Why Would Israel Want 9/11? A History of Regional Policy Goals

As a U.S. Attorney agrees to present evidence of the demolition of the World Trade Center by explosives to a Federal Grand Jury, the question for skeptics of the 9/11 Commission Report naturally turns to not how, but who and why. Who did 9/11? And why?

I shall argue that the evidence points to a cabal of foreign interests in conjunction with a network of US officials in the highest echelons of the Defense Department and other national security agencies, working to achieve a combination of Middle Eastern ambitions and new tools for domestic repression. 9/11, in addition, guaranteed the renewed relevance of massive military hardware expenditures, after the withdrawal of the US from Vietnam and the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Soviet Union.

It will also be seen that one of the main goals of Israeli foreign policy, going back decades, has been the destruction of centralized Arab governments, culminating with the annihilation of the ancient Persian state of Iran.

Current open skeptics of the official 9/11 story include former Reagan administration Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, Former German Defense Minister Andreas Von Bulow, former president of Italy Francesco Cossiga, former Director of Studies at the U.S. Army War College Dr. Alan Sabrosky, and US military and intelligence officials.

Professionals in buildings such as architect Richard Gage have patiently educated the public about the ridiculous impossibility of the 9/11 Commission Report's conclusions, but always wisely stop short of suggesting where to point the finger. Gage explains that politics is not his expertise. Structures are. This essay addresses the common notion that the Israeli secret services were somehow involved, which without support, can be put down to ordinary, regrettable, anti-Semitism.

Also regrettable is that the state of Israel has already shown itself to be perfectly willing to engage in false flag attacks in order to achieve foreign policy goals, such as the unprovoked, deliberate attempt to sink the USS Liberty, possibly in order to prod the US into war with Israel's then arch-enemy, Egypt.

Obviously the cabal, a criminal network as it were, would have to have its finger on US air defense command and control systems, to deliberately botch the response to an attack, and have the authority to schedule war games which would place much of the fighter-interceptor force out of the country on September 11th . Fighter pilot Bob Bowman, now deceased, used to stress that as an "old interceptor guy," the problem was not that standard procedure was followed and found failing, but that it was not followed at all. Pilots were in their seats on the runway at Langley, Virginia, but were not given orders to take off for crucial minutes. Once the second tower was hit, there was no way anything would have been allowed to come close to the Pentagon, said Col. Bowman. "Standard procedure would have had us on the wings of some or all of the hijacked planes in minutes."

This is a short list of the evidence that Israeli intelligence had something to do with 9/11. It is not aimed at American Jews nor indeed any person because he or she is Jewish. This is something which should hardly need to be said, but for the tactic of Israel's partisans to equate any criticism of Israel to anti-Semitism. It is aimed at state players with an interest in a pretext for an American invasion of the Middle East.

The surprise is not that there is strong motive to set in motion the present chain of regime-change which kicked off with the invasion of Iraq. The surprise is that it has been so openly articulated.

Without 9/11, the full land invasion of Iraq would have been the dreamings of a madman. Even though Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11, most Americans still think he did. When asked point blank by a reporter what Saddam had to do with 9/11, George W. Bush, after months of implying that Saddam was involved, cheekily quipped: "Nothing."

The Senate Intelligence Committee said that the Mohamed Atta "Prague connection" was unsubstantiated.

Oded Yinon

In short, right-wing Israeli foreign policy strategists have for decades desired the overthrow of Saddam, who, in contrast to downtrodden and relatively harmless Palestinians, actually did lob SCUD missiles into Israel during the first Gulf War. Although he did not hit much. Even before that Gulf War, Israeli Foreign Ministry official Oded Yinon posited that what Israel wanted was to be surrounded by dysfunctional, busted-up Arab states, not capable of raising an army, and plunged into inter-factional infighting. In a 1982 paper published in Kivunim, entitled "A Strategy for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties," Yinon wrote:

"Iraq, rich in oil on the one hand and internally torn on the other, is guaranteed as a candidate for Israel's targets. Its dissolution is even more important for us than that of Syria...Every kind of inter-Arab confrontation will assist us in the short run and will shorten the way to the more important aim of breaking up Iraq into denominations as in Syria and in Lebanon...""

Oded Yinon



This precisely mirrors what we see happening in the Middle East today, a "Lebanonization" of society with different religious factions unchecked in their battles with each other, and no strong man allowed to consolidate power. The strategy which may sound intellectual on paper is etched in countless millions of buckets of blood and gore on the ground, of men, women, and children, most of whom have never raised a single hand against Israel.

Then the good connections begin. What are the odds that a group of foreign policy "intellectuals," those whom former Secretary of State Colin Powell once called "the fucking crazies" who had long advocated the full invasion and occupation of Iraq, would one day wind up in control of America's defenses, the World Trade Center complex, the FBI and the CIA, and the media. Even if not in formal control of the media, any criminal network ruthless enough to pull off 9/11 would certainly have no problem intimidating news men, with bodies like that of Senator Paul Wellstone, a vociferous 9/11 Commission critic who was killed in a mysterious small plane crash in 2002, to prove their point.

That group of foreign policy intellectuals, who called themselves Project for a New American Century (PNAC), wrote letters to Bill Clinton urging he finish the job in Iraq that Bush Senior started, and candidly stated that for all their dreams to come true, what might be needed was "a new Pearl Harbor," in the paper "Rebuilding America's Defenses":

"Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor."

"A Clean Break"

One of the members of PNAC, who later became George W. Bush's Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, was Douglas Feith. In 1996 Feith, along with fellow "Neocon" Richard Perle wrote a paper intended as a policy paper for Netanyahu, basically restating Yinon's goals and reasoning. Perle, also a member of PNAC, became George Bush's Assistant Secretary of Defense. The paper was entitled "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm." But in this case, for US citizens Feith and Perle, the "realm" referred not the U.S. It referred to Israel.

The authors wrote:

"Israel can shape its strategic environment...by weakening, containing, and even rolling back Syria. This effort can focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq..."

In all these musings the question was never asked where the mighty land army would come from which was capable of occupying Iraq. There seemed to have been an assumption.

Douglas Feith



Defense Undersecretary Feith was fired from his job at the National Security Council in 1972 for being suspected of spying for Israel.

Then in 2007 US General and former presidential candidate Wes Clark dropped a bombshell. He blurted out to an audience in San Francisco that he had as much as heard of a plan which precisely mirrored the Yinon essay, a program of regime change which would topple all Arab governments currently capable of challenging Israeli hegemoney. Clark told the audience that a general, a former staffer, told him:

"...we're going to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran."

Any crime requires the elements of motive, means, and opportunity. The motive for Israel to deploy its secret service Mossad to materially assist and even help in the planning of 9/11 is expressed in the writings of Israelis themselves, or their sympathizers. Other PNAC members who found themselves in the Bush administration in key defense posts are Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, Jeb Bush, John Bolton and Scooter Libby .

And of course, there is Dick Cheney. Who although not in the chain of command unless the president was incapacitated, nevertheless took control of the air defenses at a critical moment, in the 20 minutes before an incoming airborne craft hit the Pentagon.

These connections, existence of motive, and control of critical command infrastructure alone would cause any prosecutor worth his salt to at least raise his eyebrow. Instead, most of these men now teach, lecture, and speak to audiences across America, with respected academic titles and distinctions attached to their names, mostly unbothered by anyone, save occasional protesters who howl, as they are inevitably manhandled out, that they have blood on their hands.

Israeli Agents and Activity Prior to 9/11

Well-known in 9/11 skeptic circles but covered up with remarkable efficiency in the mainstream press, is the presence and odd behavior of five Israeli men, at least two of whom it was later determined were Israeli Mossad agents, and all of whom had previously served in the Israeli military. Police reports show that a van driven by the men tested positive for the presence of explosives onboard at some point. The men, Sivan Kurzberg, Yaron Shmuel, Omer Gavriel Marmari, Oded Ellner, Paul Kurzberg, were first reported by a woman who saw three of them outside her apartment window cheering, high-fiving, and photographing each other flicking cigarette lighters in front of the burning towers.

In a rare mainstream media report on the five, the New York Times reported on November 21, 2001:

The five aroused attention in New Jersey after people noticed them going to unusual lengths to photograph the World Trade Center ruins and making light of the situation. One photograph developed by the F.B.I. showed Sivan Kurzberg holding a lighted lighter in the foreground, with the smoldering wreckage in the background,"

The men had set up cameras, trained on the towers, before the first tower was hit, atop their van in Liberty State Park, New Jersey. They later lied repeatedly to the police about their whereabouts and movements, as documented in FBI reports.

ABC News said:

"ABC News has learned that after the five men were taken to jail, the entire case was transferred out of FBI's criminal division and into its foreign counterintelligence section, which is responsible for espionage cases. One reason for the shift, according to our sources, is that the FBI believed Urban Moving may have provided a cover for agents of Israeli intelligence."

FBI reports reveal that the group had scouted out the building on the day before, lying to residents that they were construction workers.

Fox News reported:

"The New York Times reported Thursday that a group of five men had set up video cameras aimed at the Twin Towers prior to the attack on Tuesday, and were seen congratulating one another afterwards..."

After being held for two months the men were quietly released on orders from the Bush White House. Heading up the FBI's criminal division at the time, which would have had authority over the investigation, was Michael Chertoff. Chertoff is co-author of the Patriot Act.

Five Mossad agents detained on 9/11, clockwise starting at top-left: Oded Ellner, Sivan Kurzberg, Paul Kurzberg, Yaron Shmuel, Omer Marmari



Indeed, multiple television news reports were broadcast about men pulled over in NYC on 9/11, who were driving trucks allegedly laden with explosives. Such reports quickly disappeared from the news, with no follow-up.

Television news reports of men in vans full of explosives arrested by FBI

It is also fairly well-known among students of 9/11 that after George W. Bush's inauguration, there was a marked up-tick in Israeli intelligence activity across the US, tending to focus on the surveillance of government buildings by young agents posing as "art students."

Finally there is the strange coincidence of a group of young artists who were given free reign of the WTC in the years before 9/11, "Gelatin," worked near the impact zones and recorded their antics for a book called "Gelatin: The B Thing," with text by Tex Rubinowitz. The book is available at Amazon.com. The project featured eerie drawings of strange, sub-human creatures falling out of the towers and drawings of the towers with what look like fleas jumping off them and notes saying "Amazement outside, depression inside."

From Gelatin Notebook



The "art" project was covered by the New York Times. In one photograph boxes with unknown contents can be seen stacked to the ceiling. The name "Gelatin," to some people knowledgeable about explosives, is an audacious reference to a kind of gelatinous explosive compound.

Gelatin inside WTC



Ironically, one of the biggest skeptics of the official 9/11 story was Osama Bin Laden himself, who said in an interview with the Pakistani Daily Ummat in September 2001:

"I have already said that I am not involved in the 11 September attacks in the United States. As a Muslim, I try my best to avoid telling a lie. I had no knowledge of these attacks, nor do I consider the killing of innocent women, children, and other humans as an appreciable act."

OBL also said:

"The United States should try to trace the perpetrators of these attacks within itself; the people who are a part of the U.S. system, but are dissenting against it. Or those who are working for some other system; persons who want to make the present century as a century of conflict between Islam and Christianity." - Bin Laden interview with Daily Ummat, Sept. 2001, posted in Lew Rockwell

Dov Zakheim

Meriting a place of his own in the possible 9/11 Treason Pantheon is Dov Zakheim, who was Comptroller of the Pentagon on 9/11 and before, notably at the time that $2.3 trillion was announced unaccounted for in the Pentagon's finances. Zakheim was known in Washington circles as a "bionic Zionist," who had negotiated a sweetheart deal for Israel on hundreds of F-16 fighters at bargain prices. Zakheim's father, it has been researched, was an a member of the Israeli terrorist organization Irgun, which had a hand in the bombing of the British King David Hotel prior to Israel's founding.

More interesting is that Zakeim is the founder and primary owner of a company, SPC, which is the inventor of a system designed to accomplish one feat: to seize command and control of hijacked aircraft in flight and guide them to a destination, from the ground. The system has the spooky name the "Flight Termination System."

Dov Zakheim



Although hundreds of pieces of evidence point to a pre-arranged, controlled demolition of the Twin Towers and WTC 7, the three buildings that fell on 9/11, some physicists such as Steven Jones, formerly of Brigham Young University before he was fired for his views, maintain that the single simplest giveaway is an iron law of physics. It is not possible for a structure to fall to the ground as if it is falling through thin air, unless it is actually falling through thin air. This would require the structure not merely weakened, nor somehow compromised, but in fact cut to pieces from the inside all at once, which is what a demolition consists of.

What is not commonly understood by the general public is that airliner jet fuel is nothing more than kerosene, which has no more heating or burning abilities when spilled in open air than ordinary barbecue lighter fluid.

However, the scope of this essay presumes that the reader has already arrived at the conclusion that the 9/11 Commission Report is false. The essay picks up where the architects and engineers of AE911 leave off, into the realm of not the how, but into the who and why.