Pamela Geller
Pamela Geller
Born	June 14, 1958 (age 55)[1] Long Island, New York, U.S.[2]
Residence	Upper East Side, New York, New York, U.S.[1]
Other names	Pamela Oshry
Citizenship	United States
Alma mater	Hofstra University; left before completing degree[1]
Occupation	Blogger, author, political activist, commentator, former newspaper editor
Organization	Co-founder of Freedom Defense Initiative, and Stop Islamization of America
Known for	Opposition to Park51 community center and mosque
Notable work(s)	The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration's War on America, with Robert Spencer[3]
Influenced by	Ayn Rand, Bat Ye'or, and Ibn Warraq[1]
Home town	Hewlett Harbor, Long Island, New York[1]
Board member of	Executive Director of the Freedom Defense Initiative (FDI) and Stop Islamization of America (SIOA)[4]
Religion	Judaism
Spouse(s)	Michael Oshry (1990-2007; divorced)[1]
Children	4
Parents	Reuben ("Ruby") and Lillian Geller[1]
Website
Atlas Shrugs

Pamela Geller (born June 14, 1958)^[5] is an American blogger, author, political activist, and commentator.^[1] She is known primarily for her criticism 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.^[6] She has described her blogging and campaigns in the United States as being against what she terms "creeping Sharia" in the country. She is described as a critic of radical Islam^[7] and self-described as opposing "Political Islam".^[8] Her critics have described her viewpoints as Islamophobic. ^[9] Together with Robert Spencer she co-founded the Freedom Defense Initiative and Stop Islamization of America.^[10]. Their organizations have been censured by private civil rights groups.^[11][12] They have also been barred from travel to the UK for supporting "anti-Muslim hate groups".^[9] Geller and Spencer also co-authored the book The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration's War on America.^[3]

Personal life

Geller, born to Jewish parents Reuben ("Ruby") and Lillian Geller, is the third of four sisters.^[1][13][14] Growing up in Hewlett Harbor, Long Island, New York, she assisted in her father's business, where she learned to speak fluent Spanish.^[1][13] Two of her sisters became doctors, and the third became a teacher.^[1]
Geller attended Lynbrook High School and Hofstra University, though she left before completing her degree.^[1]
She was married to Michael Oshry from 1990 until the couple divorced in 2007, and is the single mother of four children.^[1] As of April 2013 she was living in Hewlett, Long Island, New York,.^[15]

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.^[16] 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.^[1][17][18]
Geller has said that the 9/11 attacks led her politicization.^[19]
In January 2010 she co-founded the American Freedom Defense Initiative organization (FDI) with Robert Spencer.^[20][21][22] Spencer is a blogger and author of articles and books relating to Islam and Islamic terrorism, and the founder of Jihad Watch.^[1]
Geller, according to Bradley Burston, promotes Israel by pushing Islamophobia.^[23] Geller denies accusations of being anti-Muslim, saying that it is "a slanderous slur and it's unfair".^[24][25][26] 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.^[8]

In an interview, Geller said "I have no problem with Islam. I have a problem with political Islam."^[8] Rabbi Michael White and Jerome Davidson, denouncing Geller as an anti-Muslim bigot, opposed her presentation at a Long Island Synagogue. Caroline Glick argues that they are unfair to Geller's selective opposition to jihadi and her sympathy for their Muslim victims as well as non-Muslim victims.^[27] Charles Jacobs notes that Geller takes aim at "radical Islam," comes to the defense of victims of honor killings, and deals with Islamist antisemitism which the ADL and SPLC fail to address.^[28]Cathy Young, however, faults Geller for failing to hold that Islam can be reformed or evolve into a moderate religion.^[29]
In 2008, Geller co-wrote an editorial for Arutz Sheva 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), Israel's real friends are in the Republican Party and yet over 80% of American Jews are Democrats. 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. Chomsky, Finkelstein, Soros– these men are the killers.^[30]

She encouraged Israel to "stand loud and proud. Give up nothing. Turn over not a pebble. For every rocket fired, drop a MOAB. Take back Gaza. Secure Judea and Samaria. Stop buying Haaretz. Throw leftists bums out."^[30] She is an ardent Zionist.^[31]
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.^[3] The book criticizes the Obama administration's treatment of the free-market system, freedom of speech, and foreign policy.
She is also a contributor to the conservative magazine Human Events.^[32]
She is a supporter of 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."^[33][24][34] In June 2013, she was scheduled to speak at an EDL rally but was barred from entering Britain by a Home Office ruling that describes her as having established "anti-Muslim hate groups".^[9] Geller called the decision "a striking blow against freedom ... The nation that gave the world the Magna Carta is dead." Hope not Hate, which led a campaign to ban her, applauded the decision as a proper limit to "unfettered free speech".^[9]

Stop Islamization of America and Park51

Geller and Robert Spencer co-founded Stop Islamization of America.^[10] 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".^[35][36] She says 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.^[16] 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.^[16][37] Geller said the ads were meant to provide resources for Muslims who were afraid to leave the religion.^[37]
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.^[38][39] 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".^[40] 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".^[41][42]
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.^[24]

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."^[43]
Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, criticized Geller, stating:

People say don't give her too much credit, she's a fringe character, but she is a fringe character who every day is on CNN, Fox, The Washington Post, and The New York Times'. She is the driving force behind the Islamic center campaign. I would say that she is the queen of the Muslim bashers, I see her rise and the rise of these anti-Islam hate groups going hand in hand.^[16]

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"^[16] while Andrew C. McCarthy, writing in the conservative^[44] magazine National Review, criticized Hooper's remarks on the matter, citing his controversial comments about Islamism and the United States.^[45] Media Matters said "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."^[46]
Both SIOA and FDI have been designated as hate groups by the Anti-defamation league^[11] and the Southern Poverty Law Center.^[12] Geller dismissed the SPLC as an "uber left" organization.^[47]

Atlas Shrugs blog

The name of Geller's website and blog Atlas Shrugs is a reference to novelist and philosopher Ayn Rand's novel Atlas Shrugged.^[1][24] Geller calls Rand "the greatest philosopher in human history". She says her blog and its purpose are "clearly defined by Rand's philosophy".^[48] The blog concentrates on what Geller perceives to be a violent threat to the United States by Islamist extremists and liberal politicians.^{[49][non-primary source needed]}
As of October 2010, the blog was receiving 150,000 unique visitors a month.^[1]
In 2006, when thousands of Muslims worldwide protested– sometimes violently – over cartoons of the Islamic prophet Muhammad printed in a Danish newspaper,^{[1][50][51][52][53]} Geller posted the cartoons on her blog,^[1][54] and its hits increased dramatically to tens of thousands.^[1]
NPR reported that in 2008, for Atlas Shrugs, she examined lists of contributions given to Barack Obama's presidential campaign. Others, including The New York Times and The Washington Post, then did the same.^[55] Contributors with the names "Es Ech", "Doodad Pro", and similar names turned up, and a conservative activist said he donated to Obama's campaign using the name Osama bin Laden.^[55]
In November 2008, she captured a conversation by Representative Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) on video, and posted it on YouTube.^[56] 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".^[56][57][58] After Geller released the video, Nadler said: "I made a thoughtless comment yesterday which does not reflect the way I feel about Barack Obama".^[57][58]
Also in 2008 Geller posted a letter saying that Malcolm X had impregnated Ann Dunham, Barack Obama's mother. After the theory was posted, the conspiracy theory gained notoriety and led Keith Olbermann to label her "the worst person in the world" during the eponymous segment of Countdown with Keith Olbermann.^[19]
The blog was among the first on November 5, 2009, to opine that the Fort Hood shooting was a "Muslim terror attack."^[49] 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.^[59] 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."^[59]

Controversial postings

Controversial postings on Atlas Shrugs include:^[60][61] accusations that Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan cited German socialists who supported Nazi ideology in her Princeton thesis (accompanied by a mock-up photograph of her in a Nazi uniform),^[1][62] a video suggesting that some Muslims have sex with goats, a doctored photo showing President Obama urinating on an American flag,^[16] statements that Obama's mother had "nude pornographic photos" taken, and that Obama "was involved with a crack whore in his youth".^[63][64]
During an RT Television News interview, reporter Lauren Lister repeatedly questioned Geller's statement 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."^[65]
The blog has been criticized by progressiveMedia Matters for America,^[46][66] and called "extreme" by Chris McGreal of The Guardian.^[24] 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".^[67][68]
Geller's blog has featured a post which, inter alia, suggested that the president is the "love child" of Malcolm X, though Geller later said this was by another author and that she herself does not believe that Obama is Malcolm X's child, and never did.^[16][69]
Geller has also lent her support to a number of other political causes. She has strongly defended former Serbian president Slobodan Milošević,^[24] denied the existence of Serbian concentration camps in the 1990s,^[70] said that black South Africans are engaging in a "genocide" against whites.^[71]
American journalist Jeffrey Goldberg, who frequently writes about topics relating to Israel and the Middle East, has described Geller as a "bigoted blogger" and said she supported South African white supremacist Eugène Terre'Blanche.^[72] Geller has in turn called Goldberg "notoriously anti-zionist and intellectually dishonest", as well as a "Jewicidal Jihadi"^[73][74] Geller describes Terreblanche as the "leader of the noxious and hateful neo-NaziAfrikaner Resistance Movement". She maintains there is a genocide underway in South Africa that includes innocent whites who are not "racist monsters like Eugene Terreblanche".^[75]

Paid ads on public transit

Geller has paid to have ads run on the transit systems of New York City, Washington, and San Francisco. The ad approved to run on the New York City subway and San Francisco buses read, "In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel. Defeat Jihad."^[76] Opponents argue that the ad implies Muslims are savages.^[77][78] Others argue the opposite, that it is insulting to assume Muslims will identify with violent jihadi.^[79][80] Moderate Muslims argue that Geller's use of the word jihad is identical to Islamic extremists' and too common in general American usage. Moderates seek to reclaim the notion of jihad as a striving but find "rebranding" difficult in today's culture.^[81]
The Jewish Council for Public Affairs has called the ad "Bigoted, Divisive" and JCPA President Rabbi Steve Gutow has said, “The fact that ads have been placed in the subway attacking Israel does not excuse the use of attack ads against Muslims".^[82] Israel Kasnett, editor for the Jerusalem Post, argues that Geller is right in her description of violent jihad.^[83] Jewish groups such as the Jewish Community Relations Council and the Anti-Defamation League "successfully persuaded the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency to donate proceeds from the [offensive bus] ads to the city’s Human Rights Commission."^[76]
Geller purchase ad space at 39 New York City subway stations for a new ad that "links Islam to terrorism."^[84] Prompted by an anti-Israel ad on the subway, Geller said she is exercising her freedom of speech by showing a picture of the burning World Trade Center with a quote from the Koran. The ads went up in January 2013 and will run about a month.^[85]

Claims

Geller has also stated her belief that the Muslim Brotherhood has "corrupted and compromised" the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).^[86]

Works

Books

• The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration's War on America, Pamela Geller with Robert Spencer, foreword by (former) Ambassador John R. Bolton, (Simon & Schuster, July 2010) ISBN 978-1-4391-8930-6
• Stop the Islamization of America: A Practical Guide to the Resistance, Pamela Geller, (WND Books, September 6, 2011) ISBN 978-1-936488-36-0
• Freedom or Submission: On the Dangers of Islamic Extremism & American Complacency, Pamela Geller, (CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, April 3, 2013) ISBN 978-1-484019-65-8

Articles

• "Why There Shouldn’t Be a Mosque at Ground Zero", Pamela Geller, Human Events, 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

See also

• Rifqa Bary
• Stop Islamisation of Europe
• Geert Wilders

References

External links

• Atlas Shrugs official blog
• Pamela Geller | Southern Poverty Law Center
• Column archive at The American Thinker
• Column archive at Andrew Breitbart's BigGovernment.com
• Freedom Defense Initiative
• Stop Islamization of America
• Appearances on C-SPAN
• Pamela Geller's connections to European terrorists - Institute for Policy Studies
• Works by or about Pamela Geller in libraries (WorldCat catalog)

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