Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel spoke before a joint session of the United States Congress on July 24 to address the terror attacks of October 7 and ask for continued support for his war on Gaza. Before Netanyahu even arrived in Washington DC, my thoughts were already drawn back to September 20, 2001. On that day, nine days after the attacks of September 11, George W. Bush was prepared to address a joint session of the United States Congress. The president was announced as he entered the chamber, and members of Congress greeted him with a standing ovation lasting more than three minutes. Eventually, the applause subsided as the president stood at his podium and the audience sat back down. Before he began his address the speaker of the House told the members of Congress he was honored to present to them the president of the United States. The crowd erupted with another standing ovation.
Two standing ovations before George W. Bush had uttered a single word of his speech. These two rounds of applause established a pattern for the rest of the evening. The president would spend a large percentage of his speech silently looking out at a room full of standing representatives and listening as applause echoed through the chamber.
The speech Bush gave was certainly powerful. I can put myself in that time and remember being a teenager inspired by his words, but the passage of time has not been kind to the contents of his address. Listening now I am no longer filled with a patriotic resolve, but rather a kind of catatonic dread. The twenty-first century was only months old, but the United States was about to set itself on a path littered with self-inflicted wounds as if it were a nation in search of a lethal error. The steps down this path were greeted with rabid applause.
That evening the president declared a Global War on Terror. Nothing less than a holy war against evil. In his own words, “I will not yield. I will not rest. I will not relent in waging the struggle for freedom and security for the American people. The course of this conflict is not known, yet its outcome is certain. Freedom and fear, justice and cruelty have always been at war, and we know that God is not neutral between them.”
I remember believing those words. God was on our side. We might not have known the twists and turns of the journey ahead, but we knew its ultimate destination was freedom, justice, and security. The U.S. government was going to do whatever it needed to do to keep its citizens safe. If war in the Middle East was the only way to achieve our promised outcome, then so be it. The coming war would not be easy, but it would guarantee the safety of all Americans.
Today, looking back on twenty-three years of the Global War on Terror we can now see the fruits of America’s holy war. The course the conflict would take is known. The outcome can be seen, and it is not the one we were promised. Financial ruin brought on by the U.S. government’s futile attempt to make constant war seem affordable. Innocent civilians killed in drone strikes. Children starved to death. American troops killed in lands far from home or dead by their own hand after a supposed safe return. Only the willfully ignorant can deny that these are the true fruits of the Global War on Terror.
Adding to the tragedy, this unfathomable cost of life and wealth was paid to buy a security that was never delivered. This new holy war sold as a solution to terrorism was only a continuation of the same failed strategies that led to the terrorism of September 11. The military occupations of Middle Eastern countries, the support for violence against Palestinians, and the starvation of Iraqi children through sanctions were all policies listed in Osama Bin Laden’s “Letter to America” as justification for Al-Qaeda’s terror attacks. These twentieth century policies were all either continued, intensified, or geographically relocated to other Arab nations in the twenty-first century.
If one madman can be motivated to plan an attack on America, what is stopping another from turning to terror? We need look no further than the 2016 attack on the Pulse Night Club in Orlando, Florida that left 49 people dead and 53 wounded. Fifteen years into the Global War on Terror we saw another maniac committing terrorism and citing American foreign policy, specifically the bombing of Iraq and Syria, as justification. This attack was nowhere close to the scale of September 11, but I imagine that would bring small comfort to those who lost loved ones in the shooting.
The chief reason Americans are not safer now than we were when Bush addressed Congress is that American policymakers were either too ignorant to recognize the root causes of the attacks of September 11 or too unwilling to do anything about them. It was easier to let the nation’s bloodlust run wild than to soberly take account of the situation. But even twenty-three years later when the results of this failed foreign policy are undeniable, the applause in the halls of Congress goes on. Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to Congress on July 24 received the same unified, enthusiastic standing ovations George W. received over two decades ago. Some members of Congress were even present at both addresses. The same hands that clapped on September 20, 2001 were present to clap again on July 24, 2024.
The Israeli prime minister’s speech unsurprisingly hit many of the same notes as the American president’s. Netanyahu claimed, “It’s a clash between barbarism and civilization.” Bush claimed, “This is the world’s fight. This is civilization’s fight.” Netanyahu threatened, “Those who attack Israel will pay a very heavy price.” Bush threatened, “Whether we bring our enemies to justice, or bring justice to our enemies, justice will be done.” The predictable thematic overlap almost made it seem as if July 24 was just the echoing of the same speech and the same applause heard twenty-three years ago.
The reason Netanyahu’s address pulled my mind back to 2001 even before I had heard a single word of the speech is the attacks of October 7 gave a new generation of Israelis their own September 11 and gave their government a new excuse to meet violence with violence. Perhaps a young Israeli citizen listened to Netanyahu’s address as I had listened to Bush’s. Perhaps he too felt inspired by belief in the righteousness of his cause and was moved by the powerful rhetoric of his political leader.
My message to this young Israeli would be the same message I would give to myself in 2001. This proposed violence will not keep your people safe. I empathize with your desire to bring unspeakable pain to those who attacked your country but realize that this is also how the terrorists of September 11 and October 7 felt. This conflict did not start on the day your nation was attacked. Just like you have your reasons for wanting to unleash violence, your attackers had their reasons. Attempting to understand that motivation is the key to moving forward. More violence will only inspire more terrorism. Costs of Israel’s violence in Gaza are already appearing. Rather than increase security it has inspired more terrorism including a recent Houthi drone attack on Tel Aviv that left one person dead and several others injured.
Just as the American Global War on Terror has not led to safety for Americans, neither will an Israeli war on Gaza which kills civilians and aid workers and children lead to safety for the Israeli people; but the applause goes on. The continuation of the same failed policies with the same tragic results continues to be greeted with emphatic standing ovations. Let us hope there will come a generation of teenagers who can learn not to be swept up in the applause and to see that a leader who prescribes the cause of violence as the solution to violence is not a leader worth following.
