The Guardian, United Kingdom, has removed Osama bin Laden’s anti-Semitic “Letter to America” from its website after it gained traction on social media and garnered attention from teenage TikTok users.
A spokesperson for the newspaper stated that they took down the terrorist manifesto due to its widespread sharing on social platforms without the necessary context, primarily by pro-Palestinian activists.
Bin Laden’s letter, published in 2002, detailed the rationale behind the 9/11 attacks and advocated for retaliating against “Americans and Jews” in response to the oppression of Palestinian territories.
In the letter, the terrorist leader expressed amusement and sadness over Americans’ claims of Jews having a historical right to Palestine, along with allegations of Jewish control over American policies, media, and economy. Additionally, the letter contained controversial statements regarding AIDS being a “Satanic American Invention” and condemned Israel’s creation as one of history’s major crimes.
Twenty-one years later, amidst ongoing discussions about the US’s reaction to the Gaza conflict, the letter has garnered backing from pro-Palestinian TikTok profiles.
“I need everyone to stop what they’re doing right now and go read – it’s literally two pages – go read ‘A Letter to America’. Come back here and let me know what you think. Because I feel like I’m going through an existential crisis right now, and a lot of people are. So I just need someone else to be feeling this too,” said Lynette Adkins.
Another user commented: “Just read it.. my eyes have been opened.”
A third posted: “We’ve been lied to our entire lives. I remember watching people cheer when Osama was found and killed.
“I was a child, and it confused me. It still confuses me today. The world deserves better than what this country has done to them. Change must be made.”
Following a surge in web traffic to the Guardian’s 2002 transcript of the letter, the newspaper opted to remove it.
“The transcript published on our website in 2002 has been widely shared on social media without the full context,” a spokesman told The Telegraph.
“Therefore we have decided to take it down and direct readers to the news article that originally contextualised it instead.”
