Jewish Involvement in 9/11

There are various theories that attribute the involvement in the 9/11 terror attacks to Israeli and American Jews. These claims take two forms: Active, claims that Jewish individuals were involved in planning and executing the attacks, and passive: That foreknowledge of the attacks was gathered by Israeli intelligence, and not relayed to American counterparts, but possibly relayed in advance to American Jews.

"Lucky Larry"

There are two notable coincidences that proponents of Jewish involvement in 9/11 have used to dub Larry Silverstein, the owner of the World Trade Center at the time of the attacks, "Lucky Larry." The first is the unusual nature of the property insurance coverage he had on the towers. The second is Larry's good luck in not being inside the building at the time of the attacks.

Silverstein, a Jewish billionaire and supporter of the state of Israel, benefitted financially from the 9/11 attacks, receiving a payout of $4.55B, due to an unusual clause in the insurance coverage that covered terrorist attacks under the insurance policy. This was atypical for commercial real estate of that scale in 2001. Most standard commercial property policies at the time explicitly excluded acts of terrorism or war due to the catastrophic, unpredictable risk they posed.

Silverstein has said in interviews that he usually spent his mornings in breakfast meetings at Windows on the World on top of the World Trade Center North Tower, and with new tenants in the building. However, on the morning of September 11, 2001, his wife insisted he attend a medical appointment, inadvertently saving him from certain death.

Proponents of Jewish Involvement in 9/11 have dubbed him "Lucky Larry" for these acts of good fortune, with implication that Silverstein may have received advance notice of the attacks from Israeli intelligence.

Dancing Israelis

Less than an hour following the attacks, a group of 5 Israeli individuals, several later confirmed by the FBI to be Mossad Agents, were seen filming the smoking skyline from the roof of a building in New Jersey. Maria, the witness who noticed this behavior and called the police and FBI, remarked on the strange way in which these men were conducting themselves.

"They were like happy, you know … They didn't look shocked to me. I thought it was very strange,"

The men were detained and had their van searched, revealing foreign passports, box cutters, and $4,700 in cash. The five men worked at the company Urban Moving Systems Inc, owned and operated by Dominik Suter. After the men were arrested, the FBI searched their offices and questioned Suter, however Suter fled to Israel before he could be questioned further.

Israeli Art Students

Young Israelis posing as art students infiltrated U.S. federal agencies, including the DEA, from early 2000 until 9/11. Over 130 encounters were reported across more than 40 cities, raising alarms about an organized intelligence-gathering operation. Around 140 of these Israeli nationals were detained for visa violations before the attacks, with another 60 apprehended afterward. One of the bigger clusters of “art students” lived in Hollywood, Florida—on the same street where Mohammed Atta, the mastermind behind 9/11, lived with several of the other hijackers. A French intelligence agency noted "according to the FBI, Arab terrorists and suspected terror cells lived in Phoenix, Arizona, as well as in Miami and Hollywood, Florida, from December 2000 to April 2001 in direct proximity to the Israeli spy cells". The report contended that Mossad agents were spying on Mohammed Atta and Marwan al-Shehi, two leaders of the 9/11 hijack teams.

Geopolitical Implications for Israel

Proponents of Jewish Involvement in 9/11 have observed that the political fallout of the attack unilaterally benefited Israel’s position in the Middle East. Proponents note that the attacks were used as a pretext to topple the government of Iraq, a regional rival of Israel, despite Iraqis having no involvement in the attack at any point.