There has been substantial acceptance of 9/11 conspiracy theories, and many people blame the CIA or Zionists for the terrorist attacks, according to a new survey released on Sunday by the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs (JCFA)
Titled “Twenty-Five Years After 9/11: Conspiracy Theories Challenge Historical Fact,” the study was conducted by JCFA senior researcher Dr. Irwin J. Mansdorf and International Freedom Coalition president Dr. Charles Jacobs.
The research examined shifting public perceptions 25 years after the 2001 attacks. The data for the study was collected this September 10-16.
There were substantial differences across religious, generational, and partisan groups in beliefs about 9/11, national-security threats, and US institutions, the report said.
The survey outlined key takeaways from an analysis of 416 Muslim American respondents, 429 isolated non-Muslim respondents, and broader generational and partisan cohorts, which included a general population cohort of 513 respondents, among them 24 individuals who identified as Muslim.
One-third of American Muslims neutral on government-mandated 9/11 curriculum
The data documented a “severe disintegration of a shared American reality, operating across two major vectors: a profound socio-religious chasm and a sweeping decay of historical factuality within the general public,” the report said.
JCFA tracked public opinion across these populations to examine how religious affiliation, political orientation, and age influence understanding of the attacks.
The widest reported difference concerned attribution of the 9/11 attacks, despite official investigations establishing al-Qaeda’s responsibility, the report said. Among the surveyed groups, the data show that 62.24% of non-Muslim respondents identified al-Qaeda as responsible for 9/11, compared with 23.56% of Muslim American respondents.
About 18.51% of Muslim American respondents expressed belief that the US government or the CIA had carried out the attacks, the survey found. Furthermore, 27.40% of Muslim American respondents said Zionists or Israel had been responsible, it said.
Generational divides and political affiliations formed a major part of the study’s findings. Younger respondents displayed uncertainty, while partisan groups differed over whether major threats are primarily foreign or domestic.
Among adults under 30, al-Qaeda attribution dropped to 40%, with 28.57% of younger respondents saying they were completely “unsure” who was responsible, which “leaves them highly susceptible to digital manipulation,” the JCFA said.
Political cohorts split on threat perceptions, the report said, adding that the isolated non-Muslim sample was anchored heavily by Republicans, at 57.97%, who maintained a “traditional external defense posture identifying Iran and radical Islamists as the primary danger.” A plurality of Muslim Americans, at 26.20%, named the CIA or US government agencies as the “single greatest danger for a future mass-casualty event,” it said.
The study also evaluated public tolerance for radical critiques of American foreign policy by tracking reactions to online political commentator Hasan Piker’s statement that “America deserved 9/11.”
Regarding Piker’s remarks, the report uncovered a stark divide, noting that 47.11% of Muslim Americans actively disagreed or strongly disagreed with the statement, compared with 71.33% of non-Muslims, while a combined 28.13% of Muslim Americans either agreed or strongly agreed, and 24.76% remained neutral.
The findings showed that this tolerance has bled into mainstream political extremes, where non-Muslim Republicans exhibited a 55.07% rejection baseline compared with 43% for Democrats, while independent voters formed a “centrist bulwark” by logging the highest rate of active disagreement with the statement, at 64.80%.
These divisions extend to attitudes toward whether schools should be required to teach a standardized 9/11 curriculum. Views on historical education showed that a combined majority of 62% of surveyed non-Muslims, led by 77.53% of Republicans, 66% of Democrats, and 60.80% of Independents, supported a government-mandated 9/11 curriculum, compared with 44.71% of Muslim American respondents, with more than one-third of the latter selecting a neutral response.
In a statement to The Jerusalem Post, Mansdorf said: “The results are very clear on two points: First, there is a significant lack of knowledge among younger people about who carried out the 9/11 terrorist attacks; and second, Muslim Americans, to a much greater extent than the US population as a whole, do not accept that the attacks were carried out by the Islamist terrorists of al-Qaeda.”
“Clearly, there is a need for greater awareness and education about the events of 9/11,” he said. “While there is a strong focus every year on commemorating the victims of the attacks, far less attention is paid to the perpetrators and the motivations behind the attacks.”