Israel dominates the global media to an almost unseen extent. Only almost, because one event 22 years ago surpassed everything else in terms of media hype: 9/11. What both events have in common is that politicians and the media ruthlessly exploit people’s shock to achieve their goals or to generate clicks and thus rake in money. Most articles have one thing in common: they are based on emotions. We write about geopolitics. Geopolitical analyses must be based on facts.

The world's largest options market says it is investigating reports of unusual trading activity before last week's terrorist attacks in New York and Washington.

The Chicago Board Options Exchange declined to discuss the investigation.

But an independent check of publicly available options trading records shows unidentified investors placed exceptionally high numbers of put options - bets that prices would fall - on the stocks of United and American, the two airlines targeted in the attacks. There was no such trend involving other carriers.

A recent court filing has made an explosive claim that at least two of the 9/11 hijackers were recruited into a joint CIA-Saudi intelligence operation that was covered up at the highest levels.

After becoming Director of the CIA (DCI) in 1997, George Tenet did what Louis Freeh had done after his appointment as FBI Director. He began to cultivate close personal relationships with the rulers of Saudi Arabia. Like Freeh, Tenet grew especially close to Prince Bandar, the Saudi ambassador to the United States. Bandar and Tenet often met at Bandar’s home near Washington, yet Tenet did not share information from those meetings with his own officers who were handling Saudi issues at the Agency.

The second intifada, which started in September 2000, prompted unprecedented awareness of the Palestine liberation cause, especially in the US and Europe. I was a student back then at Kent State University—a university historically known for its activism and powerful protests, particularly the anti-Vietnam war demonstration in the 1960s and 1970s.