(WMR) -- On December 19, 2008, WMR reported on the 9/11-related activities of an Israeli “art student” in the United States. The art students were suspected by federal law enforcement and U.S. intelligence agencies of being Israeli spies.

WMR reported that a ”female Israeli ‘art student’ who lived on an Israeli kibbutz for a year and who is also a British national, told our source in London that in the weeks prior to 9/11 she was ‘selling art in Washington [DC]. Before her arrival in Washington, the Israeli art student said she was in the San Francisco Bay Area attending college as an “art student” but denied selling any art while in the Bay Area. She also said she spent some time in South Carolina prior to 9/11. A leaked Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) report on the activities of Israeli art students prior to 9/11 revealed that female Israeli art students were active in Palo Alto and Fresno. The British-Israeli art student said that on the morning of 9/11 she was standing outside the Pentagon. She admitted she never saw a plane hit the building but saw a huge ‘hole’ in the building after an explosion. The art student also said that she was in Times Square in New York the next day, September 12, attending a memorial service for the 9/11 victims. She said she had a ticket to fly out of New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport on September 12 but that because commercial planes were grounded she had to find another way to leave the country. The art student sad she ‘had to get out’ of the United States because she did not have a proper visa to continue working in the United States. She said she left the United States over the Canadian border. When quizzed why she left so quickly after 9/11, the art student replied that she ‘had to leave cause the United States Government thought Israelis had something to do with 9/11.’”

WMR has learned that the one-time Israeli art student who was active in selling art in the months preceding 9/11 and was outside the Pentagon on the morning of 9/11 is now operating two market kiosks in London that primarily sell women’s handbags. They are situated in Notting Hill and Camden in two neighborhoods where a number of people from Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Arab countries reside.

On December 31, 2008, two Israelis who worked in a hair products kiosk at the Rosengaard Mall in Odense, Denmark, on the island of Funen, were shot and slightly wounded by a Danish assailant who was born in Lebanon and was of Palestinian origin. One of the Israelis owned the kiosk, which sold Dead Sea hair and skin care products, a usual front for Israeli intelligence operations. Apparently, the Israelis’ activities had caught the attention of Middle Eastern youth in Odense days before the shooting and the two Israelis had been harassed. The Danish Security and Intelligence Service was reported to have been notified about the incident by Odense police. The two Israelis, in their 20s, had only been in Denmark for about a week.

Israeli charge d’affaires Dan Oryan said it was disturbing that the two Israelis were targeted merely because they were Israelis. Oryan’s reaction is in keeping with other Israeli denials and obfuscation that their young nationals are engaged in intelligence operations while masquerading as art students, mall kiosk vendors, and moving company employees.

The National Security Agency (NSA) and other U.S. intelligence agencies have warned that Israeli mall kiosks are suspected Israeli intelligence fronts. However, in bust after bust, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) bureau of the Homeland Security Department, headed by Israeli agent-of-influence Michael Chertoff, merely deports Israelis who work illegally on tourist visas. No Israelis are ever charged with espionage or other major crimes in a trial

Israeli national Ohad Cohen entered the United States multiple times in 2004 to manage kiosks and supervise other Israelis, all working in the United States illegally, at Oakview Mall in Omaha and Gateway Westfield Mall in Lincoln, Nebraska. Nine Israelis were arrested and all were deported without a trial. Cohen was forced to forfeit over $35,000 he made from kiosk sales in Nebraska.

In December 2004, the FBI and ICE arrested 15 Israelis at various Minnesota mall kiosks for selling illegally copied electronic games software. Yonatan Cohen was charged with illegal copyright violations. Also in 1994, ICE agents arrested three Israelis working at a mall kiosk in Grand Forks, North Dakota. Grand Forks and Omaha are home to major Air Force bases.

On October 31, 2001, nine Israelis were arrested by Immigration and Naturalization Service agents while working at a Toledo, Ohio, area mall kiosk selling Israeli toy helicopters called “Zoom Copters.” Seven Israelis were released but two, Yaniv Hani and Oren Behr, were deemed “special interest” cases in a federal law enforcement probe of terrorism activities and the 9/11 attack. Hani and Behr told the Associated Press that FBI agents asked them if they were spies for the Israeli government. FBI agents also asked the Israelis detailed questions about their Israeli military service.

Mark Regev, then a spokesperson for the Israeli embassy in Washington and now a shill for the government of Israel in Jerusalem, denied that any Israelis arrested in the United States were espionage agents.

After 9/11, some 30 Israelis were arrested in St. Louis, Kansas City, and Columbia, Missouri, for being in the United States illegally. Other Israeli kiosk workers were detained in California. The Israelis said they were hired by a Miami Beach-based company called Quality Sales to work at shopping mall kiosks in Missouri.

Previously published in the Wayne Madsen Report.

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