9/11 Tribute

Today, my birthday but this post is not about celebrating me or my birthday. I live in New York City and nine years ago on this day, America was attacked. I just wanted to take this moment to remember everyone who lost their life on 9/11.

I still remember that day like it was yesterday. I worked the night shift at Maimonides, left the hospital at around 7:30 AM and got to my apartment in Park Slope, Brooklyn after 8 AM. I did my usual routine at home: took a shower, ate breakfast, and turned the radio on to listen to the news. My roommate and I were moving out of our apartment and she took our only television set back to New Mexico. So, I did not have a television set. I did hear on the radio that a plane was on the World Trade Center and I thought, “a plane is landing on the World Trade Center, how odd? Planes can’t land there.” And then I drifted off to sleep. Not knowing what had happened in New York, Pennsylvania, or Washington DC.

I woke up at 1 PM, still unaware something had happened in my city. I turned on my phone to listen to my messages since it was my birthday and had none. I thought it was odd that my family had not called me yet on my birthday. I looked out the window and I saw a lot of people walking and talking very loudly on their cell phone and heard “I can’t believe what happened”. And I saw a lot of debris in the air. I knew something was wrong but did not know what. I turned on the radio again but just got bits and pieces of information. It was something about the World Trade Center.

I got dressed and headed for the nearest pay phone to talk to someone, anyone. I called my sister first and she told me the bad news. Both of the twin towers had crumbled to the ground. I couldn’t believe what she was saying. She also told me my cell phone wasn’t working since she tried to call me earlier and couldn’t get a hold of me. Apparently, my entire family tried to call me to see if I was okay and got a busy signal.

I headed to the nearest bar to watch the news and stood in complete shock. Everyone in the bar was silent. I couldn’t believe what I saw – people jumping out of the floors of the World Trade Center. People covered in soot. The entire twin towers gone. A plane crashing in the middle of a field in Pennsylvania. The pentagon. So many people dead. People looking for their loved one in hospitals and carrying a missing person sign. I just couldn’t believe what I saw.

9/11/2001 was the longest day in my entire life. I have never felt so alone in my life as I did on that day. I moved to NY in April of that year and really knew one or two people, but they were not in New York at the time. There was no one I could have spoken to that day to really vent my feelings. Since it was my birthday, I treated myself to a Thai dinner but took it home so I can go over the day’s events in my head. This day I will never forget.

9/11 Tribute

9/11 WTC

After 9/11: the Israel-US catastrophe

The 9/11 attacks had barely happened and the smouldering wreckage in New York and

Washington was still shocking America and the world.

Israel already saw an opportunity. Then former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu was asked to express his feelings about the terrorist action in the immediate aftermath.

"It's very good," he said. He quickly added: ''Well, not very good, but it will generate immediate sympathy."

He argued that the attack would "strengthen the bond between our two peoples, because we've experienced terror over so many decades, but the United States has now experienced a massive haemorrhaging of terror."

In 2008 the Likud leader hadn't changed his views. He told an audience at Bar Ilan University that 9/11 remained a positive for Israel.

"We are benefiting from one thing, and that is the attack on the Twin Towers and Pentagon, and the American struggle in Iraq," Netanyahu said. The events had "swung American public opinion in our favour".

Israel's ambassador to America, Michael Oren, continued this deluded thinking last week.

The logic was clear; as long as Washington could be convinced (or hoodwinked) that Israel was fighting the same battle, Zionist expansion in the occupied, Palestinian territories and constant intransigence in the region would be rewarded by American largesse.

This symbiotic relationship has led both nations to share similar foreign policy goals but the results have been disastrous; America and Israel have contributed to a decade of unprecedented decline and imperial overreach, despite some wishful thinking within academia.

Not that such views are ever heard in the American Congress or Australian Parliament; our politicians are obsessed with displaying loyalty to Zionism at every conceivable opportunity. By their actions, they are killing any chance of Israel surviving as a Jewish state into the future without expanding apartheid against the Palestinians.

Witness the increased isolation of Israel in the Middle East, with traditional allies Turkey and Egypt turning away from the Zionist state's arrogance. It is a welcome realignment. America's ability to shield Israel from the consequences of its actions has diminished. Israel faces, in the words of Israeli editor of Haaretz Aluf Benn, a "political tsunami".

Not that this has stopped Israeli leaders praising the deep and expanding backing offered by the Obama administration towards Israel. Defence minister Ehud Barak recently told Fox News that, "I can hardly remember a better period of support, American support and cooperation and similar strategic understanding of events around us than what we have right now".

Although many American Jewish voters are reportedly concerned with the occasional criticisms uttered by Obama against the Zionist colonies in the West Bank (comments almost immediately retracted once Israel rejects the pressure), the US president has essentially followed the script written by previous American leaders; Israel is a nation that must be endlessly indulged.

There are a host of examples of this backing but a WikiLeaks cable confirms that the US actively assisted Egypt and Israel in its brutal siege of the Gaza Strip in the last years. One and a half million people in the Gaza Strip are being punished for daring to elect Hamas in the 2006 elections. This collective punishment is illegal under international law.

The catastrophe of the Israeli and American relationship over the last decade has been its wilful inability to engender any respect for its actions. Military might has actually caused wholesome rejection of decades of established order. There is a collective crisis of confidence despite overwhelming military might. Israel has never been better armed and protected by its super-power boss and yet almost daily in the Israeli press one reads paranoia about the country's current direction. Even the massive recent Israeli tent protests largely chose to ignore the Palestinians. Clearly a desire for social justice only goes so far.

Despite this, however - and the sentiment is blindly repeated in the Zionist Diaspora, including Australia - there's little awareness of why Zionism is on the ropes. Nobody dares mention the West Bank occupation - with houses rapidly expanding at twice the rate inside Israel proper - or how to be welcomed into the civilised group of nations without bullying friends into support.

The Middle East after the Arab Spring has changed but perhaps nobody sent the memo to the Israeli political elite.

September 11 offered a seductive narrative that allowed Israel and its backers to hitch a ride on the escalating war machine unleashed by America in the vein hope that the world would finally understand its own "war against terror". The opposite has occurred, with the strongest and most publicly proud backers of Israeli wars today the global, fascist Right.

Revealingly, such adulation is welcomed in many circles within Israel itself. Orthodox Jewish Knesset member Nissim Zeev told Newsweek in February: "At the end of the day, what's important is their [the fascists] attitude - the fact they really love Israel."

We are now seeing this fused nexus between the far Right and Zionist supporters in Australia, backing the Israeli-owned chocolate shop Max Brenner, accusing the backers of Palestinian rights of Nazism. This is coming from individuals and groups that loathe Muslims and love Israel for its racially discriminatory policies towards Arabs.

Shamefully some Greens MPs, such as Jeremy Buckingham in New South Wales and leader Bob Brown, are unwilling to wholeheartedly support Palestinians. Instead, they befriend those who abuse them.

Boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) is a worldwide campaign that deserves support - the effectiveness of such moves are apparent when the Murdoch press, Labor and Liberal parties, Zionist heads and union leaders continually and offensively accuse backers of anti-Semitism - and yet only NSW Greens MP Lee Rhiannon bravely endorses the non-violent movement without shame.

Unlike many other Greens in the public arena, she recognises that it isn't enough to simply mouth platitudes about human rights; action is required that may well upset the Zionist lobby and conservative media. Bob Brown should understand this, as one of the legacies of 9/11 is the importance of giving voice to those victims suffering under our repression. Palestinians are the perfect candidates.

While most of the corporate media prefers to ignore the ramifications of blindly backing every military misadventure by America and Israel - Rupert Murdoch's The Australian last weekend comically referred to Western "values" being secure 10 years after 9/11, preferring to forget the millions of dead Muslims caused by unquestioning neo-conservatism - the Arab world doesn't forget. Perpetual war remains the default setting of Washington, rightly damned by Tariq Ali as reaching its climax with the cheering execution of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan.

Non-accountable executive power is unquestioned by many in the years since 9/11 and even challenging its validity invites verbal and physical threats.

I should know, having been at the receiving end of this bile for daring to ask why "they" really hate us (it's not about our supposed Western freedoms) as well as refusing to believe that Israel is at the forefront of this "war on terror" and must be supported.

In reality, Zionist actions have made us Jews less safe than one decade ago.

In Palestine itself, the effect of the 9/11 attacks have been undeniably grim. Amira Hass, a journalist from the Israeli paper Haaretz, reflected on this week's anniversary:

My routine reporting laboured to remind the Israeli readers about our repressive military domination, and make visible the spiralling number of Palestinian civilian casualties, killed by the Israeli army. A doomed attempt. The Israeli vocabulary had space for Israeli pain and bereavement only. It made no causal link between supremacy and revolt, repression and revenge.

Her despairing words ring true today. Too many Jews remain incapable of acknowledging the disastrous legacy of our religion being hijacked by fundamentalist Zionists who craved the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, endless occupation of Palestine, drone strikes in Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan and never-ceasing threats against Iran.

The Jewish community has neither rejected destructive neo-conservatism from its ranks nor acknowledged that supposed protection of Israel was a stated reason for causing chaos in the Middle East and the 9/11 attacks.

Furthermore, Israeli public opinion has moved far rightward in the last decade, adopted and defended anti-Arab and anti-democratic legislation and justified brutal tactics against Palestinians in the West Bank.

The US and Australia support this apartheid in Palestine because their actions contribute to an atmosphere of unquestioning Zionist love.

A viable two-state solution is long dead and buried with the upcoming UN vote on Palestine mere window-dressing and desperation from a Western-funded and corrupt Palestinian Authority wanting to appear relevant.

This is our legacy and this is our responsibility.

When the American government, followed by dutiful Western allies such as Australia, crush any chance of Palestinian self-determination, we shouldn't be surprised that faith in Obama and Israel is rock bottom.

Working against Western exceptionalism and not excusing criminal behaviour of our supposed friends and allies is a great challenge of our age. If 9/11 taught us anything, it is that state terror always dwarves the actions of a committed bunch of extremists.

The victims know this well.

Small cities struggle to pay for 9/11 memorials

The memorial started with a steel beam salvaged from the World Trade Center — a

small piece of the terrorist attacks that the city of Pembroke Pines, Fla., was determined to honor in its own way.

Nobody from this coastal town died on Sept. 11. But plans for its memorial grew ever more elaborate — at one point projected to cost more than $1 million — as the years passed.

"It was a glass-enclosed, air-conditioned house," recalled the city's mayor, Frank Ortis. "With a reflection pool and water running down, hurricane-resistant glass. Obviously we couldn't do that."

Hundreds of small memorials to Sept. 11 have bloomed across the country in the 10 years since the attacks. But in many towns, what began as a simple tribute to the dead turned into an expensive headache as the cost of building such memorials ballooned and the economy deteriorated.

Still short of funds, some cities dramatically scaled down the scope of the projects, paid the outstanding bill with public money or abandoned a memorial altogether. Others remain unfinished with no completion date in sight.

The numbers are minuscule compared with what it cost to build the major national memorials: $700 million for the National September 11 Memorial & Museum in New York City and at least $60 million for the Flight 93 memorial near Shanksville, Pa. But like these small towns, even the Flight 93 memorial is still struggling to raise enough money to build its original design — organizers need to raise about $10 million to finish the memorial's first phase and maintain it in the future.

Jerry Sanford, a former New York City firefighter, has been soliciting money since 2004 for a granite memorial in the shape of an American flag to be displayed in North Naples, Fla. Through private donations, he has raised about $600,000 — but he still needs $800,000 more to pay for the granite.

Sanford had been hoping to unveil the memorial in time for the 10th anniversary, but now he doesn't know when it will be completed.

"Times are very different now," he said. "The unemployment is rampant. People are out of work. The economy is bad."

There was a nationwide rush to build Sept. 11 memorials in the first few years after the attacks that has since subsided, said Erika Doss, a professor at the University of Notre Dame and author of the book "Memorial Mania: Public Feeling in America."

"Once the recession hit, the economic possibilities of doing so went away," said Doss, who discovered about 400 memorials to 9/11 while researching her book. "People still wanted to do it, but it became more and more difficult."

It's impossible to say how much money has been spent on the proliferation of memorials of all kinds across the U.S. — from makeshift crosses on the side of the road to massive monuments — because most are funded through a combination of private and public money.

Memorials weren't always popular in this country, though. In fact, after World War II, monuments were eschewed in favor of "living memorials" like auditoriums and swimming pools named in memory of veterans, Doss said. A construction boom began in the 1980s when the Vietnam Veterans Memorial opened on the National Mall to much fanfare, Doss said.

"It has ushered in lots and lots of other groups demanding that they be represented by a memorial in the public sphere," she said. "People think if they can make a memorial, they can come to terms with what happened."

In Oklahoma City, the memorial to the 1995 bombing of the federal building that killed 168 people receives visitors from all 50 states every month of the year, said Kari Watkins, the executive director.

"They want to remember, and they're looking for the reason why," she said. "They're searching."

After the 9/11 attacks, Dennis Stout, then the district attorney in San Bernardino County, Calif., began an effort to build a pair of memorials to the victims, one east of Los Angeles and a twin in New York.

His nonprofit group, called the Freedom's Flame Sept. 11 Memorial, had a solid start, raising more than $200,000 in its first two years. It picked a design, which depicts people escaping down a staircase at the twin towers while rescuers climb up. They paid for renderings.

But when Stout failed to win re-election, the donations dried up. Now, nearly a decade after the effort began, there is still no memorial. The money is largely gone, too, spent partly on organizing a temporary, traveling memorial exhibit made up of limestone cladding from the Pentagon, a damaged FDNY fire truck and World Trade Center steel. Today they have only around $20,000 left in the bank, out of nearly $262,000 raised.

Stout says he hasn't given up. But he is also realistic about his chances of building the two monuments, which had an estimated cost of $15 million.

"It's a wonderful idea," he said. "But, as you are well aware, there are wonderful ideas that don't get finished every day."

Residents complained about a memorial that was set to open Sunday in the horse-racing village of Wellington, Fla., where officials failed to raise enough money to pay for it and were forced to use about $300,000 from the town budget. Along with a steel beam from the towers, this memorial features a glass-paneled pergola and a fountain with a gas-lit "eternal flame" that will burn day and night.

Matt Willhite, the vice mayor who has championed the project from the beginning, acknowledged that the town has no discernible connection to the terror attacks, but he doesn't think that's the point.

"The comments have been made: 'Well, why would we pay to put this thing in our city?'" he said. "I say, well, why not in Wellington? It's become my life lately, trying to perpetuate the memory of these people."

In Englewood, N.J., which lost two people in the twin towers, Police Chief Michael Cioffi felt compelled to create a memorial in the center of town about two years ago because he was worried that people were starting to forget. He wanted to bring back that sense of unity that enveloped the U.S. immediately after Sept. 11 — that time when American flags flew everywhere, when the country was united, he said.

"It might just bring back a memory," Cioffi said. "It might keep the fire burning."

Yet Cioffi's project has financial troubles of its own: He still can't come up with the $30,000 needed to pay for the granite.

In Pembroke Pines, commissioners finally voted in May to spend about $167,000 on a steel gazebo near city hall that will shelter the World Trade Center beam. Even with private donations, the city was still forced to borrow about $80,000 from its general obligation fund, which pays for road repairs, parks and libraries, among other things.

Officials are hoping they can recoup that money with a new round of fundraisers. The memorial was unveiled to the public Sunday.

"I think it'll be easier to fundraise once they see it," Ortis said. "Some people say we should just forget about it and go on. We didn't think so."

Associated Press writer David B. Caruso and News Researcher Julie Reed contributed to this report.

Visitors find peace as 9/11 memorial opens to public

NEW YORK -- The plot of land known for a decade as "the pile," "the pit" an

d Ground Zero opened to the public Monday for the first time since that terrible morning in 2001, transformed into a memorial consisting of two serene reflecting pools ringed by the chiseled-in-bronze names of the nearly 3,000 people lost.

The 9/11 memorial plaza opened its gates at 10 a.m. under tight, airport-style security. Visitors walked among hundreds of white oak trees on the 8-acre site and gazed at the water on the exact spots where the World Trade Center's twin towers stood.

They also ran their fingers over the names of the 2,977 people killed in the terrorist attacks in New York, at the Pentagon and in Pennsylvania, as well as the six who died in the bombing of the trade center in 1993.

"It's so surreal. When we walked in, those images were popping in my head from 10 years ago," said Laura Pajar, a pharmaceutical industry researcher from Las Vegas. "But when I saw the memorial, all of that went away. This is so peaceful, and you kind of forget about what happened, and you look toward the future."

Jim Drzewiecki, a volunteer firefighter from Lancaster, N.Y., said he was shaking as he walked up to the memorial entrance and stood next to the pools.

"It makes it clear how devastating -- to see the number of people who lost their lives at this location," he said. He added: "I'm actually still shaking. It could have been me on that flight."

Eileen Cristina of Lititz, Pa., who a decade ago volunteered her services as a massage therapist to the landfill workers who handled the trade center debris, was moved to tears.

"For me, the water element is very important, because water is so cleansing. Water can cleanse the energy of the area," she said.

Visitors sat on benches and clustered for photos in front of the trees. Some wept, some embraced. Others made pencil-and-paper rubbings of the victims' names. Sun gleamed off the bronze parapets on which the names were inscribed.

The memorial plaza opened to the families of the victims for the first time Sunday.

Although thousands of construction workers have come and gone from the site over the years, Monday marked the first time that ordinary Americans without a badge, a press pass or a hard hat were able to walk the grounds where the victims were once entombed in a mountain of smoking rubble.

About 7,000 people were issued tickets for opening day. About 400,000 have reserved tickets for the coming months, memorial president Joe Daniels said.

Admission is free, but access is tightly controlled. Visitors need to obtain passes in advance, allowing them to enter at a specified time. No more than about 1,500 at a time are allowed in.

The museum portion of the complex is still under construction. The museum pavilion, a tilting structure that evokes the sections of the trade center facade that remained standing after the towers fell, is scheduled to open on the attacks' 11th anniversary.