Requiem for 9/11

The silver anniversary of 9/11 was marked this year by not only the annual recitation of the names of the dead, but the maiden voyage of a steel beam recovered from the Ground Zero wreckage. What had fallen from the sky will now cross the country as a symbol of Islam’s war against the West.

Twenty-five years ago, Islamic terrorists flew jets into the World Trade Center to bring about America’s ruin. We all know how that turned out. Yes, a timeless grief-stricken loss for the United States, but it was not without a steely determination to defeat those who traffic in terror as a religious rite.

Does that steadfastness still exist?  Or has America forgotten, or worse, scrambled its mind with revisionist history and moral confusion?

Al-Qaeda and ISIS were largely vanquished. Terrorism itself, however, has very much remained part of our lives, long after those color-coded threat warnings faded from view.

Israel’s war against Hamas and Hezbollah, and the United States’ retributions against Iran and the Houthis, are reminders of the lasting legacy of 9/11.

Twenty-five years after Pearl Harbor, Americans were driving Toyotas and watching Sony TVs. Imperial Japan could be toppled with atomic bombs. Radical Islam, however, is not deterred by Armageddon. It rather prefers it.

Twenty-five years after Pearl Harbor, Americans were driving Toyotas and watching Sony TVs. Imperial Japan could be toppled with atomic bombs. Radical Islam, however, is not deterred by Armageddon. It rather prefers it.

Given the evil nature and millennial patience of this enemy, will we retain the power to stay the course? Those who look forward to seeing more skyscrapers serve as coffins for Americans are counting on our weak nature and boundless capacity for self-blame.

It doesn’t look promising. The Fairfax County Public Schools released an instructional guide on how the 25th anniversary of 9/11 should be commemorated. News flash: It is not an accurate account of what happened on that day. The manifestly sadistic worldview of the perpetrators—Muslims infused with fanaticism to murder infidels and topple their centers of power—is, apparently, a reckoning unfit for Virginia’s schoolchildren.

Instead, they were taught not to associate 9/11 with Islam or Muslims at all. They were to draw no connection between Muslims and terrorists. Instead, Muslim Americans were to be viewed as heroes and helpers—indeed, as both victims and first responders on 9/11!

The Institute for Strategic Dialogue reports that Gen Z has developed a particular fascination with Osama bin Laden—and not as evil incarnate. An improbable peanut gallery for the dark forces behind 9/11 is consistent with this lost generation’s negative view of American foreign policy—and their belief that the United States has spent the past 250 years oppressing persons of color.

References to bin Laden have skyrocketed on X, Instagram and YouTube. His “Letter to America” has been especially popular on TikTok, where 7 million brainless and brainwashed young people now say the letter opened their eyes to American perfidy.

That letter was a 2002 manifesto in which bin Laden spewed anti‑American conspiracy theories and antisemitic tropes, justified the killing of civilians and called upon Americans to adopt Sharia law. Less than one generation later, Americans are now bizarrely finding merit in those slanders.

No wonder these very same people are in league with New York City’s mayor, Zohran Mamdani. He’s the fanboy of Islamic terror who blatantly ignored the wishes of 9/11 family members and first responders, urging him not to attend this year’s banner commemoration.

Why would they feel so strongly the mayor’s presence would sully the memory of their loved ones? Well, Mamdani is in open allegiance with Hasan Piker, who said that “America deserved 9/11.” He signed an executive order recognizing 9/11, but then found himself so disgusted by the gesture, he instantly gifted the ceremonial pen to his chief counsel— a man who has, in his private practice, represented terrorists, including the brother-in-law of one of the 9/11 hijackers.

The mayor couldn’t even comport himself at the 25th anniversary memorial service. He and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez were photographed laughing while the names of victims were being read aloud.

What can you expect from a man who once used a campaign speech to reveal his most poignant 9/11 takeaway: his aunt feared riding the subway because she did not feel safe wearing her hijab.

This is his memory of 9/11? The man has fomented open hunting season against Jews for nearly every day of his mayoralty.

Let the record reflect that his aunt’s trepidation was largely unjustified. Americans showed remarkable restraint in not holding Muslim neighbors responsible for the crimes committed by their co-religionists. In 2001, there were 481 anti‑Muslim hate crimes.

Compare that with anti‑Jewish violence after October 7, 2023: According to FBI data, in 2024 there were 1,938 hate crimes against Jews, compared to 228 against Muslims. The ADL includes harassment and threats, which inflates that number to 9,354 antisemitic incidents. Three years later there has been minimal abeyance of those statistics.

Islamophobia? Where? Seventy percent of all hate crimes are committed against Jews. Crimes against Muslims account for less than 10%.

Meanwhile, Western nations have developed amnesia over 9/11. Anything to beg undomesticated Muslims to stay their hands and gently remove their suicide vests. In return, European governments will publicly favor Palestinians over Jews—especially their own! A week before America memorialized 9/11, the United Kingdom, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Iceland, Ireland, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain and Sweden issued a joint statement imposing trade sanctions against Israel.

Western nations have developed amnesia over 9/11. Anything to beg undomesticated Muslims to stay their hands and gently remove their suicide vests.

Over its war in Gaza? Not this time. Now it was for expanding West Bank settlements. Purportedly, such provocative moves endangered a “two-state solution.”

Even though Palestinians have by now made it abundantly clear that the reason they have rejected five offers of statehood since 1947 is because they will accept only a one-state solution—with Israel ceasing to exist—European diplomats pretend otherwise and blame Israel for the undoing of their own Western societies.

British Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband, who purports to be a “proud British Jew,” proved that by kowtowing to Britain’s Muslims by accusing Israel of . . . wait for it . . . the “ethnic cleansing” of Palestinians. He also called Jews who live in the suburbs of Jerusalem, “terrorists.”

Last year, France, a nation hemorrhaging Jews to Israel every year, demonstrated the depth of its disgrace by convincing other Western democracies to recognize a Palestinian state. Anything to placate Muslims in the hope of stalling their European takeover.

Good luck with that. Israel supplies Europe with intelligence on terrorist activity on the continent. Time for the Jewish state to make them go it alone.

The Labour government of the United Kingdom has far bigger problems that it ignores in favor of the cheap thrill of making Jews around the world feel more vulnerable. Confiscatory tax policies are causing its billionaires to flee Britain for Greece, Cyprus, Switzerland and the United Arab Emirates. The prime minister’s cynical short-term remedy?  Boycott Israeli businesses one week before 9/11 and Rosh Hashanah.

Israel is the only country in the Middle East that erected a 9/11 memorial. Meanwhile, news footage from September 11, 2001 finally resurfaced this year showing Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza throwing candy in celebration of the American dead.

Only the morally lazy and mentally deficient can’t seem to differentiate the good guys from the barbarians.

You can tell a lot about a nation by how it recalls its red-letter dates. The United States once attached “Never Forget” as a catchphrase of post-9/11 memory. Its people, however, are now fast forgetting, flirting instead with the descendants and sympathizers of those who flew those planes.

Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised. How is the rallying cry, “Never Again,” working out for Jews?

Thane Rosenbaum is a novelist, essayist, law professor and Distinguished University Professor at Touro University, where he directs the Forum on Life, Culture & Society. He is a contributing writer for White Rose magazine. His most recent book is titled, “Beyond Proportionality: Israel’s Just War in Gaza.”