PM Netanyahu on 9/11: The world must unite against terrorism

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu opened Sunday's cabinet meeting with a tribute to the victims of the 9/11 attacks, urging the world to stand together in the face of terrorism.

"Today we mark 15 years since the terrorist attacks on 9/11," he said.

"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. 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."

Netanyahu also addressed the issue of incitement to terrorism online, particularly on social media sites, welcoming cooperation from social networking giant Facebook, which recently sent a delegation to Israel, to help root out incitement.

At the same time, the American Embassy in Israel, together with the Jewish National Fund and JNF-USA, held a state memorial ceremony for 9/11 victims on Sunday at the Living Memorial Plaza, on the outskirts of Jerusalem.

At the ceremony were representatives of victims' families; U.S. Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro; Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat; Deputy Diplomacy Minister at the Prime Minister's Office Michael Oren; and JNF-USA chairman and World Jewish Congress President Ronald Lauder. About 50 American police officers, some of whom were among the Sept. 11 rescue teams, laid flowers at the monument on the site, which is made from remnants of the World Trade Center's Twin Towers that fell in the attack.

At the ceremony, Shapiro took special note of the Israeli victims of 9/11 and asked: "Have we done enough to ensure that the next generation, and future generations, fully comprehend the calamity that befell us that day, the ways it changed us, and the responsibility it imposes on us-

"Israelis have repeatedly been faced with this question. They are a nation that has endured countless tragedies and more than one existential crisis, each of which shattered individual lives and stung an entire generation.

"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."

At the same time, memorial ceremonies took place in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania, as Americans marked the 15 years that have passed since nearly 3,000 people were killed in the attacks.

President Barack Obama led a ceremony at the Pentagon, where one of the four hijacked jets crashed, killing 184 people. He laid a commemorative wreath and then addressed a gathering of victims' families outside a flag-draped Pentagon. He told family members that "we will never forget."

"We remember and we will never forget the nearly 3,000 beautiful lives taken from us so cruelly," he said. "We come together in prayer and in gratitude for the strength that has fortified us across these 15 years."

Obama reminded those gathered of radical attacks in the U.S. since 2001, and asked for continued diligence as Americans continued to mourn and reflect.

"Fifteen years into this fight, the threat has evolved," he said. "With our stronger defenses, terrorists often attempt attacks on a smaller, but still deadly, scale. Hateful ideologies urge people in their own country to commit unspeakable violence. We've mourned the loss of innocence from Boston to San Bernardino to Orlando. Groups like al-Qaida, like ISIL [Islamic State], know that they will never be able to defeat a nation as great and as strong as America, so instead they try to terrorize in the hopes that they can stoke enough fear that we turn on each other and we change who we are or how we live."

At Ground Zero in Manhattan, where the twin towers of the World Trade Center were felled by hijacked planes and where most of the fatalities occurred that day, Americans commemorated the attacks by reciting the names of the dead, tolling church bells and conducting a tribute in lights.

As classical music drifted across the 9/11 Memorial Plaza in lower Manhattan, family members and first responders slowly read the names and delivered personal memories of the victims killed in the worst attack on U.S. territory since the 1941 bombing of Pearl Harbor.


Credit: Reuters

The ceremony paused for six moments of silence: four to mark the exact times the four hijacked planes were crashed, into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon near Washington D.C., and a Pennsylvania field. The last two honored the moments when the North and South towers of the World Trade Center collapsed.

The ceremony was held beside the two reflecting pools with waterfalls that now stand in the towers' former footprints, and was watched over by an honor guard of police and firefighters.

No public officials spoke at the New York ceremony, in keeping with a tradition that began in 2012. But many dignitaries attended, including Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump and his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.

Tom Acquarviva lost his 29-year-old son Paul, who worked at financial services firm Canter Fitzgerald on the 101st to 105th floors of the North Tower, just above where the first plane struck. Paul Acquarviva was one of 658 Cantor Fitzgerald employees killed in the attack.

"We miss him terribly. Terribly, terribly, terribly. Not a day goes by that we don't remember him," Acquarviva told Reuters.

But he said he felt a sense of hope: "There are more people here today than there ever have been."

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