5 ms·

The commando scientist billionaire who died fighting terrorists

61 points by philip1209 12y ago

fatman 12y ago
That's an awful lot of detail from a event with no surviving witnesses.
- fear91 12y ago
  Some of the passengers were in contact with the ground: "According to flight attendants Amy Sweeney and Betty Ong, who contacted American Airlines during the hijacking, the hijackers had stabbed flight attendants Karen Martin and Barbara Arestegui and slashed the throat of passenger Daniel Lewin.Lewin, an American-Israeli Internet entrepreneur, had served as an officer in the elite Sayeret Matkal special operations unit of the Israel Defense Forces. Lewin was seated in 9B, and Suqami was directly behind him in 10B. The 9/11 Commission suggested that Suqami may have stabbed and killed Lewin after he attempted to stop the hijacking. Lewin was believed to be the first fatality in the 9/11 attacks."
tofof 12y ago
"Evidence suggests.." -- yes, please, cite some.
kumarski 12y ago
Daniel Lewin seems like a badass.
DominikR 12y ago
"There, he participated in classified anti-terrorism missions such as assassinations and kidnappings." And that's a hero? Edit: I didn't mean to attack that person, he achieved a lot, and I read about him before. (though I didn't read anything about assassinations) It was just a snap reaction because the article seems to glorify assassinations and kidnappings, which I am opposed to. I directed this question to the community to see if there are really people here who believe that assassinations are great and worthy of putting on your CV. At least the guy who wrote the article seems to believe it.
- davidwihl 12y ago
  Would you say that the Navy Seals who risked their lives and captured Bin Laden are not also heroes?
  - ForHackernews 12y ago
    Captured? I thought they killed him and dumped his body out of an airplane.
    - wil421 12y ago
      It was a boat. http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2011/05/bin_laden_sleeps_with_the_fishes.html http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/20...
    - knowaveragejoe 12y ago
      No, he was dumped overboard several days after he was killed in the raid and his body interred on a Navy vessel.
      - Crito 12y ago
        The burial at sea was within 24 hours of his death, I believe in accordance to his religious customs. That's the official story according to wikipedia anyway.
        coldtea 12y ago
        Sounds very fishy though. Suddenly a "respect to his religious customs" -- and without anyone seeing the body. Not saying that it wasn't him -- but could have been torture of what have you involved which they didn't want shown. Or they didn't want him to have a public trial.
        Crito 12y ago
        I think the idea, officially, was more in lines of "we're going to pay lip service to his religious customs because we don't want to inflame moderates who care about that sort of thing", but yeah. It makes sense to me that they would do it that way, but it certainly leaves open the possibility that everything was not on the level (which I consider plausible, but not not necessarily probable).
te_platt 12y ago
"Evidence suggests..." http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report_Ch1.htm http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report_Ch1.htm See the section on flight 11. Not conclusive but indicative.
- andrewtbham 12y ago
  "Reports from two flight attendants in the coach cabin, Betty Ong and Madeline "Amy" Sweeney, tell us most of what we know about how the hijacking happened." "As this was happening, passenger Daniel Lewin, who was seated in the row just behind Atta and Omari, was stabbed by one of the hijackers-probably Satam al Suqami, who was seated directly behind Lewin. Lewin had served four years as an officer in the Israeli military. He may have made an attempt to stop the hijackers in front of him, not realizing that another was sitting behind him.27" so where is footnote 27?
  - davidwihl 12y ago
    "27. AAL transcript, telephone call from Nydia Gonzalez to Craig Marquis, Sept. 11, 2001; Obituary, "Daniel Lewin," Washington Post, Sept. 22, 2001, p. B7" Therefore an eyewitness, primary source from the time of the event.
batmansbelt 12y ago
Sounds like a good book. Anyone have a link to an epub?
davidwihl 12y ago
I know a number of people who provided primary material to Molly Raskin. In general, they feel the reporting was balanced and accurate. To harp on whether he was precisely the first victim or not is trivializing the event, the man and the impact both had.
ugk 12y ago
I can always count on HN to reduce a fairly interesting story down to pedantic bickering.
dang 12y ago
https://hn.algolia.com/?q=danny+lewin#!/story/forever/0/danny%20lewin https://hn.algolia.com/?q=danny+lewin#!/story/forever/0/dann...
nether 12y ago
This is the submitter's second attempt at submitting this. Can he be penalized for resubmitting a story that was killed? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6867864 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6867864

61 points by philip1209 12y ago

fatman 12y ago

That's an awful lot of detail from a event with no surviving witnesses.

fear91 12y ago
Some of the passengers were in contact with the ground: "According to flight attendants Amy Sweeney and Betty Ong, who contacted American Airlines during the hijacking, the hijackers had stabbed flight attendants Karen Martin and Barbara Arestegui and slashed the throat of passenger Daniel Lewin.Lewin, an American-Israeli Internet entrepreneur, had served as an officer in the elite Sayeret Matkal special operations unit of the Israel Defense Forces. Lewin was seated in 9B, and Suqami was directly behind him in 10B. The 9/11 Commission suggested that Suqami may have stabbed and killed Lewin after he attempted to stop the hijacking. Lewin was believed to be the first fatality in the 9/11 attacks."

tofof 12y ago

"Evidence suggests.." -- yes, please, cite some.

kumarski 12y ago

Daniel Lewin seems like a badass.

DominikR 12y ago

"There, he participated in classified anti-terrorism missions such as assassinations and kidnappings." And that's a hero? Edit: I didn't mean to attack that person, he achieved a lot, and I read about him before. (though I didn't read anything about assassinations) It was just a snap reaction because the article seems to glorify assassinations and kidnappings, which I am opposed to. I directed this question to the community to see if there are really people here who believe that assassinations are great and worthy of putting on your CV. At least the guy who wrote the article seems to believe it.

davidwihl 12y ago
Would you say that the Navy Seals who risked their lives and captured Bin Laden are not also heroes?
- ForHackernews 12y ago
  Captured? I thought they killed him and dumped his body out of an airplane.
  - wil421 12y ago
    It was a boat. http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2011/05/bin_laden_sleeps_with_the_fishes.html http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/20...
  - knowaveragejoe 12y ago
    No, he was dumped overboard several days after he was killed in the raid and his body interred on a Navy vessel.
    - Crito 12y ago
      The burial at sea was within 24 hours of his death, I believe in accordance to his religious customs. That's the official story according to wikipedia anyway.
      - coldtea 12y ago
        Sounds very fishy though. Suddenly a "respect to his religious customs" -- and without anyone seeing the body. Not saying that it wasn't him -- but could have been torture of what have you involved which they didn't want shown. Or they didn't want him to have a public trial.
        Crito 12y ago
        I think the idea, officially, was more in lines of "we're going to pay lip service to his religious customs because we don't want to inflame moderates who care about that sort of thing", but yeah. It makes sense to me that they would do it that way, but it certainly leaves open the possibility that everything was not on the level (which I consider plausible, but not not necessarily probable).

te_platt 12y ago

"Evidence suggests..." http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report_Ch1.htm http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report_Ch1.htm See the section on flight 11. Not conclusive but indicative.

andrewtbham 12y ago
"Reports from two flight attendants in the coach cabin, Betty Ong and Madeline "Amy" Sweeney, tell us most of what we know about how the hijacking happened." "As this was happening, passenger Daniel Lewin, who was seated in the row just behind Atta and Omari, was stabbed by one of the hijackers-probably Satam al Suqami, who was seated directly behind Lewin. Lewin had served four years as an officer in the Israeli military. He may have made an attempt to stop the hijackers in front of him, not realizing that another was sitting behind him.27" so where is footnote 27?
- davidwihl 12y ago
  "27. AAL transcript, telephone call from Nydia Gonzalez to Craig Marquis, Sept. 11, 2001; Obituary, "Daniel Lewin," Washington Post, Sept. 22, 2001, p. B7" Therefore an eyewitness, primary source from the time of the event.

batmansbelt 12y ago

Sounds like a good book. Anyone have a link to an epub?

davidwihl 12y ago

I know a number of people who provided primary material to Molly Raskin. In general, they feel the reporting was balanced and accurate. To harp on whether he was precisely the first victim or not is trivializing the event, the man and the impact both had.

ugk 12y ago

I can always count on HN to reduce a fairly interesting story down to pedantic bickering.

dang 12y ago

https://hn.algolia.com/?q=danny+lewin#!/story/forever/0/danny%20lewin https://hn.algolia.com/?q=danny+lewin#!/story/forever/0/dann...

nether 12y ago

This is the submitter's second attempt at submitting this. Can he be penalized for resubmitting a story that was killed? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6867864 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6867864