Recently, I have come across a number of rightwing blogs and have heard Fox News guests and hosts repeating many of Pamela Geller’s favorite talking points verbatim. For example, here is a quote from a recent article I read opposing the 51Park St. mosque from a citizen journalist website, “The argument among those who oppose the mosque is from a humanitarian stand point. Followers of the cult (of) Islam have a history of attacking then building a mosque on the site of their victory. Look at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem as a prime example.” [1]
On Saturday, June 5, 2010 Pamela Geller gave a rousing one hour lecture in Gatlinburg to the Tennessee Tea Party. In the speech, you will find nearly every talking point and the rightwing extremists and Islamophobes have been recently pushing on Americans. Does this sound familiar “I’m Pamela Geller and contraire to popular beliefs, I’m a human rights activist." She later goes on, "In Islamic history, symbolism is very import, every time they conquer a land they always take the church or the temple or synagogue and they build right over it…Look want they did…to the Jewish holiest site in the world, which is the Temple Mount… and this is what this mosque is…it is the ultimate flag of conquest.”? [2]
Geller goes on in her lecture to make herself out to be a martyr. She cries and whines about how people have called her a bigot and an Islamophobe and tells her audience “Truth is the new hate speech.” All the while Geller claims, “Obama has more Arab blood than black (blood)." She goes on to claim, "It is in the Qur’an that the Jews must be annihilated …any Jew you see hiding behind a tree you must kill them. Everything that has been coming to you visa via from the government or the media has literally been vetted by the Muslim Brotherhood. They have literally infiltrated senior levels of the pentagon, the executive branch … and State Department.” And she continues to spread fear in her audience, “There is an academic Jihad in where they are rewriting history. Anyone with children in grade school go look at the book, go look at the book and see the three chapters on Islam. One is on the prophet Mohammad.” Of course when someone in the audience calls out, “What book?” Geller responds, “They won’t let the books come home. You have to get them out.” And then conveniently moves quickly onto how when she was growing up "there use to be the Brady Bunch and Cheetos." Ah, someone needs to tell Geller Cheetos is still on the shelves and you can watch Brady Bunch reruns on Hulu.
Geller claims “Free speech is on attack… Go to the Huffington Post…, I’m telling you that is a hate site, an anti-Semitic speech, a leftist, I mean it is so out there, that kind of invective, would have been so far out of the margin twenty five years ago. Something has happened. The left has completely taken over the dialogue, because there is a leftist Islamic alliance … they are mosquing the workplace. They are importing Somalian’s into meatpacking sites which is now imposing Sharia law in the workplace.” Geller claims that throughout America workers and whole industries are now being forced shut down five times a day and everyone regardless of religion must get on their knees and prey to Allah. Of course she doesn’t provide any real proof to most of her wild claims. But they sure seem to do a good job of scaring many in her Tennessee Tea Party audience. And the problem is these wild stories are being spread like wild fire across the rightwing blogosphere.
Geller ends her speech by concluded that “You have to buy my book, you have to get your news from the internet, and you have to support Israel. (To a roaring applause she sticks out her tongue like a snake and continues on.) You have to support Israel for a number of reasons. First between a civilized man and a savage, you always side with the civilized man. The IDF is the most benevolent army in the world.”
Now most people would say that this is all just the rantings of a crazy woman. However, mainstream media and especially Fox News have been giving Geller a platform to preach her conspiracy theory for a number of months now. And as a result, we have now thousands of rightwing bloggers repeating, nearly verbatim, many of the wacky and dangerous lies Geller is spewing.
But is Pamela Geller really an Israeli spy? As Geller says, “At the end of the day it is Israel. It is Israel. And Hamas must be crushed, eradicated… I hope cooler heads prevail and they wipe out that nest of Islamic terror (Hamas.)” Geller claims those living in Palestine today are nothing but Arab invading and occupying Jewish holy land. She states, “What is a Palestinian? A Palestinian is a Jew. Yeah, they stole that word from the Jews. Palestine is Israel. It is the Jews, the Jews, the Jews, the Jews… And why would you elect Obama… a man more Arab than black.” The fact that the word Palestine comes from the Biblical city of Philistine which was in the land of Cannon (not Jewish) means nothing to Geller and the Israeli revisionist history tellers. [4]
Read her blog sites Atlas Shrugs or Stop the Islamazation of America and you will find Geller’s obsession with Israel. You will also find her none stop spreading of hatred and fear towards Muslims. Geller claims the civilized world is at “War with Islam.” And she has actively been working to drag Americans into her “War against Islam.”
What Pam Geller doesn’t understand is that the United States is not at war with Islam. The United States was not attacked by Islam. We were criminally attacked by religious extremists. Geller claims, “All Muslims are the same.” That is like saying all Jews or all Christians are the same. It is as ridiculous a claim as saying grade school kids in the U.S. have textbooks with three chapters on Islam and the teachers (nationwide) are keeping the children from bringing home their books.
Geller denies that she is religiously bigoted and Islamophic because she claims Islam in not a religion, rather it is a cult, sound familiar? However, just imagine if some “Leftard” (as she calls us) started a website called Stop the Jewry of America. Just imagine how many people would come out onto the streets in protest if MSNBC or CNN gave a Leftard like that a mainstream microphone. The rightwing blogosphere would go crazy talking about the anti-Semitic given a platform to preach his hate across America. Yet, it has not only been Fox News, MSNBC and CNN that have given Geller a platform to demonize Muslims, she is also a featured columnist for Newsmax Corp. and has had her op-eds published in many newspapers nationwide.
All the while, in her holiday video card to the soldiers, made just before Obama’s presidency, she claims she is grateful to the troops for allowing her to sit on the beach, in her bikini (Geller has done several video blogs wearing bikinis or in bedrooms draped in a robe with her hair tussled and her body somewhat exposed), reading a glamour magazine, in south Florida. She thanks the troops for allowing her to say anything she likes because, “In New York, if I was doing what I was doing, I would be in jail. That’s right those Eurowings would throw me in jail and let the country be run by Islamists, Sunni Islamists.” Then Geller goes off on, amongst other things, how “Obama is a Muslim” and the “Antichrist.” [5]
I have to ask, Who is this woman working for? To tell the troops that their soon to be President of the United States is the Antichrist is not a good message to the troops. But wait a minute, let’s remember Geller has repeated called for people to “Support Israel.” Geller claims, “The IDF is the most benevolent army in the world… (and) It all about the Jews, the Jews, the Jews, the Jews.” All the while she calls the President of the United States “the Antichrist.” Geller wants to divide and draw Americans into her war on Islam and gain their unconditional support for Israel. And apparently, some seem to have fallen for her rhetoric and are repeating whole sentences and paragraphs of Pamela Geller’s insanity. Geller claims on websites, videos, and in her lectures that she is a “human rights activist.” Then she goes off on how Hamas and the Palestinians need to be “crushed,” “eradicated”, and “annihilated.” These are not the words of a human rights activist. Rather, these are the words of her so called “benevolent” Israeli Defense Force and Zionist extremists. And so I have to ask once again, Who does Pamela Geller really work for?
[1] http://www.broowaha.com/articles/7755/you-can%E2%80%99t-blame-bush-anymore
[3] http://www.broowaha.com/articles/7721/peace-talk-overture-hamas-kills-four-israeli-civilians
[4] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qftK5ROBVH4&feature=related
[5] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0A0aQ3ntAQ&feature=related