Reactions to Donald Trump's surprise election victory were decidedly mixed across the Arab world, including the Arab media.
The most common reaction was shock at the unexpected outcome. The London-based Al-Arabi Al-Jadid ran as its headline 'Shock and awe: Middle East reacts to Trump's triumph.'
A view of the wide range of responses to Trump's victory can be seen on the website of the Saudi-based Arab News newspaper, where one contributor referred to Trump's election as the beginning of 'The American Winter' while another asked 'Could Trump be the Middle East's savior?' Yet another contributor told readers 'Don't be scared of Trump.'
The US-based Arab Daily News even sided against Trump's critics in the US with an article titled 'Trump's path to victory through corrupt news media.'
al-Jazeera reported on the 'Mixed reaction to Trump from prominent Muslim-Americans.
Arab reactions to Trump on social media were even more extreme than reactions in traditional media. Twitter was inundated with cartoons depicting Trump as Hitler or showing him deporting Muslims from the US. Some users tweeted in Arabic that they hoped that Trump would bring about the destruction of the US.
Other users believed that Trump was preferable to Clinton because they felt he was more honest about his intentions towards the Muslim world, sharing the tweet “Trump is fighting Islam openly, and Hillary is fighting Islam secretly! All of them are evil.”
Some users in Egypt expressed hope that Trump would support Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in cracking down on the Muslim Brotherhood and ISIS more than President Obama has. A member of the royal family in Bahrain expressed a similar hope, tweeting that “Trump will burn ISIS and those behind it and will fix the mistakes of Obama’s administration in spreading terror.”