Conspiracy theories never die

Just in case you thought we'd gotten beyond such nonsense, here's a post by Rusty at the Jawa Report that shows that certain academics are still enthralled with the notion that the CIA and the Israeli Mossad were behind 9/11.

A sample of the thread spotted just yesterday on the American Society for International Law's listserve:

It is facile to knock down the strawman that "no Jews were killed in the 9/11 attack". Certainly this claim is wrong. Many Jews died in the attacks. This claim can, however, be traced back to its origin. The origin of the story was a report in Jerusalem Post of 12 September 2001, that the Israeli Foreign Embassy was concerned about the fate and whereabouts of 4,000 Israelis [that is Israeli citizens] believed to be in the area of the World Trade Center in New York. It was not explained in the report from where the figure 4,000 came, nor was the figure denied later. In the final count not a single Israeli employee of the World Trade Center died on 9/11. According to the New York Times, one Israeli, a casual visitor, died in the WTC on 9/11 and two Israeli died as passengers in the allegedly hijacked planes. We still are owed an explanation of the discrepancy between the figure 4,000 and 0.