Pamela Geller
Encyclopedia
Pamela Geller is an American blogger, author, political activist, and commentator. She is known primarily for her criticisms of Islam and opposition to Muslim activities and causes, such as the proposed construction of an Islamic community center near the former site of the World Trade Center
. She has described her blogging and campaigns in the United States as being against what she terms "creeping Sharia
" in the country. She was formerly married to Michael Oshry.
Geller and Robert Spencer co-founded the Freedom Defense Initiative and Stop Islamization of America
, and co-authored the book The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration's War on America.
Her weblog, Atlas Shrugs, has been criticized by progressive Media Matters for America
, and called "extreme" by Chris McGreal
of The Guardian
. Caroline Glick
, of The Jerusalem Post
, has praised the blog's coverage of Muslim "honor killings".
Geller attended Lynbrook High School
and Hofstra University
, though she left before completing her degree. She was married to Michael Oshry from 1990 until the couple divorced in 2007, and is the single mother of four children.
In January 2010 she co-founded the Freedom Defense Initiative organization (FDI) with Robert Spencer. Spencer is a blogger and author of articles and books relating to Islam
and Islamic terrorism, and the founder of Jihad Watch
.
Geller denies accusations of being anti-Muslim
, saying that it is "a slanderous slur and it's unfair". She said:
In an interview, Geller said "I have no problem with Islam. I have a problem with political Islam".
Geller has also lent her support to a number of other political causes. She has strongly defended former Serbian president Slobodan Milošević
, denied the existence of Serbian concentration camps in the 1990s, said that black South Africa
ns are engaging in a "genocide
" against whites, and expressed support for the far right
English Defence League
.
In 2008, Geller co-wrote an editorial for Arutz Sheva
expressing her distaste for fellow Jews who are not politically conservative:
. Secure Judea
and Samaria
. Stop buying Haaretz
. Throw leftists bums out."
She was an official blogger at the Republican National Convention of 2008.
She co-authored a book with Spencer, The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration's War on America, with a foreword by former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John R. Bolton
, which was published in July 2010. The book criticizes the Obama administration
's treatment of the free-market system, freedom of speech, and foreign policy.
Geller has also advocated against Islam elsewhere. She argued that the Dome of the Rock
in Jerusalem, one of Islam's holiest sites, should be removed because it was built on the same site as Judaism's former First and Second Temples
. Geller also published an article defending Radovan Karadžic
, indicted for genocide and other war crimes against Bosnian Muslims and Croats during the Siege of Sarajevo
and Srebrenica Massacre
; the article argued that the Muslims were not murdered but committed suicide to embarrass their enemies. In addition, Stop Islamization of America has sponsored ads which carry messages such as "Fatwa on Your Head?" and "Leaving Islam?" in several cities including New York City and Miami, pointing readers to a website called RefugefromIslam.com. Geller said the ads were meant to provide resources for Muslims who were afraid to leave the religion.
Geller first blogged in Atlas Shrugs about the proposed New York mosque in reaction to coverage in The New York Times
on December 8, 2009. On December 21, she again blogged on the subject, referring to it as "Mosque at Ground Zero" and calling it "a stab in the eye". Geller next blogged about the building on May 24, 2010, when she reported on a self-selected reader poll connected with a report in the New York Daily News, urging her readers to vote in it. This is when she first used the phrase "Mega Mosque at Ground Zero".
Commenting on the controversy, Geller said,
When asked in an August 17, 2010, interview on CNN
whether she agreed "that the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11 were practicing a perverted form of Islam, and that is not what is going to be practiced at this mosque", she responded "I will say that the Muslim terrorists were practicing pure Islam, original Islam."
Ibrahim Hooper
, a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations
, criticized Geller, stating:
Eric Boehlert, a senior fellow at liberal watchdog group Media Matters for America
, concurred with Hooper, remarking that "she's been instrumental, she has whipped up hatred in the right-wing blogosphere and now that's spilled out into the wider community" while Andrew C. McCarthy
, writing in the conservative magazine the National Review
criticized Hooper's
opinion on the matter, citing his controversial comments about Islamism
and the United States
. Media Matters further suggested that "Geller's history of outrageous, inflammatory and false claims, particularly when it comes to issues related to Islam, demonstrate that she cannot be expected to make accurate statements and should not be rewarded with a platform on national television."
In February 2011, the Southern Poverty Law Center
labeled Stop Islamization of America as a hate group
. Geller dismissed the SPLC as an "uber left" organization.
's novel Atlas Shrugged
. Geller calls Rand "the greatest philosopher in human history". She says her blog and its purpose are "clearly defined by Rand's philosophy." The blog concentrates on what Geller perceives to be a violent threat to the United States by Islamist extremists and liberal politicians.
As of October 2010, the blog was receiving one million unique visitors a month.
In 2006, when thousands of Muslims worldwide protested
– sometimes violently – over cartoons of the prophet Muhammad
printed in a Danish newspaper, Geller posted the cartoons on her blog, and its hits increased dramatically to tens of thousands.
NPR
reported that in 2008, for Atlas Shrugs, she examined lists of contributions given to Barack Obama's campaign. Others, including The New York Times and The Washington Post, then did the same. Contributors with the names "Es Ech", "Doodad Pro", and similar names turned up, and a conservative activist said he donated to Barack Obama using the name Osama bin Laden.
In November 2008, she captured a conversation by Representative Jerrold Nadler
(D-NY) on video, and posted it on YouTube
. In it, after prefacing his remarks by saying he had "no personal knowledge" of the matter and his statement was merely his "guess", he went on to say that Obama "didn’t have the political courage to want to make the statement of walking out" of Trinity United Church of Christ
when he realized that Rev. Jeremiah Wright
was "a nut" and "lunatic," because "you don’t walk out of a church with 8,000 members in your district." After Geller released the video, Nadler said: "I made a thoughtless comment yesterday which does not reflect the way I feel about Barack Obama".
The blog was among the first on November 5, 2009, to declare the belief that the Fort Hood shooting
was a "Muslim terror attack." Geller later noted that the recent Pentagon report into the Fort Hood shooting did not mention possible religious motivations behind the attack, and argued that self-imposed censorship is hurting U.S. understanding of the wars it is engaged in. She said: "When nowhere in that document was Islam or Jihad mentioned, then Houston, we have a problem. People need to understand what is the motivation."
Controversial postings on Atlas Shrugs have included a number of false claims, including that Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan
(who is Jewish) supports Nazi ideology (accompanied by a mock-up photograph of her in a Nazi uniform), a video suggesting that Muslims have sex with goats, a doctored photo
showing President Obama urinating on an American flag and false claims that Obama's mother was involved in pornography and that Obama "was involved with a crack whore in his youth".
During an RT Television News
interview, reporter Lauren Lister repeatedly questioned Geller's claim that she is not anti-Muslim, at one point calling attention to Geller's having posted a drawing of Muhammad
on her blog with the face of a pig superimposed over his own. Geller responded by saying "I don't know where it is in America that you can't make jokes or make fun."Geller: First of all, I don't know where it is in America that you can't make jokes or make fun. I mean you had Robert Mapplethorpe put a cross in a glass of a, a ...
RT News: So you think it's funny to have the prophet Mohammad as a pig?
Geller: Who cares?! What difference does it make? I mean, this is America!}}
The Geller interview segment of the hour-long Alyona Show is also available on youtube, where the exchange occurs at 5:48 into the video. In the same video, Geller also stated that the last chapter of the Qu'ran
encouraged Muslims to attack nonbelievers.
Geller has written "that Islam is the most antisemitic, genocidal ideology in the world".
The blog has been criticized by progressive Media Matters for America
, and called "extreme" by Chris McGreal
of The Guardian
. Conversely, it has been praised by Caroline Glick, managing editor of The Jerusalem Post, who hailed the blog's coverage of Muslim "honor killings" and called her "an intrepid blogger".
is a forgery
. Even after the president released his long form birth certificate, she continued to post that it was a forgery, despite objections from some of her own readers. She then opined that, because his father
was not divorced from his first wife when he married Stanley Ann Dunham, Obama is disqualified for the presidency, stating that "illegitimate children had different rights ... in 1789" and the Framers would not have intended for one to become president. Geller has also posted writing by another writer who, inter alia, suggested without any evidence that the president is the "love child" of Malcolm X
, though Geller herself says she does not believe that Obama is Malcolm X's love child, and never did.
as the "darling of the Tea Party's growing anti-Islamic wing". She has advocated an alliance between the Tea Party Movement
and the English Defence League
(EDL), saying: "I share the EDL's goals... We need to encourage rational, reasonable groups that oppose the Islamisation of the west."
American journalist Jeffrey Goldberg
, who frequently writes about topics relating to Israel and the Middle East, has described Geller as a "bigoted blogger" and noted her support of South African white supremacist Eugène Terre'Blanche
.
Geller has also stated her belief that the Muslim Brotherhood
has "corrupted and compromised" the Conservative Political Action Conference
(CPAC).
World Trade Center
The original World Trade Center was a complex with seven buildings featuring landmark twin towers in Lower Manhattan, New York City, United States. The complex opened on April 4, 1973, and was destroyed in 2001 during the September 11 attacks. The site is currently being rebuilt with five new...
. She has described her blogging and campaigns in the United States as being against what she terms "creeping Sharia
Sharia
Sharia law, is the moral code and religious law of Islam. Sharia is derived from two primary sources of Islamic law: the precepts set forth in the Quran, and the example set by the Islamic prophet Muhammad in the Sunnah. Fiqh jurisprudence interprets and extends the application of sharia to...
" in the country. She was formerly married to Michael Oshry.
Geller and Robert Spencer co-founded the Freedom Defense Initiative and Stop Islamization of America
Stop Islamization of America
Stop Islamization of America, also called the American Freedom Defense Initiative, is an American anti-Islam organization. It is led by Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer, and was founded in 2010 at the request of Anders Gravers Pedersen, the leader of Stop Islamisation of Europe, of which it is the...
, and co-authored the book The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration's War on America.
Her weblog, Atlas Shrugs, has been criticized by progressive Media Matters for America
Media Matters for America
Media Matters for America is a politically progressive media watchdog group which says it is "dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media." Set up as a 501 non-profit organization, MMfA was founded in 2004 by journalist and...
, and called "extreme" by Chris McGreal
Chris McGreal
Chris McGreal is a reporter for The Guardian who frequently covers Middle East issues.-Career:McGreal started in journalism with the BBC, covering Mexico and Central America. In 1985 he moved to The Independent, and then to The Guardian in 1992...
of The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
. Caroline Glick
Caroline Glick
Caroline Glick is an American-Israeli journalist for Makor Rishon and is the deputy managing editor of The Jerusalem Post. She is also the Senior Fellow for Middle East Affairs of the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Security Policy.-Life:...
, of The Jerusalem Post
The Jerusalem Post
The Jerusalem Post is an Israeli daily English-language broadsheet newspaper, founded on December 1, 1932 by Gershon Agron as The Palestine Post. The daily readership numbers do not approach those of the major Hebrew newspapers....
, has praised the blog's coverage of Muslim "honor killings".
Early and personal life
Geller, born to Jewish parents Reuben ("Ruby") and Lillian Geller, is the third of four sisters. Growing up in Hewlett Harbor, Long Island, New York, she assisted in her father's business, where she learned to speak fluent Spanish. Two of her sisters became doctors, and the third became a teacher.Geller attended Lynbrook High School
Lynbrook Senior High School
Lynbrook Senior High School is the four-year public high school in the Lynbrook, NY school district which draws a geographically diverse student body from the town of Lynbrook and parts of neighboring Hewlett, Hewlett Harbor, East Rockaway, Valley Stream, and Malverne.Lynbrook High School is...
and Hofstra University
Hofstra University
Hofstra University is a private, nonsectarian institution of higher learning located in the Village of Hempstead, New York, United States, about east of New York City: less than an hour away by train or car...
, though she left before completing her degree. She was married to Michael Oshry from 1990 until the couple divorced in 2007, and is the single mother of four children.
Career
Geller spent most of the 1980s working at the New York Daily News, first as a financial analyst and then in the advertising and marketing areas. She then became the associate publisher and top-ranking business executive of The New York Observer for five years, from 1989 through 1994, when she quit to stay home with her four daughters.In January 2010 she co-founded the Freedom Defense Initiative organization (FDI) with Robert Spencer. Spencer is a blogger and author of articles and books relating to Islam
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
and Islamic terrorism, and the founder of Jihad Watch
Jihad Watch
Jihad Watch is a blog affiliated with the David Horowitz Freedom Center, which is run independently by American author Robert Spencer. It is considered an important platform for the counterjihad movement....
.
Geller denies accusations of being anti-Muslim
Islamophobia
Islamophobia describes prejudice against, hatred or irrational fear of Islam or MuslimsThe term dates back to the late 1980s or early 1990s, but came into common usage after the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States....
, saying that it is "a slanderous slur and it's unfair". She said:
the ground zero mosque ... To me it was an outrage, to me it was deeply offensive, to me it was indicative that interfaith dialogue and mutual respect and mutual understanding is a one-way street with Islamic supremacists, not Muslims. I believe that Muslims are more victimized by Islamic supremacists than even non-Muslims.
In an interview, Geller said "I have no problem with Islam. I have a problem with political Islam".
Geller has also lent her support to a number of other political causes. She has strongly defended former Serbian president Slobodan Milošević
Slobodan Milošević
Slobodan Milošević was President of Serbia and Yugoslavia. He served as the President of Socialist Republic of Serbia and Republic of Serbia from 1989 until 1997 in three terms and as President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from 1997 to 2000...
, denied the existence of Serbian concentration camps in the 1990s, said that black South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
ns are engaging in a "genocide
Genocide
Genocide is defined as "the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group", though what constitutes enough of a "part" to qualify as genocide has been subject to much debate by legal scholars...
" against whites, and expressed support for the far right
Far right
Far-right, extreme right, hard right, radical right, and ultra-right are terms used to discuss the qualitative or quantitative position a group or person occupies within right-wing politics. Far-right politics may involve anti-immigration and anti-integration stances towards groups that are...
English Defence League
English Defence League
The English Defence League is a far-right street protest movement which opposes what it considers to be a spread of Islamism, Sharia law and Islamic extremism in the UK. The EDL uses street marches to protest against Islamic extremism...
.
In 2008, Geller co-wrote an editorial for Arutz Sheva
Arutz Sheva
Arutz Sheva is an Israeli media network identifying with Religious Zionism. It offers online news in English, Hebrew, French, Spanish and Russian. Arutz Sheva offers free podcasts, live streaming radio, a daily email news update, streaming video and 24 hour updated text news...
expressing her distaste for fellow Jews who are not politically conservative:
It galls me that the Jews I fight for are self-destructive, suicidal even. Here in America (and the world over), IsraelShe encouraged Israel to "stand loud and proud. Give up nothing. Turn over not a pebble. For every rocket fired, drop a MOAB. Take back GazaIsraelThe State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
's real friends are in the Republican PartyRepublican Party (United States)The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
and yet over 80% of American Jews are DemocratsDemocratic Party (United States)The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
. I don't get it. The conventional wisdom on the Left is that Israel is an oppressor and her actions are worse than the world's most depraved and dangerous regimes. ChomskyNoam ChomskyAvram Noam Chomsky is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, and activist. He is an Institute Professor and Professor in the Department of Linguistics & Philosophy at MIT, where he has worked for over 50 years. Chomsky has been described as the "father of modern linguistics" and...
, FinkelsteinNorman FinkelsteinNorman Gary Finkelstein is an American political scientist, activist and author. His primary fields of research are the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the politics of the Holocaust. He is a graduate of Binghamton University and received his Ph.D in Political Science from Princeton University...
, SorosGeorge SorosGeorge Soros is a Hungarian-American business magnate, investor, philosopher, and philanthropist. He is the chairman of Soros Fund Management. Soros supports progressive-liberal causes...
–these men are the killers.
Gaza
Gaza , also referred to as Gaza City, is a Palestinian city in the Gaza Strip, with a population of about 450,000, making it the largest city in the Palestinian territories.Inhabited since at least the 15th century BC,...
. Secure Judea
Judea
Judea or Judæa was the name of the mountainous southern part of the historic Land of Israel from the 8th century BCE to the 2nd century CE, when Roman Judea was renamed Syria Palaestina following the Jewish Bar Kokhba revolt.-Etymology:The...
and Samaria
Samaria
Samaria, or the Shomron is a term used for a mountainous region roughly corresponding to the northern part of the West Bank.- Etymology :...
. Stop buying Haaretz
Haaretz
Haaretz is Israel's oldest daily newspaper. It was founded in 1918 and is now published in both Hebrew and English in Berliner format. The English edition is published and sold together with the International Herald Tribune. Both Hebrew and English editions can be read on the Internet...
. Throw leftists bums out."
She was an official blogger at the Republican National Convention of 2008.
She co-authored a book with Spencer, The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration's War on America, with a foreword by former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John R. Bolton
John R. Bolton
John Robert Bolton is an American lawyer and diplomat who has served in several Republican presidential administrations. He served as the U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations from August 2005 until December 2006 on a recess appointment...
, which was published in July 2010. The book criticizes the Obama administration
Presidency of Barack Obama
The Presidency of Barack Obama began at noon EST on January 20, 2009 when he became the 44th President of the United States. Obama was a United States Senator from Illinois at the time of his victory over Arizona Senator John McCain in the 2008 presidential election...
's treatment of the free-market system, freedom of speech, and foreign policy.
Stop Islamization of America and Park51
Geller and Robert Spencer co-founded Stop Islamization of America. In May 2010, they began a strong campaign against the proposed Park51 Islamic community center and mosque, which Geller has referred to as the "Ground Zero Mega Mosque". She claims that Park51 is viewed by Muslims as a "triumphal" monument built on "conquered land". She also appeared on a number of cable news shows speaking out against the proposed Islamic community center and mosque.Geller has also advocated against Islam elsewhere. She argued that the Dome of the Rock
Dome of the Rock
The Dome of the Rock is a shrine located on the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem. The structure has been refurbished many times since its initial completion in 691 CE at the order of Umayyad Caliph Abd al-Malik...
in Jerusalem, one of Islam's holiest sites, should be removed because it was built on the same site as Judaism's former First and Second Temples
Temple in Jerusalem
The Temple in Jerusalem or Holy Temple , refers to one of a series of structures which were historically located on the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem, the current site of the Dome of the Rock. Historically, these successive temples stood at this location and functioned as the centre of...
. Geller also published an article defending Radovan Karadžic
Radovan Karadžic
Radovan Karadžić is a former Bosnian Serb politician. He is detained in the United Nations Detention Unit of Scheveningen, accused of war crimes committed against Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats during the Siege of Sarajevo, as well as ordering the Srebrenica massacre.Educated as a...
, indicted for genocide and other war crimes against Bosnian Muslims and Croats during the Siege of Sarajevo
Siege of Sarajevo
The Siege of Sarajevo is the longest siege of a capital city in the history of modern warfare. Serb forces of the Republika Srpska and the Yugoslav People's Army besieged Sarajevo, the capital city of Bosnia and Herzegovina, from 5 April 1992 to 29 February 1996 during the Bosnian War.After Bosnia...
and Srebrenica Massacre
Srebrenica massacre
The Srebrenica massacre, also known as the Srebrenica genocide, refers to the July 1995 killing, during the Bosnian War, of more than 8,000 Bosniaks , mainly men and boys, in and around the town of Srebrenica in Bosnia and Herzegovina, by units of the Army of Republika Srpska under the command of...
; the article argued that the Muslims were not murdered but committed suicide to embarrass their enemies. In addition, Stop Islamization of America has sponsored ads which carry messages such as "Fatwa on Your Head?" and "Leaving Islam?" in several cities including New York City and Miami, pointing readers to a website called RefugefromIslam.com. Geller said the ads were meant to provide resources for Muslims who were afraid to leave the religion.
Geller first blogged in Atlas Shrugs about the proposed New York mosque in reaction to coverage in The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
on December 8, 2009. On December 21, she again blogged on the subject, referring to it as "Mosque at Ground Zero" and calling it "a stab in the eye". Geller next blogged about the building on May 24, 2010, when she reported on a self-selected reader poll connected with a report in the New York Daily News, urging her readers to vote in it. This is when she first used the phrase "Mega Mosque at Ground Zero".
Commenting on the controversy, Geller said,
I'm not leading the charge against the Islamic center near Ground Zero. The majority of Americans – 70% – find this deeply insulting, offensive. To call it anti-Muslim is a gross misrepresentation and to say that I'm responsible for all this emotion, again a gross misrepresentation.
When asked in an August 17, 2010, interview on CNN
CNN
Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...
whether she agreed "that the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11 were practicing a perverted form of Islam, and that is not what is going to be practiced at this mosque", she responded "I will say that the Muslim terrorists were practicing pure Islam, original Islam."
Ibrahim Hooper
Ibrahim Hooper
Ibrahim Hooper , a convert to Islam, is the National Communications Director and spokesperson for the Council on American-Islamic Relations , a Washington D.C.-based Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization.-Early life:...
, a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations
Council on American-Islamic Relations
The Council on American-Islamic Relations is America's largest Muslim civil liberties advocacy organization that deals with civil advocacy and promotes human rights...
, criticized Geller, stating:
Eric Boehlert, a senior fellow at liberal watchdog group Media Matters for America
Media Matters for America
Media Matters for America is a politically progressive media watchdog group which says it is "dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media." Set up as a 501 non-profit organization, MMfA was founded in 2004 by journalist and...
, concurred with Hooper, remarking that "she's been instrumental, she has whipped up hatred in the right-wing blogosphere and now that's spilled out into the wider community" while Andrew C. McCarthy
Andrew C. McCarthy
Andrew C. McCarthy III is a former Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York. A Republican, he is most notable for leading the 1995 terrorism prosecution against Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman and eleven others. The defendants were convicted of the 1993 World Trade Center...
, writing in the conservative magazine the National Review
National Review
National Review is a biweekly magazine founded by the late author William F. Buckley, Jr., in 1955 and based in New York City. It describes itself as "America's most widely read and influential magazine and web site for conservative news, commentary, and opinion."Although the print version of the...
criticized Hooper's
Ibrahim Hooper
Ibrahim Hooper , a convert to Islam, is the National Communications Director and spokesperson for the Council on American-Islamic Relations , a Washington D.C.-based Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization.-Early life:...
opinion on the matter, citing his controversial comments about Islamism
Islamism
Islamism also , lit., "Political Islam" is set of ideologies holding that Islam is not only a religion but also a political system. Islamism is a controversial term, and definitions of it sometimes vary...
and the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. Media Matters further suggested that "Geller's history of outrageous, inflammatory and false claims, particularly when it comes to issues related to Islam, demonstrate that she cannot be expected to make accurate statements and should not be rewarded with a platform on national television."
In February 2011, the Southern Poverty Law Center
Southern Poverty Law Center
The Southern Poverty Law Center is an American nonprofit civil rights organization noted for its legal victories against white supremacist groups; legal representation for victims of hate groups; monitoring of alleged hate groups, militias and extremist organizations; and educational programs that...
labeled Stop Islamization of America as a hate group
Hate group
A hate group is an organized group or movement that advocates and practices hatred, hostility, or violence towards members of a race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation or other designated sector of society...
. Geller dismissed the SPLC as an "uber left" organization.
Atlas Shrugs blog
The name of Geller's website and blog Atlas Shrugs is a reference to novelist and philosopher Ayn RandAyn Rand
Ayn Rand was a Russian-American novelist, philosopher, playwright, and screenwriter. She is known for her two best-selling novels The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged and for developing a philosophical system she called Objectivism....
's novel Atlas Shrugged
Atlas Shrugged
Atlas Shrugged is a novel by Ayn Rand, first published in 1957 in the United States. Rand's fourth and last novel, it was also her longest, and the one she considered to be her magnum opus in the realm of fiction writing...
. Geller calls Rand "the greatest philosopher in human history". She says her blog and its purpose are "clearly defined by Rand's philosophy." The blog concentrates on what Geller perceives to be a violent threat to the United States by Islamist extremists and liberal politicians.
As of October 2010, the blog was receiving one million unique visitors a month.
In 2006, when thousands of Muslims worldwide protested
Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy
The Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy began after 12 editorial cartoons, most of which depicted the Islamic prophet Muhammad, were published in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten on 30 September 2005...
– sometimes violently – over cartoons of the prophet Muhammad
Muhammad
Muhammad |ligature]] at U+FDF4 ;Arabic pronunciation varies regionally; the first vowel ranges from ~~; the second and the last vowel: ~~~. There are dialects which have no stress. In Egypt, it is pronounced not in religious contexts...
printed in a Danish newspaper, Geller posted the cartoons on her blog, and its hits increased dramatically to tens of thousands.
NPR
NPR
NPR, formerly National Public Radio, is a privately and publicly funded non-profit membership media organization that serves as a national syndicator to a network of 900 public radio stations in the United States. NPR was created in 1970, following congressional passage of the Public Broadcasting...
reported that in 2008, for Atlas Shrugs, she examined lists of contributions given to Barack Obama's campaign. Others, including The New York Times and The Washington Post, then did the same. Contributors with the names "Es Ech", "Doodad Pro", and similar names turned up, and a conservative activist said he donated to Barack Obama using the name Osama bin Laden.
In November 2008, she captured a conversation by Representative Jerrold Nadler
Jerrold Nadler
Jerrold Lewis "Jerry" Nadler is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 1992. He is a member of the Democratic Party.The district includes the west side of Manhattan from the Upper West Side down to Battery Park, including the site where the World Trade Center stood...
(D-NY) on video, and posted it on YouTube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
. In it, after prefacing his remarks by saying he had "no personal knowledge" of the matter and his statement was merely his "guess", he went on to say that Obama "didn’t have the political courage to want to make the statement of walking out" of Trinity United Church of Christ
Trinity United Church of Christ
Trinity United Church of Christ is a predominantly black church with more than 8,500 members, located on the southwest side of Chicago. It is the largest church affiliated with the United Church of Christ, a predominantly white Christian denomination with roots in Congregationalism, which branched...
when he realized that Rev. Jeremiah Wright
Jeremiah Wright
Jeremiah Alvesta Wright, Jr. is Pastor Emeritus of Trinity United Church of Christ , a megachurch in Chicago exceeding 6,000 members...
was "a nut" and "lunatic," because "you don’t walk out of a church with 8,000 members in your district." After Geller released the video, Nadler said: "I made a thoughtless comment yesterday which does not reflect the way I feel about Barack Obama".
The blog was among the first on November 5, 2009, to declare the belief that the Fort Hood shooting
Fort Hood shooting
The Fort Hood shooting was a mass shooting that took place on November 5, 2009, at Fort Hood, the most populous U.S. military installation in the world, located just outside Killeen, Texas. In the course of the shooting, a single gunman killed 13 people and wounded 29 others...
was a "Muslim terror attack." Geller later noted that the recent Pentagon report into the Fort Hood shooting did not mention possible religious motivations behind the attack, and argued that self-imposed censorship is hurting U.S. understanding of the wars it is engaged in. She said: "When nowhere in that document was Islam or Jihad mentioned, then Houston, we have a problem. People need to understand what is the motivation."
Controversial postings on Atlas Shrugs have included a number of false claims, including that Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan
Elena Kagan
Elena Kagan is an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, serving since August 7, 2010. Kagan is the Court's 112th justice and fourth female justice....
(who is Jewish) supports Nazi ideology (accompanied by a mock-up photograph of her in a Nazi uniform), a video suggesting that Muslims have sex with goats, a doctored photo
Photo manipulation
Photo manipulation is the application of image editing techniques to photographs in order to create an illusion or deception , through analog or digital means.- Types of digital photo manipulation :...
showing President Obama urinating on an American flag and false claims that Obama's mother was involved in pornography and that Obama "was involved with a crack whore in his youth".
During an RT Television News
RT (TV network)
RT, previously known as Russia Today, is a global multilingual television news network based in the Russian Federation run by the state-owned state-run RIA Novosti....
interview, reporter Lauren Lister repeatedly questioned Geller's claim that she is not anti-Muslim, at one point calling attention to Geller's having posted a drawing of Muhammad
Muhammad
Muhammad |ligature]] at U+FDF4 ;Arabic pronunciation varies regionally; the first vowel ranges from ~~; the second and the last vowel: ~~~. There are dialects which have no stress. In Egypt, it is pronounced not in religious contexts...
on her blog with the face of a pig superimposed over his own. Geller responded by saying "I don't know where it is in America that you can't make jokes or make fun."Geller: First of all, I don't know where it is in America that you can't make jokes or make fun. I mean you had Robert Mapplethorpe put a cross in a glass of a, a ...
RT News: So you think it's funny to have the prophet Mohammad as a pig?
Geller: Who cares?! What difference does it make? I mean, this is America!}}
The Geller interview segment of the hour-long Alyona Show is also available on youtube, where the exchange occurs at 5:48 into the video. In the same video, Geller also stated that the last chapter of the Qu'ran
Surat al-Nas
Sūrat Al-Nās , or Mankind, is the 114th and last sura, or chapter, of the Qur'an, the Muslim holy book. It is a short six-verse invocation, asking Allah for protection from the Satan. It is a Makkan sura. Together with sura Al-Falaq it is also known as Al-Mu'awwidhatayn; dealing with roughly the...
encouraged Muslims to attack nonbelievers.
Geller has written "that Islam is the most antisemitic, genocidal ideology in the world".
The blog has been criticized by progressive Media Matters for America
Media Matters for America
Media Matters for America is a politically progressive media watchdog group which says it is "dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media." Set up as a 501 non-profit organization, MMfA was founded in 2004 by journalist and...
, and called "extreme" by Chris McGreal
Chris McGreal
Chris McGreal is a reporter for The Guardian who frequently covers Middle East issues.-Career:McGreal started in journalism with the BBC, covering Mexico and Central America. In 1985 he moved to The Independent, and then to The Guardian in 1992...
of The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
. Conversely, it has been praised by Caroline Glick, managing editor of The Jerusalem Post, who hailed the blog's coverage of Muslim "honor killings" and called her "an intrepid blogger".
Birther views
Geller has made multiple postings on her blog promoting birtherism, the belief that Barack Obama is not a natural-born citizen of the United States, and that his birth certificateBirth certificate
A birth certificate is a vital record that documents the birth of a child. The term "birth certificate" can refer to either the original document certifying the circumstances of the birth or to a certified copy of or representation of the ensuing registration of that birth...
is a forgery
Forgery
Forgery is the process of making, adapting, or imitating objects, statistics, or documents with the intent to deceive. Copies, studio replicas, and reproductions are not considered forgeries, though they may later become forgeries through knowing and willful misrepresentations. Forging money or...
. Even after the president released his long form birth certificate, she continued to post that it was a forgery, despite objections from some of her own readers. She then opined that, because his father
Barack Obama, Sr.
Barack Hussein Obama, Sr. was a Kenyan senior governmental economist and the father of U.S. President Barack Obama. He is a central subject in his son's memoir, Dreams from My Father.-Early life:...
was not divorced from his first wife when he married Stanley Ann Dunham, Obama is disqualified for the presidency, stating that "illegitimate children had different rights ... in 1789" and the Framers would not have intended for one to become president. Geller has also posted writing by another writer who, inter alia, suggested without any evidence that the president is the "love child" of Malcolm X
Malcolm X
Malcolm X , born Malcolm Little and also known as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz , was an African American Muslim minister and human rights activist. To his admirers he was a courageous advocate for the rights of African Americans, a man who indicted white America in the harshest terms for its...
, though Geller herself says she does not believe that Obama is Malcolm X's love child, and never did.
Other views
Geller was described by The ObserverThe Observer
The Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...
as the "darling of the Tea Party's growing anti-Islamic wing". She has advocated an alliance between the Tea Party Movement
Tea Party movement
The Tea Party movement is an American populist political movement that is generally recognized as conservative and libertarian, and has sponsored protests and supported political candidates since 2009...
and the English Defence League
English Defence League
The English Defence League is a far-right street protest movement which opposes what it considers to be a spread of Islamism, Sharia law and Islamic extremism in the UK. The EDL uses street marches to protest against Islamic extremism...
(EDL), saying: "I share the EDL's goals... We need to encourage rational, reasonable groups that oppose the Islamisation of the west."
American journalist Jeffrey Goldberg
Jeffrey Goldberg
Jeffrey Mark Goldberg is an American journalist. He is an author and a staff writer for The Atlantic, having previously worked for The New Yorker. Goldberg writes principally on foreign affairs, with a focus on the Middle East and Africa...
, who frequently writes about topics relating to Israel and the Middle East, has described Geller as a "bigoted blogger" and noted her support of South African white supremacist Eugène Terre'Blanche
Eugène Terre'Blanche
Eugène Ney Terre'Blanche was a former member of South Africa's Herstigte Nasionale Party who founded the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging during the apartheid era...
.
Geller has also stated her belief that the Muslim Brotherhood
Muslim Brotherhood
The Society of the Muslim Brothers is the world's oldest and one of the largest Islamist parties, and is the largest political opposition organization in many Arab states. It was founded in 1928 in Egypt by the Islamic scholar and schoolteacher Hassan al-Banna and by the late 1940s had an...
has "corrupted and compromised" the Conservative Political Action Conference
Conservative Political Action Conference
The Conservative Political Action Conference is an annual political conference attended by conservative activists and elected officials from across the United States....
(CPAC).
Books
- The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration's War on America, Pamela Geller with Robert Spencer, foreword by (former) Ambassador John R. BoltonJohn R. BoltonJohn Robert Bolton is an American lawyer and diplomat who has served in several Republican presidential administrations. He served as the U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations from August 2005 until December 2006 on a recess appointment...
, (Simon & SchusterSimon & SchusterSimon & Schuster, Inc., a division of CBS Corporation, is a publisher founded in New York City in 1924 by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. It is one of the four largest English-language publishers, alongside Random House, Penguin and HarperCollins...
, July 2010) ISBN 978-1-4391-8930-6
Articles
- "Why There Shouldn’t Be a Mosque at Ground Zero", Pamela Geller, Human EventsHuman EventsHuman Events is a weekly American conservative magazine. It takes its name from the first sentence of the United States Declaration of Independence...
, September 4, 2010 - "Ground Zero Imam is No Moderate", Pamela Geller, Human Events, August 24, 2010
- "Free Speech Wins A Narrow Victory In New York", Pamela Geller, Fox News, August 12, 2010
External links
- Atlas Shrugs official blog
- Column archive at The American ThinkerThe American ThinkerAmerican Thinker is a daily conservative online magazine dealing with American politics, foreign policy, national security, Israel, economics, diplomacy, culture, and military strategy. American Thinker has been mentioned in other media including Le Monde, The Guardian, Inter Press Service, Campus...
- Column archive at Andrew BreitbartAndrew BreitbartAndrew Breitbart is an American publisher, commentator for the Washington Times, author, an occasional guest commentator on various news programs who has served as an editor for the Drudge Report website...
's BigGovernment.com - Freedom Defense Initiative
- Stop Islamization of America