Arab and Muslim media on the Trump shooting: Dark jokes, darker warnings

Editorials in many major newspapers in Arab and Muslim countries were relatively restrained in addressing the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, mostly focusing on the well-known problem of violence in America. Social media comments, however, were another story, often reflecting the widespread view of Trump as an enemy of Muslims — if not of Islam in general.

There were two widely shared theories: One proposed a mo’amara (Arabic for conspiracy) in which Iran, the most anti-American nation in the region, was behind the assassination attempt. Indeed, statements from top American intelligence experts that they were expecting “something” from Iran, although they didn’t cite anything specific, were seen as further evidence. 

The second involved masrahiya (Arabic for a staged event). In the 1999 film “Al-Walad Mahroos,” Adel Imam, an Egyptian actor known throughout the Arab world, played a security guard who is shot protecting a political candidate during an assassination attempt, but survives. The guard then exploits his injuries to gain sympathy and a level of popularity rivaling that of the candidate himself.

That popular comedy is often cited in Arabic-language social media as an analogy explaining Trump's apparent increase in popularity after the assassination attempt.

Many Muslims seemed convinced that Trump had staged the Pennsylvania incident: One commenter stated that since Trump was “al-Shaitan” (Satan or the devil), he was clearly capable of doing that.

As noted above, more serious commentary was found in some major newspapers, most of it about rising political violence in America, a country often seen as eager to enforce its standards on others.

One example came in an editorial in the National, an English-language paper in the United Arab Emirates: “The attempt on Trump’s life marks an odious moment in America’s darkening political cycle … The country has witnessed an unacceptable rise in political violence in recent years.”

The Gulf Times of Qatar was even more direct: “As ugly as it may sound, the attempt to assassinate Trump is somewhat normal, in the sense that it is consistent with a widespread pattern of recourse to brute force in American life.”

A columnist in Saudi Arabia's Asharq Al-Awsat sought to connect recent events to historical lessons many Americans seem eager to avoid: “Violence in America started with the annihilation of the original population by the White invaders … later, the importation of African slaves in bottom of ships as if they were animals.”

Many commenters on Arab and Islamic social media launched personal attacks on Trump, particularly focused on the “Muslim ban” from the beginning of his presidential term. 

Curiously enough, some Muslim commenters had apparently paid attention to comments made by evangelicals at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, used to make their point that Trump and his party are opposed to Islam. Commenters noted that Trump was described as a Christian martyr, who had been falsely accused and convicted just as Jesus was.

Here are two comments, originally written in Arabic in WhatsApp:

Everything shows Trump’s hate of Muslims. May Allah cause his hate to unite us, the Muslims, and wake us up from our present miseries.

Funny, the Jews enjoy the support of Christian Americans, not knowing the Christians want Israel to disappear, so Jesus Christ returns.

There were also many far more sober comments, suggesting that since Trump seems closer to regaining the White House after the assassination attempt, Muslims should expect another travel ban and other forms of U.S. government persecution.

One comment on the Arabic-language site Elaf site cited Trump’s 2016 campaign promise to “get rid of radical terrorist Islam from the face of the earth.” A comment on Al Jazeera's Arabic site recalled Trump's proposal to institute an “ideological test” for Muslim immigrants and visitors to the U.S. A third comment, on the site Al-Itihad, observed that “the Americans, looking for an enemy after the fall of the Soviet Union, targeted Islam.”

Trump's infamous "Muslim ban” of 2017 was officially titled Executive Order 13769, “Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States.” It had numerous legal and logistical problems and never went into full effect. A revised order was issued and the list of countries affected kept changing; there were intergovernmental quarrels along with protests from U.S. allies in the Muslim world. President Biden revoked the entire package as soon as he took office in 2021, with Secretary of State Antony Blinken declaring that the entire affair was “a stain on our national conscience.”

Now Trump hopes to bring the ban back, eight years later. As part of his promise to act as a dictator on "day one" of his administration, he has told supporters he would immediately begin “ideological screening” for all immigrants and bar those who sympathize with Hamas and Muslim extremists.

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Many Pakistani social media posters, writing in English, said they expected further punitive measures from Trump in a second term. Several remembered this Trump tweet from 2018: “The United States has foolishly given Pakistan more than 33 billion dollars in aid over the last 15 years, and they have given us nothing but lies & deceit, thinking of our leaders as fools … No more!”

Commenters also noted recent remarks by Sen. JD Vance, Trump’s running mate, who suggested that under the newly-elected Labour Party government, the U.K. might become the first “truly Islamist” country with nuclear weapons. Vance's supposed joke, presumably intended as a critique of immigration, provoked many angry responses, both in Britain and the Muslim world. More moderate commenters simply observed that the Ohio senator had been chosen to continue Trump’s anti-Muslim policies into the next generation.

Some commenters also reflected on the apparent rise of Christian nationalism in America, noting that two-thirds of white evangelical Christians saw Trump as an ally in advancing their agenda and that new laws in Louisiana and Oklahoma, respectively, mandated posting the Ten Commandments in classrooms and teaching Bible lessons in public schools.

For many Muslims, the ironic question drawn from recent events in America seemed obvious: Who are the real extremists?