| Friday, July 08, 2005 |
| The Israeli tip-off: believers on the right? |
Questions over whether Israeli Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu got an advance warning from British security ahead of yesterday's terrorist bombing in London still won't die, and they've touched off a mini-war between bloggers on the right and, mostly, Justin Raimondo of Antiwar.com on the left. However I have to say I first heard of the question on the hardly left-wing Wizbangblog, which ran the initial AP story in question. That report stated Netanyahu got a call from the Israeli embassy telling him to stay in his hotel room (he was on his way to an economic forum) after Scotland Yard warned the embassy of a terror threat just before the first explosion. The Israeli foreign minister has said it's not true, and the government there issued a fresh denial today (from Haaretz):
According to embassy spokeswoman Shelley Davidovitch, all the inquiries indicated that no Israelis were injured or killed in the blasts. Davidovitch also strongly denied Associated Press reports indicating that British intelligence services had informed embassy security officers of terrorists' intentions to launch an attack on an Israeli target. According to the report, the British alerted the Israeli Embassy just minutes before the series of terror attacks in the center of the British capital.
The erroneous report apparently came to light after the embassy, the Finance Ministry and the Ministry of Industry and Trade organized a special conference aimed at supporting investment in Israel and activities on the part of Israeli companies on the London Stock Exchange. The conference was scheduled to take place at the Great Eastern Hotel near the Liverpool Street subway station - one of three underground stations hit in the attacks. When the attacks started, Israel's ambassador to Britain, Zvi Hefetz, a number of his aides and some conference guests were already at the hotel. The conference was ultimately moved to an alternative location.
I'm not sure that answers the question, and other sources continue to stand by the story (which originally came from an anonymous source within the Israeli Foreign Ministry itself).
An AP story yesterday in Haaretz quotes Israeli F.M. Silvan Shalom as saying Netanyahu had been on his way to the the Great Eastern hotel near the scene of one of the four explosions, when "after the first explosion, our finance minister received a request not to go anywhere."
But the AP had run a story earlier, saying "British police told the Israeli Embassy in London minutes before Thursday's explosions that they had received warnings of possible terror attacks in the city, a senior Israeli official said. Israeli Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had planned to attend an economic conference in a hotel over the subway stop where one of the blasts occurred, and the warning prompted him to stay in his hotel room instead, government officials said."
"... Just before the blasts, Scotland Yard called the security officer at the Israeli Embassy to say they had received warnings of possible attacks, the official said. He did not say whether British police made any link to the economic conference. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the nature of his position." That version is supported by an American counterterrorism consultant, Tommy Preston, who was interviewed in his hometown of Frankfort, Kentucky by the local ABC affiliate yesterday. I confirmed the story with him this morning by telephone and he is standing by his story, that his sources say that Netanyahu received a warning to stay in his hotel room, and that shortly after that, the first explosion happened. Preston, by the way, is a 48-year veteran of the counterterorism consulting business, has a company called Preston Global that advises individuals and corporate clients on issues of terrorism, personal security and workplace violence. He was a counterterrorism operative in the Army before going private, and he's no anti-war guy -- he strongly supports the Iraq invasion and says the war has made huge strides in reducing the global terror threat.
BTW Preston also had an interesting take on the mistaken Quranic quote that has some doubting the al-Qaida connection to the attacks: subcontracting. Preston said that with fewer major training bases, they increasingly subcontract their "work" out to smaller, less experienced terror cells, who might not be as "up on" their verses, or as skilled at explosives handling -- which could also explain a small bomb prematurely exploding on a double decker bus before it gets to its destination...?
Of course, it's possible that this is just a question of timing -- a call shortly before versus a call just after, the first explosion. And the warning, if any, would have been of a possible attacks aimed at the Israelis, not at the London transit system, so Raimondo and others are way out on a limb in implying some sort of conspiracy related to the tube and bus atacks. The real question, and its one also raised in the Australian press, is whether British intelligence had any chatter whatsoever relating to possible terrorist violence in London, and what they did about it, having lowered the threat level in the city just a few weeks before. It's entirely possible that they heard the chatter, and simply got it wrong, thinking Netanyahu and his conference were the target (they were certainly close enough to the first target).
Anyway, it's doubtful story will go much further, but it's an interesting question in this ongoing horror story... |
posted by JReid @ 1:53 PM   |
|
|
|
|
