What ever happened to the thousands of cheering Muslims on 911?

[Toyman at Jewel Lake]

As an Arab, the Middle East's reaction to Orlando left me speechless

Recently, a devastating terrorist attack took place in Orlando, where 49 innocent people were murdered. Surely, the majority of people in the Arab world condemn this atrocious act of violence? The most fatal shooting in recent American history cannot possibly be celebrated by such a large number of peace-loving people who, after all, mostly condemn the acts of terror committed in the name of Islam by groups like ISIS and Al-Qaeda, right? Right?

Wrong.

As a bilingual Arabic and English speaker from the Middle East, I took the liberty of browsing through Arabic news pages on Facebook earlier today; namely Al Jazeera, Al-Arabiya, BBC Arabic and a number of Egyptian news outlets to gauge how the Arab world was responding to the Orlando shooting. The results were disappointing, alarming, and depressing to say the least. Each page’s comment section was inundated with posts showing sympathy towards the attacker, praising him for his actions and wishing death upon members of the international LGBT community. Comments ranged from jokes about the incident and how “the gays had it coming,” to long du’as (religious supplications), wishing death upon gays and lesbians, as well as asking God to grant the killer “the highest place in paradise.” I considered collecting screenshots of these comments to raise awareness about the amount of hatred towards the gay community in the Middle East, but it soon dawned on me that such a task would be impossible.

There were simply too many hateful comments, with thousands celebrating the attack, from Tunisia to Egypt, Iraq and Saudi Arabia. It was only through deep digging that a single person who expressed so much as a shred of sympathy to the victims and their families, or even condemned the blatant massacre that took place could be found. If you don’t speak Arabic, visit Al Jazeera Arabic’s Facebook page and scroll down until you see a post about the Orlando attack and note what the top three “reactions” (newly added Facebook feature) are.

[Ellis Bell]

Originally Posted by middle-aged mom

Nothing factual anywhere to support Trump's recollection of " thousands and thousands" of Muslims celebrating in JC.

Why am I not surprised. That dude is the American made, whack job.

[Ellis Bell]

Originally Posted by rbohm

its actually just about every presidential campaign all over again.

but there is evidence of muslims cheering the towers falling, thousands of them? perhaps, perhaps not. but the fact that they were cheering to begin with means trump was at least partially right, though with some exaggeration, rather like EVERY political candidate.

When a man running to be the leader of a nation, can say and do no wrong, think of Hitler, because that is how they saw him at that time.

You know as well as I do that if this could be confirmed, it would have been done already. Don't blow smoke. It just causes a rash.

[Ellis Bell]

Originally Posted by bentlebee

We saw mulims cheering on and dancing as it was shown from around the world as it happened in Europe and over here. The Orlando shooter was one of them.

What was the age of the shooter in 2001?