I had such a strange experience the other night.
It might not seem strange reading about it. But please know that when it happened I was TRANSFIXED.
I had an unexpected empty house with my kids all away, and after a brief moment of thinking I should ask someone to catch up…I realised how exhausted I was and decided to just chill at home.
While I was attempting to upload something on YouTube I had a video recommendation pop up that honestly didn’t seem interesting. I get 9/11 suggestions all the time. But for some reason I decided to click on it. And maybe it was the fact that I had a completely free evening…but I started watching this clip that I mistakenly assumed was a two minute video…but turned out to be TWO HOURS!
And here’s what’s so crazy. I WATCHED THE WHOLE THING!!
Because…I realised that I had actually never seen any of the ACTUAL footage of the Twin Towers being attacked.
As in, of course I’ve seen the planes crashing into the buildings. And then the building falling down. And I’ve seen people covered in white dust escaping. And firefighters in stairwells. And Manhattan covered in office papers and smoke.
But no…I’ve actually never seen any footage of what was happening inside the World Trade Centre.
I WAS MESMERISED.
The opening scene are firefighters inspecting a manhole. It’s super boring footage. Just another day on the job. But of course me knowing what is about to take place means that I just keep watching, waiting for that first plane to show up. Instead of switching off the video and telling myself I already know this…I kept watching.
Which meant that I’m now being taken along into the WTC and seeing what the first responders experienced.
This isn’t the usual snapshots I’ve seen countless times over the 25 years since. Where they show the most dramatic moments.
It was actually very dull viewing. Mostly firefighters who weren’t rushing or yelling. Just waiting to get updates on elevators working and gathering information. The setting is pristine. Which I had never seen. I actually had no idea what the World Trade Centres looked like inside before the attack. Again, what made it compelling was that I knew what was about to happen. At the time the impact of the plane seemed very distant and contained.
All this to say that what made me keep watching was that I thought I knew about 9/11. But seeing it from this perspective was soooooo different to anything I have watched. It wasn’t really until the second plane hit that you could even sense the tension. And even then, it felt so “mundane”.
And as I’m watching this disaster unfold in what felt like slow-motion….
I had this moment of realising that this is what it’s going to be like for sooooo many people in the future. When they finally engage with the genocide in Gaza. Like once they allow themselves to watch the footage. And to truly absorb the reality (as much as is actually possible from the comforts of our screens).
And they’ll have this ‘‘AHA moment” where the penny drops.
The difference is of course that there was no moral obligation for me to engage with the World Trade Centers being attacked.
But really, everyone who lives in a country that is complicit in the genocide have a moral responsibility to engage. Even if it’s just something as simple as voting for leaders who will support BDS (Boycotting, Divesting and Sanctioning)
The photo is of me just before September 11, 2001.
I was attempting to live in Jerusalem with my then husband and two young children.
I was very much a Zionist.
And funnily enough, that is actually Mount Zion in the background.
I will be eternally grateful that not long after the western world imploded because of September 11, my own world imploded…which set of a chain of events that eventually set me free from the death cult of Zionism.
I know that I know that I know that I could still be a Zionist today and that is why I do allow for conversations with Zionists…because I’m painfully aware that it’s only luck that I’m not one of them.