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.’ ”
vector_master / AdobeStock
The Unlearned Lessons of 9/11



opinion
BY JOSEPH FRAGER
Memories of the Munich
Massacre Avi1111 / commons.wikimedia
A s the world was amazed by the superhuman
achievements of the proud Jewish swimmer
Mark Spitz at the Munich Olympics in 1972, Muslim
terrorists aligned with the Black September
organization shocked Western civilization and
threw it into chaos and turmoil by murdering 11
Israeli athletes.

The Olympics, which were supposed to bring
all nations together, had been hijacked by evil
incarnate. At the time, I thought the Munich Olympics
should have been canceled. Munich was not far
from the Dachau concentration camp. Memories
of the Holocaust were still fresh in everyone’s
minds. It was only 36 years after Hitler tried to
use the Berlin Olympics to fool the world about
his intentions.

Spitz was the highlight of the Munich Games.

I was certain at the time that Black September,
aligned with Yasser Arafat’s PLO, which had been
forcibly expelled from Jordan by King Hussein
in 1970-1971, targeted the Munich Olympics
precisely because of Spitz. After the Games
resumed, Spitz had to be heavily guarded. The
Black September terrorists had joined with the
German neo-Nazi Baader-Meinhof Group, aka
the Red Army Faction, to carry out their barbaric
and nefarious deeds.

After 50 years, Germany has fi nally apologized
for its actions. Its mistakes were numerous:
Failure to protect the Olympic Village and spe-
cifi cally the Israelis, as well as a bungled rescue
attempt. They were made even more galling
because Germany had been responsible for the
worst genocide ever perpetrated by man against
the Jewish people.

Germany should have insisted on canceling the
Games. The International Olympic Committee
should have stopped them then and there.

The IOC had a responsibility to at least com-
memorate and memorialize the 11 Israelis and
one German who had been killed. But it took
them 44 years before they did so in 2016 and
held a moment of silence before the 2020
games. These were steps in the right direction,
but not nearly enough. I propose that just as the
names of the victims of 9/11 are read every year
in a very public display, so should the names of
the 12 killed in 1972 be read before and during
the Games. Kaddish should be recited by a
family member. The memorialization has to be
Munich massacre memorial
Germany should have insisted on canceling the
Games. The International Olympic Committee should
have stopped them then and there.

sincere so that the terrorists never feel as though
they won.

In his movie “Munich,” Steven Spielberg tried
to capture the range of emotions and actions
that the massacre and its aftermath caused.

Unfortunately, the movie went too far toward
a moral equivalency that I do not think was
helpful. The world has never fully recovered from the
Munich massacre. Track runner Frank Shorter,
who won the Olympic marathon in 1972 and
inspired me to become a marathon runner, was
quoted recently saying, “After they killed the
athletes, we thought we were going home. The
marathon got delayed a day. I told [runner] Kenny
Moore, who ended up coming in fourth, that I
was not going to think about terrorists as I ran
because, if I did that, then they win.”
I would have liked Frank Shorter to have said
that he won the marathon to honor his murdered
fellow athletes. Perhaps that is what he meant
when he said “then they win.” He did not want to
give the terrorists any kind of victory.

In any case, the Munich massacre will always
be on the minds of every Israeli athlete who
competes in the Olympics. Many lessons have
been learned after 50 years and many more will
be learned. “Never again” is the goal. JE
Dr. Joseph Frager is chairman of Israel advocacy
for the Rabbinical Alliance of America, chairman
of the executive committee of American Friends
of Ateret Cohanim and executive vice president of
the Israel Heritage Foundation.

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