In Israel, 9/11 marked with shared grief, vow to fight terror together

Israeli politicians and American officials in Israel marked the 15th anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terror attacks, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying Israel stands “shoulder to shoulder” with the United States in combating Islamic terrorism.

“We remember the victims. We embrace their loved ones. We stand with our greatest ally, the United States of America, and with other partners in the battle against militant Islamic terrorism that spreads its fear, its dread, its murder around the world,” Netanyahu said at the start of his cabinet meeting.

Netanyahu made the remarks in English.

“Our memories are long, our determination is boundless. Civilized societies must band together to defeat these forces of darkness, and I’m sure we will,” he said.

Netanyahu’s remarks Sunday morning came ahead of most US memorials of the devastating al-Qaeda hijackings of September 11, 2001, that killed nearly 3,000 people in the first foreign attack on the US mainland in nearly two centuries.

Outside Jerusalem, US Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro and others gathered at Israel’s 9/11 memorial to pay their respects at an official ceremony.

“Perhaps none can identify more with our pain than Israelis,” Shapiro said.

Shapiro praised the Jewish approach to remembrance, and said the US could learn from a “people that knows how to honor and grieve its losses, but also unites in common purpose to build, to serve, to protect, and to live out its most sacred values.”

“Where Israelis have excelled, and where we continue to learn from them, is in conveying the power of memory and history forward, so that each successive generation understands the meaning and the obligations that flow from events which they cannot personally recall,” the ambassador said.

The Sunday memorial service was also attended by Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat, former Israeli ambassador to the US Michael Oren, Deputy Director General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Jeremy Issacharoff, and other officials.

The memorial was dedicated in 2009 by the Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael – Jewish National Fund. It’s often cited as the only memorial outside the US with all 2,996 victims’ names.

“Jews had been the targets of terror since before this county was founded in 1948. This is why the sadness of 9/11 was so overwhelming in this country 15 years ago. This is why Israelis grieve for their friends in America. And that is why there is a memorial to the victims of that hateful crime here in Jerusalem,” said philanthropist Ron Lauder, who heads the JNF board.

On September 11, 2001, al-Qaeda terrorists killed more than 2,750 people when two passenger jets destroyed the Twin Towers or the World Trade Center. Another jet slammed into the Pentagon, and a fourth jet crashed in a field in Pennsylvania after those on board tried to overpower the hijackers.

Nearly 75,000 people live with mental and physical illnesses as a result of the attacks, many of them emergency workers who breathed in cancerous toxins as they valiantly tried to save lives.

In the last 15 years, New York has sought to craft a balance between remembering the victims and the carnage and doing what it does best: endless regenerating, rebuilding and looking toward the future.

The World Trade Center site has been totally rebuilt, home to the National September 11 Memorial and Museum, the world’s most expensive train station, a performing arts center and offices.

On Saturday, US President Barack Obama urged Americans to remain united in the face of terrorist attacks, in a barely veiled jab at Republican White House nominee Donald Trump’s bombastic rhetoric toward Muslims.

“In the face of terrorism, how we respond matters,” Obama said in his weekly radio and online address. “Because it’s our diversity, our welcoming of all talent, our treating of everybody fairly — no matter their race, gender, ethnicity, or faith — that’s part of what makes our country great. It’s what makes us resilient.”

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.