

June 9, 2007 — crescentandcross

‘Son, I spent 2 years as a special agent in the FBI and over 30 yrs in the military, and if it is one thing I learned through all of this, it’s that when you get an order, you say ‘yes sir’ and carry it out with no questions asked’.

This was the response given by Capt. Ward Boston, USN (Ret) to this reporter in a series of recent interviews he gave for American Free Press Newspaper. For those not familiar with Capt. Ward Boston, he played what will one day be recognized as one of the most pivotal roles in recent human history. 40 years ago this upcoming June, he was the senior legal council for the Naval Board of Inquiry concerning the June 8, 1967 attack on the USS Liberty by Israeli Air and Naval forces that resulted in 34 Americans killed and 171 wounded. His job in 1967 was to be part of a hastily-called investigation into the attack, and–as he has recently revealed to the shock of many–to rule that Israel’s 90-minute bloodfest waged against America’s young men was all an ‘accident’ that occurred during ‘the fog of war’, all the evidence to the contrary be damned. In 2002, Capt. Ward broke his silence of 3 decades and released an affidavit to the public in which he admitted that the entire investigation was a sham, and that he was under orders (from persons of no less authority than President Lyndon Johnson and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara) to rule that the bloodiest day in American naval history since WWII took place as a result of ‘mistaken identity’ and that America’s ally, Israel–was innocent of any wrongdoing.

For 35 years Capt. Ward lived with the bitter knowledge that his fellow servicemen had been deliberately murdered in what was an act of war by a foreign power and yet because of the orders he received was powerless to say anything. A conflux of events however led him to make the decision to ‘damn the torpedoes’ and to let the chips fall where they may. ‘I’m an old man’ he told AFP. ‘They can’t threaten my job, and if they throw me into jail, so what? The truth has to be told for the benefit of the survivors and for the American people whose sons and daughters are dying today’.

The first of these events leading him to break his silence was the 2002 release of a book entitled ‘The Liberty Incident’ written by Judge Ahron Jay Cristol at a time when America was being drawn into a series of long-term military engagements with countries that just so happened to be enemies of Israel. Through his book and subsequent speaking tour, Cristol (a slavish, shameless, fanatical apologist for the Jewish State who is on more-than-friendly terms with a number of people in both the military and arms industry in Israel) did the usual song and dance when it comes to discussing the terrorist state that attacked America in 1967, which was to argue for unconditional acquittal, using a collage of sloppy yet deliberate misrepresentations and omissions of fact. In Capt. Boston’s words, it was Cristol’s ‘insidious attempt to whitewash the event that pushed me to speak out’.

‘These rats,’ he said, referring to Israel and her defenders. ‘They lie about everything. You can’t believe a word they say’ he told AFP. What was so important about this statement was that Capt. Boston was not just talking about the past, but about the present and future as well. ‘They’ve completely infested the entire Intelligence and Defense apparatus of the United States’ he said. ‘Perle, Feith, Wolfowitz, and all the rest of them…They’re spies for Israel, every damned one of them’ he said. ‘Just consider the 5 guys who were arrested after 9/11, cheering and celebrating, and then afterwards we come to find out that they were Mossad and then they get sent back to Israel. They knew all about it and yet our government, the government I worked for most of my life did nothing about it. Can you imagine if these guys were Arabs?’ he asked. ‘It’s been the same thing, ever since 1967’ he said with unmistakable aggravation. ‘Protect Israel, protect Israel…In the meantime, our boys are dying over there and those who don’t die are coming back here with all sorts of problems, both physical and psychological’.

It was his visit to Israel some years back that clinched it for this man in terms of his feelings for the ‘great experiment’ in Jewish self-rule. ‘The way they treat the Arabs…it’s unconscionable’ he said. ‘You go into Israel, into the only places where they allow the tourists, and it’s the picture of paradise, just as the Soviets used to do. Then you take a detour off the approved itinerary and you see what it is really like…The poverty, misery, abuse. Arab kids being gunned down in broad daylight. It’s worse than South Africa. Only a person with a ice water in his veins could see the way the Arabs are treated and not be outraged’.

As far as the future goes, Capt. Boston is not hopeful. ‘If either they (the Israelis) or the US launches a war against Iran, it will be the beginning of the end’ he said. ‘Armageddon…You’ll have Muslims pouring into the area from all over the world and no army will be able to stop them. They will tear Israel and the Americans to pieces.’

As far as his reaction to the predictable accusations of ‘anti-Semitism’ that have been leveled against him for telling the truth concerning the attack on the Liberty, he laughs it off. ‘One of my closest friends growing up was Jewish’ he said. ‘I don’t have a prejudiced bone in my body. What we are dealing with here is an act of war initiated against the United States, the country I swore an oath to defend, period. If a proper investigation into the attack on the Liberty had been allowed to take place and the American people made aware of what happened, we would not be in the middle of this mess in the Middle East now.’

2007 By Mark Glenn

Correspondent–American Free Press Newspaper

www.americanfreepress.net

www.crescentandcross.com

Richard Tomlinson, Swiss Air 111 and Israel

  I stumbled upon a link to Swiss Air 111 and Richard Tomlinson while perusing the Ehud Olmert money laundering link. An Israeli firm was involved in the Swiss Air crash.  I looked up the passenger list and found that Richard Tomlinson was supposed to be on the flight.  Tomlinson was an MI6 operative who stated that Princess Diana was killed by MI6.  Why?  She had planned to start a Palestinian refugee camp in Gaza.  According to Tomlinson, she was engaged (to an Arab) at the time of the crash.

But what would be a motive for the MOSSAD to murder Princess Diana? Well, Israel would have been in trouble if Diana had married Dodi Fayed. Think about it. What if Diana would have visited Palestine as a mother to a half Arabic child and as a wife to an Arab man. Imagine the masses cheering Diana, embracing her as one of their's. What if the Princess had then hugged a Palestinian child in front of hundreds of TV-cameras? Perhaps a child whose parents were murdered by Israeli killing squads! A child whose father might have been shaken to death as a method of Israeli interrogation procedures - shaken until his artery was bursting open. A child whose pregnant mother was beaten to death because a family member of her's was an alleged terrorist against Israel.  The truth about the Israeli terror regime would have been revealed to the world - thanks to Diana.

If Israel was behind Swiss Air 111 (which is another ambiguous airline crash - six minutes of the black box have conveniently disappeared, with investigators citing a lack of electricity to power the box in the plane), then it would offer further proof that Israel has prior experience in bringing down airliners for political purposes and was the most likely organizer of 9-11. 

It wouldn't be the first time, either.  Pan Am Flight 103 exploded over Scotland.  There was never any evidence linking Libya to the crime save for forged documents. Prior to the bombing of Flight 103, Israel had been implicated by the French in the La Belle bombing in Berlin, which is why they refused to allow the United States to use French air space to attack Libya. Israel's history is peppered with false flag attacks, from the King David Hotel to the attack on the USS LIberty.   This is why it's more important than ever to stop a US attack on Iran.  This is a war Israel wants and will stop at nothing to achieve their goals of Zionist domination.

There are people who say this is just a conspiracy, but a conspiracy is merely two or more people plotting a crime.  A conspiracy is not a theory; a conspiracy is a crime.  It's odd how Israel and the Mossad keep popping up - the Madrid bombing, London bombing, Bali bombing, the 1993 WTC bombing...  Just type ion any of these events into a search engine followed by the term Israel or Mossad and a whole lots of strange coincidences start to appear.

Of course, most people don't look beyond the print scrolled at the bottom of the newscast, so the perpetrators of crimes can get away with it by marginalizing the thinkers, claiming they are unpatriotic or just crazy.  After all, we live in a world where the vast majority believe 2 plus 2 equals 5 and peace means a 100 year war on terror and ignorance is truth..

Israel and 9/11 - the Links

“Of all the forms of murder, none is more monstrous than that committed by a state against its own citizens... The homicidal state shares one trait with the solitary killer -- like all murderers, it trips on its own egoism and drops a trail of clues which, when properly collected, preserved and analyzed are as damning as a signed confession left in the grave.”
-- Forensic anthropologist Clyde Snow, speaking before the May 1984 meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

"By way of deception, thou shalt do war." -- Mossad motto

"Investigators within the DEA, INS and FBI have all told Fox News that to pursue or even suggest Israeli spying ... is considered career suicide."  -- Carl Cameron, Fox News

"I think there is very compelling evidence that at least some of the terrorists were assisted not just in financing -- although that was part of it -- by a sovereign foreign government... It will become public at some point when it's turned over to the archives, but that's 20 or 30 years from now."  ---  Senator Graham as quoted in Senator: At Least One Foreign Country Assisted the 9/11 Terrorists

 

"Evidence linking these Israelis to 9/11 is classified. I cannot tell you about evidence that has been gathered. It's classified information."  --  US official quoted in Carl Cameron's Fox News report on the Israeli spy ring and its connections to 9-11.

After spending 23 minutes in near silence (save for gasps of horror) on 9-11, I told my husband that it was the result of George W. Bush and Israel.  These were the first words uttered from my mouth.  I have spent the last seven years researching every aspect of Israeli and US involvement in this horrible act that has unleashed a wave of terror, death and destruction - all based on a fiction.  I have lost many friendships because I am outspoken in my beliefs.  Detractors say I am entitled to my opinion, but what I have offered them is pure fact.

George Orwell was right.  Osama bin Laden was the new Emanuel Goldstein.

Here is a good list of links outlining Israeli involvement in 9-11.

Corporate

The Odigo warnings

Zim Shipping

Dov Zakheim's System Planning Corporation (SPS)

WTC scrap shipped overseas by Jewish CEO of Metals Management Inc.

Israeli security firms in charge at airports (ICTS)

Personal / Political

Larry Silverstein and Frank Lowy's last minute WTC lease

Ehud Olmert in NY on 9/11

Benjamin Netanyahu in NY on 9/11 and London on 7/7

Michael Mukasey's legal involvement

Michael Chertoff's role in releasing the Israeli spies

Dov Zakheim's connection to SPC and the missing trillions

Lewis Eisenberg's role in securing the WTC lease

The Eisenberg, Silverstein, Lowy et al mutual UJA connection

PNAC prescience vis-a-vis the wording of the RAD document - Torrent link, as the original PNAC website is down for lack of payment.

Netanyahu says 9/11 terror attacks good for Israel

Netanyahu likens U.S. was to Israel's campaign

Ehud Olmert, 9/11 and Money Laundering

Military / Intelligence

Israeli art student network

The dancing Israelis, Urban Moving Systems and Dominic Suter

Israelis caught in vans containing explosive residue (TNT, RDX)

Jewish Mossad agents posing as al Qaeda "terrorists"

Two Israelis with Bombs arrested at Mexican National Congress

U.S. military computer network 'secured' by Israeli computer software

The Israeli Spy Ring (4 parts series pulled from Fox.  Mirror linked here.)

Other

Israel fears war crime trials

Israel for One and All

All three candidates (I won't rule out Clinton, as she has only "suspended" her campaign in a desperate hope that Obama will be assassinated or he will appoint her as VP and then be assassinated) have professed an undying loyalty to Israel.  All seem to have more allegiance to Israel than their own country.  Maybe it's because the last President who tried to stop Israel's nuclear advancement  got a bullet in the back of his head.  The President that followed said, "I don’t give a God damn if every man on board that ship (USS LIberty) dies, I will not embarrass our ally, Israel."

They continue to tow the line.

"And Israel is not only our ally; it is a beacon of what democracy can and should mean. ... If the people of the Middle East are not sure what democracy means, let them look to Israel." -- Hillary Clinton

"In defeating terror, Israel’s cause is our cause." -- Hillary Clinton

"Our job is to renew the United States’ efforts to help Israel achieve peace with its neighbors while remaining vigilant against those who do not share this vision.  Our job is to do more than lay out another road map; our job is to rebuild the road to real peace and lasting security throughout the region.  That effort begins with a clear and strong commitment to the security of Israel: our strongest ally in the region and its only established democracy.  That will always be my starting point.  And when we see all of the growing threats in the region: from Iran to Iraq to the resurgence of al-Qaeda to the reinvigoration of Hamas and Hezbollah, that loyalty and that friendship will guide me as we begin to lay the stones that will build the road that takes us from the current instability to lasting peace and security."  -  Barack Obama
 
"I will always keep the threat of military action on the table to defend our security and our ally, Israel. Do not be confused."  -- Barack Obama

"An today, when we join in saying 'never again', that is not a wish, a request or a plea to the enemies of Israel. It is a promise that the United States and Israel will honor against any enemy...The threats to Israel's security are large and growing, and America's commitment must grow as well. I strongly support the increase in military aid to Israel, scheduled to begin in October. I am committed to making certain Israel maintains its qualitative military edge. Israel's enemies are too numerous, its margin of error too small, and our shared interests and values too great for us to follow any other policy." -- John McCain

John McCain's pro-Israel stance may be traced to his father, Admiral John S. McCain, who played an important role in the cover-up of the attack on the USS Liberty in 1967.  Shortly after the false-flag attack that killed 135 servicemen, torpedoed a ship (not just any old naval ship, but the most most specialized intelligence collection platform in the world at the time, according to a member of the crew), and almost caused a war in the Middle East, Admiral McCain demanded that the investigation be done in less than a week.  He denied the investigators permission to travel to Israel and he them from interviewing any Israeli witnesses.  (It amazes me that this man and his son are called war heroes.)

Many survivors have contacted Senator John McCain in an attempt to reopen the investigation.  The war hero decided that despite Israel's admission that, yeah, they knew it was a US naval ship, no subsequent investigation need take place.  I guess he's covering his daddy's back, kind of like the current occupant at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Clinton's defense of Israel most certainly has something to do with the Israeli spy ring that lead all the way to the White House.  The Ken Starr report on Whitewater describes how Bill Clinton informed Monica Lewinsky that their phone sex conversations had been recorded. At the same time, Clinton ordered the FBI to cease the hunt for an Israeli mole known to be operating inside the White House.

Obama has suddenly shifted his partial support for the Palestinians to being yet another whore for Israel.  Blackmail?  Perhaps it has something to do with the Larry Sinclair allegations and the deaths of Donald Young and Larry Bland, two openly gay members of Obama's church, who were murdered in separate incidents by shots to the back of the head last November.  Just speculation.  I don't know what to think of Sinclair's allegations, but it's not like Tiger Woods Obama has done anything spectacular to warrant his meteoric rise.  It's shades of Bill Clinton, the governor of a state that consistently ranked at the bottom of the nation in terms of literacy, poverty, job creation, and life span.  But Bill Clinton had a secret weapon: Mena.  All those drugs and arms mentioned in that little debacle known as Iran-Contra went through the Mena, Arkansas, airport with Clinton's consent.  It seems a given that the Powers That Be  (AIPAC) have the goods on the false messiah, Obama.  Why else would the man who at least had some sympathy for the Palestinians do an about face?  He's just another puppet for Israel.

Will there ever be a President who puts America first?

The Palestinian Genocide Continues

IOF troops destroy agriculture sector in Gaza; kill Palestinian farmers

Palestinian Information Center

May 21, 2008

GAZA, (PIC)-- The agriculture ministry in the PA legitimate government in Gaza Strip asserted on Wednesday that the IOF troops had bulldozed vast agricultural areas in the eastern sector of the Gaza Strip which is considered the food basket of the 1.5 million Palestinians living there.

According to a report issued by the ministry and a copy of which was obtained by the PIC, the Israeli occupation army uprooted fruitful trees and destroyed greenhouses and artisan wells in Shokeh and Sofa villages, east of Khan Younis city over the past week in addition to ruining poultry farms estimated at 1.5 million dollars.

The report, furthermore, added that Palestinian farmers in Qarara and Al-Buraij areas, east of Deir Al-Balah city, weren’t able to reach and cultivate their farms for fear that the IOF troops stationed opposite to their farms could shoot and kill them "in cold blood" any time.

Palestinian farmer Ali Al-Dahdouh, 32, was killed with IOF bullets while cultivating his farm in Juhr Al-Deik area, east of the tiny Strip, a couple of days ago.

Raising the alarm, the ministry warned that the brutal IOF practices against the Palestinian people and land were badly affecting the food basket of the Gaza Strip in addition to jeopardizing all aspects of life there.

For its part, the Authority of Environment Quality (AEQ) in the Gaza Strip seconded the warning of the PA agriculture ministry, warning further that cutting of trees and using them for cocking due to the severe shortage in the cocking gas as a result of the Israeli embargo would badly affect the Gaza Strip's ecology, and would contribute to increasing the temperature there.

The Israeli occupation government had been imposing a wing-clipping comprehensive economic blockade on the populated Strip that had, so far, reaped the lives of more than 160 Palestinian patients suffering of chronic diseases but were banned by the IOA from receiving medical treatment outside the beleaguered Gaza hospitals.

In this concern, the AEQ urged the international community and all concerned organizations to immediately intervene and pressure the occupation to stop its aggression against the Gaza Strip and its people.

Israel Demands Peace

"Israel wants peace. They want a piece here, and another piece there, and another piece there, and another piece there, and another piece there, and another piece there, and another piece there, and another piece there, and another piece there, and another piece there, and another piece there, and another piece there."  Author unknown.

A Modest Zionist Proposal: The Genocide of the Palestinians

Imagine the outrage of the ADL and Israel if the term "Jew" or "Jewish" had been used instead of Palestinian.  Meanwhile, Tom Segev says that the Jewish people do not exist.

Genocide announced!
Bombs would fall under other circumstances, but when influential rabbis call for the total annihilation of the Palestinians the world watches without blinking

Saleh Al-Naami, Al-Ahram Weekly

April 10, 2008

"All of the Palestinians must be killed; men, women, infants, and even their beasts." This was the religious opinion issued one week ago by Rabbi Yisrael Rosen, director of the Tsomet Institute, a long-established religious institute attended by students and soldiers in the Israeli settlements of the West Bank. In an article published by numerous religious Israeli newspapers two weeks ago and run by the liberal Haaretz on 26 March, Rosen asserted that there is evidence in the Torah to justify this stand. Rosen, an authority able to issue religious opinions for Jews, wrote that Palestinians are like the nation of Amalekites that attacked the Israelite tribes on their way to Jerusalem after they had fled from Egypt under the leadership of Moses. He wrote that the Lord sent down in the Torah a ruling that allowed the Jews to kill the Amalekites, and that this ruling is known in Jewish jurisprudence.

Rosen's article, which created a lot of noise in Israel, included the text of the ruling in the Torah: "Annihilate the Amalekites from the beginning to the end. Kill them and wrest them from their possessions. Show them no mercy. Kill continuously, one after the other. Leave no child, plant, or tree. Kill their beasts, from camels to donkeys." Rosen adds that the Amalekites are not a particular race or religion, but rather all those who hate the Jews for religious or national motives. Rosen goes as far as saying that the "Amalekites will remain as long as there are Jews. In every age Amalekites will surface from other races to attack the Jews, and thus the war against them must be global." He urges application of the "Amalekites ruling" and says that the Jews must undertake to implement it in all eras because it is a "divine commandment".

Rosen does not hesitate to define the "Amalekites of this age" as the Palestinians. He writes, "those who kill students as they recite the Torah, and fire missiles on the city of Siderot, spread terror in the hearts of men and women. Those who dance over blood are the Amalekites, and we must respond with counter-hatred. We must uproot any trace of humanitarianism in dealing with them so that we emerge victorious."

The true outrage is that most of those authorised to issue Jewish religious opinions support the view of Rabbi Rosen, as confirmed by Haaretz newspaper. At the head of those supporting his opinion is Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu, the leading religious authority in Israel's religious national current, and former chief Eastern rabbi for Israel. Rosen's opinion also has the support of Rabbi Dov Lior, president of the Council of Rabbis of Judea and Samaria (the West Bank), and Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu, the chief rabbi of Safed and a candidate for the post of chief rabbi of Israel. A number of political leaders in Israel have also shown enthusiasm for the opinion, including Ori Lubiansky, head of the Jerusalem municipality.

There is no dispute among observers in Israel that the shooting in Jerusalem three weeks ago that killed eight Jewish students in a religious school was pivotal for Jewish authorities issuing religious opinions of a racist, hateful nature. The day following the Jerusalem incident, a number of rabbis led by Daniel Satobsky issued a religious opinion calling on Jewish youth and "all those who believe in the Torah" to take revenge on the Palestinians as hastily as possible. A week following the operation, a group of leading rabbis issued an unprecedented religious opinion permitting the Israeli army to bomb Palestinian civilian areas. The opinion is issued by the "Association of Rabbis of the Land of Israel" and states that Jewish religious law permits the bombing of Palestinian civilian residential areas if they are a source of attacks on Jewish residential areas. It reads, "when the residents of cities bordering settlements and Jewish centres fire shells at Jewish settlements with the aim of death and destruction, the Torah permits for shells to be fired on the sources of firing even if civilian residents are present there."

The opinion adds that sometimes it is necessary to respond with shelling to sources of fire immediately, without granting the Palestinian public prior warning. A week ago, Rabbi Eliyahu Kinvinsky, the second most senior authority in the Orthodox religious current, issued a religious opinion prohibiting the employment of Arabs, particularly in religious schools. This religious opinion followed another that had been issued by Rabbi Lior prohibiting the employment of Arabs and the renting of residential apartments to them in Jewish neighbourhoods. In order to provide a climate that allows Jewish extremist organisations to continue attacking Palestinian citizens, Rabbi Israel Ariel, one of the most prominent rabbis in the West Bank settlement complex, recently issued a religious opinion prohibiting religious Jews involved in attacks against Palestinians to appear before Israeli civil courts. According to this opinion, they must instead demand to appear before Torah courts that rule by Jewish religious law.

Haaretz newspaper noted that what Rabbi Ariel was trying to achieve through this religious opinion has in fact already taken place. The first instance of such a court in Kfar Saba ordered the release of a young Jewish woman called Tsevia Teshrael who attacked a Palestinian farmer in the middle of the West Bank. And there are Jewish religious authorities that glorify killing and praise terrorists, such as Rabbi Yitzhaq Ginsburg, a top rabbi in Israel who published a book entitled Baruch the Hero in memoriam of Baruch Goldstein, who committed the Ibrahimi Mosque massacre in 1994 when he opened fire and killed 29 Palestinians as they were performing the dawn prayer in Hebron in the southern West Bank. Ginsburg considers his act "honourable and glorious".

The danger of these religious opinions lies in the fact that the religious authorities issuing them have wide respect among religious Jewish youth. And while only 28 per cent of Israel's population is religious, more than 50 per cent of Israelis define themselves as conservative and grant major significance to opinions issued by Jewish religious authorities. According to a study conducted by the Social Sciences Department of Bar Elon University, more than 90 per cent of those who identify as religious believe that if state laws and government orders are incongruous with the content of religious opinions issued by rabbis, they must overlook the former and act in accordance with the latter.

What grants the racist religious opinions a deeper and far-reaching impact is the fact that for the last decade followers of the Zionist religious current, who form nearly 10 per cent of the population, have been seeking to take control of the army and security institutions. They are doing so through volunteering for service in special combat units. The spokesperson's office in the Israeli army says that although the percentage of followers of this current is low in the state's demographic makeup, they form more than 50 per cent of the officers in the Israeli army and more than 60 per cent of its special unit commanders. According to an opinion poll of religious officers and soldiers supervised by the Interdisciplinary Centre Herzliya and published last year, more than 95 per cent of religious soldiers and officers say that they will execute orders from the elected government and their leaders in the army only if they are in harmony with the religious opinions issued by leading rabbis and religious authorities.

Wasil Taha, Arab Knesset member from the Tajammu Party led by Azmi Bishara, says that these religious opinions lead to the committal of crimes. He mentions religious opinions issued by a number of rabbis in mid-1995 that led to the assassination of former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin at that time. "If that's what happens when religious opinions urge attacks against Jewish leaders such as Rabin, what will the situation be like when they urge attacks against Palestinian leaders and the Palestinian public?" he asks. "We, as Arab leaders, have begun to feel a lack of security following this flood of religious opinions, and we realise that the matter requires a great deal of caution in our movements as we are certain that there are those who seek to implement these opinions," he told Al-Ahram Weekly.

Taha dismisses those who ask about the role of the government and Israeli political cadre in confronting these extremist religious opinions. "The ministers in the Israeli government and the Knesset members compete to incite against the Palestinian public and don't hesitate to threaten expulsion of the Palestinians who live on their land in Israel and carry Israeli citizenship outside of Israel's borders, just as former deputy premier Avigdor Lieberman and representative Evi Etam did," Taha said. He notes that Palestinian citizens within Israel have begun to take extreme precautionary measures since the issue of these religious opinions, including security measures around mosques and public institutions and informing officials of public demonstrations so that members of Jewish terrorist organisations can be prevented from attacking participants. Taha holds that the sectors of the Palestinian population most likely to be harmed by these religious opinions are those living in the various cities populated by both Jews and Palestinians, such as Haifa, Jaffa, Lod, Ramleh and Jerusalem.

Palestinian writer and researcher Abdul-Hakim Mufid, from the city Um Fahem, holds that the religious opinions of rabbis have gained major significance due to the harmony between official rhetoric and that of the rabbis. Mufid notes that official Israeli establishments have not tried to confront the "fascist" rhetoric expressed in these religious opinions even though they are capable of doing so. "Most of the rabbis who issue tyrannical religious opinions are official employees in state institutions and receive salaries from them. And the state has not held these rabbis accountable or sought to prohibit the issue of such opinions," he told the Weekly.

Mufid points out that when the official political institution is in a crisis, the Zionist consensus behind these religious opinions grows more intense, and offers as an example the religious opinions relied upon by Rabbi Meir Kahane in the early 1980s to justify his call to forcefully expel the Palestinians. Mufid adds that Israel in practice encourages all those who kill Palestinians, and points to the way that the Israeli government dealt with the recommendations of the Orr Commission that investigated the Israeli police's killing of 13 Palestinians with Israeli citizenship in October of 2000. The government closed the file even though the commission confirmed that the police had acted aggressively towards the Palestinian citizens. Mufid suggests that what makes the racist rhetoric the rabbis insist upon influential is the silence of leftist and liberal voices, and the lack of any direct mobilisation against it.

© Copyright Al-Ahram Weekly

The suffering in Palestine continues while the world remains silent.  It was cool to wear your "Free Nelson Mandela" shirt in the '80's (I had one - and a pin I wore on my denim jacket), but there is no boycott of Israel, no demands that the Israelis abandon their illegal occupation of Palestine, and no more shouts of, "Tear down this wall!"

Meanwhile...

In a statement to Asharq Al-Awsat, he added, “Reprimanding a child everyday, threatening to arrest his brother or using other immoral threats destroys one’s soul and is a motive to commit suicide.” He pointed out that the Israeli intelligence agencies are continuing to create new methods to force detained children to become spies in order to destroy the Palestinian social fabric. Al Khuffash added that the [Israeli] Shabak security service depends on detained children in order to plant the biggest number of spies amongst Palestinian people. All detained children are invited to join Shabak and they are beaten and threatened with rape to convince them to go down the road of treason.

Zionists are insane.

Art Undermines Government

Some of you may be aware of the Israeli art student scandal, but odds are against it.  There is a reason for that. 

Shortly after the infamous attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, FOX News broadcast a four-part series about a massive espionage ring that had infiltrated the highest levels of government.  It was scrubbed from their website within days, but you can read the transcripts here (Part 1, 2,3,  4) or search The Memory Hole for the video.

In the words of Morpheous, “Fate, it seems, is not without a sense of irony.” 

Yes, I actually own a piece of the infamous Israeli art.  When I first heard the story, the picture was hanging next to a bookcase that held numerous volumes on intelligence, terrorism, and Cold War politics on its shelves.   Just a few feet away from the frame was my copy of “By Way of Deception: The Secret History of the Mossad.” 

As you can see, it is not the prettiest painting, but for a brief – very brief moment, it had some sort of meaning, which is why I purchased it back in November of 2000.

On the Tuesday prior to Thanksgiving, I was hanging out at a coffee shop in Scottsdale, Arizona.  I had met the owners the prior week while working a booth for a holiday turkey drive at their store.  They invited me back the next week, promising to teach me how to make a real cappuccino and get my feet wet behind the bar.  The elderly owners needed a day off from their 7-day a week business and hoped that I could fill in once a week.

About 9 a.m., a man claiming to be an Israeli art student came in with some unstretched canvas paintings he did in art school.  He was here in the United States, hoping to sell some art to pay for his trip.

The paintings were mediocre, like the original artwork you can pick up for $19.99 at some “art expo” held at the Holiday Inn. 

I was a little skeptical when he mentioned he was from Israeli, wondering if he was sympathetic to the Palestinians, whose plight is worse than Black South Africans under apartheid, according to Desmond Tutu.  I despise Zionism.

He pointed to a painting of two blue elephants with a message of peace written in Hebrew scrolled around the border.  He did a song and dance routine about peace with the Palestinians and peace with the world.  Maybe it was because he saw the “My karma ran over your dogma” bumper sticker on my car.  The Volvo was one of two cars in an otherwise empty lot. 

It was enough for me.  I think I gave him twenty bucks because I liked the message coming from an Israeli.  It gave me hope.

Hope was a fleeting moment.

He offered to put me in touch with a framer who had a store in Scottsdale and was offering a generous discount on framing, but the art student could not remember the number and offered to call me with the information, so out of forced politeness, I gave him my business card.  It only had my mobile number – no address.  I wasn’t about to visit a framer in Scottsdale.  I’d just wait for a coupon from Michaels’, as the frame was worth more than the painting.

I forked over the twenty, ready to get back to the conversation with the coffee shop owners.  Then it got weird.  He kept hanging around, so to fill an awkward moment of silence, I asked him something about a paint medium and it right then it became obvious that he hadn’t picked up a paint brush since elementary school.  I made a flip comment and he then admitted that he was traveling with friends who were art students from Israel.  He was helping them to sell their paintings.  He had an accent and his English wasn’t perfect - or perhaps it was and it was merely a facade, I thought to myself.  I shrugged it off, but I was already uncomfortable.

He spent the next two hours there, nursing one cup of coffee and talking on his cell phone in Hebrew or Yiddish, which I seem to think of as one in the same.   He tried to engage us in conversation, stating that he had taken a bus there and was waiting for his friend to pick him up.  He didn’t approach the other customers with his work.  It was kind of odd that he would remain there caught in a lie.

He left shortly after 11 a.m. and the owners and I breathed a sigh of relief.  Still, the painting had the message of peace, though I wondered if it hadn’t been just a scam.  I just shrugged it off.

The next day I received a call from the framer, who it turned out did not have a store in Scottsdale.  He framed out of his car.  I politely told him that I wasn’t ready to frame it.  He kept insisting that he knew the perfect frame for the painting, that he knew the artist who painted it and what a special paint it was, yada, yada, yada.  He then said that he operated out of the van (first it was car) because it was best to drive to someone’s home to match the frame with the décor of the room.  I said that I wasn’t about to let some strange man into my house, and hung up the phone. 

Later that evening, the art student poseur called, asking if I had gotten in touch with his friend.  I explained to him the lie, and that I didn’t need or want the “art” framed.  He became aggressive, suggesting that I had to use his friend’s services.  I started yelling at the guy, telling him to stop calling me. 

The following day – Turkey Day!, I received yet another phone call from the “framer”, insisting he come over and frame the painting.  He said he needed money.  I was screaming into the phone, asking him with a tone of incredulous facetiousness why he would be calling on Thanksgiving morning (around 11) demanding to come over right then to frame a cheap piece of art!  My voice was getting a little shaky because it’s not in my nature to scream at people, at least not out loud.  I told him that I would not let a stranger in my house and to stop calling me.  I only wish that I could have slammed the phone down for him to feel my anger.   My husband said he would answer the phone if the guy tried to call back, but the psycho got the message.  No more calls.

Flash forward to early October 2001.  Fox News aired the story of the Israeli spy ring, claiming that agents were approaching DEA personnel in hopes of gaining access to federal buildings.  Phoenix was not listed as a target city, though there was a kiosk selling toy airplane doodad things at the mall nearest my house.  Also, the story said the art students were seen in the spring, though a couple of these guys had been in Phoenix back in 2000, as was evidenced by my painting, now appropriately hanging next to the military strategy and intelligence books. 

I thought back to my conversations with these men, wondering why they would have been so vociferous about entering my home.  Would there have been a transmitter in the frame?  My husband and I had security clearances, but that was over a decade ago.  I called the local FBI office, but no one returned my call.  Of course not, because no Mossad agent would ever conspire against America.

Was I targeted?  Perhaps, or maybe it is just another in a weird occurrence in a long stream of coincidences.  Who knows?  I had to laugh when I discovered that the company that provides billing and directory assistance for 90% of the phone companies in the United States is owned by an Israeli company, and not only that, their main computer billing center is in Israel.   Here I was happy they didn't have my address,and yet they could have had so much more.  This is the ultimate intelligence collection tool, allowing Israelis better access than even the NSA.

And the Israelis do have access.  All wiretaps in the United States are made and installed by an Israeli company, Comverse Infosys. 

“Comverse Infosys is an Israeli telecom company, which subcontracts the installation of the automatic tapping equipment now built into every phone system in America.  Comverse maintains its own connections to all this phone tapping equipment, insisting that it is for maintenance purposes only.  However, Converse has been named as the most likely source for leaked information regarding telephone calls by law enforcement that derailed several investigations into not only espionage, but drug running as well.  Yet another Israeli telecom company is Odigo, which provides the core message passing system for all the "Instant Message" services.  Two hours before the attacks on the World Trade Towers, Odigo employees received a warning.  Odigo has an office 2 blocks from the former location of the World Trade Towers.’

Are the Israelis spying on us?  The Starr report indicated that President Clinton told Monica Lewisnky that their calls were probably recorded.  Shortyly thereafter, he called off the FBI investigation of the Israeli mole, “Mega”, who had penetrated the highest office in the United States.   

With all this access to phone conversations, it is quite easy for a foreign power to blackmail just about any official.  Having an affair?  Calling a bookie?  Talking with the enemy?  No wonder why Israel has become the spoiled golden child!   

After giving this serious consideration, serious as a maragrita might provide, I have decided to transform my symbol of Israeli intelligence into something better.   The two elephants with their trunks interlocked will serve as my campaign symbol in my write-in campaign for Presidency of the United States.  I am up to ten committed votes, and possibly eleven provided I get off my butt and e-mail my platform to my campaign manager in Arizona.  The people need answers and I can provide them, albeit in a tangential fashion.  You can vote for the lesser of two evils, or you can use your voice to let people know you want something better.  There is no knight in shining armor ready to swoop us away to fantasyland.   A better future starts with following your conscience, even if you stand alone in the crowd. 

Israeli involvement in 9-11

Stories covered by the American Free Press that remain untouched by US mainstream media. 

• The “liberal” Village Voice reported on Aug. 3, 1993 that there was evidence suggesting the Mossad had foreknowledge of (or was involved in) the first WTC bombing in 1993 (Sept. 24);

• While the major media insisted U.S. policy toward Israel had nothing whatsoever to do with the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, a former American diplomat, Bruce Laingen, once held hostage by Islamic extremists, said quite the contrary (Sept. 24);

• U.S. Congressman Jim Traficant (D-Ohio) was the only member of Congress to dare say, one day after the attacks, that U.S. foreign policy played a part in the tragedy (Sept. 24);

• The FBI arrest of three groups of Israeli Jews—ostensibly employees of several moving companies in the New York area, suspected by the FBI of working for the Mossad—who were seen “acting suspiciously” and videotaping the WTC disaster from varying angles (Oct. 1);

• The history of how Israel has staged assassinations and terrorist attacks and blamed them on “Arabs,” “right-wing extremists” and others (Oct. 1);

• The Washington Times reported—one day before the Sept. 11 attacks—that high-ranking U.S. Army officers believed that the Mossad “has [the] the capability to target U.S. forces and make it look like a Palestinian/Arab act (Oct. 1);

• How a former CIA analyst and supporter of Israel, George Friedman, said on Sept. 11 that Israel was “the big winner” as a result of the tragedy (Oct. 1);

• Well-known British journalist Patrick Seale charged in his book Abu Nidal: A Gun for Hire, that the world’s then-best-known “Arab terrorist,” was actually a surrogate for Israel’s Mossad (Oct 1);

• How Israeli-connected publicists, policy-makers and politicians on the receiving end of Israeli lobby funding are pushing for an all-out war against the entire Arab world and making false claims of Iraqi involvement in the Sept. 11 attacks (Oct. 8, Nov. 5, Nov. 12, Dec. 3);

• In the new book Body of Secrets* well-known journalist James Bamford released details of formerly classified documents proving that two high-ranking U.S. officials, Lyman Lemnitzer and Paul Nitze (hard-line supporters of Israel) once proposed staging terrorist attacks against Americans, blaming the attacks on Fidel Castro and sparking a U.S. war of retaliation (Oct. 8);

• The Israeli military staged a phony “celebration” by Palestinian children supposedly gleeful over the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and CNN reported it as “fact.” (Oct. 8);

• How Israeli financial interests stand to benefit from U.S. involvement in the war in Afghanistan (Oct. 8);

• How Newsbytes, an affiliate of The Washington Post, reported that the Israeli office of Odigo, an Inter net software company, received instant messages warning of an attack on the World Trade Center two hours before the tragedy (Oct. 15);

• Amazing details about the fact that seven of the so-called “hijackers” are actually still alive and had nothing to do with the tragedy (Oct. 22);

• Vicious attacks by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and leading voices on the Israeli lobby dissatisfied with the course of President Bush’s war on terrorism (Oct. 22);

• How Israeli intelligence has financed “Islamic fundamentalist” and “Arab terrorist” groups to advance Israel’s strategic aims (Oct. 29);

• Evidence—including testimony by firemen—that bombs exploded inside the World Trade Center, contrary to the official U.S. government story (Oct. 29);

• How a company connected to a top-level CIA official, A. B. Krongard, was involved in stock dealings that could be connected to foreknowledge of the impending terrorist attacks (Oct. 29);

• Evidence that a so-called “letter” written by one of the purported hijackers of Sept. 11 is a forgery (Oct. 29);

• While Israel is said to be America’s best Middle East source on bin Laden and his al Qaeda network and regularly supplies human intelligence, or “humint,” to the CIA, the question remains as to why Israel’s top-notch intelligence experts were officially “unaware” of the impending Sept. 11 attack (Nov. 12);

• The remarkable assertion by a Saudi newspaper, Okaz, that the announced decision by President Bush to call for the creation of a Palestinian state suggests his administration actually knows that Israel was behind the Sept. 11 tragedy (Nov. 26);

• The revelation by former Mossad officer, Victor Ostrovsky, that the Mossad plotted to kill former President George H.W. Bush for being a “threat” to Israel (Dec. 3);

• The charge by a top Pakistani intelligence official that Israel hates both President Bush and his father, suspecting them of being allied financially with Arab interests, and that this was why Israel orchestrated the Sept. 11 attacks (Dec. 3);

• The arrest, in Mexico, of Israeli terrorists who were involved in an attempt to blow up the Mexican congress (Dec. 10);

• The sudden, costly departure from the World Trade Center just weeks before Sept. 11 of the American division of Zim Israel, the Israeli shipping giant founded by longtime Israeli Mossad figure Shaul Eisenberg and the unusual circumstances involving the lease on the WTC held by an Australian Jewish entrepreneur (Dec. 10);

• That Attorney General John Ashcroft—known for his long and close relationship with Israel and its American lobby—released at least one Israeli Jew who had twice flunked FBI lie detector tests when asked to explain his activities with both the Israeli army and with Israeli intelligence (Dec. 17).

For the Israeli timeline with links galore, check out http://www.fromthewilderness.com/timeline/AAisraeli.html.

Five Dancing Israelis

Sunday Herald - 02 November 2003 Five Israelis were seen filming as jet liners ploughed into the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001 ... Were they part of a massive spy ring which shadowed the 9/11 hijackers and knew that al-Qaeda planned a devastating terrorist attack on the USA ? Neil Mackay investigates

THERE was ruin and terror in Manhattan, but, over the Hudson River in New Jersey, a handful of men were dancing. As the World Trade Centre burned and crumpled, the five men celebrated and filmed the worst atrocity ever committed on American soil as it played out before their eyes.

Who do you think they were ? Palestinians ? Saudis ? Iraqis, even ? Al-Qaeda, surely ? Wrong on all counts. They were Israelis - and at least two of them were Israeli intelligence agents, working for Mossad, the equivalent of MI6 or the CIA.

Their discovery and arrest that morning is a matter of indisputable fact. To those who have investigated just what the Israelis were up to that day, the case raises one dreadful possibility : that Israeli intelligence had been shadowing the al-Qaeda hijackers as they moved from the Middle East through Europe and into America where they trained as pilots and prepared to suicide-bomb the symbolic heart of the United States. And the motive ? To bind America in blood and mutual suffering to the Israeli cause.

After the attacks on New York and Washington, the former Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, was asked what the terrorist strikes would mean for US-Israeli relations. He said : "It's very good." Then he corrected himself, adding : "Well, it's not good, but it will generate immediate sympathy [for Israel from Americans]."

If Israel's closest ally felt the collective pain of mass civilian deaths at the hands of terrorists, then Israel would have an unbreakable bond with the world's only hyperpower and an effective free hand in dealing with the Palestinian terrorists who had been murdering its innocent civilians as the second intifada dragged on throughout 2001.

It's not surprising that the New Jersey housewife who first spotted the five Israelis and their white van wants to preserve her anonymity. She's insisted that she only be identified as Maria. A neighbour in her apartment building had called her just after the first strike on the Twin Towers. Maria grabbed a pair of binoculars and, like millions across the world, she watched the horror of the day unfold.

As she gazed at the burning towers, she noticed a group of men kneeling on the roof of a white van in her parking lot. Here's her recollection : "They seemed to be taking a movie. They were like happy, you know ... they didn't look shocked to me. I thought it was strange."

Maria jotted down the van's registration and called the police. The FBI was alerted and soon there was a statewide all points bulletin put out for the apprehension of the van and its occupants. The cops traced the number, establishing that it belonged to a company called Urban Moving.

Police Chief John Schmidig said : "We got an alert to be on the lookout for a white Chevrolet van with New Jersey registration and writing on the side. Three individuals were seen celebrating in Liberty State Park after the impact. They said three people were jumping up and down."

By 4pm on the afternoon of September 11, the van was spotted near New Jersey's Giants stadium. A squad car pulled it over and inside were five men in their 20s. They were hustled out of the car with guns levelled at their heads and handcuffed.

In the car was $4700 in cash, a couple of foreign passports and a pair of box cutters - the concealed Stanley Knife-type blades used by the 19 hijackers who'd flown jetliners into the World Trade Centre and Pentagon just hours before. There were also fresh pictures of the men standing with the smouldering wreckage of the Twin Towers in the background. One image showed a hand flicking a lighter in front of the devastated buildings, like a fan at a pop concert. The driver of the van then told the arresting officers : "We are Israeli. We are not your problem. Your problems are our problems. The Palestinians are the problem."

His name was Sivan Kurzberg. The other four passengers were Kurzberg's brother Paul, Yaron Shmuel, Oded Ellner and Omer Marmari. The men were dragged off to prison and transferred out of the custody of the FBI's Criminal Division and into the hands of their Foreign Counterintelligence Section - the bureau's anti-espionage squad.

A warrant was issued for a search of the Urban Moving premises in Weehawken in New Jersey. Boxes of papers and computers were removed. The FBI questioned the firm's Israeli owner, Dominik Otto Suter, but when agents returned to re-interview him a few days later, he was gone. An employee of Urban Moving said his co-workers had laughed about the Manhattan attacks the day they happened. "I was in tears," the man said. "These guys were joking and that bothered me. These guys were like, 'Now America knows what we go through.'"

Vince Cannistraro, former chief of operations for counter-terrorism with the CIA, says the red flag went up among investigators when it was discovered that some of the Israelis' names were found in a search of the national intelligence database. Cannistraro says many in the US intelligence community believed that some of the Israelis were working for Mossad and there was speculation over whether Urban Moving had been "set up or exploited for the purpose of launching an intelligence operation against radical Islamists".

This makes it clear that there was no suggestion whatsoever from within American intelligence that the Israelis were colluding with the 9/11 hijackers - simply that the possibility remains that they knew the attacks were going to happen, but effectively did nothing to help stop them.

After the owner vanished, the offices of Urban Moving looked as if they'd been closed down in a big hurry. Mobile phones were littered about, the office phones were still connected and the property of at least a dozen clients were stacked up in the warehouse. The owner had cleared out his family home in New Jersey and returned to Israel.

Two weeks after their arrest, the Israelis were still in detention, held on immigration charges. Then a judge ruled that they should be deported. But the CIA scuppered the deal and the five remained in custody for another two months. Some went into solitary confinement, all underwent two polygraph tests and at least one underwent up to seven lie detector sessions before they were eventually deported at the end of November 2001. Paul Kurzberg refused to take a lie detector test for 10 weeks, but then failed it. His lawyer said he was reluctant to take the test as he had once worked for Israeli intelligence in another country.

Nevertheless, their lawyer, Ram Horvitz, dismissed the allegations as "stupid and ridiculous". Yet US government sources still maintained that the Israelis were collecting information on the fundraising activities of groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Mark Regev, of the Israeli embassy in Washington, would have none of that and he said the allegations were "simply false". The men themselves claimed they'd read about the World Trade Centre attacks on the internet, couldn't see it from their office and went to the parking lot for a better view. Their lawyers and the embassy say their ghoulish and sinister celebrations as the Twin Towers blazed and thousands died were due to youthful foolishness.

The respected New York Jewish newspaper, The Forward, reported in March 2002, however, that it had received a briefing on the case of the five Israelis from a US official who was regularly updated by law enforcement agencies. This is what he told The Forward : "The assessment was that Urban Moving Systems was a front for the Mossad and operatives employed by it." He added that "the conclusion of the FBI was that they were spying on local Arabs", but the men were released because they "did not know anything about 9/11".

Back in Israel, several of the men discussed what happened on an Israeli talk show. One of them made this remarkable comment : "The fact of the matter is we are coming from a country that experiences terror daily. Our purpose was to document the event." But how can you document an event unless you know it is going to happen ?

We are now deep in conspiracy theory territory. But there is more than a little circumstantial evidence to show that Mossad - whose motto is "By way of deception, thou shalt do war" - was spying on Arab extremists in the USA and may have known that September 11 was in the offing, yet decided to withhold vital information from their American counterparts which could have prevented the terror attacks.

Following September 11, 2001, more than 60 Israelis were taken into custody under the Patriot Act and immigration laws. One highly placed investigator told Carl Cameron of Fox News that there were "tie-ins" between the Israelis and September 11 ; the hint was clearly that they'd gathered intelligence on the planned attacks but kept it to themselves.

The Fox News source refused to give details, saying : "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 is not noted for its condemnation of Israel ; it's a ruggedly patriotic news channel owned by Rupert Murdoch and was President Bush's main cheerleader in the war on terror and the invasion of Iraq.

Another group of around 140 Israelis were detained prior to September 11, 2001, in the USA as part of a widespread investigation into a suspected espionage ring run by Israel inside the USA. Government documents refer to the spy ring as an "organised intelligence-gathering operation" designed to "penetrate government facilities". Most of those arrested had served in the Israeli armed forces - but military service is compulsory in Israel. Nevertheless, a number had an intelligence background.

The first glimmerings of an Israeli spying exercise in the USA came to light in spring 2001, when the FBI sent a warning to other federal agencies alerting them to be wary of visitors calling themselves "Israeli art students" and attempting to bypass security at federal buildings in order to sell paintings. A Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) report suggested the Israeli calls "may well be an organised intelligence-gathering activity". Law enforcement documents say that the Israelis "targeted and penetrated military bases" as well as the DEA, FBI and dozens of government facilities, including secret offices and the unlisted private homes of law enforcement and intelligence personnel.

A number of Israelis questioned by the authorities said they were students from Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, but Pnina Calpen, a spokeswoman for the Israeli school, did not recognise the names of any Israelis mentioned as studying there in the past 10 years. A federal report into the so-called art students said many had served in intelligence and electronic signal intercept units during their military service.

According to a 61-page report, drafted after an investigation by the DEA and the US immigration service, the Israelis were organised into cells of four to six people. The significance of what the Israelis were doing didn't emerge until after September 11, 2001, when a report by a French intelligence agency noted "according to the FBI, Arab terrorists and suspected terror cells lived in Phoenix, Arizona, as well as in Miami and Hollywood, Florida, from December 2000 to April 2001 in direct proximity to the Israeli spy cells".

The report contended that Mossad agents were spying on Mohammed Atta and Marwan al-Shehi, two of leaders of the 9/11 hijack teams. The pair had settled in Hollywood, Florida, along with three other hijackers, after leaving Hamburg - where another Mossad team was operating close by.

Hollywood in Florida is a town of just 25,000 souls. The French intelligence report says the leader of the Mossad cell in Florida rented apartments "right near the apartment of Atta and al-Shehi". More than a third of the Israeli "art students" claimed residence in Florida. Two other Israelis connected to the art ring showed up in Fort Lauderdale. At one time, eight of the hijackers lived just north of the town.

Put together, the facts do appear to indicate that Israel knew that 9/11, or at least a large-scale terror attack, was about to take place on American soil, but did nothing to warn the USA. But that's not quite true. In August 2001, the Israelis handed over a list of terrorist suspects - on it were the names of four of the September 11 hijackers. Significantly, however, the warning said the terrorists were planning an attack "outside the United States".

The Israeli embassy in Washington has dismissed claims about the spying ring as "simply untrue". The same denials have been issued repeatedly by the five Israelis seen high-fiving each other as the World Trade Centre burned in front of them.

Their lawyer, Ram Horwitz, insisted his clients were not intelligence officers. Irit Stoffer, the Israeli foreign minister, said the allegations were "completely untrue". She said the men were arrested because of "visa violations", adding : "The FBI investigated those cases because of 9/11."

Jim Margolin, an FBI spokesman in New York, implied that the public would never know the truth, saying : "If we found evidence of unauthorised intelligence operations that would be classified material." Yet, Israel has long been known, according to US administration sources, for "conducting the most aggressive espionage operations against the US of any US ally". Seventeen years ago, Jonathan Pollard, a civilian working for the American Navy, was jailed for life for passing secrets to Israel. At first, Israel claimed Pollard was part of a rogue operation, but the government later took responsibility for his work.

It has always been a long-accepted agreement among allies - such as Britain and America or America and Israel - that neither country will jail a "friendly spy" nor shame the allied country for espionage. Chip Berlet, a senior analyst at Boston's Political Research Associates and an expert in intelligence, says : "It's a backdoor agreement between allies that says that if one of your spies gets caught and didn't do too much harm, he goes home. It goes on all the time. The official reason is always visa violation."

What we are left with, then, is fact sullied by innuendo. Certainly, it seems, Israel was spying within the borders of the United States and it is equally certain that the targets were Islamic extremists probably linked to September 11. But did Israel know in advance that the Twin Towers would be hit and the world plunged into a war without end ; a war which would give Israel the power to strike its enemies almost without limit ? That's a conspiracy theory too far, perhaps. But the unpleasant feeling that, in this age of spin and secrets, we do not know the full and unadulterated truth won't go away. Maybe we can guess, but it's for the history books to discover and decide.