The White Van - Were Israelis Detained on Sept. 11 Spies?

ABCNEWS.com ^

[RCW2001]

U.S. officials spent months investigating five Israelis to determine whether they were working in America as spies for Israel. (ABCNEWS.com)

The White Van Were Israelis Detained on Sept. 11 Spies? June 21 — Millions saw the horrific images of the World Trade Center attacks, and those who saw them won't forget them. But a New Jersey homemaker saw something that morning that prompted an investigation into five young Israelis and their possible connection to Israeli intelligence.

Maria, who asked us not to use her last name, had a view of the World Trade Center from her New Jersey apartment building. She remembers a neighbor calling her shortly after the first plane hit the towers.

She grabbed her binoculars and watched the destruction unfolding in lower Manhattan. But as she watched the disaster, something else caught her eye.

Maria says she saw three young men kneeling on the roof of a white van in the parking lot of her apartment building. "They seemed to be taking a movie," Maria said.

The men were taking video or photos of themselves with the World Trade Center burning in the background, she said. What struck Maria were the expressions on the men's faces. "They were like happy, you know … They didn't look shocked to me. I thought it was very strange," she said.

She found the behavior so suspicious that she wrote down the license plate number of the van and called the police. Before long, the FBI was also on the scene, and a statewide bulletin was issued on the van.

The plate number was traced to a van owned by a company called Urban Moving. Around 4 p.m. on Sept. 11, the van was spotted on a service road off Route 3, near New Jersey's Giants Stadium. A police officer pulled the van over, finding five men, between 22 and 27 years old, in the vehicle. The men were taken out of the van at gunpoint and handcuffed by police.

The arresting officers said they saw a lot that aroused their suspicion about the men. One of the passengers had $4,700 in cash hidden in his sock. Another was carrying two foreign passports. A box cutter was found in the van. But perhaps the biggest surprise for the officers came when the five men identified themselves as Israeli citizens.

‘We Are Not Your Problem’

According to the police report, one of the passengers told the officers they had been on the West Side Highway in Manhattan "during the incident" — referring to the World Trade Center attack. The driver of the van, Sivan Kurzberg, told the officers, "We are Israeli. We are not your problem. Your problems are our problems. The Palestinians are the problem." The other passengers were his brother Paul Kurzberg, Yaron Shmuel, Oded Ellner and Omer Marmari.

When the men were transferred to jail, the case was transferred out of the FBI's Criminal Division, and into the bureau's Foreign Counterintelligence Section, which is responsible for espionage cases, ABCNEWS has learned.

One reason for the shift, sources told ABCNEWS, was that the FBI believed Urban Moving may have been providing cover for an Israeli intelligence operation.

After the five men were arrested, the FBI got a warrant and searched Urban Moving's Weehawken, N.J., offices.

The FBI searched Urban Moving's offices for several hours, removing boxes of documents and a dozen computer hard drives. The FBI also questioned Urban Moving's owner. His attorney insists that his client answered all of the FBI's questions. But when FBI agents tried to interview him again a few days later, he was gone.

Three months later 2020's cameras photographed the inside of Urban Moving, and it looked as if the business had been shut down in a big hurry. Cell phones were lying around; office phones were still connected; and the property of dozens of clients remained in the warehouse.

The owner had also cleared out of his New Jersey home, put it up for sale and returned with his family to Israel.

‘A Scary Situation’

Steven Gordon, the attorney for the five Israeli detainees, acknowledged that his clients' actions on Sept. 11 would easily have aroused suspicions. "You got a group of guys that are taking pictures, on top of a roof, of the World Trade Center. They're speaking in a foreign language. They got two passports on 'em. One's got a wad of cash on him, and they got box cutters. Now that's a scary situation."

But Gordon insisted that his clients were just five young men who had come to America for a vacation, ended up working for a moving company, and were taking pictures of the event.

The five Israelis were held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, ostensibly for overstaying their tourist visas and working in the United States illegally. Two weeks after their arrest, an immigration judge ordered them to be deported. But sources told ABCNEWS that FBI and CIA officials in Washington put a hold on the case.

The five men were held in detention for more than two months. Some of them were placed in solitary confinement for 40 days, and some of them were given as many as seven lie-detector tests.

'Plenty of Speculation'

Since their arrest, plenty of speculation has swirled about the case, and what the five men were doing that morning. Eventually, The Forward, a respected Jewish newspaper in New York, reported the FBI concluded that two of the men were Israeli intelligence operatives.

Vince Cannistraro, a former chief of operations for counterterrorism with the CIA who is now a consultant for ABCNEWS, said federal authorities' interest in the case was heightened when some of the men's names were found in a search of a national intelligence database.

Israeli Intelligence Connection?

According to Cannistraro, many people in the U.S. intelligence community believed that some of the men arrested were working for Israeli intelligence. Cannistraro said there was speculation as to whether Urban Moving had been "set up or exploited for the purpose of launching an intelligence operation against radical Islamists in the area, particularly in the New Jersey-New York area."

Under this scenario, the alleged spying operation was not aimed against the United States, but at penetrating or monitoring radical fund-raising and support networks in Muslim communities like Paterson, N.J., which was one of the places where several of the hijackers lived in the months prior to Sept. 11.

For the FBI, deciphering the truth from the five Israelis proved to be difficult. One of them, Paul Kurzberg, refused to take a lie-detector test for 10 weeks — then failed it, according to his lawyer. Another of his lawyers told us Kurzberg had been reluctant to take the test because he had once worked for Israeli intelligence in another country.

Sources say the Israelis were targeting these fund-raising networks because they were thought to be channeling money to Hamas and Islamic Jihad, groups that are responsible for most of the suicide bombings in Israel. "[The] Israeli government has been very concerned about the activity of radical Islamic groups in the United States that could be a support apparatus to Hamas and Islamic Jihad," Cannistraro said.

The men denied that they had been working for Israeli intelligence out of the New Jersey moving company, and Ram Horvitz, their Israeli attorney, dismissed the allegations as "stupid and ridiculous."

Mark Regev, the spokesman for the Israeli Embassy in Washington, goes even further, asserting the issue was never even discussed with U.S. officials.

"These five men were not involved in any intelligence operation in the United States, and the American intelligence authorities have never raised this issue with us," Regev said. "The story is simply false."

No ‘Pre-Knowledge’

Despite the denials, sources tell ABCNEWS there is still debate within the FBI over whether or not the young men were spies. Many U.S. government officials still believe that some of them were on a mission for Israeli intelligence. But the FBI told ABCNEWS, "To date, this investigation has not identified anybody who in this country had pre-knowledge of the events of 9/11."

Sources also said that even if the men were spies, there is no evidence to conclude they had advance knowledge of the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11. The investigation, at the end of the day, after all the polygraphs, all of the field work, all the cross-checking, the intelligence work, concluded that they probably did not have advance knowledge of 9/11," Cannistraro noted.

As to what they were doing on the van, they say they read about the attack on the Internet, couldn't see it from their offices and went to the parking lot for a better view. But no one has been able to find a good explanation for why they may have been smiling with the towers of the World Trade Center burning in the background. Both the lawyers for the young men and the Israeli Embassy chalk it up to immature conduct.

According to ABCNEWS sources, 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.

While the former detainees refused to answer ABCNEWS' questions about their detention and what they were doing on Sept. 11, several of the detainees discussed their experience in America on an Israeli talk show after their return home.

Said one of the men, denying that they were laughing or happy on the morning of Sept. 11, "The fact of the matter is we are coming from a country that experiences terror daily. Our purpose was to document the event."

ABCNEWS' Chris Isham, John Miller, Glenn Silber and Chris Vlasto contributed to this report.

[LarryLied]

It may have been in our interest that the story was spiked and ridiculed. But then again, it may not have been.

The history of spying shows we probably won't know for decades what, if anything,happened.

[cake_crumb]

Interesting....in a thousand words or more, this story says...exactly nothing.

[DreamWeaver]

trolls like you to drive the best elements of the old FR away

I agree, and that is sad.

[LarryLied]

Interesting....in a thousand words or more, this story says...exactly nothing.

I suspect if those involved were not Israelis, no one would say that. That is what is curious about this topic.

[Poohbah]

For my part, I hope throwing threats of "legal action" around and posting childish countdown posts on threads wasn't a part of the "old FR".

You obviously missed the Jack Thompson threads...

[PoppingSmoke]

Someone needs to call the New Jersey State Police Superintendent and ask him if he still has the cruisers dash-cam recorder tape of the vehicle stop still locked in his safe?

[SerpentDove]

>> This statement says it all as to WHY they were there as in the last paragraph of the transcript. Document the event, they KNEW.<<

Oh, really? What about all the OTHER people who documented the event via camcorder, camera etc. ? I guess they all KNEW, too?

[spetznaz]

This post is meant for Mrustow, i just wanted you Ranger Samson to have a copy since it somehow concrened a post you posted.

Thanks for the link, but if YOU say that the post in question is on that thread, then YOU'RE going to have to give me a post number. I am not going to do your work, of slogging through 175 postsby:MRUSTOW

If you read my reply to your asinine statements (you had flamed me and called me a whole plethora of names without knowing even an iota of who i am....soon you will be calling other Jews neo-nazis)! Anyway if you read my post (no. 96) you will notice that i did not only provide a link to the post...but i also posted the particular post so that you would not go 'slogging through 175 posts.'

And by the way before you start calling people anti-Semite read the posts they have composed. Otherwise the senseless vitriol you spread reminds me of a certain Freeper (his name is Zionist Conspirator and you should also find him on that link I posted in post 96 and Ranger Samson posted in post 101). Both you and he seem quite apt to jump the gun and start calling people all sorts of obscenities if they say something you find 'undogestable!' And the funny thing (in your case) is that i really did not say anything to make you think i am anti-Israel! All i had said is that even though i am pro-Israel that does not mean i cannot squirm and react when and if Israel performs a boo-boo! However that automatically made you start gnashing your teeth and foaming at the mouth and calling me anti-Israel....and then saying that the reason you 'discovered' i am anti-Israel is because i referred to a link (the one on the USS Liberty) that 'did not exist!' Actually here are your own words:

I have to hand it to you -- you are much more sophisticated than the average anti-Semite. The cool, calm tone, the claim that you are interested in the facts, the subtle bending of reports. Where you screwed up was in conjuring up a phantom post re the U.S.S. Liberty. You got overambitious, and as a result, you got caught. Thus, I am giving you a "B" for anti-Semitic propaganda

Hmmmm....i guess that my 'phantom post' does actually exist! So you will have to come up with another 'formula' for catching anti-Semites since it seems your current methodology is open to human error...in this case a Freeper with atrophied intellectual acumen!

Who knows...maybe tomorrow you will be calling me a member of the KKK because your computer screen 'flickered' and that made you 'certain' you are in the presence of a KKK Freeper! Darn....i thought natural selection would have killed off people certain brands of slow logic! Or are you related to Zionist Conspirator and think i am a 'Masonic Warlock' who is a 'positivist heshemidivist' who is trying to spoil the chances of his acquiring a 'red heifer!'

I guess you need to tighten your tin-foil cap!

[philosofy123]

Anyone has a first hand information about the young Israelis art students, who visited many US cities, spying and collecting intelligence. There was a post on this forum a month or so ago; it claimed that they arrested 200 Israeli/Mosad "art students"?

[Rodney King]

Spetznaz produced a link and a post # that said exactly what he alleged. Are you going to retract your having called him a liar?

[Rodney King]

You're lying. I dare you to come up with the thread and post number. I know, I know, how could you possibly be expected to go that far back ... especially to a post that DOESN'T EXIST.

Mrustow, I guess you are just going to ignore the fact the spetznaz came up with the thread and post #? Nothing like just hoping a thread goes away when you ought to be apologizing.

[mrustow]

No, he didn't. But let's say he had. Are you in the habit of ganging up on someone who has been having a dispute with a third party whom you support, and demanding that he apologize? Because that's never worked with me. That's punk stuff. I hope you're not holding your breath, waiting for me to give in to your demand.

[LarryLied]

Anyone has a first hand information about the young Israelis art students, who visited many US cities, spying and collecting intelligence. There was a post on this forum a month or so ago; it claimed that they arrested 200 Israeli/Mosad "art students"?

Post on FR:

From Jane's Intelligence Review:

Allies and Espionage

Salon Magazine:

The Israeli "art student" mystery

Ha'aretz (Israeli newspaper):

Spies, or students? Israelis trying to sell paintings, or agents in an espionage ring?

Drudge Report/AP:

U.S. Deports Dozens of Israelis Amid Warnings of Espionage Activities

A story on the "Art Students" activity in South Florida was posted from the Florida Sun Sentinel but I can't find it.

[Rodney King]

Of course he did, I read it myself. And yes, I am in the habit of calling people on their rude behavior. When I call people liars and question their credibility and then am proven wrong, I apologize. It is the manly thing to do. Re-read the posts. He gave you a link and a post #. It directly backs up what he says. The post in question praises the Israelis for having the balls to attack the liberty. The record is clear. You are not man enough to apologize.

[Rodney King]

On another note, I would think that if his post did not back up his assertion, that you would have pointed it out. Instead you decided to run away. Why don't you quote the exchange and prove to everyone that you were justified in calling him a liar, and that his proof did not back up his claims. That is all that you would have to do to be proven right. OF course, you won't. You'll whine about something and then try to run away again.

[Rodney King]

OK. I will do it for you:

SPETZNAZ: And the strangest thing I read was this Freeper flame another person for even posting the thread…..and another Freeper who said words I will never forget: that he was ‘proud of Israel for attacking the USS Liberty because it showed the guts of Israel to go as far as attack an American ship!

MRUSTOW: You're lying. I dare you to come up with the thread and post number. I know, I know, how could you possibly be expected to go that far back ... especially to a post that DOESN'T EXIST

My Comment: You called spetnaz a liar, and dared him to come up with such a post.

Spetznaz: The link is http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/696972/posts in it you will see the people iw as talking about who are quick to jump to the ‘you are a bloody anti-Semite’ bandwagon. Some like Zionist Conspirator went into a whole thing of postivism Hellenism, juadaeo-bolshevism, avodat haqodesh, ben noachism and calls for red heifers…and at the same time calling everyone a neo-Nazi and Masonic warlocks. As for the guy who was saying he ‘respected’ the Israelis for attacking the American ship was Vbtang4 in post number 31 I believe

My Comment: Here. He has given you a link and a post # (31). What does it say?

Post 31: Save your respect for someone who has to have it....."F***" me right? The Israeli goal wasnt to kill Americans....it was to quickly disable the "spy" ship. To the Israelis, American deaths were subordinate to stopping intelligence aquired by the ship from getting back to Washington. The attack would've never come had some pussy Liberal President not woken up one morning on the wrong side of God and decided that he was opposed to the Israelis taking ground slated for them to have. Hell, I respect them that much more for doing it knowing the risks involved. LBJ was interjecting his political wishes into a situation that was about survival for the Israelis. They did what they had to do

Thus proving that he was telling the truth. The actually poster said "respect" instead of "proud". You will probably hang your hat on that. But to any neutral observer, Spetznaz was telling the truth. You called him a liar. He proved you wrong. You refuse to acknowledge that. You have not apologized for calling him a liar. You lack the basic decency to apologize for a false cahrge.

[LarryLied]

Liberals play a game with conservatives they call "Prove it!" They laugh when conservatives waste time foot noting what they have written. When proof is offered, they never admit they were wrong but find some weasel way excuse which wastes more time or they ignore the proof completely.

Sometimes it is worthwhile, as you just did, to call them on the game however.

[spetznaz]

I doubt there is a better approach to best articulate my profound thanks for stepping in concerning the Mrustow incident than saying a simple thank you. It is always a pleasure to find a Freeper who will look at the facts for what they are and come to their own individual conclusions.

Sadly there are people like Mrustow and Zionist Conspirator (by the way if you read the thread on the USS Liberty you would want to look at some of the trash Zionist Conspirator was writing….actually there were people who were initially in disagreement with what I was saying join my side when they read his comments on Ben Noachism and Red Heifers…so maybe I should be happy with him). :D.

Anyway the problem with people like Mrustow is that they hold a particular subject so dear that they automatically react in a visceral vitriolic manner whenever someone says something they do not agree with (even if that person is actually in support of their ‘cause’)! They cannot bear anyone saying anything against their ‘sacred cow,’ whatever it is….whether it be immigration, or military spending, or Israel, or the NRA…whatever is sacred to them….and without even reading the whole post/thread to get the whole picture they automatically condemn and commence with rabid unabated hostilities….almost like an animal acting on instinct!

And I want to believe that people like Mrustow are otherwise intelligent people who had a nerve ‘touched’ and thus reacted in an automatic mechanical reflex…..but there is always the chance that they just have not developed their mental intellect to an enhanced level, and due to this atrophied cerebral acumen they do not have any faculty for logical discussion (again I tell you to read the comments of Zionist Conspirator…his comments strat in post 48 in the link: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/696972/posts they are simply hilarious. Actually there is a part he claims I am in cahoots with some person called John Lewey and that I had a ‘secret identity’ in some ‘other forum’ and that he would ‘reveal it’ if I did not watch myself! I really laughed at that one since I felt I was Bat Man or something….secret identity! Ha!).

Anyway I really doubt people like Mrustow have the capacity to even apologize when they make a boo-boo. Usually his ilk will try to find some ‘loop hole’ to give their weird claim credence(for example chances are he will come with some far-flung ‘point’ to justify I am still an ‘anti-semite…just as Zionist Conspirator claimed I was some ‘Helenist Positivist’ who was ‘under cover’ and trying to undermine the ‘fact’ that ‘Hashem is God’…..…and when they cannot they just stay silent and hope it will all just fade away). Anyhow such people do not really concern me since I believe my time is too precious to waste trying to converse with individuals who are too obtuse and inane to mentally support an intelligent conversation. The only reason I reply to them is so that other Freepers can see my comments, then have a look at theirs…and come to their own conclusions (and in the process see the neurotic fixation of some of the weirder Freepers out there).

And talking about weird I think I will conclude this post with a ‘gem’ of ‘literally wisdom’ from Zionist conspirator. Enjoy (I know I did):

At any rate, you say this is a forum for "conservatives." What is a "conservative?" I'm from the Fundamentalist Bible Belt, and I always thought all conservatives thought as I did. I joined the Birch Society and learned different. Whether or not I am a "conservative," I am most definitely a Fundamentalist, a Theocrat, a Ben Noach, and a "Theonomic positivist" (correctly understood). I am very sorry our country was founded by rationalist/deist Freemasons, but it was. BTW, I'm watching you guys on that other forum, so be careful what you post there. Just a friendly word of warning! Thank you. P.S.: Know where I can get a red heifer?

There is a LOT more from him….reading his posts were pure comedy.