9/11 Linkage
The 9/11 Commission finds that Israel, U.S. Jewish sites were targeted.
MATTHEW E. BERGER
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Washington
ong before the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in
America, Al Qaida was planning terrorist
attacks against Israeli and American Jewish
sites. That, at least, is one conclusion of the 9/11
Commission Report report released July 22.
The report shows that American intelligence agencies
received signals that Al Qaida was looking to attack
Israel or U.S. Jewish sites in the months before the
attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
It also shows that several of the hijackers, as well as Al
Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, were motivated in part
by hatred of Israel and anger over the support it
receives from the United States.
While much of the information already had been
released through public testimony and media stories,
the report emphasized the ties between the terrorist
attacks in the United States and U.S. policy in the
Middle East. It also paints a chilling portrait of what
might have been, by detailing Al Qaida proposals to
attack Israeli and U.S. Jewish sites that the group either
rejected or postponed.
The report shows that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed,
considered the mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, was
motivated by his "violent disagreement with U.S. for-
eign policy favoring Israel," according to his own
admission after being captured in March 2003.
Mohammed was interested in attacking Jewish sites
in New York City, and sent an Al Qaida operative to
New York early in 2001 to scout possible locations. He
also brought a plan to bin Laden to attack the Israeli
city of Eilat by recruiting a Saudi air force pilot who
would commandeer a Saudi jet. Bin Laden supported
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the proposals, but they were put on hold while the
group concentrated on the Sept. 11 plan.
American intelligence officials believed throughout
the spring and summer of 2001 that Abu Zubaydah, a
Palestinian member of Al Qaida, planned to attack
Israel. The terrorist leaders also considered playing off
developments in the Middle East.
Mohammed told investigators that bin Laden had
wanted to expedite attacks after Ariel Sharon, then
leader of Israel's opposition, visited Jerusalem's Temple
Mount in September 2000, and later when Sharon,
who by then had become Israel's prime minister, met
with President Bush at the White House.
Confirmation
The report is being viewed in the American Jewish
community as confirmation of what they've been hear-
ing privately for years. "We didn't need this report to
tell us that Jews were and are a target," said Abraham
Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation
League. "Throughout the years, there were evidence
and alerts and knowledge of specific times and threats."
The report comes as some Jewish leaders are seeking
federal dollars to make security improvements for.
Jewish sites. Charles Konigsberg, the United Jewish
Communities' vice president for public policy, said the
report will "absolutely help us to make the case" for
federal funding.
Other Jewish groups and some lawmakers fear that
giving federal aid to houses of worship at risk of terror
attacks would violate the separation of church and
state.
The report reaffirms what many who follow the issue
have believed, that anti-Semitic views were a key moti-
vation for the Sept. 11 plotters. "In his interactions
with other students," the leader of the hijackers,
Mohammed Arta, "voiced virulently anti-Semitic and
anti-American opinions, ranging from condemnations
of what he described as a global Jewish movement cen-
tered in New York City that supposedly controlled the
financial world and the media, to polemics against gov-
ernments of the Arab world," the report says.
In original plans for the attack, Khalid Sheikh
Mohammed was to hijack a plane himself, land it, kill
all the male passengers and then deliver a speech that
would include criticism of U.S. support for Israel, the
report says. However, that plan was scaled down, and
Mohammed did not participate in the Sept. 11 hijack-
ings.
In their report, commission members say U.S. sup-
port for Israel, as well as the war in Iraq, has fed anti-
American sentiment among Muslims. While not cri-
tiquing U.S. policy, the report suggests the United
States must do more to justify its actions and commu-
nicate with the Arab world.
"Neither Israel nor the new Iraq will be safer if
worldwide Islamist terrorism grows stronger," the
report says.
The report recommends changing the U.S. relation-
ship with Arab states with the goal of improving
America's image. While acknowledging that those who
become terrorists likely are impervious to persuasion,
bettering America's image among the general Arab
public could minimize support for terrorists.
It also recommends a closer examination of the U.S.
relationship with Saudi Arabia. Commission members
suggest political and economic reform must be stressed,
as well as greater tolerance and cultural respect.
"Among Saudis, the United States is seen as aligned
with Israel in its conflict with the Palestinians, with
whom Saudis ardently sympathize," the commission
report said. P1
54-Mile Protest
Human chain from Gaza to Jerusalem protests disengagement plan.
DAN BARON
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Jerusalem
hey've already spoken out against Israeli Prime
Minister Ariel Sharon's Gaza withdrawal plan.
This week, they took the battle to the streets.
Joining hands in a human chain that stretched from
the Gaza Strip to Jerusalem, some 130,000 protesters
— both young and old, from the political fringes and
from the mainstream — gathered on July 25 to send
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon the clearest message of dis-
sent vet from a camp he long considered his own.
And although the 54-mile-long chain was peaceful,
its timing — amid Shin Bet security service warnings of
growing anger among radical Jews at Sharon's plan to
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disengage from the Palestinian territories — appeared
likely to unnerve the government.
"I think what is happening today is a message by the
real, beautiful Israel to those people in mainstream
Israel who have lost their will to fight, and therefore I
came to say thank you to the wonderful people of Gush
Katif," said demonstrator Kfir Shachar of Rishon le-
Zion, referring to the main Gaza settlement bloc.
Hanan Ben-Yosef, a former Detroiter, was a link in
the chain at the Achva Junction in the south of Israel, a
two-hour bus ride from his home in Elon Moreh in the
West Bank.
"It was very encouraging to hear how many of the
people driving by honked their horns expressing their
identification with the protest, and showed a thumbs-
up sign to us, that even though they themselves are not
54-MILE PROTEST on page 34
Former Detroiter Hanan Ben-Yosef was a link in the
human chain.