Decade of Deceit: Anti-Semitic 9/11 Conspiracy Theories 10 Years Later

Decade of Deceit: Anti-Semitic

9/11 Conspiracy Theories 10 Years

Later

August 30, 2011

INTRODUCTION

In the ten years since the September 11 terrorist attacks on America, conspiracy theories surrounding the attacks have become an entrenched propaganda industry. These assaults on memory and history attempt to place blame for the attacks on sources other than Al Qaeda, such as the U.S. government. Prominent among such 9/11 conspiracy theories are those that make the anti-Semitic claim that Jews--whether Israeli, American, or both-- were involved in planning and executing the attacks. This anti-Semitic faction is only a part of the socalled "9/11 truth movement," yet it is vocal and pervasive, particularly on the Internet. While its origins began within hours of the attacks themselves, a new chorus of voices--who claim not to be anti-Jewish but simply antiZionist--have more recently emerged to become the most popular promoters of these ideas.

The goal for these anti-Semitic "truthers" is to convince the public that the actual terrorists never could have masterminded or conducted the 9/11 attacks. Instead, they claim, American and/or Israeli Jews were the only ones who had the "motive, means, and opportunity" to carry them out. Blaming Jews for manipulating world events for their own benefit is not new?it is at the very root of ideological anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitic 9/11 conspiracy theories are merely a recent manifestation of age-old allegations that a Jewish cabal plots deceitful, sinister actions in order to gain or maintain power. Anticipating criticism, a number of these anti-Semitic conspiracists now try to immunize themselves against charges of anti-Semitism by making disclaimers up front about not being anti-Semitic. Their own works and record, however, blatantly contradict their innocuous self-characterizations.

The most prominent promoters of these anti-Semitic conspiracy theories today tend less often to be white supremacists and right-wing anti-Semites. Rather they are more commonly members of a group of anti-Israel conspiracists who see the 9/11 attacks as one of a series of "false flag" operations that Israel has carried out to manufacture a war against its Muslim enemies (the term "false flag" operations refers to acts of sabotage or terror conducted by one perpetrator but designed to appear as if conducted by another, with the goal of setting the victim at odds with the false perpetrator).

THE EVOLUTION OF ANTI-SEMITIC 9/11 CONSPIRACY THEORIES

The initial array of anti-Semitic theories that circulated soon after the 9/11 attacks all still have currency today, but certain conspiracy theories have increased in popularity over the past decade. For example, the most repeated early theory alleged that 4,000 Israelis (or Jews, in some versions) were told to stay home from the World Trade Center on 9/11. This theory, at least in the United States, has receded to the background, while other major anti-Semitic conspiracy theories have come to the forefront.

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The most popular conspiratorial allegations include the following:

The Mossad was behind the attacks. Variations of this theory assert that the Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, was behind the 9/11 attacks; the "proof" is the "five dancing Israelis" arrested on 9/11 who were allegedly celebrating as the Twin Towers burned. Although this theory has circulated since 2001, the initial scenario painted the five Israelis as "spies" who knew that the attacks were going to happen and chose not to inform the U.S government. Over time, the theory evolved and today proponents claim that the five Israelis were actually directing the attacks and began dancing when they realized that their mission of creating a false flag operation had been accomplished.

Jewish neo-conservatives were behind the attacks. Proponents of this theory claim that neoconservative American officials of Jewish faith within the Bush administration, particularly Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle and Douglas Feith, methodically worked out a plan, with the assistance of the Mossad, to carry out the attacks in order to benefit Israel. This theory alleges that these officials orchestrated a plan well before 9/11, with the goal of invading Iraq and other Middle Eastern countries to allow the U.S. and Israel to seize control of resources and power in that area.

The Jewish controlled media and government work to prevent the truth from emerging. The "truth" about Israeli and Jewish involvement in the 9/11 attacks will not be allowed to emerge, claim conspiracy theorists, because Jews were in charge of the 9/11 Commission report and actually control the media and government.

In addition to these key themes, a multitude of lesser conspiracy theories also continue to circulate. These range from an alleged Israeli art student spy ring keeping track of the hijackers before the attacks, to Israeli companies controlling U.S telecommunications, to Jewish owners wanting to gain financially from the destruction of the World Trade Center complex. These theories are still persuasive for anti-Semites who want to see a Jewish or Israeli involvement in 9/11 because of their belief that Jews are deceitful, ruthless, and willing to undertake any action, no matter how dire the consequences, to advance their power and influence.

CONSPIRACISTS BEHIND THE THEORIES

Within days of the 9/11 attacks, anti-Semitic 9/11 conspiracy theories began appearing in the United States and abroad. In the Middle East, Al-Manar, a Lebanese television station linked to Hezbollah, was one of the main sources for the false claim that 4,000 Israelis had been told to stay home on the day of the terrorist attacks. In the United States, publications on the extreme right, particularly the American Free Press (AFP), an anti-Semitic conspiracy-oriented newspaper, also played a big role in promoting a variety of anti-Semitic 9/11 conspiracy theories.

Although the AFP is still a regular source of such propaganda, 9/11 anti-Semitic conspiracy theories are now more influentially being promoted by a network of anti-Israel conspiracists who endorse and reinforce each other's work. They blame Israel for numerous nefarious deeds and false flag operations.

Among the key figures in this group of conspiracists are Gordon Duff, who runs the anti-Semitic Web site Veterans Today; Alan Sabrosky, a former U.S. Army War College instructor who writes for Veterans Today; and Kevin Barrett, who runs the Truth Jihad Web site and Internet radio show. They have become the most popular promoters of theories claiming that Israelis and Jewish members of the Bush Administration carried out the 9/11 attacks as a false flag operation to provoke a war against Israel's enemies.

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Articles by Sabrosky and Duff promoting anti-Semitic conspiracy theories have been widely circulated, picked up by the conspiracy press, the extreme right press, and elsewhere, including Islamic media sources in the United States. These articles consistently paint Israel or the "Israel lobby" as devious and complicit in mass murder to further Jewish goals of acquiring power and destroying enemies. They further connect Israel's alleged masterminding of 9/11 attacks to claims regarding Israeli mistreatment of the Palestinians, making the 9/11 theories part and parcel of an overall anti-Israel agenda.

Gordon Duff

Gordon Duff is an anti-Semitic conspiracist whose innocuous-sounding Web site, Veterans Today, features antiIsrael and Holocaust denial materials. The site also offers a platform for numerous columnists who promote anti-Semitic 9/11 conspiracy theories, as well as Duff's own screeds.

Duff's visions of conspiracy are typical of the latter day anti-Semitic 9/11 conspiracists. For example, in a July 2010 essay, "America's Tarnished Military Partnership with Israel," Duff asserts that the "five dancing Israelis" arrested on 9/11 were part of a "team of Israeli intelligence agents" who remotely guided the planes into the World Trade Center with the knowledge of "top members of America's military." He further claims that the U.S.'s own security is threatened by a nefarious and disloyal group of Americans who have dual U.S./Israeli citizenship and who control government organizations and private companies. Indicative of the reach of such writings, this essay was reposted widely across the Internet, especially on conspiracy-oriented and right-wing extremist Web sites. It saw publication in print, too, in places such as The First Freedom, a virulently white supremacist and anti-Semitic Alabama-based newspaper.

In other columns, Duff paints Israel's alleged role in the 9/11 attacks as part of a bigger picture of Israel's purported ruthlessness, particularly toward the Palestinians. He depicts Israel as willing to do anything to maintain hegemony in the Middle East.

In March 2010, Duff wrote a column that included an interview with Alan Sabrosky, whose anti-Semitic rants have become a mainstay on the Veterans Today site. In the column Duff supports Sabrosky's views. Duff begins the column by asserting that "the Israeli lobby' is "the most powerful and ruthless group in the world." Duff then promotes Sabrosky's view that the 9/11 attacks could not have happened "without the full resources of both the CIA and Mossad and that 9/11 served the interests of both agencies quite well."

Alan Sabrosky

Sabrosky, a regular columnist for the Veterans Today, is currently one of the most cited sources for anti-Semitic 9/11 conspiracy theories. Sabrosky, like Duff, typically ties these theories to other anti-Israel themes. When Sabrosky alleges that Israel and the Mossad were behind 9/11, he inevitably brings up Israel's alleged treatment of the Palestinians or its attacks on Gaza. Sabrosky has repeatedly made comparisons between Israel and Nazi Germany, in which Israel fares far worse than the Nazi regime in his weighing.

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Because Sabrosky once taught at the U.S. Army War College and claims to have some Jewish background, he is often seen as an authoritative source by those who want to believe that Israel and Jews were behind the 9/11 attacks.

In the March 2010 column posted by Gordon Duff to Veterans Today, Sabrosky asserts that when Americans "fully understand" the "truth" about Israel and 9/11, "they will sweep aside those [who support Israel] in politics, the press and the pulpits alike whose lies and disloyalty brought this about [and] may well leave Israel looking like Carthage after the Romans finished with it." Such writings can have long reaches; this same column, for example, appeared in the March 26, 2010, edition of The Muslim Observer, a prominent English-language Muslim American paper with national distribution.

Sabrosky's own columns for Veterans Today are frequently re-posted on various sites on the Internet. In them, he repeatedly asserts that "Zionists" in the United States control the U.S. government and mainstream media. In a July 2011 column ("Riposte Against Zionism: Go Tell it to the People"), for example, he writes,

[Zionists and their Christian Zionist allies] have won the campaign for control of the mainstream media, and more than that, of many publishing houses and research institutes that do most of the regional and issue-specific work in national security affairs. They have won control of the Congress (both houses, both parties) and have a commanding lead in public opinion...

In a June 2011 Veterans Today column, "Demystifying 9/11: Israel and the Tactics of Mistake," Sabrosky writes that the Mossad and U.S government officials (namely Jewish neo-conservatives) were responsible for the 9/11 attacks and carried them out for Israel's benefit. He asserts:

I am also absolutely certain as a strategic analyst that 9/11 itself, from which all else flows, was a classic Mossad-orchestrated operation. But Mossad did not do it alone. They needed local help within America (and perhaps elsewhere) and they had it, principally from some alumni of PNAC (the misnamed Project for a New American Century) and their affiliates within and outside of the US Government (USG), who in the 9/11 attacks got the "catalytic event" they needed and craved to take the US to war on Israel's behalf..."

In the same column, Sabrosky claims that only one country--Israel-- had the incentive to carry out the 9/11 attacks. He writes, "[Israel] is the one state with a positive incentive, if it believed it could get away with it, which is to enrage the American public against Muslims generally and Arabs in particular, and to make the US an active belligerent in the region ? spending American lives and treasure in the service of Israel's interests."

Sabrosky also suggests that activists should try to connect Israel to 9/11 by every chance they get and focus on state and local organizations and the local media outside of Jewish population centers to spread the word about Israel's alleged role in the attacks.

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In another Veterans Today column, from March 2011, "Israel's Hidden Faces, A Long Day's Night for Us All," Sabrosky reiterates most of the anti-Semitic conspiracy theories that have been in circulation since 9/11 and groups them under the heading, "So much links Israel to 9/11--Only a public confession is missing." Among the many links he mentions are conspiracy theories alleging that 4,000 Israelis were warned to stay home on 9/11, that Israeli companies controlled security at airports affected by the 9/11 attacks, and that the "five Israelis" purportedly set up their cameras to film the planes hitting the Twin Towers before the attacks began .

In the same column, Sabrosky displays a chart titled "Zionist control of the US mainstream media," which is clearly derived from a publication, "Who Rules America?" earlier produced by the neo-Nazi National Alliance. Sabrosky indicates that the information from the chart, which lists Jewish heads of media companies, is from 2001-2002. That is also when the National Alliance originally published the booklet with the very same data. The information in Sabrosky's chart also follows the same order in which the data was presented by the National Alliance in its booklet.

In a July 2011 interview with Kevin Barrett, who runs the Truth Jihad Web site and Internet radio show, Sabrosky asserts that exposing Israel's alleged role in the 9/11 attacks will "contain" Israel's ambitions and, at the same time, help the Palestinian cause. He declares:

The gate to containing Israeli ambitions, and to uncovering Israeli crimes, and thus saving Palestine, is in the United States, and not in Jerusalem or Gaza or Ramallah. And second, the lock to that gate is not in Washington, D.C., or New York City, which are the centers of Zionist power, but in the heartland of the United States where they're generally weak. And third: the key to that gate is 9/11.

Despite Sabrosky's constant depiction of Israel as sinister and his rehashing of classic anti-Semitic myths about Jewish control over America and world affairs, he denies being anti-Semitic.

Jim Fetzer

Fetzer is one of the co-founders of Scholars for 9/11 Truth, an organization that is composed of academics and others who believe that the U.S. government and possibly others played a role in the 9/11 attacks. He is also another columnist for Veterans Today and has written two articles for the Op-Ed News site in which he promotes anti-Semitic 9/11 conspiracy theories, despite insisting he is not anti-Semitic. In both pieces, Fetzer defends research into Israel's alleged role in the 9/11 attacks.

In a June 2009 column, "Is 9/11 Research 'Anti-Semitic'?" Fetzer declares that a researcher's anti-Semitism should not be grounds for dismissing research about Israel and 9/11. Fetzer then writes about addressing the issue of anti-Semitism while expounding on the likelihood that Israel was involved in the 9/11 attacks. Fetzer writes:

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