Claim that Palestinians celebrated the 9/11 attacks and spread hate in NYC
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Executive summary
Available reporting shows documented instances of Palestinians celebrating the September 11, 2001 attacks in parts of the Palestinian territories and refugee camps — including scenes of sweets being distributed, honking cars and celebratory gunfire — while Palestinian leaders and the Palestinian Authority publicly condemned the attacks and sought to limit or discredit celebratory coverage [1] [2] [3]. Coverage also records attempts by Palestinian officials to suppress or control footage and notes that celebrations represented a subset of reactions rather than a universal Palestinian response [2] [4].
1. What the contemporaneous footage and reports actually show
News agencies filmed small-scale public celebrations in some Palestinian-populated areas on Sept. 11, 2001: Associated Press television distributed video of “dozens of Palestinians, many of them young boys,” cheering in the streets, cars honking and sweets handed out [1]. Contemporary reporting and later archiving recounts instances of celebratory gunfire in Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon and distribution of candy in Palestinian Authority towns [2] [3]. Snopes confirms Reuters and other outlets recorded footage that day and that the video was shot on Sept. 11 rather than recycled older film [4].
2. Leadership and official voices condemned the attacks
Despite footage of celebrations, senior Palestinian officials and the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) publicly condemned the 9/11 attacks and took gestures to express condolences — including reported blood donations in Gaza — while stressing that jubilant scenes did not represent the broader Palestinian public [2]. The PNA publicly characterized celebratory acts as the work of “a few kids” and attempted to distance official policy from those images [2].
3. Efforts to control or bury the imagery
Reporting documents active attempts by Palestinian authorities to suppress or discredit footage of celebrations. AP journalists and cameramen were reportedly warned and pressured; one Arafat aide allegedly threatened an AP cameraman’s safety should certain footage be broadcast [2]. Snopes and other analyses note that such pressure made it harder for some outlets to disseminate original footage, which in turn affected later debates about what happened and how representative those scenes were [4].
4. Geographic and numeric limits — why “Palestinians celebrated” is an overbroad headline
Multiple sources stress that celebratory scenes occurred in specific places — East Jerusalem’s Damascus Gate, some West Bank locations, and refugee camps in Lebanon — and involved relatively small groups, not widescale, uniform jubilation across all Palestinian communities [1] [2] [3]. ABC News and follow-ups emphasized the difference between localized video evidence and unverified claims that “thousands” were celebrating in U.S. cities like Paterson or Jersey City, which remain anecdotal and unconfirmed in the cited reporting [1].
5. How later commentators used and amplified the images
Opinion outlets and advocacy groups have republished and framed the footage in different ways over decades. Some sources use the celebratory imagery to argue for a pattern of anti-American sentiment in Palestinian media and institutions [5] [6], while others criticized exaggerations and misuse of the scenes to imply universal Palestinian support for the attacks [4]. The divergence illustrates how selective footage can be amplified to serve competing political narratives [5] [6] [4].
6. Claims about celebrations in New York City and other U.S. locales
Reporting in the provided sources finds only anecdotal, unconfirmed rumors of small groups celebrating in New Jersey (Paterson, Jersey City) and explicitly states there is no confirmed televised footage of U.S.-based Muslim or Palestinian communities celebrating the attacks [1]. ABC News and Snopes both note the lack of verified evidence supporting large-scale celebrations in U.S. cities at the time [1] [4]. Available sources do not mention verified celebrations in New York City itself.
7. What this means for evaluating contemporary claims and social media posts
The documented facts are: (a) verified footage exists of celebrations in specific Palestinian areas on Sept. 11 [1] [4]; (b) Palestinian leadership condemned the attacks and sought to limit coverage of celebratory scenes [2]; (c) claims of mass celebrations across all Palestinians or of organized cheering in U.S. cities lack corroboration in the cited reporting [1]. Any modern claim should be assessed against those three points and checked for whether it conflates limited, local events with broader communal endorsement [2] [1] [4].
Limitations: available sources here do not provide comprehensive sociological data on how many Palestinians felt one way or another nor do they cover every locality worldwide; they document incidents, official statements and later media framing [2] [1] [4].