(Note: the article picture is by way of illustration and it’s from Muslim celebrations in Israel.)
First of all, despite the insistence of this hit piece, and various other media outlets, Muslims did celebrate after 9/11.
“When I saw they were happy, I was pissed,” said Ron Knight, 56, a Tonnele Avenue resident who said he heard cries of “Allahu Akbar” as he shouldered his way through a crowd of 15 to 20 people on John F. Kennedy Boulevard that morning.
Collectively, the gatherings amounted to dozens of people at the two locations, the witnesses said. Callers also flooded the 911 system with accounts of jubilant Muslims on a rooftop at a third location, three police officers said, but a reporter was unable to find witnesses there 14 years later.
A retired police captain, Peter Gallagher, said he cleared a rooftop celebration of 20 to 30 people at 6 Tonnele Ave., a four-story apartment building with an unobstructed view of Lower Manhattan, in the hours after the second tower fell.
“Some men were dancing, some held kids on their shoulders,” said Gallagher, then a sergeant. “The women were shouting in Arabic and keening in the high-pitched wail of Arabic fashion. They were told to go back to their apartments since a crowd of non-Muslims was gathering on the sidewalk below and we feared for their safety.”
FBI agents took several residents of the building into custody days later, according to neighbors and an account in The Star-Ledger. It is unclear why they were detained.
Knight was one of two Tonnele Avenue residents who said they witnessed a crowd celebrating on John F. Kennedy Boulevard not far from Masjid Al-Salam, the mosque where Omar Abdel-Rahman, known as the “blind sheikh,” preached before the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
Carlos Ferran, 60, who lives in the same building as Knight, said he was on his way to a liquor store to buy beer when he came across the gathering on the sidewalk.
“Some of them had their hands in the air,” Ferran said. “They were happy.”
Three additional officers who remain on the Jersey City force said they witnessed small groups of Muslim celebrants on Sept. 11, but they would not speak for attribution, citing a department policy that prohibits media interviews.
“I saw it with my own eyes,” the ranking officer said. “In the end, police officers are professionals, so we just observed that stuff and sucked it up.”
Eleven other officers claimed to have been witnesses to celebrations in postings on Facebook after Trump resurrected the issue, but they either declined to speak for attribution or did not return calls seeking comment.
That, by the way, comes from a local paper. So not a myth, not a lie, not a right-wing hoax, no matter how often the media lies about it.
The Greek Book author pointed out that it happened. And so now he’s being forced to apologize for telling the truth.
The writer of Green Book has apologised for a 2015 tweet that saw him making derogatory remarks about Muslims in the US.
Nick Vallelonga, who is the son of the film’s subject Tony Vallelonga, sparked controversy after it emerged that he supported Donald Trump’s previous claims that Muslims were seen celebrating the 9/11 attacks in New Jersey.
Vallelonga tweeted that he had seen it. That’s the truth. He was made to apologize for… telling the truth.
Because the truth is now Islamophobic.
The tweet was brought to light by La La Land writer Jordan Horowitz, who explained: “Nick Vallelonga wrote Green Book. My industry just gave him a Golden Globe for writing. This remains on his timeline.”
So why was Jordan digging through another writer’s timeline going back years?
Question answers itself.
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