Remembering September 11, 2001

[phkrause]

by Rabbi Benjamin Blech

Because those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it.

No one can ever forget that September 11. It was 15 years ago but I can vividly recall exactly where I was standing and what I was thinking when I first heard that America was under attack and that the World Trade Center was falling.

It’s hard to believe that there are young people for whom the events of that horrific day are not personal memories but simply moments of recorded history. Yet 9/11 was not just traumatic, it was transformative. It brought a new understanding of the threats to our very survival. 9/11 was a wake-up call for civilization. Let us take stock of these five major messages, mindful of Santayana’s famous warning that those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it.

1. We Are All Israelis

Immediately after 9/11, the phrase “we are all Israelis” appeared in some reports. But it was soon forgotten or hijacked by other groups and different causes. Yet it captured a profound truth. The enemies of Israel turned out to be the same enemies intent on destroying the Western world and civilized society as we know it.

For years the United States as well as other democracies watched the terrorism and the intifada and the butchering and the sadistic slayings of innocents from afar and thought it had nothing to do with them. Suddenly came the recognition that there is no longer a concept of distance for terror. 9/11 made clear that an ocean can no longer keep Americans safe from attack and that the battle against jihad isn’t restricted to Jerusalem.

2. The Terrorists Shouted Allah Akbar

No amount of verbal camouflage can hide the truth. The people responsible for the murder of over 3000 innocent Americans were Muslims who proclaimed their deed a glorious act bringing glory to their God for the death of deserving infidels.

The extremist fanatics of 9/11 must be denounced in every mosque, condemned by every imam, censured by every fatwa on the anniversary of the day which ought to bring shame to every believer in a God of mercy and compassion.

Let us be ready to agree with all those who loudly proclaim that Islam is a religion of peace – but let us be convinced of their sincerity by their willingness to openly censure all those who continued to justify barbaric behavior in the name of their religion.

3. America Had No “Settlements”

The Palestinians have perfected slogans to justify their actions. It’s “the settlements.” It’s “the occupation.” It’s the flavor of the month they choose to give legitimacy to their cause.

No one seems to wonder why the same hatred and desire for the destruction of Israel post 1967 and the settlements was just as intense before Israel prevailed in a war not of their choosing and in which despite unbelievable odds they proved victorious.

There were no settlements nor was there an occupation when the Arabs massacred Jews in Hebron in 1929, just as these rationales for Jew hatred did not exist when the United Nations established legitimacy for the creation of the Jewish state only to be followed by a declaration of war intent on its destruction by the seven Arab nations surrounding it.

The attack of 9/11 against the United States was, in the words of Bernard Lewis, “a clash of civilizations.” Yes, there are those who want to see an end to democracy. Yes, there are those who want to see a global caliphate governed by the rules of sharia. Yes, 9/11 was a demonstration of the larger truth that there is a culture of hatred in the world which masks its essence under the guise of grievances which have nothing to do with its true motivations.

4. Real Evil Exists In This World

Shortly after 9/11, Newsweek magazine featured a column by a college student asking for “greater perspective and greater understanding”. After all, this spokesman for cultural relativism plaintively asked, who is to say whether those responsible should be judged by the standards of our morality rather those of their culture in which they died as martyrs in the name of a greater cause.

It is a point of view which still seems to enjoy some legitimacy in the academic halls of supra-liberalism. Some people, as Bertrand Russell famously put it, are so open minded they allow their brains to fallout. Cannibals may have justified eating other human beings, but being civilized surely demands a higher standard for ethical dining. Spare me the similar defense for Nazis who took part in concentration camp atrocities because “at the time” pushing Jews into the crematoria was considered acceptable.

Evil is evil. “Thou shalt not murder” was spoken for all times, for all places and for all people.

A post-9/11 world needs to remember that extreme evil must be fought even more than it must be understood.

5. Crises Remind Us of Our Potential for Greatness

There is a final message to be learned from 9/11. It is the one with the greatest power to turn tragedy into hope, despair into optimism.

Those of us who lived through the horror recall another part of the story. It was the remarkable effect of communal pain creating an unparalleled sense of comradeship. Unbearable hardship gave us a kind of kinship we hardly ever experience except in times of severe crisis. Somehow we knew and we understood that we were all in this together. Reading the stories of those who perished made us relate to every life in a way we never thought possible, and allowed us to understand all the better the preciousness of every moment of our own existence.

So many of us realized that we could just as well have been among the victims and felt a keener sense of gratitude for all the things we normally take so much for granted.

 

Abraham was tested with ten trials. The Hebrew word for tested has a dual meaning. It tells us he was tried but it also, remarkably enough, teaches us that he was elevated. Having endured the difficulties he gained even greater stature.

That is what 9/11 must achieve for us as well. On its 15^th anniversary, let us hope it can accomplish that if we but heed its crucial lessons.

Click here to read more articles about 9/11.

I know I'm a few days late! But better late than never!! 

[lazarus]

If the truth be told 911 was simply blow back. You can't go around waging war in the middle east and expect no repercussions.

[Geoarrge]

Skip to about 11-12 minutes in to start seeing the timeline maps.

 

[phkrause]

On 9/27/2016 at 11:16 AM, lazarus said:

If the truth be told 911 was simply blow back. You can't go around waging war in the middle east and expect no repercussions.

I do agree Laz! If we would look back at how we have treated others nations.....

[phkrause]

Today in History: September 11, U.S. comes under attack

On Sept. 11, 2001, nearly 3,000 people were killed as 19 al-Qaida hijackers seized control of four jetliners, sending two of the planes into New York’s World Trade Center, one into the Pentagon and the fourth into a field in western Pennsylvania.

https://apnews.com/article/today-in-history-ayman-al-zawahri-d82e34e8028acda1ac421da0eccdece1?

Authorities identify remains of 2 victims killed in 9/11 attack on World Trade Center

NEW YORK (AP) — The remains of two people who died in the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center have been identified, the latest positive identification in the decadeslong effort to return victims to their families.

https://apnews.com/article/911-world-trade-center-victims-dna-testing-897661e99472e17509d08ea9b13ae9e0?

Performing arts center finally opens at ground zero after 2 decades of setbacks and changed plans

NEW YORK (AP) — In a mammoth room behind translucent marble walls, workers are setting the stage for the World Trade Center’s newest addition.

https://apnews.com/article/sept-11-ground-zero-arts-center-10b972a7518bc5ced4f0d0cc0064cdb4?

PHOTOS: Remembering 9/11

https://abcnews.go.com/US/photos/photos-remembering-911-148555/image-57734337?

[phkrause]

🇺🇸 America remembers

As seen from Jersey City, N.J. Photo: Gary Hershorn/Getty Images This was a test last night of the annual Tribute in Light display above Lower Manhattan — first presented six months after 9/11, then every year since, from dusk to dawn on the night of Sept. 11. Americans will gather today at memorials, firehouses, city halls and elsewhere to observe the 22nd anniversary of the deadliest terror attack on U.S. soil, AP reports. Commemorations will be held at the three attack sites — New York's Twin Towers, the Pentagon and Shanksville, Pa. The attacks killed 2,977 people and began a U.S.-led Global War on Terror, which included the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. A worker polishes names of victims yesterday at the 9/11 Memorial & Museum at ground zero in Manhattan. Photo: Andrew Ke/Reuters At ground zero in Manhattan, Vice President Harris will join a commemoration on the 9/11 Memorial & Museum plaza (photo above). President Biden will join service members and their families at a ceremony on a military base in Anchorage on his way back from Asia. The 9/11 Memorial in Manhattan yesterday. Photo: Spencer Platt/Getty Images A series of moments of silence will mark the unfolding tragedies of that day — beginning at 8:46 a.m. ET, when the hijacked Flight 11 crashed into floors 93-99 of the World Trade Center's North Tower. List of moments of silence ... Go deeper: 9/11 history.

[phkrause]

The US marks 22 years since 9/11 with tributes and tears, from ground zero to Alaska

NEW YORK (AP) — Americans looked back Monday on 9/11 with moments of silence, tearful words and appeals to teach younger generations about the terror attacks 22 years ago.

https://apnews.com/article/sept-11-terror-attack-anniversary-ceremonies-47488758b18fd78f541674041e36d263?

[phkrause]

Pictures: September 11 memorial tribute at Dr. Phillips High School

https://www.orlandosentinel.com/2023/09/11/pictures-september-11-memorial-tribute-at-dr-phillips-high-school/?

[Rahab]

We watched it on tv

it seemed like it was not real

[phkrause]

US commemorates 9/11 attacks with victims in focus, but politics in view The U.S. is remembering the lives taken and those reshaped by 9/11, marking an anniversary laced this year with presidential campaign politics. Sept. 11 — the date when hijacked plane attacks killed nearly 3,000 people in 2001 — falls in the thick of the presidential election season every four years, and it comes at an especially pointed moment this time. Read more.

Key points: Fresh off their first-ever debate Tuesday night, Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are both expected to attend 9/11 observances at the World Trade Center in New York and the Flight 93 National Memorial in Pennsylvania. It’s not yet clear whether Harris and Trump even will cross paths. If they do, it would be an extraordinary encounter at a somber ceremony hours after they faced off on the debate stage.   Regardless of the campaign calendar, organizers of anniversary ceremonies have long taken pains to try to keep the focus on victims. For years, politicians have been only observers at ground zero observances, with the microphone going instead to relatives who read victims’ names aloud.

RELATED COVERAGE ➤ A 9/11 anniversary tradition is handed down to a new generation   Jon Stewart presses for a breakthrough to get the first 9/11 troops full care   News organizations seek unsealing of plea deal with 9/11 defendants

[phkrause]

📉 Military recruitment drops since 9/11

A U.S. service member salutes at the Pentagon. Photo: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

After the 9/11 attacks, military enrollment jumped in the U.S. — but that has plummeted to record-low numbers today. Why it matters: This year, the active-duty force is the smallest since 1940, and many service members are leaving due to uncertainty about spouses finding employment. By the numbers: Half of active-duty members cited employment for their significant other as a top issue, per a survey of over 9,000 military families conducted by Blue Star Families. About 3.7% of families in the DMV area are military families, per the census. "When our military families have access to dual income … it places [them] on par with our civilian counterparts," says Liz O'Brien, a military spouse who works at Hiring Our Heroes, helping to connect military spouses with jobs.

[phkrause]

🇺🇸 America remembers

Photo: Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images Vice President Kamala Harris, President Biden, former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, former President Trump and Sen. JD Vance were at Ground Zero today commemorating the 23rd anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. Photo: Adam Gray/AFP via Getty Images Relatives and friends of the victims laid flowers, American flags and other mementos at the memorial where the World Trade Center once stood.

[phkrause]

📷 = 1,000 words

Photo: Helen Dunn Here's a powerful image from reader Helen Dunn, taken on the corner of 21st Street and 7th Avenue in Manhattan on 9/11 last year. "I noticed this officer had paused to reflect as a crystal-clear rainbow stretched across Manhattan from the Empire State Building to One World Trade Center," she writes.

[phkrause]

The Scandal of 9/11 and How America Betrayed the Victims and Their Families

Disturbing questions remain unanswered nearly a quarter of a century after the attacks on New York and Washington.

Even at a time when news is flashed around the world in moments, few events stop us in our tracks.

If people remember where they were when Princess Diana died, then 9/11 has engraved itself into the consciousness of a generation so indelibly that the simple date is enough to elicit the same deep sense of shock and outrage we felt so strongly nearly a quarter of a century ago.

We remember the burning World Trade Center towers; bodies falling like rag dolls from the sky, the immense buildings, those monuments to America’s pride, collapsing into rubble.

We saw what happened on Sept. 11, 2001. Some were there and lived to tell the tale. We all watched it on television.

Four hijacked passenger aircraft fell from the sky in New York, Washington, D.C., and Shanksville, Pennsylvania, killing 2,977 people in a nightmare plot conceived and carried out by Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda followers.

But not everything was as it seemed. Incredibly, on the 24th anniversary, disturbing, fundamental questions remain over what exactly happened that fateful day.

Like many people, I have visited One World Trade Center, the $25 billion complex that sits uncomfortably at the site of the Twin Towers in downtown Manhattan as a cross between a bustling tourist destination and a solemn memorial. What’s remaining of the rubble is scrubbed and on display in a museum filled with photographs that reflect the fading snapshots in our minds. We can read how history remembers that terrible morning, but if you were to ask the survivors, or, indeed, the families of the nearly 3,000 people who died, if they know what led to the attacks, I can guarantee you that most of them would not be able to tell you the full story.

The U.S. government will certainly not tell you. This explains why so many conspiracy theories have sprung up attempting to explain the events leading up to 9/11. There are rabbit holes here that are certain to infuriate most right-minded people, let alone those who lost their loved ones.

When a president of the United States publicly doubts the election results of the world’s defining democracy, and people can seriously question whether an atrocity on the scale of the Sandy Hook school shooting that left 20 children dead even happened at all, then it is little wonder that people bristle at the term conspiracy theory.

There are certainly people who promote preposterous ideas for their own nefarious or deluded ends about everything from the Holocaust to the moon landings.

But history is also littered with brave souls who dared to stand up and speak out, sometimes at great danger to themselves. Indeed, what do you call a conspiracy theory that proves to be correct? I guess you’d call that the truth.

Conspiracy theorists may argue over what happened, but there is no questioning that we have been misled over why it happened.

It is both astonishing and shameful that so many of those who lost so much on 9/11 are still trying to discover the full facts about that fateful day, and it is disgraceful that the people in power we trust to protect and to lead us still obfuscate the truth.

The 9/11 families have long complained that nobody has connected the dots for them to satisfactorily explain the lead-up to the attacks on New York and Washington. It partly explains why so many of them—more than 6,000 family members of those who were killed and survivors of the attacks—are still involved in two lawsuits, the biggest in U.S. history, seeking to prove Saudi Arabia’s complicity in the plot.

This is no conspiracy theory; it’s a serious legal complaint that has already changed the law in America, making it possible to sue a foreign power through the U.S. courts.

It’s easy to forget, too, that 15 of the 19 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia.

What is certain is that Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar, two of the Saudi-born terrorists who hijacked American Airlines Flight 77 and crashed it into the Pentagon, arrived in California 18 months before the attacks, and the CIA was aware of their presence. However, it did not inform the FBI, the agency responsible for domestic operations in the U.S.

Former FBI special agent Mark Rossini, who was working as a liaison between the CIA and FBI at the time, told me that he and a colleague were instructed not to pass that information to their superiors. He is convinced the reason was that the spy agency wanted to let the terrorists run in the hope that—with the cooperation of the Saudis—they could land some bigger fish, perhaps even bin Laden himself. If that was, indeed, the plan, then it went disastrously awry.

Rossini is not alone in the intelligence community in believing the U.S. authorities have gone to great lengths to cover up this horrendously botched operation.

Similarly, many members of families who lost loved ones believe the 9/11 Commission, formed by President George W. Bush to get to the bottom of the atrocity, was a complete whitewash.

“It’s unconscionable. I think what’s really bad is that 20 years out, we’re still trying to get documents and evidence,” said Kristen Breitweiser, one of the renowned “Jersey Widows” who lost her husband, Ronald, in the Twin Towers and has spent nearly two and a half decades fighting to find out what happened.

“Literally, the United States Department of Justice sits on the side of the Saudis in the courtroom and blocks evidence,” she added. “My husband was killed and nearly 3,000 others were murdered in broad daylight and the government itself did not prosecute one person.

“In some ways, the 9/11 Commission was our baby,” she told me. “So, what do you do when your baby grows up to be a serial killer?”

Some of the so-called conspiracy theories stemming from 9/11 are not just the lunatic ramblings of the fantasist fringe; some are serious issues raised by serious people.

The idea that the Twin Towers were felled not by the fires from the planes but by controlled demolitions from explosives planted in advance may sound far-fetched, but a group comprising thousands of architects and engineers points to detailed scientific evidence supporting just that.

They ask, with some justification, how two rogue aircraft could bring down the Twin Towers and 7 World Trade Center, which also crashed to the ground even though it was 370 feet away and wasn’t even hit.

The group, Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, has commissioned its own studies that suggest it was impossible that the Twin Towers and 7 World Trade Center could have fallen into themselves through heat alone, as the official narrative suggests. Many have put their professional reputations on the line to insist that saboteurs planted bombs to ignite simultaneously with the air attacks. They are less persuasive in explaining why such a thing may have happened, but the questions remain.

Similarly, it really doesn’t make sense that the American military, the most powerful and advanced in the world, didn’t manage to get a jet fighter within miles of the doomed airliners in the 1 hour and 17 minutes from when American Airlines Flight 11 first hit the North Tower of the World Trade Center through the subsequent hits on the South Tower and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., to United Airlines Flight 93’s crash landing in the fields of Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

Some would argue that the U.S. government had a sinister motive for allowing the planes to carry on their disastrous course, allowing the attack to happen to help trigger war in the oil-rich Middle East. To me, that stretches belief too far. A simpler and more realistic reason is that the guardians of America’s skies were ill-prepared for such an audacious attack and were caught by surprise in the chaos of the moment.

Beneath the 1,776-foot-tall Freedom Tower and behind the walls of the National September 11 Memorial and Museum, a world away from the noisy hustle and bustle of tourists and workers outside on the streets of New York, is the silent resting place of the 9/11 dead.

Astonishingly, the remains of 1,113 people are still unidentified. Just 293 bodies were recovered intact, a tragic mercy to those families able to give them a conventional funeral.

The great majority of the victims were obliterated by the plane crashes, the fires, or the collapses of the towers—21,905 pieces were eventually collected from the ruins, many of them as small as a nail or an inch of skin. Of those pieces, 7,204 have not been tied to a victim.

The unidentified remains are held in a private, climate-controlled underground repository behind the museum, awaiting the DNA technology that may one day pair them to the names of the dead.

It is a long and painstaking job. But what this repository of heartache does illustrate is the agony that continues to this day for the 9/11 families. For so many of them, it has meant that a funeral left an emptiness that cannot be filled. They will never know the end of the story.

We are too used to Hollywood endings where the hero overcomes all odds to save the world, just in time. The reality is way messier. The line dividing right and wrong is often so thin as to be invisible, and the truth is often simply the most convenient lie.

The deaths of nearly 3,000 people shocked the world and dominated the headlines for a while, and then the world moved on, leaving the families who lost everything to pick up the pieces themselves.

An independent inquiry, backed by the full force of U.S. law, is the only way to right this wrong. The investigators must have full access to every official document connected to the 9/11 attacks and the legal weight to demand what is not volunteered. Every document, every page, should be unclassified.

So much emphasis has been placed on the government’s transparency over the Jeffrey Epstein case. What about the deaths of 2,977 in the worst terrorist attack the world has ever known? Shouldn’t we have transparency there?

Trump once promised the 9/11 families he would help them, but he did nothing. Now is his chance to keep that pledge.

Enough time has passed; the sell-by date on secrecy has long run out. The inquiry should not be answerable to Trump, to Congress, or any political party. It should be answerable to the public.

Only then can the innocent victims of the attacks finally rest in peace.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-scandal-of-911-and-how-america-betrayed-the-victims-and-their-families/?

[phkrause]

Pictures: Central Florida marks 9/11 anniversary

https://www.orlandosentinel.com/2025/09/11/pictures-central-florida-marks-9-11-anniversary/?

🇺🇸 America remembers

A person looks at the south reflecting pool at the 9/11 memorial in New York City today. Photo: Adam Gray/Getty Images Members of the military and first responders watch as an American flag is unfurled on the side of the Pentagon. Photo: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images