TikToker who shared Bin Laden video 'didn't know about Palestine' before Hamas attack

A TikTok user who shared a video with the contents Osama bin Laden's "Letter to America" said that she "didn't know anything about Palestine" before Hamas attacked Israeli territory on October 7.

The "Letter to America" has gained widespread attention online after it was removed by The Guardian earlier this week. The removal was pointed out by many across social media.

In a statement to The Wrap, a spokesperson for the newspaper said the transcript had been removed due to it being "widely shared on social media without the full context."

TikToker user @raeyreads, believed to be one of the first people to share that the letter had been removed, has been using their social media account to share support for Palestine.

"As a person who didn't know anything about Palestine until last week, I am so sorry that I didn't know," they wrote in the caption of a video posted October 19. "I'm sorry that I did not seek out the information I needed to help where I could."

Raey claimed that TikTok took down their video on "Letter to America", but said the following in a recent video:

"I know a lot of you who read the 'Letter to America' that I posted, that TikTok just took down, were being intentionally dense. I did not say anywhere that I agreed wholeheartedly with everything that was written in that letter. However, if I am going to post something that I think can show another side of things, I'm not only going to show a portion of it. I'm not only going to post the one part that I agree with because that would be disingenuous."

Part of bin Laden's letter read: "The creation and continuation of Israel is one of the greatest crimes, and you are the leaders of tis criminals. Each and every person whose hands have become polluted in the contribution towards this crime must pay its price, and pay for it heavily."

"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," the letter added.

A TikTok spokesperson said in a statement: "Content promoting this letter clearly violates our rules on supporting any form of terrorism. We are proactively and aggressively removing this content and investigating how it got onto our platform.

"The number of videos on TikTok is small and reports of it trending on our platform are inaccurate. This is not unique to TikTok and has appeared across multiple platforms and the media."

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