Swords of Iron Day 1071: Two Days the World Must Never Forget

Friends, my heart hurts when I look at the images from September 11 in the United States and then look at October 7 here in Israel. On Swords of Iron Day 1071, those two days sit side by side in my mind and refuse to separate.

When I carry this weapon, the shepherd’s staff that keeps evil from succeeding, I think about the unity that rose out of those attacks. And I think about what happens when good people stay quiet and the righteous refuse to stand in the gap.

What Happened on September 11

Nineteen Al Qaeda terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners. Two struck the World Trade Center. One struck the Pentagon. On Flight 93, ordinary passengers fought back and brought the plane down in a Pennsylvania field before it could reach its target.

Nearly three thousand people were murdered that morning.

Then something remarkable happened. First responders ran toward the fire while everyone else ran away. Americans stopped arguing with each other. Airspace closed, New York emptied, and a country that had spent the previous day divided stood as one against terrorism. NATO invoked Article 5, its collective defense clause, for the first and only time in its history.

Then Came October 7

Thousands of Hamas terrorists poured across the border into southern Israel. They massacred the communities around Gaza. They hunted young people at the Nova music festival. They murdered about twelve hundred people, wounded thousands more, and dragged 251 people into Gaza as hostages.

Women. Children. Elderly people. Holocaust survivors who had already outlived one attempt to destroy them.

Israel went into emergency mode. More than three hundred thousand reservists left their homes, their jobs, and their children. We began the long work of dismantling Hamas infrastructure: tunnels, weapons depots, rocket launchers, explosives laboratories, and command centers built underneath civilians. Swords of Iron Day 1071 finds that work unfinished.

Swords of Iron Day 1071: The World Faced a Choice Again

Once again the world had a choice to make. Stand with the victims and against terror, or stand with the terrorists.

Many chose to stand with Israel, and we have not forgotten them.

Others marched for Hamas. They tore down posters of kidnapped children. They celebrated in city squares while families here were still identifying bodies. That is the difference between 2001 and today, and it should trouble anyone who believes terror is terror no matter who the victim happens to be.

Terror works by testing whether decent people will look away. That is the whole strategy. It failed in 2001 because Americans refused to look away. It has partly succeeded since October 7 because far too many people found a reason to.

The Coalition That Terror Cannot Break

We need that unity back.

We know what it looks like, because we have watched it work. NATO stood with America after the September 11 attacks. The global coalition later formed to defeat ISIS grew to more than eighty member nations, proof that the free world can still organize itself against a common enemy once it decides the threat is real.

Coalitions are not sentimental. They are practical. They hold together because enough governments conclude at the same moment that ignoring a threat costs more than confronting it. The world reached that conclusion after September 11. It has not reached it with the same clarity since October 7.

The Abraham Accords showed something else. Terror does not have to write the future. Israel normalized relations with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Morocco, with Sudan agreeing to follow, and other countries have moved toward peace since. Terrorists did everything they could to stop that. They failed.

Shut Down the Money, Shut Down the Terror

Coalitions are not built out of statements. They are built out of decisions. Swords of Iron Day 1071 is a good day to name the decisions that matter.

• Cut off terrorist financing at the source, including the front charities and crypto channels that quietly move the money.
• Sanction the regimes that shelter terror leadership and let them govern from luxury hotels abroad.
• Prosecute incitement and material support for terror the way every other serious crime gets prosecuted.
• Refuse terror groups a seat, a platform, or a sympathetic hearing at the United Nations.
• Protect Jewish and Israeli students on campus instead of asking them to keep their heads down.

Do not give terror an inch of legitimacy. Not in a chamber, not on a campus, not on a city street. We need a world where terror does not pay, because that is the only kind of world where freedom and peace actually last.

Psalm 91 and the Promise That Still Holds

Psalm 91 says, “You will not fear the terror of night, nor the arrow that flies by day… A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you.”

And Isaiah 54:17 says, “No weapon formed against you shall prosper… This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord.”

Never forget September 11. Never forget October 7. And never forget that freedom survives only where people are still willing to stand in the gap.

Watch the Full Swords of Iron Day 1071 Update

You can watch the complete Day 1071 briefing on Rumble. For the previous briefing in this series, see Swords of Iron Day 1070. You can also learn more about the work we do on the ground through the Aliyah Return Center.

About These Swords of Iron Updates

Swords of Iron Day 1071 is part of a daily series that the team at the Aliyah Return Center in the Galilee writes from Israel. Each update draws on Israeli and international reporting alongside firsthand perspective from the ground. Our work centers on welcoming and supporting new immigrants, training ambassadors for Israel, and helping friends of Israel around the world understand what is actually happening here. If you would like to visit, volunteer, or support this work, you can reach us through the Aliyah Return Center website.