Why Osama bin Laden’s 2002 ‘Letter to America’ is gaining traction on social media now

The resurgence of the letter has to do with the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, which broke out on October 7. What did bin Laden write in the letter?

Osama bin Laden addresses a news conference in Afghanistan in this May 26, 1998. (REUTERS/Stringer/File Photo)

4 min readNew DelhiNov 19, 2023 02:18 PM IST First published on: Nov 18, 2023 at 08:27 PM IST

Social media platform TikTok on Thursday (November 16) said it would prohibit content that promotes Osama bin Laden’s 2002 “Letter to America,” where the deceased al-Qaeda leader attempted to justify the September 11, 2001 attacks.

“Content promoting this letter clearly violates our rules on supporting any form of terrorism,” TikTok said in a statement.

On Wednesday, The Guardian removed the full translated text of bin Laden’s letter, which it had published in 2002. The news outlet, on its website, said the letter was being widely shared on social media without the full context. “Therefore we decided to take it down and direct readers instead to the news article that originally contextualised it,” it added.

But why has a 21-year-old letter gained traction on social media platforms? And what did bin Laden write in the letter? We take a look.

Why is bin Laden’s letter being shared on social media?

The resurgence of the letter has to do with the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, which broke out on October 7 after Hamas carried out a deadly attack on Israel, killing more than 1,000 people. In retaliation, the Jewish state incessantly bombarded the Gaza Strip, governed by Hamas, and began its ground invasion of the enclave. As of now, more than 12,000 Palestinians, including thousands of children, have died.

In his letter, written after al Qaeda attacked the US that killed nearly 3,000 people, bin Laden criticised US support for Israel, accused Americans of financing “oppression” of Palestinians, and made antisemitic comments.

On platforms like TikTok, numerous users have used the letter to critique US foreign policy and claimed that it changed their perspective. For instance, a user explained in a video shared on TikTok: “It’s actually so mind-blowing to me that terrorism has been sold as this idea to the American people…that this group of people, this random group of people, just suddenly wakes up one day and just hates you…it doesn’t make sense,” the Newsweek magazine reported.

However, it remains unclear what triggered the sharing of the letter now.

Many analysts and American politicians have claimed that TikTok users were being radicalised by a “terrorist manifesto” and accused the app of secretly pushing propaganda to draw the attention of American youth.

Also in Explained | Twelve years of Osama bin Laden’s killing: How the son of a rich businessman became the world’s most dreaded terrorist

But others have said the “letter’s spread also reflected the bedeviling realities of modern social media, where young people — many of whom were born after 9/11 — share and receive information on fast-paced smartphone apps designed to make videos go viral, regardless of their content,” according to a report by The Washington Post.

What is bin Laden’s letter about?

Bin Laden justified the attack on the US by highlighting the country’s support for Israel. “The British handed over Palestine, with your help and your support, to the Jews, who have occupied it for more than 50 years; years overflowing with oppression, tyranny, crimes, killing, expulsion, destruction and devastation. The creation and continuation of Israel is one of the greatest crimes, and you are the leaders of its criminals. And of course there is no need to explain and prove the degree of American support for Israel,” he wrote.

The al-Qaeda leader also added that American government-sponsored violence against Muslims in the Palestinian territories, Somalia, Chechnya, Kashmir and Lebanon, and economic sanctions in Iraq that left people hungry, had to be “revenged” and this justified the killing of American people.

“The American people are the ones who pay the taxes which fund the planes that bomb us in Afghanistan, the tanks that strike and destroy our homes in Palestine, the armies which occupy our lands in the Arabian Gulf, and the fleets which ensure the blockade of Iraq,” bin Laden wrote. “This is why the American people cannot be innocent of all the crimes committed by the Americans and Jews against us.”