What does it portend that young people are so easily swayed by Islamist propaganda and calls to extreme violence?
The sharp spike in global anti-Semitism after October 7 has everyone on edge, but even the gloomiest pessimists were shocked by last week’s news: Arch-terrorist Osama bin Laden began trending on TikTok. An open letter that bin Laden wrote to Americans in 2002 went viral among teenagers born after the 9/11 attacks he masterminded. Even the minders on TikTok — of late a cesspool of Jew hatred, perhaps instigated by the platform bosses in Beijing — thought it was too much, and clamped down on mentions of bin Laden.
But burning questions swirl in the wake of this news. TikTok has surged to 1.5 billion users worldwide and is the favorite among the 16-to-24 demographic. What does it portend that young people are so easily swayed by Islamist propaganda and calls to extreme violence?
Osama bin Laden’s so-called “Letter to America,” penned just a year after 9/11 in November 2002, used deceptive anti-Semitic rhetoric to justify the attacks on the United States. Among other things, he claimed that Israelis were “planning to destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque” and demanded that American society embrace Islam.
These words found a surprisingly receptive audience among TikTok’s user cohort, which is largely ignorant of the conflict in the Middle East. Western universities and public education have championed concepts like critical race theory, which essentially asserts that blame for global ills always falls on white men. Thoughts that were previously expressed only in extreme left circles have found wider acceptance in the mainstream.
Create a free account to keep reading.
