LIZ PEEK: We cannot let the left rewrite what happened on 9/11
As we approach the 25th anniversary of 9/11, there are many in our country who want us to pretend that the greatest attack on the United States since Pearl Harbor never happened. They want us to look away from the Muslim terrorists who flew planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and who drove another plane full of innocents to their deaths in a grassy Pennsylvania field. They want us to forget that on that day in 2001, Americans came under attack for reasons that few understood, from a far-away people who loathe our culture, our freedoms and our country.
When Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., dismissively says, "Some people did something," she is trying to erase the truth. She wants us to forget who it was who purposefully killed 2,977 people who were going about their daily lives, unaware of the Saudi jihadis who schemed and plotted for years to cause as much death and suffering as possible to our great nation.
Sorry, Ilhan — I remember.
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I remember my young daughters calling home terrified that the planes had hit their father's office, which was across the street from the Twin Towers. I remember my husband's colleagues witnessing the panicked souls jumping to their deaths from the towers, and the rain of ashes that blanketed the entire downtown area. He was in midtown at the time of the attack, but his co-workers were not so lucky, navigating the pitch-dark stairwells of the neighboring building and wading through the debris-darkened chaos. Some walked miles to our uptown apartment, stranded by the closure of the city's bridges and tunnels; they arrived frightened and exhausted, covered head to toe in ashes.
Life stood still, as New Yorkers watched on television the frantic recovery efforts at Ground Zero. The city's ambulance drivers gathered to help the injured, but most returned home empty-handed; there were few survivors. We watched the heroic efforts of firefighters and police officers who raced into the falling buildings as others tried to get out; most were trapped and died there.
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I recall the horror of the buildings collapsing, knowing what it meant for those left inside. In the days that followed, I remember calling friends and slowly piecing together who we had lost, and who had survived. Everyone knew someone who perished — a husband, a son, a friend. Lives were forever changed, darkened by hateful strangers.
People forget that in the days after 9/11, other attacks were expected. The enormity of the coordinated strikes suggested a military-type offensive. Everyone stayed home, avoiding Grand Central Terminal and other possible targets, not knowing whether it was safe to venture out. No major events took place in Manhattan for weeks; the city went dark except for the fires that smoldered for months where the Twin Towers once stood.
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Several weeks later, the New York Philharmonic performed the Brahms Requiem before a crowd that included Mayor Rudy Giuliani, New York Gov. George Pataki and other officials. My husband and I attended that concert, nervous — as was everyone — that so many luminaries gathering in one place might attract the next assault. It was the first time we had walked through body scanners, the first time our bags were searched. Life in America had forever changed, thanks to Muslim extremists who threatened our way of life.
That night, the audience stood and sang our national anthem; the orchestra played under an historic 48-star American flag that had been used in Carnegie Hall concerts during World War II. At the conclusion, as requested, there was no applause. Everyone filed out in silence, many in tears.
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So yes, Ilhan — I remember. I remember Americans learning the significance of the date 9/11, which some said commemorated a battle in 1683, in which the king of Poland waged war against the Ottoman Empire's advance into Europe. Muslim jihadis, including mastermind Usama bin Laden, reportedly viewed this as a seminal event in the long conflict between Islam and the West. Most Americans had little idea that such a conflict existed.
Today, 25 years later, leftist educators are erasing this history, encouraging those who blame America for the horrifying mass murder. At least 40 states require public schools to address the 9/11 terror attacks, but the "provisions vary widely in scope, specificity and framing," the Associated Press reports. According to one survey of Middle East professors, the majority of college students have no idea why nearly 3,000 Americans died on that day.
A curriculum from the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education, which has been picked up by several Democratic-run states, includes this: "On the 11th of September, 2001, 19 hijackers flew two airplanes into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York, one airplane into the Pentagon in Virginia and a fourth into a field in Pennsylvania. A total of 2,996 people were killed, including the hijackers." The lesson further says, "The U.S. accused Saudi national Osama bin Laden…of being the mastermind behind the attacks." No mention of bin Laden's confessions, or his well-documented jihad against the U.S. Not a word about who those 19 hijackers were.
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Instead of teaching about Muslim terrorists, radical Israel-hating teachers in the U.S. focus on Islamophobia, a bigotry barely witnessed but much touted on the left. So far this year in New York, there have been 27 hate crimes against Muslims, about 6 percent of the total, compared to 229, or 54%, targeting Jews. Islamophobia is not the problem.
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Why the concerted effort to bury the truth about 9/11? Muslim Democrats, like Abdul El-Sayed, who is running for the Senate in Michigan, or New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, want to distance themselves from the horrific murder of nearly 3,000 Americans, but it is not their religion that earns them opprobrium; it is their contempt for the United States and hatred toward our ally Israel.
Americans must not tolerate this rewriting of recent history. We must also not tolerate antisemitism. Those who say Israel is our enemy should answer this: When was the last time Jewish terrorists attacked Americans?
Twenty-five years later, we still mourn the friends we lost, the brave first responders who made the ultimate sacrifice, and thousands of others who died at Ground Zero. Not speaking out about what really happened on 9/11 and who was responsible is to dishonor those tragic souls.
That is unacceptable.