Did Netanyahu Say Israel Was Benefiting From the 9/11 Attacks?

Claim: Netanyahu said Israel was benefiting from the attack on the Twin Towers and Pentagon

Verdict: Unverified.

• The post: The X post from @After_TheTruth (August 29, 2026) showed a quote graphic of Benjamin Netanyahu and asked @grok whether he really said: "We are benefiting from one thing, and that is the attack on the Twin Towers and Pentagon, and the American struggle in Iraq." Grok's reply was yes, citing a 2008 Ma'ariv report of remarks at Bar-Ilan University.
• No primary record found: This package has no video, audio, or transcript of Netanyahu delivering that line. No official text of the 2008 Bar-Ilan conference talk has turned up. No self-admission or apology from him for that wording has turned up either. Without that, the graphic's wording is not shown as spoken.
• What the press reported: On April 16, 2008, Haaretz, bylined Haaretz Service and Reuters, reported that Ma'ariv had quoted Likud leader Netanyahu telling a Bar-Ilan University audience that the September 11, 2001 attacks had been beneficial for Israel. Haaretz printed the Ma'ariv line as: "We are benefiting from one thing, and that is the attack on the Twin Towers and Pentagon, and the American struggle in Iraq." It added that he said those events "swung American public opinion in our favor." The remarks were reported from a conference on dividing Jerusalem as part of a peace deal with the Palestinians. Netanyahu was opposition leader at the time, not prime minister.

• Same-day pickup: Foreign Policy's Blake Hounshell ran the Ma'ariv wording the same afternoon. Democracy Now used it as an April 17, 2008 headline. Mondoweiss and later Wikiquote cite the Haaretz report. No correction from Ma'ariv or Haaretz, and no denial from Netanyahu, has turned up. That is still press quoting press. It is not a recording.
• What the reported line is: In the Haaretz write-up, the benefit is American public opinion swinging toward Israel after 9/11 and the Iraq war. The quote, as printed, is not a claim that Israel carried out the attacks.
• A separate 2001 line: James Bennet of the New York Times, in a September 12, 2001 dispatch, quoted Netanyahu that night when asked what the attack meant for U.S.-Israel relations: "It's very good." Then: "Well, not very good, but it will generate immediate sympathy." He said it would "strengthen the bond between our two peoples, because we've experienced terror over so many decades, but the United States has now experienced a massive hemorrhaging of terror." That is a named reporter's interview quote, not a recording, and it is not the 2008 graphic wording.

In plain language:

Unverified. We could not find a video, audio clip, or transcript of Netanyahu saying the graphic’s words, and no self-admission or apology from him for that wording has turned up either. Haaretz, citing Ma’ariv, reported those words in April 2008, and other outlets repeated that report. No denial turned up. We could only find Israeli and other media quoting him, not a primary record of the speech.