opinion
BY RUTHIE BLUM
L ast Sunday marked the 21st
anniversary of the Sept. 11,
2001 attacks on the United States.

The magnitude of the audacious
assault on key symbols of American
greatness and power — the World
Trade Center in New York and the
Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia — was
so extreme that it was likened to an
apocalypse. Footage of the Twin Towers top-
pling, with some desperate office
workers opting to die by jumping
out of windows, rather than remain
with the thousands of others who
met their painful end inside the crum-
bling inferno, kept being compared
to scenes from a Stephen Spielberg
blockbuster. The shockwaves at home and
abroad were compounded by the fact that the
United States had been insulated from combat
on its soil (other than during the Civil War of
1861-1865) and from Islamist terrorism. In the
space of some two hours on that fateful morning,
Americans were shaken out of the blissfully false
sense of security that was responsible for initial
news reports of a possible aviation accident.

We Israelis, on the other hand, understood from
the first minute that this was no mishap. Though
just as horrified and taken aback as everyone else
by the scope and location of the mass murder, we
were not surprised by its onset.

The Jewish state was in the throes of a sui-
cide-bombing war, which came to be called the
Second Intifada, launched exactly a year earlier
by the Palestinian Authority. It was the result of
repeated capitulation to the demands of arch-ter-
rorist PLO chief Yasser Arafat. The more Israel
groveled, the more empowered the Nobel Peace
Prize laureate became.

As I described at the time, for the 12 months
before 9/11, we had been spending our days try-
ing to calculate which buses might blow up on our
way to work or our kids’ route to school; which
café, restaurant or discotheque was too risky to
frequent; and what unattended bags, backpacks
or sidelong glances from certain dubious charac-
ters were suspicious.

Yes, heads were literally rolling in seas of Jewish
blood on the streets of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and
16 SEPTEMBER 15, 2022 | JEWISHEXPONENT.COM
elsewhere, and would continue to do so for a total
of nearly four and a half years. And this was just
a taste of the ongoing attempt to annihilate Israel
since its establishment in 1948. It was also proof,
if any were needed by those of us who bemoaned
the disastrous Oslo Accords of 1993 and 1995,
that diplomacy with Islamist political ideologues
not only doesn’t work, but fans their flames.

The subsequent Camp David Summit between
then-U.S. President Bill Clinton, Israel’s prime
minister, Ehud Barak, and Arafat in July 2000,
was the immediate precursor to, cause of and
excuse for the latter’s call for a fresh round of
Jew-slaughtering. It was par, then, for Palestinians
to celebrate on 9/11, which many of them did with
great fanfare.

While a short memory may be helpful as a
coping mechanism, it is deadly in matters of for-
eign policy. Barack Obama’s entry into the White
House in 2009 was a perfect example.

His first order of business was to renounce
American exceptionalism and conduct “outreach”
to the radical Muslim world. Islamists took this
to mean that Uncle Sam, the “Great Satan,” had
been brought to his knees, thanks to their efforts.

They weren’t entirely wrong.

Obama’s proceeding to invest serious energy
in begging the greatest state sponsor of ter-
rorism to negotiate a nuclear deal only served
to strengthen the resolve of the ayatollahs to
achieve military and religious hegemony over
the “infidels.”
By the time that the mullah-led
regime finally “agreed” in 2015 to
sign the Joint Comprehensive Plan
of Action, it had finagled the terms to
its benefit. The removal of sanctions
and billions of dollars in cash that
it received was just what it needed
to infuse life into its centrifuges and
fill the coffers of its terrorist prox-
ies throughout the Middle East and
beyond. Obama’s successor, Donald Trump,
adopted the opposite approach. It
wasn’t merely that he ended up exit-
ing the JCPOA in 2018 (after being
shown by then-Israeli prime minis-
ter the trove of documents that the
Mossad had retrieved from a ware-
house in Tehran, which illustrated
Iranian violations). He also started
a “maximum pressure” campaign of
increased sanctions.

Cutting off the money supply was necessary,
both for slowing down the nuclear program and
for curbing the cash flow to terrorists. Just when
this endeavor was beginning to have an effect,
Joe Biden took over the reins in the Oval Office
and reversed course — right back to that of the
days when he was Obama’s second-in-command;
and with many of the same colleagues.

Iran’s response has been predictable: upping its
conditions for deigning to be courted by the P5+1.

It has the luxury to do this, while waiting for a new
influx of multi-billions, due to the circumvention of
sanctions by many countries and/or corporations
within them.

Meanwhile and as a result, Tehran-financed
terrorism against Israelis has been escalating. So,
too, have vapid claims by Team Biden about its
commitment to prevent Iran from obtaining nukes.

Oh, and equally meaningless statements relating
to Israel’s right to defend itself.

So far, the only thing keeping a lid on the next
JCPOA is Iranian intransigence. As was the case
when Obama was “leading from behind,” Tehran
is holding all the cards. In the words of the late
Yogi Berra, “It’s like déjà vu all over again.”
On the anniversary of 9/11, let us remember why
not to find that the least bit amusing. JE
Ruthie Blum is an Israel-based journalist and
author of “To Hell in a Handbasket: Carter,
Obama, and the ‘Arab Spring.’ ”
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The Unlearned Lessons of 9/11