Anti-Semitic Terrorism: Are You Interested?

When I visited New York on September 11, the monstrosity of Islamic terrorism was clearly revealed. The survivors were left alone.

NEW YORK, SEPTEMBER 11, 2024: A woman cries during a memorial service for the victims of the terrorist attacks. Photo: Lev radin/ZUMA Press/imago

The day before an Austrian Islamist was shot by police in an attempted attack on the Israeli consulate and a Nazi documentation center in Munich, I visited the 9/11 Memorial Museum in New York.

This is my first time in the city and I can hardly stand the museum. It reminds me too much of the massacre that occurred in Israel on October 7th. Comparisons between the attacks have been made repeatedly. Similarities are drawn in the scale of the terror, the attack on the sense of security of both countries, and the intention to create an image of violence. Less attention has been paid to the consistent worldview of the Islamists, their core.

The Islamist declaration of war on September 11, 23 years ago, was not just against the United States and Western democracies. As Samuel Salzborn explained a few years ago, 9/11 was also an anti-Semitic attack.

A few days before my visit to the museum, I was standing at the Berlin airport, where Israeli soldiers were recovering the bodies of six hostages killed by Hamas: Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Carmel Gat, Eden Yerushalmi, Almog Sarussi, Ori Danino and Alexander Lobanov. I later saw their faces on stickers in the New York cityscape. The phrase “Bring them home” is often written underneath, a phrase that includes the unspoken adjective “alive” and can now only be read as evidence of the failure to bring the hostages home and the extent of the terror.

Time together

Taylor Swift concert, failed attacks in Solingen, Munich, failed attacks on German soldiers in Hof on Friday, and an attack on a Jewish center in Brooklyn, New York, was also prevented while I was there. A Pakistani Islamist from Canada wanted to commit “genocide” and kill “as many Jews as possible.” Just before that, he was shopping and eating tacos in a vintage store in Brooklyn.

After the Solingen attack, Hendrik Wüst, the Prime Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia, spoke about the before and after. This also applies to those affected by the terror attack. For them, time is divided. There is no longer a day when their house was not hit by a rocket, when they could hug their loved ones, when they still felt safe, and the day after when everything was destroyed.

I wonder how many sentences before us are left now? 3, 5, 10? Since at least October 7th, it has felt like we are in an eternal afterlife. It feels like the past has long since faded into memory. That is the danger of terrorism. Even if it is prevented, it makes you feel alone as part of a group that needs to be attacked. Because in most societies, after an attack like Munich, everything is the same as before.

How many years are we away from the threat that Jews will not be forgotten even after just a few days? How many times do we have to demand an intifada on the streets of Germany before we understand the danger of becoming accustomed to this form of glorification of terror?

Jews are openly thinking about emigration and calculating the urgency. They are worried that they will no longer be able to protect their children in this country.

Does anyone care? Does it upset you? If so, what do you draw from it?

The Islamic terrorism in Germany has never disappeared. It has been quiet for years, but this calmness is deceptive. Sometimes, they say, distance is needed to understand things better. One thing has become clearer because there is an Atlantic between me and Germany. Loneliness is visible, and you have to have the space to look away.