Katz ("Anonymous") - Terrorist Hunter

When Rita Katz penned a book, "Terrorist Hunter" under the name "anonymous" she must surely have known that it was a marketing ploy. If she does what she claims in the book, she must have been under no illusions: it would be easy for any experienced internet researcher to find sufficient information to get close to her identity and then confirm it.

For whilst Anonymous claims that she wants to hide, the fact is that she "outed" herself long before the book was published.

Not since "Trail of the Octopus," by Lester Coleman, has an espionage book raised such questions of what is truth, what is opinion and what is fiction.

The apparent biography starts with details of Katz’ early life in Iraq, where her grandfather, as al-Basra’s only Jewish butcher amongst other activities, was the wealthy father of a dynasty. Her own father, she says, was arrested, tortured and hanged as an Israeli spy in the early days of Saddam Hussein’s rule. Following a harrowing time when their wealth was confiscated and they were forced to live in, seemingly, a hovel under 24 hour guard, Katz’s grandmother was murdered by government agents mistaking her for Katz.

The family fled to Israel via Iran, in the days of the Shah when Iran was not hostile to Israel (one of the throwaway lines in the book which would stand much more investigation as to the cause and effect of history).

In Israel, her father was eventually honoured as a war hero - whether that was an admission that he was a spy is ignored.

Katz and her mother built up a successful clothing business. Then she married and she and her husband moved, near penniless (despite having had a seven bedroom, two Jacuzzi house in Israel) to the USA where they now have four children.

If that had been the story of the book, it would have been interesting, instructive and harrowing but with something of a Hollywood ending. But in fact, it is just the prelude.

Even if the things in it are true (and most could be gleaned from public information and the gaps filled in with a little imagination - and have been in places as it contains reports of events at which she was not present) the total lack of balance in disturbing. Indeed, by her own admission, she has trouble differentiating between her own memories and those that have been implanted by the talk of others; and by her own admission almost all the information she claims to have obtained was obtained from public documents. Billed as an "undercover agent," she seems to be an enthusiastic amateur detective.

Let’s be plain: the issues she deals with are distasteful and, in some cases, very worrying. But they are only one side of the coin. The book focuses on anti-Israeli (and to a lesser extent anti-Semitic) attitudes of a number of people that the Islamic world largely regards as crazy extremists. She says she believes in a Palestinian State. But that claim rings hollow throughout the book. "Terrorist Hunter" entirely fails to deal with the huge range of Muslims: it treats all as one. She tries to focus on the money trail for, amongst other things, HAMAS but throughout the work, she sees the complex issues of middle east politics and religious friction as a simple Muslim v Christian-Judeo battle. The result is a book that is anti-Muslim propaganda.

As the amateur detective, if her tale is accurate, she has much to crow about: she tells (with a desperately cavalier attitude to dates) how in the mid 1990s she identified money trails for a variety of jihaadic groups and names those she says are instrumental. She claims credit for blocking visa applications, for getting groups listed as terrorist organisations and for getting their accounts frozen.

The basic problem is that she has taken what might have been a useful and fascinating story of investigations and turned it into a narrative with herself as heroine.

But as the book came out, Katz stepped into the limelight: interviewed on 60 Minutes, she made comments that have resulted in both her and the programme being sued. The case is progressing slowly.

As she says in the book, she loves being the centre of attention and one of her biggest failings is that she cannot shut up once she begins talking.

Both of these traits are apparent in the book, setting them out merely emphasises not excuses them. One of the biggest weaknesses of the book is that she talks about herself too much and about the subject too little.

As a self-appointed secret agent, she "infiltrated Islamic groups." Well, sort of. She claims to have dressed in the style of Muslim women and went to their conferences and mosques with a tape recorder strapped to her thighs.

Her commitment to the United States is interesting: the book talks about "many years" but in June 2003, Katz told News Review Online that she took the job with the research company that led her to undertake the work "a little over five years ago." In the book, that was not much more than six months after arrival.

The dates do not make sense: counting back five years from June 2003 comes to June 1998. Yet the book at least implies that her investigations were providing valuable intelligence for actions that took place around that time or earlier. Indeed, she writes "On a hot day in August 1998, I was on my way to the office. I had been working there for a good number of months already."

The underlying message of this book is one of disparaging everything Islamic: "One thing was certain, though. The people at 555 had a great taste for chicken - halal no doubt." Such snide comments ripple throughout the book.

And the book could, perhaps, never be anything but a personal anti-Arab crusade. Writing several months before the invasion of Iraq in 2003, she wrote "Much of Iraq is in ruins now but I cannot find compassion in my heart. The Iraqis had it coming. And they hurt me so. It is poetic justice." For those that believe in an eye-for-an-eye, or that the sins of the father are the sins of the son, then the lack of balance in this book might be acceptable. But for those who believe in forgiveness and gentleness, the book is an affront. It is not too far fetched to regard is as a work of bitterness and hate dressed up with a patriotic fervour for a place where the writer is an incomer.

So, if we do as Katz says is her skill and join up the dots, what do we get?

First, an allegedly Israeli supported group in the USA which has as its seemingly sole purpose the production of information on Islamic financing and using it in the media and feeding it to government agencies who seemingly do not pay for the assistance

Second, a woman with an apparently justifiable hatred of Saddam Hussein who has seemingly translated that into a personal crusade against substantial numbers of Muslims and with a job "that was just calling out to me" with the first group

Third, a falling out between the boss of the first group and the woman shortly after he took credit for his organisation’s work in Senate hearings and published a book about it.

Fourth, the woman starts her own organisation and writes her own book which is light on detail and heavy on unsupported opinion but which will appeal to the American mass market, with a racy title and an attempt to give it both credibility and excitement by not putting her name on the cover.

Fifth, she becomes a consultant (in the loose sense) to a law firm of dubious ethics (a massive damages suit was brought against it - in its former name - for failing to act in its clinets' best interests) in their declared aim of "bankrupting" those she says she can prove to be at the root of terrorist financing that resulted in 11 September and which is trying to lift itself above potentially devastating litigation. The book will act as a primer for potential jurors all over the USA, making a fair trial difficult.

Sixth, her book names HAMAS as the lead terrorist group and receives considerable attention at just the time that the USA is trying to secure world-wide co-operation to block all HAMAS funding, but is finding many countries resistant to it, largely on the basis that there is no substantive evidence.

Now we have joined the dots, what do we have?

If it looks like a duck and walks like a duck, it probably is a duck. And in the massive world of international power games, if it looks like a political ploy, and reads like a political ploy, it probably is a political ploy.

Prefacing a move into politics? Doubtful: that’s not Katz’ style. Her continual wrapping of herself in the Stars and Stripes is a hint: she is trying to mobilise America against Islam but it is at least arguable that she is part of a much greater scheme to mobilise western opinion against Islam. Is she feeding information to the authorities or being fed information which she disseminates? And is she just one of a number of people, many in organisations claiming charitable status, that are promoting a common global line - but one whose self confessed desire to be centre stage has led her to produce a vanity book?

There are three possible answers:

- she is the originator of all of this information which she has disseminated and which has taken on a life of its own and is widely quoted without question as to its original source and she now wishes to capitalise on it

- she has spent time looking through published material and re-written it so as to avoid plagiarism charges

- she is one of a number of people fed information to be released at strategic times in order to bring discredit to Islam in general and the Palestinian Cause in particular.

Whichever it is, her views seems to have been settled long ago : and it seems that she may well be her father’s daughter. The question is, if she is a "spy," who is she spying for?