ABSTRACT
As a spectacular and defining occurrence, there was always going to be differing interpretations and explanations for the events of 11 September 2001. However, within a remarkably short time after the terrorist attacks and the collapse of the World Trade Center towers a wealth of conspiracy theories emerged – in the Arab world but also elsewhere, including, and in fact especially, in the United States itself – offering counter-discourses on the events and purporting to explain the role of a heretofore unknown or opaque actor in the attacks or in other mysterious events linked to them. One of the first conspiracy theories from the Arab world appears to have come from Al-Manar, the television station of Lebanese Hizballah, which alleged on 17 September 2001 that some 4,000 Jews (presumably meaning people of Jewish descent) did not attend work on the morning of 11 September, presumably because they had some advance warning of the terrorist attacks.1 The report was subsequently picked up by a variety of media outlets, in the Middle East and around the world, as well as being informally distributed by email and word-of-mouth. Other similar conspiracy theories emerged almost as quickly; some appear
to be sheer fantasy, and others based on snippets of evidence extrapolated into conclusions drawn from false logic. There is the assertion – still commonly made at the street level in the Arab world – that there were no Israeli victims of the 11 September attacks. In fact, five Israeli nationals were killed,2
which is approximately proportional to the percentage of people in New York at the time who held Israeli nationality,3 and roughly 400-500 people of Jewish descent, equalling as many as one-sixth of all victims, were killed in the attacks that day. With the exception of the most extreme conspiracists, however, conspiracy
theories do not operate in a vacuum, and they often draw upon some facts or truths as the foundation for the more wild claims that ultimately emerge. The number of Israeli casualties in the 11 September attacks was initially suggested as being much higher than five. In President George W. Bush’s speech to a joint session of Congress on 20 September 2001 he claimed that ‘more than 130 Israelis’ had perished in the attacks.4 Also suspicious was the detention of five Israelis on the day of the attacks, who were arrested for
‘puzzling behaviour’ including reportedly filming the World Trade Center after the aircraft had struck it.5 The five were ultimately released, but some aspects of their behaviour and the circumstances surrounding the event remain points of conjecture or contestation, with rumours that at least one of them had links to the Israeli military or intelligence services and with some other details remaining unavailable. Conspiracist discourse by some media in the Arab world also argued that Israel was linked directly to 11 September, with its external intelligence agency Mossad featuring prominently in many such conspiracy theories.6
