Al-Qaida terrorists were responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, but conspiracy theories implicating other culprits continue to abound on social media. 

A Nov. 1 Instagram post, for example, declared in the caption that “Jews did 9/11.”

It was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)

This is a longtime and unfounded claim. 

In May 2009, the State Department addressed it and other prominent conspiracy theories, including that 4,000 Jews failed to show up for work at the World Trade Center on the day of the attacks, suggesting that they were involved in orchestrating them. 

“Some 10% to 15% of WTC victims were Jewish,” according to the State Department. And “al-Qaida leaders, including Osama bin Laden, have repeatedly confirmed that they planned and carried out the Sept. 11 attacks.”

The Anti-Defamation League wrote in 2021 that such claims are a “continuation of centuries-old antisemitic tropes about Jews supposedly manipulating events for their own benefit.” 

We rate claims that Jewish people, or Israel, are responsible for 9/11 Pants on Fire!