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 [email protected]  JUNE 4, 2019  9/11, DANCING ISRAELIS, ODED ELLNER, OMAR

MARMARI, PAUL KURZBERG, SIVAN KURZBERG, URBAN MOVING SYSTEMS, YARON SHIMUEL
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“This provocative book documents a history that is

New information released by the FBI on May 7th has brought fresh essential in understanding today’s world. Scholarly,
scrutiny to the possibility that the “Dancing Israelis,” at least two of whom yet readable, it is a must for all Americans.”

were known Mossad operatives, had prior knowledge of the attacks on —James Abourezk, former U.S. Senator

the World Trade Center. Order Against Our Better Judgment

by Alison Weir on Amazon.com
By Whitney Webb, reposted from MintPress News, May 17, 2019 Read reviews and an excerpt at
AgainstOurBetterJudgment.com

NEW YORK — For nearly two decades, one of the most overlooked and little To invite Alison to give a presentation in
known arrests made in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks was that of the your city, please contact us.

so-called “High Fivers,” or the “Dancing Israelis.” However, new information

released by the FBI on May 7 has brought fresh scrutiny to the possibility that the
LAND LO ST
“Dancing Israelis,” at least two of whom were known Mossad operatives, had prior
knowledge of the attacks on the World Trade Center.

Shortly after 8:46 a.m. on the day of the attacks, just minutes after the first plane
struck the World Trade Center, five men — later revealed to be Israeli nationals —
had positioned themselves in the parking lot of the Doric Apartment Complex in
Union City, New Jersey, where they were seen taking pictures and filming the
attacks while also celebrating the destruction of the towers and “high fiving” each
other. At least one eyewitness interviewed by the FBI had seen the Israelis’ van in
the parking lot as early as 8:00 a.m. that day, more than 40 minutes prior to the
attack. The story received coverage in U.S. mainstream media at the time but has Read more at: IfAmericansKnew.org
since been largely forgotten.

The men — Sivan Kurzberg, Paul Kurzberg, Oded Ellner, Yaron Shimuel and Omar LIVES LO ST
Marmari — were subsequently apprehended by law enforcement and claimed to
be Israeli tourists on a “working holiday” in the United States where they were
employed by a moving company, Urban Moving Systems. Upon his arrest, Sivan
Kurzberg told the arresting officer, “We are Israeli; we are not your problem. Your
problems are our problems, The Palestinians are the problem.”

For years, the official story has been that these individuals, while they had
engaged in “immature” behavior by celebrating and being “visibly happy” in their
documenting of the attacks, had no prior knowledge of the attack. However, newly
released FBI copies of the photos taken by the five Israelis strongly suggest that
these individuals had prior knowledge of the attacks on the World Trade Center.
TheDonate Subscribe
copies of the Action
photos were Alertsvia a FOIA request made by a private
obtained
citizen.

Source: IsraelPalestineTimeline.org

HEADLINES FRO M THE REGIO N

Friday; Israeli Soldiers Injure 174

Palestinians In Nablus September 10,
2021

Israeli Colonizers Uproot Palestinian

Olive Saplings In Bethlehem September
10, 2021

Updated: Soldiers Shoot Palestinian

Doctor, Cuff Him And Leave Him
A high-quality photo, top, shows the area the dancing Israelis were staged. Credit | Panamza Bleeding To Death, In Jerusalem
September 10, 2021

According to a former high-ranking American intelligence official who spoke to Army Abducts Seven Palestinians In
the Jewish Daily Forward in 2002, the FBI concluded in its investigation that the five Hebron, Injures Two In Nablus
Israelis arrested “were conducting a Mossad surveillance mission and that their September 10, 2021
employer, Urban Moving Systems of Weehawken, NJ, served as a front.” At least
Soldiers Injure Four Palestinians In
two of the men arrested were determined to have direct links to the Mossad after
Kufur Qaddoum And Azzoun, Near
their names appeared in a CIA-FBI database of foreign intelligence operatives. Qalqilia September 10, 2021
According to one of their lawyers, one of the men, Paul Kurzberg, had previously
worked for the Mossad in another country prior to arriving in the United States. OCHA: Protection of Civilians Report
September 10, 2021
Another of those arrested, Oded Ellner, subsequently stated on Israeli TV that the
five Israelis had been in New York at the time “to document the event,” meaning Israeli Troops Target Former Prisoners
the attack on the World Trade Center. and Siblings, Abducting Six on Friday
September 10, 2021

The FOIA release of the photos is notable because responses to prior FOIA
PCHR: Weekly Report on Israeli Human
requests to the Department of Justice, which oversees the FBI, had previously
Rights Violations in the Occupied
claimed that all of the photos taken by the Israeli nationals had been destroyed in Palestinian Territory September 9, 2021
January 2014. The photos themselves are heavily redacted, making it impossible
to see the Israelis’ facial expressions. However, previously declassified yet heavily
redacted FBI reports state that the Israelis are “visibly happy” in nearly every
LATEST CO NFLICT VICTIMS
photo, even when the burning towers are in the background. The photos released
are also not original copies and instead appear to be photocopies of photocopies
Ahmad Mustafa Mahmoud Saleh
of the original pictures. In addition, of the original 76 pictures developed by September 3, 2021
authorities from the camera in the Israelis’ possession, only 14 were released.
Raed Yousef Jadallah September 1, 2021

Barel Hadaria Shmueli August 31, 2021

Ali Burqan August 29, 2021

Omar Hasan Abu an-Neel August 29,

2021

Osama Khaled D’eij August 25, 2021

Emad Hashash August 24, 2021

Mohammad Hasan Shabrawi August 23,

2021
 Donate Subscribe Action Alerts

However, three of these photos — despite the heavy redaction and poor quality
— are damning. Since 2001, even though the photos were never released until
now, it had been known that one of the Israelis arrested — Sivan Kurzberg — was
seen in a photo “holding a lighted lighter in the foreground, with the smoldering
wreckage [of the twin towers] in the background,” according to Steven Noah
Gordon, then-lawyer for the five Israelis, as cited in a New York Times report from
November 2001.

The picture of Kurzberg with the lit lighter appears to be photo #5 in the new FOIA
release. Yet, the picture released includes a visible date of September 10, 2001,
the day before the attacks, as do two other photos — images #7 and #8 in the
collection — whereas all other photos with dates show only the month and the
year (9 ‘01). The FOIA release did not provide any information as to the apparent
discrepancy in dates.

While this could be explained away as the camera in question being programmed
with a slightly inaccurate date, that doesn’t seem to be the case for two reasons.
First, only two out of the 14 pictures carry that date and, second, previously
declassified FBI reports report an eyewitness adamantly stating that Sivan
Kurzberg had visited the Doric Apartments on September 10, 2001 at around 3
p.m. with at least one other man, with whom he was conversing in a foreign
language, and had identified himself as a “construction worker” to a tenant (page
61 of declassified FBI report).
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Sivan Kurzberg holds a lit lighter with the Manhattan skyline in the background. The date
September 10, 2001 visible in the bottom right corner | Photo #5

In addition, the FBI report noted that a van from Urban Moving Systems, the
company that employed the five Israelis at the time of their arrest, was present
and was involved in moving a tenant out of the complex on September 10 and
that the movers all had foreign accents. Thus, images 5, 7 and 8 strongly appear
to have been taken at the same complex a day before the attacks. Kurzberg is
seen in both images that display the visible date of September 10, 2001.

This raises two possibilities. First, that there are two images of Kurzberg with a lit
lighter in front of the towers, one taken before the attack and one taken at the
time of the attack, and that the FBI released only one of them. Second, that
Kurzberg took the picture with the lighter only the day before the attack and his
lawyer misrepresented the contents of the photo to the New York Times. Given
that the background of the photo — particularly the state of the towers — is
indiscernible in the recently released photo, it is difficult to determine which is the
case.

One of the Israelis points to what is presumably the World Trade Center, in Manhattan on
September 11, 2001 | Photo #2
 Donate
Yet, in SubscribeKurzberg
either scenario, Action
hadAlerts
simulated the burning of the World Trade
Center the day before the attacks took place. That the FBI concluded that
Kurzberg was party to a Mossad surveillance operation at the time of his arrest
would then suggest that Israeli intelligence also had foreknowledge of the attacks.

Notably, the relevant section of the FBI report that asks “1. Did the Israeli
nationals have foreknowledge of the events at WTC and were they filming the
events prior to and in anticipation of the explosion?” is redacted in its entirety,
suggesting that the FBI did not determine the answer to that question to be an
emphatic “no.”

One of the 9/11 loose-ends coverups?

If images 5 and 7 were indeed taken the day prior to the attack, the question then
becomes why the FBI officially concluded that the arrested Israelis had no prior
knowledge of the attacks? One report from ABC News dated June 2002 suggests
that the Bush administration intervened in the investigation. That
report states that “Israeli and U.S. government officials worked out a deal — and
after 71 days, the five Israelis were taken out of jail, put on a plane, and deported
back home [to Israel].” If the Bush administration had cut a deal with Israel’s
government to cover up the incident, it certainly would not have been the first
time a U.S. presidential administration had done so on Israel’s behalf.

Further evidence that higher-ups in the administration intervened is the fact that
then-Attorney General John Ashcroft personally signed off on the detainees’
release. Upon his entering the private sector as a lobbyist and consultant in 2005,
the Israeli government became one of Ashcroft’s first clients.

A cover-up certainly seems to have happened to some extent, between the

destruction of records of the investigation and the fact that official conclusions of
the investigation do not add up. In the latter case, the FBI  — in a file dated
September 24, 2001– officially stated that they “determined that none of the
Israelis were actively engaged in clandestine intelligence activities in the United
States.” However, that conclusion was directly contradicted by U.S. officials a year
later and by the fact that Israel’s own government subsequently acknowledged
that the five Israelis had indeed been involved in “clandestine intelligence activities
in the United States.”

In addition, the new FOIA release of the photos suggests that another FBI
conclusion — that “none of the pictures developed from the film found inside the
35-mm camera depicted the twin towers prior to the attack” — was inaccurate.
This may explain why the images released via the recent FOIA request were heavily
edited leaving details in the background greatly obscured, making it impossible to
determine whether the photos were taken prior to or during the attacks based
solely on the state of the towers.

“Tourists” with cash-stuffed socks, box cutters, and explosives?

Beyond the photos and observed activities of the so-called “Dancing Israelis,” it is
worth revisiting several other suspicious circumstances linked to their arrest that
clearly show that the men in question were hardly the “tourists” they had claimed
to be. One often cited example is the fact that one of the men, Oded Ellner, had a
“white sock-like sack filled with $4,700 in cash,” as well as maps of the city with
certain places highlighted, and box cutters. In addition, the van in which the
Israelis were arrested was “oddly” lacking “equipment typically used in a moving
company’s daily duties,” according to the FBI, and residue of explosives was found
in the van.

Of the explosive residue, the declassified FBI report states:

“
A search of the van and individuals was conducted at the
time of the vehicle stop. The vehicle was also searched by a
trained bomb-sniffing dog which yielded a positive result for
the presence of explosive traces. Swabs of the vehicle’s
interior were taken, and those samples were sent to the FBI
laboratory for further analysis. Final results are still pending.”
 Donate
In total, the FBISubscribe
reported thatAction Alertsrelated to explosives were found in the
four items
ban and are labeled in the report as “Fabric Sample (Explosive Residue),” “Control
Swabs – SA [ – ] Gloves,” “Control Swabs – (Bomb Suits),” and “Blanket Samples For
Explosive Residue.” In addition, a VHS tape and some still photographs found in
the van “were sent to Laboratory Examiner [ redacted ] (Explosives Unit).”

In addition to the strange nature of some of the Israelis’ possessions in the van
and on their person, the company that employed them — Urban Moving Systems
— was of special interest to the FBI, which concluded that the company was likely
a “fraudulent operation.” Upon a search of the company’s premises, the FBI noted
that “little evidence of a legitimate business operation was found.” The FBI report
also noted that there were an “unusually large number of computers relative to
the number of employees for such a fairly small business” and that “further
investigation identified several pseudo-names or aliases associated with Urban
Moving Systems and its operations.”

The FBI presence at the Urban Moving Systems search site drew the attention of
the local media and was later reported on both television and in the local press. A
former Urban Moving Systems employee later contacted the Newark Division with
information indicating that he had quit his employment with Urban Moving
Systems as a result of the high amount of anti-American sentiment present
among Urban’s employees. The former employee stated that an Israeli employee
of Urban had even once remarked, “Give us twenty years and we’ll take over your
media and destroy your country” (page 37 of the FBI report).

The FBI returned to search the premises of Urban Moving Systems a month later,
but by that time found:

“
The building and all of its contents had been abandoned by…
the owner of Urban Moving Systems. This [was] apparently
being done to avoid criminal prosecution after the
09/11/2001 arrest of five of his employees and subsequent
seizure of his office computer systems by members of the
FBI-NK on or around 09/13/2001.”

The company’s owner — Dominik Otto Suter, an Israeli citizen — had fled to
Israel on September 14, 2001, two days after he had been questioned by the FBI.
The FBI told ABC News that “Urban Moving may have been providing cover for an
Israeli intelligence operation.” Surprisingly, since at least 2016, Suter has been
living in the San Francisco Bay Area, where he works for a contractor for major
tech companies like Google and Microsoft. According to the public records
database Intelius, in 2006 and 2007 Suter also worked for a telecommunications
company — Granite Telecommunications — that works for the U.S. military and
several other U.S. government agencies.

In addition to Urban Moving Systems, another moving company, Classic

International Movers, became of interest in connection with the investigation into
the “Dancing Israelis,” which led to the arrest and detention of four Israeli
nationals who worked for this separate moving company. The FBI’s Miami Division
had alerted the Newark Division that Classic International Movers was believed to
have been used by one of the 19 alleged 9/11 hijackers before the attack, and one
of the “Dancing Israelis” had the number for Classic International Movers written
in a notebook that was seized at the time of his arrest. The report further states
that one of the Israelis of Classic International Movers who was arrested “was
visibly disturbed by the Agents’ questioning regarding his personal email
account.”

A crowded dance floor

While the case of the “Dancing Israelis” has long been treated as an outlier in the
aftermath of September 11, what is often overlooked is the fact that hundreds of
Israeli nationals were arrested in the aftermath of the attacks.

According to a FOX News report from December 2001, 60 Israelis were

apprehended or detained after September 11, with most deported, and a total of
140Donate Subscribe
Israelis were Action
arrested and Alertsin all of 2001 by federal authorities. That
detained
report claimed that the arrests, ostensibly including the “Dancing Israelis,” were in
relation to an investigation of “an organized [Israeli] intelligence gathering
operation designed to ‘penetrate government facilities.’”

The report also added that most of those arrested, in addition to having served in
the IDF, had “intelligence expertise” and worked for Israeli companies that
specialized in wiretapping. Some of those detained were also active members of
the Israeli military; and several detainees, including the “Dancing Israelis,” had
failed polygraph tests when asked if they had been surveilling the U.S.
government.

Watch | FOX News December 2001 report on Mossad spying prior to 9/11

Transcript here
.
A key aspect of that report, compiled by journalist Carl Cameron, also states that
federal investigators widely suspected that Israeli intelligence had prior
knowledge of the September 11 attacks. In the report, Cameron stated:

“
The Israelis may have gathered intelligence about the attacks
in advance and not shared it. A highly placed investigator
said there are ‘tie-ins’ but when asked for details he flatly
refused to describe them saying: ‘Evidence linking these
Israelis to 9-11 is classified. I cannot tell you about the
evidence that has been gathered. It is classified information.’”

One exchange between Cameron and host Brit Hume included in the report is
particularly telling:

HUME: “Carl, what about this question of advanced knowledge of what was going
to happen on 9/11? How clear are investigators that some Israeli agents may have
known something?”

CAMERON: “Well it’s very explosive information obviously and there is a great deal
of evidence that they say they have collected. None of it necessarily conclusive. It’s
more when they put it all together a big question they say is, ‘How could they have
not known?’ — almost a direct quote, Brit.”

9/11 as a big — and acknowledged — Israeli win

If the “Dancing Israelis”, and more broadly the Mossad and the Israeli
government, had foreknowledge of September 11, why would they remain silent
and not attempt to warn the American government or public of the coming
 DonateIn the Subscribe
attacks? Action Alerts
case of the “Dancing Israelis,” why would Israelis celebrate such an
attack?

One of the detained “Dancing Israelis,” Omer Marmari, told police the following
about why he viewed the September 11 attacks in a positive light:

“
Israel now has hope that the world will now understand us.
Americans are naïve and America is easy to get inside. There
are not a lot of checks in America. And now America will be
tougher about who gets into their country.”

While Marmari’s statement may suggest one reason some of the “Dancing
Israelis” were so “visibly happy” in their photographs, there are also other
statements made by top Israeli politicians that suggest why the Israeli
government and its intelligence agency declined to act on apparent
foreknowledge of the attack.

When asked, on the day of the 9/11 attacks, how the attacks would affect
American-Israeli relations, Benjamin Netanyahu — the current Israeli prime
minister — told the New York Times that “It’s very good,” before quickly adding
“Well, not very good, but it will generate immediate sympathy.” He then predicted,
much as Marmari had, that the attacks would “strengthen the bond between our
two peoples, because we’ve experienced terror over so many decades, but the
United States has now experienced a massive hemorrhaging of terror.”

Netanyahu, in a candid conversation recorded in 2001, also echoed Marmari’s

claim that Americans are naïve. In that recording, Netanyahu said:

“
I know what America is. America is something that can easily
be moved. Moved to the right direction. … They won’t get in
our way. They won’t get in our way… 80 percent of the
Americans support us. It’s absurd.”

In addition, also on the day of the September 11 attacks, Netanyahu — who at the
time was not in political office — held a press conference in which he claimed that
he had predicted the attacks on the World Trade Center by “militant Islam” in his
1995 book, Fighting Terrorism: How Democracies Can Defeat Domestic and
International Terrorism. In that book, Netanyahu had posited that Iranian-linked
“militants” would set off a nuclear bomb in the basement of the World Trade
Center.

During his press conference on the day of the attacks, Netanyahu also asserted
TWITTER DO NATE DISCLAIMER
that the 9/11 attacks would be a turning point for America and compared them to
the 1941byattack
Tweets on Pearl Harbor.Our
ifamericansknew Netanyahu’s statement
work is made possibleechoes
by the infamous
We believe in theline
free marketplace of
the support
from the “Rebuilding America’s Defenses” of our readers.
document authored byideas
the and post information we think
Consider making a donation is valuable for people to read. The
neoconservative think tank, the Project for a New Ameican Century (PNAC). That
today: posting of articles from organizations
line reads. “Further, the process of transformation [towards a neo-Reaganite
or individuals does not necessarily
foreign policy and hyper-militarism], even if it brings revolutionary change,
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to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event — like a newof the political
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Pearl Harbor.”
by these highly diverse sources. Read
the If Americans Knew statement on
Then again, years later In 2008, the Israeli newspaper Maariv reported that and principles to learn
our mission
Netanyahu had stated that the September 11 attacks had greatly more.
benefited Israel.
He was quoted as saying: “We are benefiting from one thing, and In
that is the attack
accordance with Title 17 U.S.C.
on the Twin Towers and Pentagon, and the American struggle in Iraq.”
Section 107 , any copyrighted work
is archived here under fair use law for

Indeed, it goes without saying that the aftermath of 9/11 — whicheducational

involved and
the research purposes in
accordance with our nonprofit
U.S. leading a destructive effort throughout the Middle East — has indeed
educational mission. The opinions
benefited Israel. Many of the U.S.’ post-9/11 “nation-building” efforts haveare
rendered notably
the authors’ and not
mirrored the policy paper “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the those
necessarily Realm,”
of this website.
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That document calls for the creation of a “New Middle East” by, among other
things, “weakening, containing, and even rolling back Syria” and “removing
Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq — an important Israeli strategic objective in
its own right.” As is known now, both of those main objectives have since come to
pass, each with strong Israeli involvement.

Feature photo above | Four of the Israeli nationals arrested for “puzzling behavior”
during the September 11 attacks are seen casually posing together in front of the
Manhattan skyline while the September 11 attacks were in progress | Photo #1

Whitney Webb is a MintPress News journalist based in Chile. She has contributed to
several independent media outlets including Global Research, EcoWatch, the Ron Paul
Institute and 21st Century Wire, among others. She has made several radio and television
appearances and is the 2019 winner of the Serena Shim Award for Uncompromised
Integrity in Journalism.

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