A transgender horror author who sparked outrage earlier this year by threatening to slit JK Rowling’s throat has welcomed Osama bin Laden’s destruction of the Twin Towers.
Gretchen Felker-Martin joined the chorus of admiration for the al-Qaeda leader on Thursday, fueled by TikTokers suddenly “discovering” his reasons for 9/11.
The Massachusetts-based author wrote on did. did.’
Bin Laden’s ‘Letter to America’ from 2002 is circulating widely this week, in the middle of the war between Israel and Hamas.
TikTok users say bin Laden opened their eyes to American foreign policy and taught them valuable lessons about global geopolitics. The resurgence of interest and ignorance about bin Laden’s ideas has caused shock and anger.
Felker-Martin deleted the tweet on Friday and apologized. She previously shared her desire to slit JK Rowling’s throat over the Harry Potter author’s stance on transgender issues.
Gretchen Felker-Martin posted and deleted a tweet praising Osama bin Laden
“Recently, in a moment of need, I talked my heart out in a tasteless, unnecessary way to play devil’s advocate,” she tweeted.
“I sincerely regret it and apologize to anyone who was hurt or offended by my thoughtless words.”
But one X user pointed out that she had praised bin Laden in the past.
He cited Felker-Martin’s tweet from August 2020, which justified the September 11 attacks.
“The great crime of September 11 is that the things we do every day abroad are done to us exactly once,” she said.
The revival of the 2002 document has baffled and enraged many.
The White House expressed dismay at the renewed interest in the letter.
“There is never any justification for spreading the disgusting, evil and anti-Semitic lies that the leader of Al Qaeda issued shortly after committing the worst terrorist attack in American history – highlighting them as his direct motivation for killing 2,977 innocent Americans,” said Andrew Bates. , a White House spokesman.
“And no one should ever insult the 2,977 American families who continue to mourn their loved ones by associating themselves with the vile words of Osama bin Laden.
“Especially now, at a time of increasing anti-Semitic violence around the world, and just after Hamas terrorists carried out the worst massacre of the Jewish people since the Holocaust in the name of the same conspiracy theories.
“As President Biden said this year in memory of the Americans who lost their lives because of Osama bin Laden, “it is now more important than ever that we come together” against a “rising tide of hate and extremism.”
TikTok said it will remove any content invoking the letter.
“Content promoting this letter clearly violates our rules against supporting any form of terrorism,” TikTokPolicy wrote in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
“We are proactively and aggressively removing this content and investigating how it ended up on our platform.”
The video sharing platform claims that the number of videos on TikTok is “small” and “reports that it is popular on the platform are inaccurate.”
The trend appears to have started with TikToker Lynette Adkins who posted a video on November 14 telling her followers to read the manifesto
Hundreds of members of Generation Z posted videos seemingly mistaking the hateful rant for an intellectual think piece
Two days after the attack, smoke is still rising from ground zero of the collapsed World Trade Center
Clare Baron lays a rose for her cousin Mark Whitford at the National September 11 Memorial during an annual ceremony commemorating the 22nd anniversary
Relatives of victims attend a ceremony observing the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the Pentagon
“This is not unique to TikTok and has appeared across multiple platforms and media,” the message added.
Videos with the hashtag “LettertoAmerica” have been viewed 7.3 million times.
It is extraordinary that the majority claims support for bin Laden’s reasoning – without considering the freedoms he criticizes.
The letter began to gain popularity online after British newspaper The Guardian linked a 2002 article that translated the letter in full in a piece about the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas.
It was subsequently deleted, with the outlet explaining to DailyMail.com that it was shared “without its original context.”
The letter continued to spread on X, but failed to spread on Reddit.
The Guardian did not explain further how the connection was made between the current conflict in the Middle East and a verbatim letter from bin Laden that was more than 20 years old.
The link to the letter spread, with hundreds of TikTokers posting videos in response to reading it, appearing to mistake the hateful rant for an intellectual think piece.
The letter was originally posted with an article explaining that the original version was in Arabic on a website used by Al-Qaeda to “spread messages” and “was sent to hundreds of subscribers to an email list controlled by Mohammed al-Massari, Great Britain. established Saudi Arabian dissident.”
The message added that the US government was on the list.
The various popular videos about the letter provide no context surrounding bin Laden’s life as a jihadist.
In other parts of his correspondence, bin Laden blamed the US government for the spread of AIDS around the world, described homosexuality as “immoral” and tried to turn America into an oppressive religious state similar to Afghanistan.
The trend appears to have started with TikToker Lynette Adkins who posted a video on November 14.
“I want everyone to stop what they’re doing right now and go read – it’s literally two pages – and read ‘A Letter to America,’” she said.
In his infamous letter, Bin Laden raged that the treatment of the Palestinian people should be “revenged” and provided justifications for killing civilians in the name of jihad.
Bin Laden was killed by US Navy SEALs in May 2011 during an attack on his compound in Pakistan.
“The American people are the ones who pay the taxes that finance the planes that bomb us in Afghanistan, the tanks that attack and destroy our homes in Palestine, the armies that occupy our countries in the Arabian Gulf, and the fleets that maintain the blockade . of Iraq,” Bin Laden wrote.
For this reason, the Saudi Arabian terrorist wrote, all Americans and Jewish people were guilty of “the crimes committed by the Americans and Jews against (Muslims).”
Bin Laden wrote that AIDS was a “satanic American invention” and repeatedly made anti-Semitic comments, including suggesting that American society had been infiltrated by Jewish people who “control your policies, media and economy.”
Felker-Martin is no stranger to controversy.
Earlier this year, she named a series of writers she accused of transphobia — including Rowling — in a tweet sent on February 12.
She added, “If they all had one throat, man.”
She had previously condemned the murder of British transgender teenager Brianna Ghey, 16, and suggested that Rowling and her ilk had incited violence that led to the killing.
Another writer she railed against, journalist Jesse Singal, condemned Felker-Martin for making the death threat, saying she has a long history of making threats of violence.
Gretchen Felker-Martin has been criticized for tweeting a death threat against JK Rowling
Rowling, who watched the Laver Cup tennis with her husband in September, has become a target for militant transgender activists
In Felker-Martin’s debut novel Manhunt, published in February 2022, Rowling is murdered by being burned alive.
The book is being promoted as “an explosive post-apocalyptic novel that follows trans women and trans men on a grotesque journey of survival.” It has been praised by NPR and the New Yorker as “profound,” “poignant,” and “brilliant.”
Felker-Martin’s tweet — which she has now deleted — came shortly before she joined 180 activists in signing a letter to The New York Times attacking their reporting on transgender issues. The paper examined whether young children should be given puberty blockers or gender reassignment surgery.
Rowling shared similar views and also questioned whether trans women should be allowed access to certain women-only spaces, such as prisons, domestic violence shelters or sporting events.