I have spent a lot of time reading up on the September 11 terror attacks while working on the “American Heroes of 9/11” series, and the day itself is seared into my memory. For many of us, those hours are as indelible as other defining national traumas were for previous generations. Remembering the victims and the scale of the crime matters because memory shapes how we respond to threats and whom we trust to represent us.

September 11 happened for one reason and one reason only: Islamists hate America. That statement is blunt because the facts demand bluntness — Islamist violence has been aimed at civilians long before 2001. Islamists hit the World Trade Center in 1993, killing six, and attacks have targeted American troops, Christians in Africa, Jews in Israel and many others across the globe.

We should treat denial and minimization of that violence the way we treat Holocaust denial: with social and political outrage. Downplaying the slaughter of civilians on 9/11 is an insult to survivors and to the families of the nearly 3,000 people taken that day. If a public figure signals indifference or redefines the attack as something other than an atrocity, voters have every right to object.

That brings us to the recent controversies around Zohran Mamdani and Abdul El-Sayed, both adults with political ambitions, who used language that many find deeply offensive when speaking about September 11. Mamdani once said almost 3,000 New Yorkers “died” that day and tied it to wars, which understates the deliberate targeting and slaughter of civilians.

Saying those deaths were simply casualties tied to wars ignores the reality that 9/11 was a terrorist attack aimed at noncombatants, while the War on Terror was a response focused on dismantling terrorist networks and preventing further attacks. Whatever one thinks about policy choices that followed, the initial act was unjustified and brutal, and treating it as anything else blurs responsibility.

Families of the victims have made clear why Mamdani’s presence at memorial events would be hurtful, and their objections are not political theater — they are personal. The suggestion that his attendance is somehow a neutral act misses the pain of loved ones who lost husbands, wives, parents and children in violent, deliberate murders. Respecting those wishes is basic decency.

https://x.com/ZohranKMamdani/status/1701209223000916034?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

Then there is Abdul El-Sayed, who reportedly deleted social posts about September 11 but left traces that people screenshot and discuss. The existence of those posts, and the way they framed the event, speaks to a broader problem when candidates treat mass murder as an abstract policy line rather than a human tragedy.

Some on the left and in mainstream outlets try to shield these figures by accusing critics of Islamophobia, but calling out a bad take is not the same as bigotry. “No, it’s not” Islamophobia to insist that public officials use honest language about an attack that murdered civilians, nor is it an unreasonable litmus test for fitness to hold office. Accountability for words matters when those words touch on national trauma.

The people who died in the World Trade Center towers and on those planes were civilians — not soldiers, not combatants. Some were everyday commuters, some were children, and one was a toddler heading to Disney for the first time. These were murdered; they were not abstract casualties of policy or blurry collateral damage.

We should be clear about the moral boundary here: to call mass murder anything other than mass murder diminishes the victims and endangers public trust. Elected leaders and candidates must show they understand the weight of words and the realities behind them, because tone and terminology reflect judgment and character. To frame the slaughter of innocents in softer terms is an insult to the dead, to survivors, and to any community that expects its leaders to stand for truth.