By Jonathan S. Tobin
(SEPTEMBER 10, 2021 / JNS) One of the strangest aspects of post-9/11 America has been the compulsion of so many to change the narrative about the attacks that took place 20 years ago. We’re reminded of that due to the bizarre decision of the Anti-Defamation League to commemorate the attack on America by revisiting the organization’s decision to oppose the building of an Islamic center in the shadow of the fallen twin towers of the World Trade Center.
In the immediate aftermath of the terrorist assaults, it was clear what had happened. Al-Qaeda, a radical Islamic terror group led by Osama bin Laden, took their fight against the West to the United States and wound up killing nearly 3,000 Americans. Like it or not, a variant of Islam that could count on considerable support and sympathy from extremist believers forced the West to realize that they were in a war against these forces.
President George W. Bush and the rest of the government, as well as the American media and entertainment industry, went to great lengths to point out that the conflict was only with the radicals who had attacked America rather than all Muslims. But almost immediately, a counter-narrative about 9/11 began to be put forward. In this reading, the real story wasn’t about those who committed the atrocities, their ideology and the way they were linked to other dangerous groups seeking to topple moderate Arab governments and those waging war on the existence of the State of Israel. Instead, for some, the most important thing about 9/11 was that it gave birth to a surge of Islamophobia.
Though there was little or no evidence to support it, a myth that there was a post-9/11 backlash against Muslims in America was embraced by much of the mainstream media and others who purported to advocate for civil rights. Among the leaders of this effort was the Council of American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a group that had its origins as a front to raise funds for Hamas terrorists in the United States.
