9/11 Memorial Ceremony Opening Statement

Dear Guests,

19 years have passed since this unforgettable day when 19 Arab Muslim terrorists murdered, in cold blood, thousands of civilians of different nationalities and religions who had the bad luck of visiting the Twin Towers in Manhattan at that time. This barbaric event manifested more than any other terror attack in the past fifty years the ultimate evil that represents that part of Islam that subscribes to religious and moral nihilism and its values.

The US managed to recover from this disaster and in a relative short order come up with an adequate response that over time became a model for the rest of the free world. The American response dealt not only with the physical dimension, hardware if you will, but also with all the moral and ideological issues of the new threat that has become global over time.

The Arab terrorism in its infancy, back in the 1960s and 1970s, secular in nature and expressed a yearning for self-determination and national independence. However, it later deteriorated into unfamiliar religious territories of hate and cruelty towards the other.

At first, terrorism represented ethnic and religious groups. Later, it became a tool for terror sponsoring state actors who used and still use it to promote their political interests and leverage, at will, the advantage provided by deniability when they employ allegedly independent terror organizations.

A bird's eye view of the current global campaign against terrorism looks as follows: the US and China are the two superpowers, that for all intents and purposes are on a path of a new cold war when China must contend with homegrown Islamic terrorism. Putin's Russia does everything in its power to be a member of the superpower club and it, too, must contend with a Chechen-Muslim terrorism problem. The middle east is rife with terror sponsoring state actors. Turkey and Iran compete for regional hegemony and neither shies away from using terrorism. Turkey does that in Syria, and Iraq and Iran brought the use of the terrorism to a state-of-the-art level and to all corners of the earth. Syria is using terrorism against its own citizens and Lebanon is responsible, at least pro-forma, to Hezbollah's terrorist activity. Adding nuclear weapons proliferations issues to the equation and there is no doubt that Iran, a Shite state actor that does not recognize coexistence with non-Shite, is the biggest threat to the stability of the middle east and the rest of the free world.

In such a chaotic world, the renewed relationship between Israel and UAE is a refreshing development and perhaps a good omen. There is no doubt that the credit for that belongs to Pres. Trump but in order for that event to become a seminal middle eastern event the Saudis and more Gulf states need to come on board the peace train

and the conclusion of such an event has to be an agreement that ends the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on the basis of the "two states solution". To enable all of this to materialize the US must remain in the region at least until the conclusion of the event.

Regardless of the above, we will always remember 9-11 events as another layer of bricks in the wall of solidarity, belief in the same values and causes and the same path the US and Israel take and keep holding this an