- Following Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech at the United Nations General Assembly on Sept. 24, 2026, social media users shared a clip purportedly showing him saying “America deserved 9/11” as he shook his finger in the air.
- The clip was authentic, meaning it wasn’t generated with artificial intelligence or digitally altered.
- A longer video of Netanyahu’s speech, however, showed he was not expressing his personal belief but rather quoting the left-leaning influencer Hasan Piker. Piker truly made that statement during a live stream in 2019.
After Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke at the United Nations General Assembly on Sept. 24, 2026, a rumor spread that during his speech, he said the U.S. deserved the 9/11 attacks.
Several users on X made the claim (archived), expressing disbelief using a supposed video clip of the speech of Netanyahu saying “America deserved 9/11” as he shook his finger in the air.
While the clip was authentic, meaning not generated with artificial intelligence or digitally altered, it omits critical context from Netanyahu’s full remarks. He was not expressing his personal belief when he said those words. A longer video showed he was quoting Hasan Piker, a left-leaning influencer, who did say “America deserved 9/11” during a livestream in 2019. We’ve left this claim unrated to account for those nuances.
At the 27:10 mark in the video, Netanyahu addressed New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, saying Mamdani was antisemitic and he and Piker were friends. As he did so, he quoted Piker (emphasis ours):
So to all those that are spreading these lies about my country and about our brave soldiers, whether they sit in this hall or in the office of the antisemitic mayor of New York, I say this: Shame on you. Shame on you for distorting the facts. Shame on you for inverting victim and aggressor. Shame on you for spitting in the face of truth.
Mr. Mamdani, since you were elected mayor of this city, many Jews no longer feel safe in New York. They talk to me. They tell me, “This isn’t the city we remember. It changed so quickly.”
Now it’s no wonder. You praise criminals convicted of supporting Hamas. You count as friends people like Hasan Piker, who said “America deserved 9/11. America deserved 9/11.” Some friends you have.
You invite into your home a Palestinian journalist who filmed Hamas terrorists beating and torturing Israeli hostages, and later admitted that he refused to publish the videos in order to protect, you guessed it, the terrorists. Your wife liked a post praising the Oct. 7 massacre. She liked another post saying Tel Aviv shouldn’t exist.
It is true that Piker said these words in August 2019 while live-streaming on Twitch:
“America deserved 9/11, dude,” he said. “F*** it. I’m saying it.”
For further reading, this is not the first time Snopes has investigated claims attributing this quote to someone other than Piker. In August 2026, we found U.S. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, a Michigan Democrat, hadn’t expressed the belief that the U.S. deserved 9/11.
