Palestinian Candy Vendors Remember Good Times Of 9/11

“We were like dreamers,” recalled Shad-Din Froideh, 77.

Ramallah, September 11 – Purveyors of sweets in the Palestinian territories are recalling with fondness the booming sales they enjoyed following the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon fifteen years ago.

A group of current and retired sweets sellers from the de facto Palestinian capital gathered today to reminisce about the heady days of jubilant revelry in their society, marked by spiking retail sales of candy and other treats that were then distributed freely on the streets of the cities and villages across the Palestinian territories in response to the news that nineteen jihadists had hijacked four American airliners and piloted them in suicide terrorist attacks that claimed nearly three thousand lives.

The vendors discussed both the economic and psychological elation of those days, with each of them remembering different elements of the experience, but all sensing that the arrogant Americans, so consistently allied with the hated Israelis, were finally getting what they deserved after decades of high-handed interference in Arab-Muslim affairs.

“We were like dreamers,” recalled Shad-Din Froideh, 77. “My sons and I had a little stall in the souk, and we made a decent living, but the moment we heard the towers had collapsed, a mad rush ensued, and we just couldn’t keep the shelves stocked for the next week. Package after package of sweets came out of the back room, but we couldn’t bring them out fast enough. I knew it wouldn’t last, but by Allah, that was the most profitable period in the store’s history.”

“What made it even sweeter was that it wasn’t just some bus bombing in Jerusalem by Hamas,” added Afwiddis Hedd, 35, who was working in his father’s confectionery when he heard of the attacks. “It was massive, on a scale our local jihadists couldn’t hope to reach. It just made everyone overflow with enthusiasm and joy, of the kind that simply has to be shared. So people bought crate after crate of our goods to give out in the streets, at work, at school, wherever. It was our way of participating in something much bigger than we could engineer ourselves. And all that vicarious achievement was expressed in a hefty bottom line for us. Man, what a glorious time.”

The group agreed nothing of that intensity had happened since. “I think we can all get behind the sentiment that we’d like our children and grandchildren live through another such event to celebrate and profit from,” said Eid al-Farha, 60. “The little ones have to hear about those special times secondhand now. I do hope they get to experience something similar in their lifetimes.”