Around the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, I wrote a piece for the Washington Examiner focusing on the critical state of 9/11 education in American schools. My argument was simple yet urgent: as personal memory fades and the milestone of a quarter-century passes, our collective failure to institutionalize rigorous, fact-based education about the attacks creates a void. As I argued in that article, “If schools won’t teach the truth about 9/11, TikTok will teach the lies.” When schools refuse to fill that educational void with definitive historical truth, digital algorithms and online echo chambers will happily fill it with toxic fiction.
A newly released study has unfortunately proven that warning correct, and the reality is far more alarming than many dared to think.
On Sept. 27, 2026, the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs published a sweeping survey titled “Twenty-Five Years After 9/11: Conspiracy Theories Challenge Historical Fact.” The report, co-written by Dr. Irwin J. Mansdorf and Dr. Charles Jacobs, highlights a profound, disturbing socio-religious and generational chasm over basic historical reality.
The data detail an undeniable crisis of historical factuality in America. Despite comprehensive investigations documenting al Qaeda’s sole responsibility, the survey found that while 62.24% of non-Muslim respondents identified the Islamist terrorist group as the perpetrator, only 23.56% of Muslim American respondents did. Instead, 27.40% of Muslim Americans surveyed attributed responsibility for 9/11 to Israel or “Zionists,” and another 18.51% blamed the U.S. government or the CIA.
For decades, foreign policy circles have engaged in a nuanced debate over whether America’s staunch support for Israel has uniquely painted a target on our back, making the United States a primary focal point for Islamic extremist violence. Academic and geopolitical analysts frequently argue the strategic costs and benefits of this relationship. But what the new data reveal is something far more fundamental — and dangerous — than a policy debate.
We are no longer discussing a disagreement over geopolitical cause and effect. We are witnessing the total collapse of objective reality. It is one thing to argue that U.S. foreign policy choice X provoked terrorist reaction Y; it is an entirely different, pathological symptom to claim that a sovereign democratic nation or a hidden cabal of “Zionists” literally manufactured, coordinated, or executed the murder of nearly 3,000 people on American soil.
This breakdown of a shared American reality is precisely what happens when historical education is watered down or abandoned in the name of political sensitivity. As I noted earlier this September, every single child in a K-12 classroom today has no lived memory of 2001. When we treat the thick black smoke pouring from the twin towers as a distant, abstract event — or worse, when institutions shy away from explicitly naming the perpetrators and their radical Islamist ideology to avoid uncomfortable conversations — we leave an entire generation intellectually defenseless.
The generational numbers in the JCFA report confirm this exact vulnerability. Among adults under 30, the share who could identify al Qaeda as the perpetrator dropped to just 40%. Nearly 28.57% of these young adults reported being completely “unsure” who was responsible. As the JCFA rightly noted, this widespread uncertainty leaves young Americans highly susceptible to digital manipulation.
We have already seen this manifestation online, where viral TikTok trends periodically see young users expressing bizarre empathy for Osama bin Laden’s anti-American manifestos. The vacuum left by our school systems has allowed alternative, malicious narratives to thrive online, fundamentally reshaping how young and minority demographics perceive American history and national security.
The solution cannot merely be an annual day of solemn remembrance or community service, as noble as those efforts are. As Mansdorf observed following the study’s release, while the nation focuses heavily on commemorating the victims, far too little educational attention is dedicated to teaching the actual history of the perpetrators and their motivations.
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Encouragingly, the JCFA survey found a clear path forward: a combined 62% majority of non-Muslim Americans — spanning 77.53% of Republicans, 66% of Democrats, and 60.80% of independents — strongly support a government-mandated, standardized school curriculum on 9/11.
If we hope to preserve a coherent, unified national identity, we must mandate that our schools teach the unvarnished truth of 9/11. History is not a matter of perspective or a choose-your-own-adventure narrative dictated by social media algorithms. If we continue to fail in our duty to teach the facts, we will continue to watch our shared reality disintegrate.
Eric Wargotz is a geopolitical analyst and policy commentator who has held leadership roles across government and medicine. A Clinical Professor Emeritus at The George Washington University and Maryland judge, he is a former U.S. Senate nominee and elected county commission president. Views are his own.