Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Pamela Geller and Stop the Islamization of America

Role in Islamophobia Network: blogger, author, grassroots organizer, media personality
Stop the Islamization of America, co-founder
American Freedom Defense Initiative, co-founder
Atlas Shrugs, creator Based: New York, New York
Updated: August 2012

Pamela Geller has been described as a “caustic mouthpiece” for the Islamophobia movement. She is the editor of the blog Atlas Shrugs, the executive director of the American Freedom Defense Initiative, and co-founder of the hate group Stop the Islamization of America.

Geller formerly worked as a publisher of the New York Daily News and the New York Observer.

The Atlas Shrugs blog is Geller's primary outlet. In 2010, Paypal severed relations with Atlas Shrugs saying that according to the service’s Acceptable Use Policy, “…PayPal may not be used to send or receive payments for items that promote hate, violence, racial intolerance.”i

The hate blog was cited frequently by Anders Breivik, the terrorist who murdered seventy-seven people in Norway in 2011.

Geller’s organization Stop the Islamization of America (SIOA) is designated as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC),ii which also named Geller as a member of the “anti-Muslim inner circle.” The United States Patent and Trademark Office refused to grant SIOA a trademark because: "The applied-for mark refers to Muslims in a disparaging manner because by definition it implies that conversion or conformity to Islam is something that needs to be stopped or caused to cease." 
SIOA is an outgrowth of a similar group in Europe that seeks to block the construction of mosques on that continent. Its sister organization, Stop the Islamization of Europe, "considers Islamophobia to be the height of common sense."

Another SIOA co-founder, Robert Spencer, has been identified by the independent national media watch group Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) as one of "Islamophobia's Dirty Dozen" who systematically "spread fear, bigotry, and misinformation." In its report, FAIR said: "By selectively ignoring inconvenient Islamic texts and commentaries, Spencer concludes that Islam is innately extremist and violent."

Geller and Spencer also co-founded another hate group, American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI), with an individual who says he is an admirer of the founder of two terrorist organizations and who advocated mass murder.iii 

In an Internet profile he created for isrealinsider.net, AFDI founder John Joseph Jay named "rabbi meir kahna" [sic] as one of his "heroes and inspirations in life."iv This is an obvious reference to Rabbi Meir Kahane, the founder of the groups Kach and Kahane Chai, which have been listed as designated foreign terrorist organizations by the U.S. Department of State.

Jay has in the past called for the killing of all Muslims. He wrote: "[T]here are no innocent muslims. islam is subject to killing on grounds of political expediency on the same basis as islam kills its victims, and islam cannot ethically and morally claim otherwise." [Note: Grammatical errors in the original text have been maintained.]v

In 2011, Geller published a book titled Stop the Islamization of America: A Practical Guide to the Resistance. The book offers step-by-step instructions on how to stop mosque construction in American communities. The book called Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) and CNN and ABC News anchor Christiane Amanpour “Stealth Jihadists” and warned against possible “secret halal meat” prepared in school lunches. Geller also uses the book to promote her campaign against the so-called “Ground Zero Mosque” and her proposed series of ads encouraging Muslims to leave Islam.vi

In Pamela Geller’s Own Words

Geller calls Islam the most “extreme ideology on the face of the Earth”
"Islam is not a race. This is an ideology. This is an extreme ideology, the most radical and extreme ideology on the face of the earth." -On Fox Business' Follow the Money, 3/10/2011

Geller justifies 2011 anti-Islam massacre in Norway
Breivik was targeting the future leaders of the party responsible for flooding Norway with Muslims who refuse to assimilate, who commit major violence against Norwegian natives, including violent gang rapes, with impunity, and who live on the dole... all done without the consent of the Norwegians.”vii
-Atlas Shrugs blog post cited at Andrew Sullivan’s The Dish, 8/01/2011

Note the faces which are more MIddle [sic] Eastern or mixed than pure Norwegian.”viii
- Atlas Shrugs photo caption cited at Think Progress. The photo is of attendees at youth camp in Norway taken hours before Anders Breivik murdered many of them during his anti-Islam killing spree.

Geller says “Hitler was inspired by Islam”
"Hitler was inspired by Islam."ix
-Interview on Russian Television’s The Alonya Show, 8/03/2010

Geller promotes conspiracy theory that Muslim groups ‘control information’ at CIA, FBI and various Department of Defense outlets
According to Geller, Muslim groups "control information and how it is processed at senior levels of the CIA, the FBI, the Pentagon, and the various branches of the military.”x
-Atlas Shrugs blog post, 2/10/2010

Geller promotes conspiracy theory that President Obama is a Muslim
“He spent three weeks in Pakistan in his college days at Occidental in 1981…Back in the early 80's, there were only two reasons to travel to Pakistan. Jihad or drugs. I think he went for the drugs and came back with jihad.xi (He did, after all, change his name to Barack Hussein Obama from Barry Soetoro, upon his return from that trip).”
-Atlas Shrugs blog post, 8/1/09


Geller says she ‘loves’ Marines who desecrated corpses
“I love these Marines. Perhaps this is the infidel interpretation of the Islamic ritual of washing and preparing the body for burial.”xii
-Atlas Shrugs blog post, 1/11/2012, after the revelation that U.S. Marines had allegedly desecrated Afghan corpses by urinating on them. By contrast, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta called it "utterly deplorable."xiii

What Others Say About Pamela Geller

Hate group monitor says Geller “relentlessly shrill and coarse in her broad-brush denunciations of Islam”
“Pamela Geller is the anti-Muslim movement's most visible and flamboyant figurehead. She's relentlessly shrill and coarse in her broad-brush denunciations of Islam.”
Southern Poverty Law Center, Intelligence Filesxiv

The United States Patent and Trademark Office’s refused to grant Stop the Islamization of America a trademark
"The applied-for mark refers to Muslims in a disparaging manner because by definition it implies that conversion or conformity to Islam is something that needs to be stopped or caused to cease."xv

Connecting the Islamophobia Network’s Dots

Some of the links between Pamela Geller, Stop the Islamization of America and other elements of the Islamophobia movement.

Robert Spencer: Co-director of the American Freedom Defense Initiative and co-founder of SIOA with Geller. In2010, Geller and Spencer co-authored the book, The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration's War on America.

David Yerushalmi: Attorney for the American Freedom Defense Initiative and close partner with Geller and Spencer in their campaign against the Park 51 community center.xvi

Geert Wilders: Anti-Islam extremist Dutch politician. Geller and Wilders have spoken at each other’s events and rallies and Geller has referred to Wilders as a “hero” on her blog.xvii

John Joseph Jay: Anti-Muslim, far-right fringe activist and founding board member of SIOA.xviii 
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All the below reference links were accessed on September 6, 2012.

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