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Two Israelis Arrested in east Tennessee Transporting Suspicious Materials
Various local news broadcasts ^ | May 9, 2004 | who knows what evil?

Posted on 05/09/2004 3:51:42 PM PDT by who knows what evil?

My apologies in advance on this story; I just happened to catch this on several different newscasts a few minutes ago, and I am going by memory as best I can. Unicoi County (Tennessee) sheriffs arrested two Israeli men after a high-speed chase down mountain roads in this east Tennessee locale. While the sheriff was in pursuit, local witnesses noticed that materials were being thrown from the truck as it sped by, well over the posted speed limits. These witnesses were able to locate some of these items; one of which included a jug whose contents became "unusually hot" after the ingredients inside were shaken together. (Goes into the "Hey, y'all...watch this" category, WKWE.) Upon arrest, the police noted that the cab of the truck contained a "Learn How to Fly" brochure, along with passports and Florida licenses that "just didn't seem to add up". The Israelis claimed they were "just in the process of moving some furniture up to Boston". The police also stated that these two Israelis are "not being cooperative in any way." The FBI is investigating the nature of the substance in the jug that was recovered, which has been classified as an "inflammable fuel."

My questions:

1. What ELSE was in this (big yellow) 25-foot Ryder truck?
2. If they were travelling from Florida to Boston, what were they doing on a two-lane back road in the mountains of east Tennessee, several hundred miles WEST of Interstate 95; the most direct route from Florida to Boston?
3. What is the volatile substance in the jug, and why did they wish to avoid getting caught with it? (Why else would they pitch it?)
4. Why are they interested in "Learning How to Fly?"
5. Were they REALLY going to Boston, or were they MORE interested in the nearby Nuclear Fuel Services plant, or, G-d forbid, the huge Eastman Chemical Plant, about thirty miles further up the road?

It will be interesting to see if the national media picks up on this.


TOPICS: Breaking News; Crime/Corruption; News/Current Events; US: Tennessee; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: 200405; 20040509; almaliachnaor; astromid18; ayrabsintennessee; boston; captured; dahan; fl; giat; gloconicacid; homelandsecurity; israelis; marshills; naor; nc; ncarolina; nissangiat; northcarolina; plantation; shmueldahan; unicoicounty
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To: VOA
The statistic may be true, but how many are actually run by people from TN?? Many are transplants from other places, using the rural areas for their drugs.
481 posted on 05/11/2004 7:46:08 PM PDT by Kackikat
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To: Critter
I wonder why, if we are in a war against terror, the most visible and most active terrorists, the Palestinian terrorists, were not first on our list after Al Quaida? It seems like a no brainer to me.
If we went after the Palestinians, we would not get any support to get Al Qaeda.
The PLO is not affiliated with Al Qaeda. Palestinian Islamic Jihad is Part of Islamic Jihad, which is the largest group in Al Qaeda. PIJ has effectively merged with HaMAS. Israel should be given carte blanche to destroy both.

Unlike some of the folks that think Israel had something to do with 9/11, I am not anti Israel. I just can't help but conclude that they stand to benefit most from us going to war against radical islam, and therefore, through logical conclusion, they should be one of the prime suspects from the beginning. I'm not sure if I ever heard any official make any comment in that regard, which makes me even more suspicious
Bin Ladin was quite open in taking responsibility.

I still would take Israel's side in the conflict with Palestinian terrorists. In fact, if they would fly me out and give me the gun, I would personally like to shoot the bastards that go around killing pregnant mothers and their children.
I say kill then and then drop a pig on their funeral.

482 posted on 05/11/2004 9:18:36 PM PDT by rmlew (Peaceniks and isolationists are objectively pro-Terrorist)
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To: Critter
Iraq has never been accused of being behind 9/11

Look up Hikmat Shakir - Iraqi agent, attended Malaysia terror summit, escorted two of the 9/11 hijackers.

Just one among many...

483 posted on 05/11/2004 9:23:44 PM PDT by piasa (Attitude adjustments offered here free of charge.)
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To: Critter
I resigned myself to the fact that we will never know the truth anyway, so why bother?

Perhaps you should get on your knees and ask the LORD God of Israel to give you TRUTH - HE will! And, while you are at it ask HIM for wisdom - HE gives freely and upbraids not! You certainly are 0/0 in both categories, but the LORD always answers those who seek with a pure heart! Oops - you probably are in big trouble in that department too!

484 posted on 05/11/2004 9:50:25 PM PDT by TrueBeliever9 (aut viam inveniam aut faciam (where there is a will - there is a way)
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To: Critter; SJackson
And yes, the fact that I never heard any serious talk from the administration or the media about Israel possibly having something to do with 9/11 increases my suspicion that they were involved.

I have never heard any serious talk about the Girl Scouts being involved, so that means they could be? In other words not being a suspect, and there being no evidence that you are, means you did it!

485 posted on 05/11/2004 10:59:10 PM PDT by veronica (Sen. Robert Bryd has seen more hoods than Iraqi prisoners ever wore....)
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To: veronica
Johnson City Press
May 12, 2004
2 Israelis detained in Erwin face deportation hearing

By Ron Scalf
Erwin Bureau
rscalf@johnsoncitypress.com

ERWIN — Two Israeli nationals being held since Saturday in the Unicoi County Jail after taking Sheriff Kent Harris on a 2 1/2-mile high speed chase in the Flag Pond community, following Saturday’s Ramp Festival, face a deportation hearing, Harris said Tuesday.

Bonds for the men were set late Tuesday afternoon in Unicoi County Sessions Court on state charges. Judge David Shultz set a secured bond of $2,500 for Almaliach Naor, 22, and a $5,000 secured bond for Shnuel Daran, 19, both of Tel Aviv, Israel. Harris said even if the two made the cash bonds, “INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service) has issued two orders to detain the men, or ‘holds’ on them, until they can be taken to a INS facility to be questioned. Obviously, the state charges we are holding them on may become moot if they are deported back to Israel,” he said.

Naor and Daran “are in the United States illegally,” Harris said. “They are here on tourist visas and they are not following the guidelines because they’ve been working.” The men reportedly were moving furniture from Florida to Boston and took a wrong turn in Unicoi County.

INS agents from Knoxville appeared at Unicoi County Jail Tuesday afternoon to interview Harris and speak to the Israelis’ court-appointed lawyers.

Meanwhile, Aviz Ezra, Israeli deputy consulate general in Atlanta, contacted the Johnson City Press to say he believed the incident “was a big misunderstanding.”

“I understand one of the men did have a forged ID card, but there was no ‘Learn to Fly’ brochure. It was merely a card (advertising flying lessons) with a phone number on it, not a brochure with details,” he said. “I understand they are in the moving business from Florida, took a wrong turn and just got lost.

“The relationship between Israel and the United States has always been in the best interest of everyone,” Ezra added, saying he just returned from a law enforcement meeting where 15 Georgia law enforcement officers are taking a trip to Israel.

Following a test by an FBI crime lab, Harris said he received a report Tuesday on the substance inside a vial allegedly thrown out of the truck and later found by officers. The vial contained, “gloconic acid and Astromid 18,” Harris said. “We don’t know what the substances are but they’re not explosive. Our investigation in the matter continues.”

Harris said Naor and Daran were dropped from a federal investigation after FBI agents cleared them from being on any wanted list. Harris said Unicoi County deputies on Monday night searched a storage building that the men had rented in Mars Hill, N.C. He said the building was clean “except for some old, junk furniture.”

The men face charges of speeding, reckless driving, littering, producing false identification and evading arrest.

Harris said the investigation will be expanded further to include the people the men were working for.

486 posted on 05/12/2004 4:00:35 AM PDT by don-o (Stop Freeploading. Do the right thing and sign up for a monthly donation.)
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To: Critter
Unlike some of the folks that think Israel had something to do with 9/11, I am not anti Israel. I just can't help but conclude that they stand to benefit most from us going to war against radical islam, and therefore, through logical conclusion, they should be one of the prime suspects from the beginning.

Militant Islam declared war on the US in 1979, when terrorists took over our embassy in Iran. Do you think Israel had something to do with that in 1979?

487 posted on 05/12/2004 4:59:50 AM PDT by yonif ("So perish all Thine enemies, O the Lord" - Judges 5:31)
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To: don-o; who knows what evil?
ping
488 posted on 05/12/2004 5:09:37 AM PDT by don-o (Stop Freeploading. Do the right thing and sign up for a monthly donation.)
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To: Piranha; don-o
There are a few companies in NYC (the ones that come to mind immediately are Moishe's Movers and Sabra Movers; there's also a "Nice Jewish Boy Movers" that are filled with itinerant Israelis who work for a year or so before moving on. They advertise prices lower than the union shops and get quite a bit of business.

Naor and Daran “are in the United States illegally,” Harris said. “They are here on tourist visas and they are not following the guidelines because they’ve been working.”

Sounds like the INS should raid these moving companies.

489 posted on 05/12/2004 9:19:24 AM PDT by wideminded
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To: wideminded
Not only would they be filling their quotas (if they have them), but they would be doing a favor for the suckers who use those companies.
490 posted on 05/12/2004 9:34:00 AM PDT by Piranha
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To: familyop
Your reply was nothing short of infantile.

I said nothing about the Civil War and if you wish to take issue with someone else's post regarding the Civil War, take it up with them and not with me. I, of course, was referring to the geographical and cultural region which is the South and, more specifically, Tennessee---a region with which you probably have little to no personal experience or knowledge of.

As for the scripture you quoted, I am quite well aware of it and I hold it to be holy and sacred. But fear not, for I am angry for a cause, not without one. You and others like you malign a region of the country which more than any other is populated by people who still know and appreciate the holy scriptures and the God who wrote them and go in numbers disproportionately higher than most of the rest of the country to houses of worship to praise Him and hear his word regularly. To paint us as ignorant, prejudicial fools is unfair and unwarranted, and for that offense I am justifiably angry.

491 posted on 05/12/2004 10:51:07 AM PDT by MarcoPolo
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To: VOA; who knows what evil?
Not out of the question...Tennessee has more meth labs than ANY other state. We're NUMBER ONE, baby!

Uh, congratulations, I guess.

Hold on there, I thought Missouri was #1 in meth labs. Uh, never mind. We're #1 in puppy mills.

492 posted on 05/12/2004 6:29:51 PM PDT by barker (Normal people scare me.)
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To: MindBender26

http://www.jpost.com/Editions/2001/04/03/News/News.24064.html

Shmuel Dahan is also the name of the Likud's spokesman's son.

He would be about 23 yrs old now. The same age as the guy picked up in Tenn.

Taken into custody in the incident were Israeli nationals Shmuel Dahan and Almaliach Naor. In the wallet of 23-year old Dahan, an Israeli military veteran living in Miami Beach, police discovered a “Learn to Fly in Florida” business card.

"I got a sick feeling when I saw it (the business card)," Kent Harris, Sheriff of Unicol County in Tennessee, told the Associated Press, expressing concern about the proximity of the nearby Nuclear Fuel Services plant in Erwin.

“Its the nation’s sole provider of fuel for the Navy’s nuclear subs,” he explained in a phone interview Monday evening.

the ‘learn to fly in Florida’ business card is that of Nissan Giat, also an Israeli military veteran, he said, as well as a free-lance flight instructor in the Miami area, working out of the Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport.

“These guys aren’t terrorists, they belong to the Israeli military,” he protested, in a telephone interview Monday night.

Witnesses saw the men throw something from the truck while they were being pursued, said the sheriff. Officers scouring the area later found a vial containing an unknown substance along the roadway.

Police said the liquid in the 12-ounce plastic container was thick, like liquid drain cleaner. Because of slowness at the State Crime Lab, Harris said it has been sent it to a nearby private lab to be tested.

“It looks like weed killer, but with a little bit of grain in it,” Harris says when it was shaken, the thick liquid in the vial became warm.

A lawyer representing the Israeli men, William Lawson, said the vial contained a "fuel source," but added that it hasn't been identified and authorities were treating it with caution.

Almaliach Naor and Shnuel Daran requested the Israeli Consulate also be notified of their incarceration.

the investigation was halted Wednesday, after the men were released from Unicoi County Jail to the custody of federal officials from the INS, where they face only a deportation hearing.


493 posted on 05/13/2004 6:27:57 PM PDT by target_acquired
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To: target_acquired

http://www.madcowprod.com/

'Mover' is son of top Likud Official
May 12--Venice,FL.
by Daniel Hopsicker

The leader of the two Israelis arrested after leading police on a high speed chase in a moving van last Saturday in rural Tennessee is the son of the spokesman for the Likud Party of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, the MadCowMorningNews has learned.

The arrested Israeli 'mover,' Shmuel Dahan, 23, is himself a former spokesman, for the National Union of Israeli Students which represents the country's 150,000 university students.

News that one of the two Israeli 'movers' belonged to that country's political elite might have proven useful in the criminal investigation underway in rural North Carolina and Tennessee, where the two men led authorities on a high-speed chase in a rented moving van last weekend.

However, the investigation was halted Wednesday, after the men were released from Unicol County Jail to the custody of federal officials from the INS, where they face only a deportation hearing.

"They’re taking it out of my jurisdiction,” stated Sheriff Kent Harris, who apprehended the men last Saturday after a high speed chase on a little-used state highway.

“We may never know what they were doing.”

continued...


"They're our Israeli movers now"

Local law enforcement officials in Tennessee expressed dismay at losing custody until it had been established what two Israelis were doing attempting to elude police on a back road near the North Carolina border so far off the beaten track that the only local attractions within 25 miles are the Rural Life Museum, the Southern Appalachian Repertory Theatre, and the birthplace of Zebulon Baird Vance, a Civil War officer and governor of North Carolina, but not exactly a ‘Historical Hottie.”

Folks were puzzled.

Federal officials offered little guidance. A spokesman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement told a local reporter they couldn't comment on the case while the men were in the custody of local authorities, and was unavailable afterwards.

Charges against the two included reckless driving, littering, false identification and evading arrest. The Sheriff said the FBI had even ordered him to hold the duo without bond.

But now the only one doing any talking was the Israeli Deputy Consul General, who, in a bit of fancy footwork until his boys were ‘safely out of Dodge,’ told reporters the men had been “overwhelmed by the process.”

"If they did something that was wrong, out of parameters of the law,” stated Israeli Deputy Consul General Aviv Ezra in Atlanta, “they have to pay the punishment.”

Presumably he meant flying home in coach.


Israelis? Right here in River City?

Clearly the leader of the two Israelis while in custody, Dahan was called “the spokesman for the National Union of Israeli Students, which represents most of the country's 150,000 university students,” in the January 12, 2001 Jerusalem Post.

This gibes with early press reports after the men’s arrest in Tennessee, in which the Israeli deputy consul stated Dahan had recently graduated from college.

Dahan, like many Israeli students, is a reservist. He is quoted in the Jerusalem Post speaking for student reservists after Israeli students marched around the Defense Ministry compound in Tel Aviv in protest of an increase in the number of days required on reserve duty.

With an articulateness that would be the envy of most furniture movers, Dahan said, “They want to be paid for each day of duty, instead of only after a second or third consecutive day in the reserves.”


"Fiddler on the Roof" meets "Gomer Pyle"

While the Israelis were gone from his jail, for Sheriff Kent Harris, the mystery remains...

Although the two men had denied throwing a bottle of suspicious liquid from their vehicle during the chase, for example, Sheriff Harris said witnesses saw the men throw a bottle out the window during the pursuit. "I called the witnesses back in and both told me the same thing," Harris said. "The bottle was spinning in the road after the pursuit came by."

After a witness gave the bottle to authorities, Harris sent it for testing. Tests showed a chemical mix that turned out not to be explosive. "It's very dangerous to drink it, but other than that, there's nothing harmful," Harris said.

So why had the men lied?

But the biggest mystery surrounded the reason for the men’s presence in the area in the first place. William B. Lawson, one of the lawyers appointed to represent the Israeli men, said they rented a truck and were hauling furniture when they accidentally got off the interstate and got lost.

But this is unlikely, since local law enforcement officials had already stated that the men rented a storage locker nearby, in Mars Hill.

“Even if you’re trying to get lost,” explained Sheriff Harris, “Mars Hill is a hard place to get to.”

Indeed, Mars Hills, North Carolina, appears at first glance to be as remote a location as can be found in the Northern Hemisphere. Any further off the beaten track and they'd be getting yesterday's CNN Headline News.

One can only speculate on what business compelled two young Israeli men to visit the regions’ rural splendor...

Because they just can't get enough NASCAR in Tel Aviv?


Jonathon Pollard & Bin Laden's "Spiritual Mentor"

This remote region of North Carolina does have one big Israeli connection, however. We discovered that convicted Israeli spy Jonathon Pollard is imprisoned in the area, at the Federal Correctional Institute in Butner, North Carolina.

Strangely, the same Deputy Consul General from the Israeli Consulate in Atlanta that smoothed the release of the two latest Israeli movers to run afoul of the law, Aviv Ezra, “is a lifeline” to Pollard, according to a report at www.johnathonpollard.org, visits him regularly in prison, and acts as his interlocutor with visitors from the outside.

This is no doubt just sheer coincidence.

However the next sentence from the story on Pollard’s website mentioning Avri Ezra indicates to the conspiracy-minded (although certainly not to us) that perhaps something else is going on…

Israeli Deputy Consul Ezra himself may be a spook. At least he seems to know a lot of them…

Ezra’s “training for this sensitive task (hanging out with Pollard) was gained while working at the Israeli Embassy in Cairo,” states the convicted Israeli spy’s website, “where he also served as the contact person to Azzam Azzam.”

Azzam Azzam is an Israeli spy.


Don't deport the 'NASCAR' Israelis!

Azzam had been imprisoned for more than seven years in Cairo, we learned from news reports, until his release by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarek.

Israeli Deputy Consul Aviv Ezra, the 'NASCAR Israelis' friend and protector, can thus be said to be—and fairly—a “spy handler.”

Welcome to the Hall of Mirrors.

Still, this news puts a slightly different spin on what has otherwise become just the latest episode of “Israeli Movers Doing Inexplicable Things Before Being Deported.”

But not to the stolid campaigners at the FBI.

FBI agents searched the two men’s storage facility by late Monday night, The Asheville Citizen-Times reported, but found no evidence of anything suspicious.

What is suspicious is the unbelievable story the two men told investigators... that they were just on their way to West Virginia to deliver furniture.

Right.


"Israelis delivering furniture in West Virginia" doesn't exactly have what used to be called the ring of truth, does it.

It has been a day of strange omens in the news.

Mexican air force pilots filming UFOs. Israeli soldiers scouring Gaza for body parts of fallen soldiers. And now this...

Following their arrest last Saturday afternoon, the local sheriff said he had “had a sick feeling” when he found a “Learn to Fly” brochure in the Israelis moving van, especially since the county they were in was home to the nation’s only Nuclear Fuel Services plant.

It wasn’t a “learn to fly in Florida brochure," the Israeli Deputy Consul cheerfully assured everyone. It had been just a “learn to fly in Florida” business card.

Tonight the local Sheriff could be forgiven for feeling just a little sore at the Feds stepping in and screwing his case.

The man does not get all that many 'at bats.'

Last year in Mars Hill, according to 2001 crime statistics, the latest available, there were no murders, no rapes, no robberies, and one assault.

“This is still a very suspicious case,” Sheriff Harris said last Sunday, stubbornly reiterating the same comment he’d made a day earlier.

Four days later, nothing has changed.


494 posted on 05/13/2004 7:59:14 PM PDT by OrangeDaisy
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To: Amerigomag

~wink~


495 posted on 05/16/2004 7:59:49 AM PDT by VaBthang4 ( He who watches over Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps)
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To: who knows what evil?

Any updates on this case? Whatever happened? Thanks


496 posted on 05/19/2004 1:01:06 PM PDT by Oorang ( "Tracers work both ways."- U.S. Army Ordnance)
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To: Oorang

They were released into the custody of the INS, and that is the end of it. The story has dropped right off the radar screen. Completely gone. Just another 'isolated incident'.


497 posted on 05/19/2004 6:37:58 PM PDT by who knows what evil? (Under the personal care of the Great Physician...full coverage.)
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To: who knows what evil?

Thank you.


498 posted on 05/19/2004 6:51:44 PM PDT by Oorang ( "Tracers work both ways."- U.S. Army Ordnance)
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To: Oorang
Cross-reference to two Israelis and a moving van causing a lockdown at the King's Bay Sub Base on 5/22.
499 posted on 05/22/2004 8:56:44 PM PDT by Leroy S. Mort
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To: who knows what evil?
They were released into the custody of the INS, and that is the end of it. The story has dropped right off the radar screen. Completely gone. Just another 'isolated incident'.

___________________________________

Date Published: July 1, 2004
Israelis released on bond in Florida
Author: RON SCALF

Johnson City Press

ERWIN - Two Israeli nationals who spent time in the Unicoi County Jail after leading Sheriff Kent Harris on a high-speed chase near Flag Pond in April have been released on bond in Miami, Harris said Thursday.

"I understand they made an appearance bond, but I don't know who made the bond for them," Harris said. "They are scheduled to appear in federal court on Sept. 7 for possible deportation."

"The procedure is to hold a hearing, and apparently their papers were not in order, and we don't tolerate breaking the rules," said Temple Black, an immigration spokesman in New Orleans.

Almaliach Naor, 23, and Shnuel Dahan, 19, spent three days in the Unicoi County Jail after their arrest near Flag Pond. Dahan possessed a fake driver's license he later said he used to get into clubs in Miami. He also had a "Learn to Fly" card in his wallet that alerted Harris to contact the FBI. Naor had a bank account in Florida showing a balance of more than $11,000.

The men said they got lost on the two-lane highway while traveling through Unicoi County on their way to Boston from Pleasantville, Fla., to deliver a truckload of old furniture.

Following their arraignment in Sessions Court, the two were released to immigration officials after paying fines for speeding, littering and failure to stop for a police officer. The FBI checked their backgrounds and didn't find them wanted on any federal lists, Harris said. They spent time in Knoxville before being transferred to Miami.

In Atlanta, Assistant Israeli Consul General Aviz Ezra said law enforcement officials were overzealous in their investigation. He said last week that the case "was a private, personal matter between the INS officials and the men."

"The only crime that I know they are perhaps guilty of is being in the country without the proper papers," Ezra said.

The duo entered the United States last winter with tourist visas that have since expired.

Don't know if this got posted anywhere. It slipped my mind until I reread the Syrian dance band thread

500 posted on 07/17/2004 11:07:22 AM PDT by don-o (Stop Freeploading. Do the right thing and sign up for a monthly donation.)
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