911 Report

The main motive for the 9/11 attack was anger at US support of Israel. The main motive is clear if you look at the facts and you can even understand that from listening to testimony from the 9/11 Commission and reading the 9/11 Staff Statement. But it is important to note that the two top 9/11 Commissioners have admitted that there was concern that the American people might reassess the policy of supporting Israel.

Those two top 9/11 Commissioners, Thomas H. Kean and Lee H. Hamilton, wrote a book after the 9/11 Report came out called Without Precedent: The Inside Story of the 9/11 Commission

Mainstream Media, the 9/11 Commission Report, politicians, and pundits have all downplayed and/or omitted the fact that the main motive for the 9/11 attacks was outrage over U.S. support of Israel. Here is a rare exception to the suppression, it comes from The Forward:

Bin Laden Aimed To Link Plot to Israel

Marc Perelman Fri. Jun 25, 2004

In an interim staff report released last week, the presidential commission investigating the September 11, 2001, attacks shed new light on the role of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in Al Qaeda's worldview.

The disclosures seem to weaken Israeli claims that the issue was only a secondary priority for Osama bin Laden, and they could rekindle the debate about whether U.S. support for Israel is hindering national security.

In a 20-page report titled "Outline of the 9-11 Plot," the commission, which is to issue a final report at the end of July, describes bin Laden's willingness to time the attacks against America with two visits by Prime Minister Sharon, one in Jerusalem and one in Washington.

The report claims that Khalid Sheikh Mohamed, or KSM, the alleged mastermind of the attacks who was arrested in March 2003 in Pakistan, told his U.S. captors that bin Laden "wanted to punish the United States for supporting Israel."

This is why, according to KSM, bin Laden asked him to conduct the attacks "as early as mid-2000" in response to the outcry prompted by the visit of then-opposition leader Sharon to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, the report states. Even though the Al Qaeda hijackers had barely arrived in the United States to take flight lessons, the Saudi renegade allegedly argued that it would be enough if they smashed planes to the ground without hitting specific targets. The report claims that KSM talked him out of the plan.

Bin Laden, however, reportedly asked him again a year later to hasten the preparations of the plot when he learned that Sharon, now prime minister, would visit the White House in June or July 2001, according to the report.

Once again KSM convinced him to wait, and the group eventually settled on September 11 after further debates about targets and timing, debunking the assumption that the details of the operation were planned long in advance.

In addition to bin Laden's reported interest in linking the attacks to Israel, the report also sheds light on the worldview of Al Qaeda operatives and its sympathizers.

It noted that Mohammed Atta, the Egyptian ringleader of the plot, chose the second week of September to ensure that Congress, "the perceived source of U.S. policy in support of Israel" would be in session. Atta, who lived in Germany with several other hijackers, "denounced what he described as a global Jewish movement centered in New York City which, he claimed, controlled the financial world and the media."

In a chilling detail, the report also mentions that KSM indicated that Mullah Omar, the former Taliban leader in Afghanistan, "opposed [Al Qaeda's plan to attack] the United States for ideological reasons but permitted attacks against Jewish targets."

"Bin Laden, on the other hand, reportedly argued that attacks against the United States needed to be carried out immediately to support the insurgency in the Israeli-occupied territories and to protest the presence of U.S. military forces in Saudi Arabia," according to the report.

The above article was reporting on an interim staff report. On July 22, 2004, the 9/11 Commission released its public report. When reporting on the 9/11 Commission's report, only the Lexington Herald-Leader dared go with a headline that reflected the main point: the motives for the crime: "U.S. policy on Israel key motive."

When Terry McDermott's Jul 23, 2004 article was published in the LA Times, it didn't have the headline "U.S. policy on Israel key motive," whoever made the headline for McDermott's article used "New Plot Details Emerge" as the headline, which hid the main point of the article. The main point was only expressed when McDermott's article appeared in the Lexington Herald-Leader with the headline: "U.S. policy on Israel key motive." In the Forward, the main point of Marc Perelman's article was expressed with the headline: "Bin Laden Aimed To Link Plot to Israel."

Also, see Philip Zelikow's testimony from the 9/11 hearing. Philip Zelikow was the 9/11 Commission Executive Director (SOME of his testimony made it into the final 9/11 Report BUT note that the key quote "the al Qaeda leader wanted to punish the United States for supporting Israel" was omitted from the 9/11 Report):

And see this video where Khalid Sheikh Mohammed ("KSM" or "Sheikh Mohammed") states the Purpose of the 9/11 Attacks:

And this video shows more testimony which was omitted from the final 9/11 Report:

Examples of Israel mentioned in the 9/11 Report

"He (BIN LADIN) also stresses grievances against the United States widely shared in the Muslim world. He inveighed against the presence of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia, the home of Islam's holiest sites. He spoke of the suffering of the Iraqi people as a result of sanctions imposed after the Gulf War, and he protested U.S. support of Israel."

"Yousef's instant notoriety as the mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing inspired KSM to become involved in planning attacks against the United States. By his own account, KSM's animus toward the United States stemmed not from his experiences there as a student, but rather from his violent disagreement with U.S. foreign policy favoring Israel."

"KSM has insisted to his interrogators that he always contemplated hijacking and crashing large commercial aircraft. Indeed, KSM describes a grandiose original plan: a total of ten aircraft to be hijacked, nine of which would crash into targets on both coasts-they included those eventually hit on September 11 plus CIA and FBI headquarters, nuclear power plants, and the tallest buildings in California and the state of Washington. KSM himself was to land the tenth plane at a U.S. airport and, after killing all adult male passengers on board and alerting the media, deliver a speech excoriating U.S. support for Israel, the Philippines, and repressive governments in the Arab world. Beyond KSM's rationalizations about targeting the U.S. economy, this vision gives a better glimpse of his true ambitions."

Bin Ladin's consistent priority was to launch a major attack directly against the United States. He wanted the planes operation to proceed as soon as possible. Mihdhar reportedly told his cousin during the summer of 2001 that Bin Ladin was reputed to have remarked, "I will make it happen even if I do it by myself."¹⁷⁶

According to KSM, Bin Ladin had been urging him to advance the date of the attacks. In 2000, for instance, KSM remembers Bin Ladin pushing him to launch the attacks amid the controversy after then-Israeli opposition party leader Ariel Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. KSM claims Bin Ladin told him it would be enough for the hijackers simply to down planes rather than crash them into specific targets. KSM says he resisted the pressure.¹⁷⁷

KSM claims to have faced similar pressure twice more in 2001. According to him, Bin Ladin wanted the operation carried out on May 12, 2001, seven months to the day after the Cole bombing. KSM adds that the 9/11 attacks had originally been envisioned for May 2001. The second time he was urged to launch the attacks early was in June or July 2001, supposedly after Bin Ladin learned from the media that Sharon would be visiting the White House. On both occasions KSM resisted, asserting that the hijacking teams were not ready. Bin Ladin pressed particularly strongly for the latter date in two letters stressing the need to attack early.The second letter reportedly was delivered by Bin Ladin's son-in-law, Aws al Madani.

"As we mentioned in chapter 2, Usama Bin Ladin and other Islamist terrorist leaders draw on a long tradition of extreme intolerance within one stream of Islam (a minority tradition), from at least Ibn Taimiyyah, through the founders of Wahhabism, through the Muslim Brotherhood, to Sayyid Qutb. That stream is motivated by religion and does not distinguish politics from religion, thus distorting both. It is further fed by grievances stressed by Bin Ladin and widely felt throughout the Muslim world-against the U.S. military presence in the Middle East, policies perceived as anti-Arab and anti-Muslim, and support of Israel. Bin Ladin and Islamist terrorists mean exactly what they say: to them America is the font of all evil, the "head of the snake," and it must be converted or destroyed."

"Recommendation: Where Muslim governments, even those who are friends, do not respect these principles, the United States must stand for a better future. One of the lessons of the long Cold War was that short-term gains in cooperating with the most repressive and brutal governments were too often outweighed by long-term setbacks for America's stature and interests.

American foreign policy is part of the message. America's policy choices have consequences. Right or wrong, it is simply a fact that American policy regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and American actions in Iraq are dominant staples of popular commentary across the Arab and Muslim world. That does not mean U.S. choices have been wrong. It means those choices must be integrated with America's message of opportunity to the Arab and Muslim world. Neither Israel nor the new Iraq will be safer if worldwide Islamist terrorism grows stronger.

The United States must do more to communicate its message. Reflecting on Bin Ladin's success in reaching Muslim audiences, Richard Holbrooke wondered, "How can a man in a cave out communicate the world's leading communications society?" Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage worried to us that Americans have been "exporting our fears and our anger," not our vision of opportunity and hope.^2"