Firefighters and other emergency responders and volunteers sifting through the rubble of the collapsed World Trade Center towers on Sept. 11, 2001. Photo: IMAGO/Future Image via Reuters Connect

Conspiracy theorists who make allegations about the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks often proliferate antisemitism as well by fusing their theories with antisemitic ideas, according to a new analysis.

The Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM) released a study on Monday, three days after the 25th anniversary of the attacks, finding that social media posts in the leadup to the anniversary frequently fused Sept. 11 allegations with at least one additional, unrelated antisemitic conspiracy theory.

Specifically, CAM’s Antisemitism Research Center (ARC) revealed that, of 4,360 unique posts collected on X between Aug. 28 and Sept. 4, a striking 59.3 percent both advanced an antisemitic conspiracy theory and referenced the Sept. 11 attacks.

Moreover, of the total fagged posts, 19 percent included at least one additional antisemitic conspiracy theory unrelated to the attacks.

“The 9/11 libel is no longer spreading as an isolated falsehood that can be debunked on its own terms,” ARC research associate Oliver Marks said in a statement. “It works as a gateway. A user drawn in by 9/11 content is, in one post in five, handed a second conspiracy theory in the same breath, centuries-old libels repackaged for a modern feed.”

Claims blaming Jews or Israel for the “Jeffrey Epstein-Ghislaine Maxwell blackmail network,” the JFK assassination, and Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre topped the list of conspiracies fused with Sept. 11 allegations.

“The clustering also shows how quickly new events are absorbed into the structure,” the study said. “The assassination of Charlie Kirk and the Bondi attack entered this dataset alongside conspiracy theories that have circulated for decades. The framework does not need to be rebuilt for each new tragedy; the tragedy is simply slotted in.”

The advent of artificial intelligence presents another troubling variable for observers to study, according to a new Anti-Defamation League (ADL) article which says the technology renders increasingly pernicious strains of anti-Jewish hatred daily.

“Advances in AI have enabled purveyors of 9/11 conspiracy theories to manufacture synthetic ‘proof’ for their claims that Jews orchestrated the attacks and that broadly accepted narratives about the attacks are false,” the ADL said. “Social media platforms, too, facilitate the spread of conspiratorial content to new audiences.”

It added, “Significant global events, including terror attacks and wars, are inevitably claimed to be ‘false flag’ attacks carried out at the behest of Jews or Israel, with the 9/11 attacks treated as a foundational example of these claims.”

Meanwhile, FBI data released in August confirmed that the antisemitism epidemic prompted by Hamas’s Oct. 7 atrocities in southern Israel extended into the year 2025. According to the agency, nearly two-thirds of all religion-based hate crimes nationwide targeted American Jews. So rampant was anti-Jewish hatred, the FBI data noted, that the antisemitic hate crime total reached just over 50 percent of the total perpetrated against the Black community, which is over six times larger than the Jewish community.

A striking 63 percent of religious-based hate crimes and 14 percent of total hate crimes in the US last year were perpetrated against Jews, recording 1,528 such incidents. Jews comprise just 2% of the total US population. The next most targeted religious group, Muslims, were the victims of 205 hate crime incidents, meaning Jews were attacked seven times more often.

Jews remained disproportionately targeted even as overall reported hate crime incidents across the country decreased from 11,679 in 2024 to 10,881 in 2025. Even though anti-Jewish incidents nationwide decreased last year from a total of 1,938 in 2024, the latest data marked the third-highest year on record of antisemitic hate crimes.

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.