It is indeed a disturbing trend, for whole groups of people to believe something is true just because it is repeated on television again and again. Take, for another example, the widely held belief among Americans that Iraq was a threat to the U.S. and had weapons of mass destruction. One poll taken by the Washington Post showed that as many 70% of Americans actually believed that Saddam Hussein was involved in the 9/11 attacks.
But let's get back to the rumors the Times tells us Arabs have come to regard as fact.
"First among these," the article continues, "is that Jews did not go to work at the World Trade Center on that day. Asked how Jews might have been notified to stay home, or how they kept it a secret from co-workers, people here wave off the questions because they clash with their bedrock conviction that Jews are behind many of their troubles and that Western Jews will go to any length to protect Israel."
Of course, it is true that it is an urban legend that no Jews went to work at the WTC on September 11. But that myth seems to have sprung from the fact that there were indeed reports that Jews working in the building were warned of the coming attack. One is tempted to dismiss this with the assumption that it is propaganda from Arab media sources. In fact, it was an Israeli paper, Haaretz, that reported that workers at Odigo, an Israeli owned messaging service company with an office four blocks from the WTC, had received warnings that very day of an impending attack.
The Washington Post followed up on the report, saying that officials at Odigo "confirmed today that two employees received text messages warning of an attack on the World Trade Center two hours before terrorists crashed planes into the New York landmarks." Despite the fact that Odigo said it had the IP address of the sender and was working with the FBI to track down whoever was responsible, to the best of my knowledge it was never reported that they either succeeded or failed in doing so.
Incidentally, Odigo was partnered with another Israeli company called Comverse.
Next Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
