Saudi Arabia: Confidence shaken by link to attacks. Anguished that as many as 15 Saudis numbered among the 19 hijackers, Saudi reactions are complicated. The fearful government has officially disowned forbidden mention of bin Laden’s Saudi origins. Rumors blaming Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency, for engineering an anti-Arab U.S. reaction include the myth that 4,000 Jews were warned out of the World Trade Center towers minutes before the attacks. There may be more truth, however, as I’ve previously written below, to the idea that the identifications of the hijackers are specious, resulting from identity theft. While in the US the confusion over Arabic names has received scant attention, it’s all over the Saudi press and tapping into massive public mistrust of the US and its attitudes toward the Arab world. A great deal of legal action for defamation is likely to follow.

“It’s impossible for us to believe [the United States] anymore,” said Taha Alghamdi, a salesman in Jeddah whose brother Saeed was mistakenly confused with another man by the same name who hijacked United Flight 93, which crashed into a field in Pennsylvania.

“What sort of intelligence agency doesn’t know that there are thousands of Saeed Alghamdis in Saudi Arabia?” Alghamdi said. “It is like accusing Tom from New York.” Chicago Tribune

The genesis and propagation of the 4,000-Jews story is explored here. Slate