Man Runs on Field at Yankee Stadium With Palestinian Flag at 9:11 PM on 25th Anniversary of 9/11

If you needed any sort of reminder of how America has changed, in many ways not for the better, in the 25 years since the 9/11 attacks, you were reminded at exactly 9:11 p.m. on Sept. 11, 2026.

That’s when an activist used a sporting event meant to commemorate and remember who and what we lost that day to run on the field carrying a Palestinian flag.

Yes, he was tackled. Yes, the crowd deplored it and chanted “USA! USA!” to drown his message out.

But imagine anyone doing that 25 years ago, or even 10. The idea boggles the imagination.

The person would be tarred and feathered. Outrage would have been instant. Statements condemning the act would be issued on all sides.

On Friday, it barely registered.

The act came in the top of the seventh inning in a game between the New York Yankees and New York Mets, a matchup heavy with symbolism when you consider it took place where the majority of the casualties on that horrific day occurred.

“Before the game, the Yankees honored victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and had several members of the 2001 Yankees, including Derek Jeter, on hand for pregame ceremonies,” The Athletic reported.

The Associated Press, meanwhile, noted that the first pitch was thrown out by Brielle Saracini, who was 10 years old when she lost her father on United Airlines Flight 175 — one of two that hit the World Trade Center that day.

“I remember just talking about anything and everything and anything that kind of came through my mind that day and you just made it so comfortable and I remember just feeling normal for a day, which was hard to do,” Saracini said at a news conference, addressing Jeter.

“The odds were stacked against me that day but I remember just taking a minute and just having normal conversations and just feeling like a kid.”

“When we invited her to the stadium, you really don’t know what to say,” Jeter said. “So I don’t even know if I said ‘I’m sorry’ or anything like that. I just tried to make her day feel special and I remember introducing her to all the players and bring her down and you just try to make her feel as comfortable as you possibly can.”

And then, this:

Security tackles a fan who ran onto the field at Yankee Stadium at 9:11 p.m. with a Palestinian flag.

Fans threw beer cans at him once security got him beyond the outfield wall. pic.twitter.com/bxmXAWv7DX

— Brendan Kuty 🧟‍♂️ (@BrendanKutyNJ) September 12, 2026

BREAKING: A man ran onto the field during the Mets-Yankees game in New York City waving a Palestinian flag. He timed it at 9:11 PM on 9/11.

The entire stadium responded with chants of “USA!” pic.twitter.com/nwlLuzlrCZ

— Eyal Yakoby (@EYakoby) September 12, 2026

And you may think that Palestine is completely unconnected to the 9/11 attacks. You’d be wrong.

In fact, Osama bin Laden, in his 2002 “Letter to America,” made it clear that part of the reason for the attacks was that America “attacked us in Palestine.”

“When the Muslims conquered Palestine and drove out the Romans, Palestine and Jerusalem returned to Islaam, the religion of all the Prophets peace be upon them. Therefore, the call to a historical right to Palestine cannot be raised against the Islamic Ummah [global community of Muslims] that believes in all the Prophets of Allah (peace and blessings be upon them) — and we make no distinction between them,” he wrote.

“The blood pouring out of Palestine must be equally revenged. You must know that the Palestinians do not cry alone; their women are not widowed alone; their sons are not orphaned alone.”

Bin Laden’s history on Palestine was obviously amateurish; he called the “pure Arabs” the “original Semites” and both “the inheritors of Moses” and “the inheritors of the real Torah that has not been changed.”

But, if he made one thing very clear, he was not “attacking us for our freedom,” as went the line so oft repeated. He and his acolytes were attacking us because they hated Jews and Israel first, and America second.

He also believed that their second hatred was propping up their first one.

But 25 years on, this isn’t just some fringe theory being put forward by a murderous nutcase in a cave. It’s worked its way into American public discourse, particularly on the left.

We have people who believe in what bin Laden did. It’s not a stretch to wonder what they’d do about it if we didn’t have the resources or safeguards we implemented after 9/11 to ensure this would never happen again.

After all, when a man uses an event commemorating the loss of nearly 3,000 innocent lives — where the first pitch was thrown out by a young woman who lost her dad on that day — to get himself arrested in order to provide ideological support to one of Osama bin Laden’s pet causes, it’s proof that our country is growing more radical by the day, and those radicals might not hesitate to take more lives if it made their point.

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