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Wednesday, November 12, 2003

# Posted 6:33 PM by Ariel David Adesnik  

SCOTS CONSPIRACY THEORISTS: JR points to this mind-bogglingly bizarre investigative report in Scotland's Sunday Herald. In a new twist on the Mossad-was-responsible-for-9/11 shtick, the report suggests that Israel was aware that Al Qaeda had something big in the works but decided to keep quiet in the expectation that an attack on American citizens would generate sympathy for Israel.

According to the Sunday Herald's homepage, it's investigation has "provoked an international storm". If you follow the link on those words, you get to another page listing the eminent news organizations that have picked up on the story, including The Palestine Chronicle, Indymedia, Antiwar.com, and Sullywatch.

There are two reputable organizations on the list, however: ABC News and New York's Jewish weekly, the Forward. While neither one substantiates any of the ridiculous suggestions made by the Herald, there was an interesting story behind the hype.

It turns out that the FBI picked up five Israelis on the afternoon of September 11th, thanks to a tip from a New Jersey housewife who saw the men acting strangely and filming the burning towers. When arrested, one of the men had thousands of dollars of cash in his sock, while one of the others had mutliple passports. Most ominously, one of the men had a boxcutter.

Upon further investigation, it turned out that the moving company the five men worked for was a front, probably for the Mossad. In custody, the men were subjected to repeated lie detector tests.

According to the Forward, the real story seems to be that the five men were Israeli intelligence agents spying on radical Muslims in the United States. Since Israel (and other US allies) are supposed to coordinate such activities with the US government, a thorough investigation had to be conducted.

Given that it will be another fifty years before we know all the details of the case, it simply won't be possible to disabuse conspiracy theorists of their more bizarre notions. Then again, it is that sort of undisprovability that it is the bread-and-butter of true conspiracy theorists.

UPDATE: According to a Scots journalist,
The Sunday Herald is a genuinely curious newspaper - it's increasingly red-green and anti-American for one thing - but even by its standards this was an extraordinary piece. One thing woth noting is that within Scottish journalism circles the author of this article, Neil McKay, is notoriously flaky (the editor Andrew Jaspan also gets a little too carried away on occasion). There are, I know for a fact, a number of editors in Scotland who would never ever even briefly consider employing him. He has a record of extravagant "scoops" that subsequently are revealed to be much, much less than they seem.
Full disclosure: The author of this comment works for one of the Herald's rivals.
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