Putri Anggraini
The September 11 terrorist attacks fundamentally altered the trajectory of United States foreign policy, creating a geopolitical environment that enabled Israeli authorities to reframe their military actions against Palestinians as part of a shared global struggle against terrorism, according to an analysis by Palestinian-American scholar Yousef Munayyer.
Writing on the long-term ramifications of the 2001 attacks, Munayyer, a senior non-resident fellow at the Arab Center Washington DC and former head of the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights, outlined how the ensuing "war on terror" provided a powerful narrative vehicle for Israeli leaders seeking deeper strategic alignment with Washington.
The political utility of the tragedy was recognized almost immediately by Israeli officials. In the direct aftermath of the strikes on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was asked by The New York Times how the disaster would influence relations between the US and Israel. Netanyahu initially responded that the development was "very good" before amending his statement.
Clarifying his initial comment, Netanyahu explained that while the attacks were not inherently good, they would inevitably produce immediate sympathy among Americans and reinforce the bilateral bond connecting the two nations, even as recovery operations commenced at the devastated Ground Zero site in New York where nearly 3,000 victims perished.
This strategic alignment marked a significant departure from the diplomatic dynamics that preceded the 2001 attacks. Throughout the decades of the Cold War, Israel had successfully positioned itself in Washington as an indispensable, democratic ally confronting Soviet-aligned satellite nations across the Arab world.
However, the collapse of the Soviet bloc disrupted that geopolitical framework. The dismantling of the Berlin Wall, the rapid spread of democratic governance across Eastern Europe, and the end of apartheid in South Africa established a new international environment in which Israeli policies were increasingly scrutinized by American policymakers.
During that transitional post-Cold War era, Israeli security forces carried out a heavy-handed suppression of the First Palestinian Intifada. In response, Washington exerted diplomatic leverage against Israeli settlement expansion and made substantial investments in Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations, creating a diplomatic climate where Israel’s regional posture did not align as smoothly with American priorities.
The 2001 hijackings and the outbreak of the Second Palestinian Intifada abruptly reversed that diplomatic friction. The emergence of the global "war on terror" allowed political leaders in Washington and Tel Aviv to replace the defunct communist threat with radical Islam as the primary shared adversary on the world stage.
This conceptual pivot yielded immediate and durable policy outcomes for Israel. In the years following 2001, bilateral ties expanded through elevated intelligence sharing, significant increases in American financial assistance, and newly drafted anti-terrorism statutes in the US that were actively utilized to suppress Palestinian political organizing.
Simultaneously, the broader political narrative underwent a profound transformation. Rather than being viewed through the prism of a population resisting military occupation and human rights violations, Palestinians were increasingly portrayed to the American public strictly as an acute security dilemma.
This framing fostered a sharp binary within American public discourse, categorizing Muslims into rigid groups of either "moderates" or "extremists." Individuals and organizations that voiced criticism of Israeli state policies were frequently pushed into the extremist category, creating an enduring chilling effect on political speech and advocacy.
The shift also extended directly to military doctrine and security methodologies. Israeli tactical measures that had previously drawn occasional rebukes from Washington—including targeted assassinations, mass surveillance, and urban counterinsurgency practices deployed across the West Bank and the Gaza Strip—were subsequently adopted by American forces operating in Iraq and Afghanistan, thereby normalizing these methods among domestic US audiences.
The proliferation of these narratives was accelerated by several prominent commentators and policy advocates across the United States who linked Muslim and Palestinian advocacy directly to national security threats. Figures such as David Horowitz campaigned for demographic profiling and argued that Palestinian identity itself represented a danger.
Similarly, commentators including Daniel Pipes promoted suspicion surrounding mainstream Muslim civic institutions by alleging covert militant ties, while Steven Emerson advanced theories claiming that established Islamic groups were actively infiltrating American society.
Other public figures broadened the scope of the ideological conflict. Brigitte Gabriel characterized political Islam as an existential civilizational menace, positioning Israel as the West's primary frontier defender, while David Yerushalmi led efforts targeting Islamic religious jurisprudence and portraying Muslim political engagement within the United States as fundamentally subversive to American interests.
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