We return to the necessary theme of the defence of Pamela Geller. This attempt to vilify the name and work of Pamela Geller is going on now at full tilt and it raises vital issues, indeed it is quite impossible to move forward if this campaign is not answered and defeated. It concerns above all the ability to tell the truth about Islam, but more than that even, about the real world in which we live.
If Geller is defeated then that means a big blow has been struck against Free Speech, with vast implications for education and science.
This is why this reply of Robert Spencer to Charles Johnson is absolutely vital reading for all readers of 4international.
It is on
Libelblogger Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs has been blogging daily for around ten years now, and in all that time has contented himself with a few lines of comment on news stories he has blogged about; he has never written a single stand-alone, full-length article about anything — until now. Columnist Johnson makes his debut today in The Guardian’s Comment Is Free section in a characteristic way: by spreading lies about my colleague Pamela Geller.
This is what this man has allowed himself to become: after betraying all his principles and alliances, he is despised by the Right and held in contempt by the Left, while he himself stands for nothing at all except the destruction of those principled individuals alongside whom he used to fight. And their destruction is the chief cause to which he devotes his time nowadays; hence this present hit piece on Pamela. As I said yesterday, “It is testimony to the effectiveness of my colleague Pamela Geller, in raising awareness of the issues surrounding the Islamic supremacist mega-mosque at Ground Zero and Islamic supremacism in general, that the mainstream media is gunning for her with relentless fury.” Johnson is no Reuel Gerecht, and doesn’t even approach Jeffrey Goldberg, but since he is spreading this nonsense in The Guardian now and not just at his rapidly sinking hate site Little Green Footballs, it warrants setting the record straight.
“Pamela Geller and the bloggers of hate,” by Charles Johnson in The Guardian, October 14 (thanks to James):
Johnson spends most of his piece retailing Leftist scare words about conservatives, so as to semaphore to Guardian readers that Pamela Geller is Not One Of Us and thus not to be trusted. Thus without explanation he calls her an “extreme rightwing blogger” and claims that she has “arguably done more than anyone else to incite fear and hatred over the so-called ‘Ground Zero Mosque.'” He offers no evidence for this; he’s just slinging smear words with no content. Maybe he thought the Guardian site was called Content Is Free. And with a puritanical distaste that he would deride if it came from any conservative, he claims that the New York Times profile of her last Sunday featured a photo of Pamela “posing in her bikini.” This, too, is false.
Then Johnson claims that through him “Pamela Geller got her start on the internet”:
One thing you’ll discover in the article is that Pamela Geller got her start on the internet by commenting at my site, Little Green Footballs. She posted more than 6,000 comments at LGF in our earlier days, when our comment moderation policy was much more laissez faire than it is now.As I said to the Times, in those days, Geller was often the first one to take the rhetoric over the top, and the target of her rage was usually (but not always) Muslims. And not just militants or terrorists, but all Muslims; Geller was quite clear, and stated often, that she didn’t believe in the idea of a “moderate Islam” at all. (Ironically, this is an opinion she shares with the leaders of al-Qaida, who insist that all Muslims must follow their extreme interpretation of Islam.)
Â
Johnson here confuses moderate Islam with moderate Muslims. In Ibn Warraq’s lapidary formulation, there are many moderate Muslims, but no moderate Islam. In other words, there is no traditional, mainstream sect of Islam or school of Islamic jurisprudence that does not teach warfare against and the subjugation of unbelievers. But that doesn’t mean that every Muslim is with that program, any more than Jesus’ teaching means that every Christian turns the other cheek and loves his enemies. The teachings of a religion are one thing and the way every individual believer puts those teachings into practice is quite another.
This is an elementary distinction, but it seems to elude Johnson and other Leftists, whether because they cannot see it or do not wish to. In any case, Johnson, bent on destroying Pamela Geller, tries to portray her as targeting “all Muslims,” rather than standing up for freedom against Islamic supremacists as she does. Here again, he lies.
Several years ago, I made a very public break with Geller and her allies, such as Robert Spencer, because of their increasing radicalisation and willingness to make alliances with far rightwing anti-Islam parties in Europe, such as Belgium’s Vlaams Belang and Britain’s English Defence League.
This is Johnson’s Big Lie, which he has spread for years now everywhere he could, and has hoodwinked many people into believing. In reality, neither I nor Pamela Geller ever made any alliances with Vlaams Belang or the EDL. That should not be taken as a repudiation of either group; at the same time, however, I refuse to accept the Leftist contention that I must be responsible for everything anyone connected with either one ever says or does because I refuse to denounce them as a whole. I don’t believe they’re neofascist white supremacists, as Johnson claims. There is no way that Pamela Geller or I would ever work with, endorse, or approve of any genuine neofascist or white supremacist individual or group in any way, shape or form. But because we would not denounce people Johnson demanded we denounce, he denounced us, and claimed we were far closer to them than we ever were. The whole controversy was manufactured by Charles Johnson.
Indeed, when Geller held her anti-Islam rally in Manhattan this year on 11 September, she invited representatives of the English Defence League to attend. This turned into a bit of an embarrassment when one of the EDL leaders was refused entry to the United States because of “entry form irregularities”, and the others had their hotel rooms searched by the FBI.
Yes, because we all know that the immigration authorities and the FBI are always and in every case on the side of the angels.
There’s a much uglier side to Pamela Geller, however, that was missed by Barnard and Feuer and needs to be pointed out: in addition to her anti-Muslim activities, Geller often supports and glorifies people who can only be described as white supremacists and genocidal war criminals.
Why did the New York Times reporters Barnard and Feuer miss this? Because it’s false. Barnard and Feuer are hardcore ideologues and hardly objective reporters, but even they knew that they couldn’t retail this nonsense even in the New York Times. Read on and you’ll see why.
For example, last April, Geller defended South African apartheid advocate and convicted terrorist Eugene Terreblanche, blaming his murder on “black supremacism” and warning that it was the start of “white genocide” in South Africa:
“The white genocide is heating up in South Africa: South Africa race tension grows. The whites in South Africa are keenly aware of the plans to kill them, better known as ‘The night of the long knives’. They expect it to happen very soon after the death of Mandela, but to tell this to the world is a waste of energy. Atlas has been reporting on this horror that the savages in the media ignore.”
Here’s something Pamela wrote about Terreblanche that Johnson didn’t quote: “Insofar as my sanctioning of white supremacists in South Africa — that is a blatant libel. I do not — this coming from proponents of Jewish genocide and the annihilation of Israel. I vehemently disagree with Terre’blanche’s ideas, but I don’t believe he (or anyone else) should be viciously hacked to death for their ideas by supremacists. Does CAIR go after Malema for singing “kill the Boer farmers”? No — because Jihadis Incite South African Blacks to kill all Whites.”
She wrote that last April. Not time enough for Johnson to find it, however — it has only been seven months.
Johnson missed more, too:
And in July, Geller posted an ode of support to genocidal Serbian war criminal Radovan Karadzic.
Actually, she posted a piece that said quite clearly: “I am not defending Radovan Karadzic…”
The most troubling thing about a person like Johnson, like Islamic supremacist hair stylist Reza Aslan and so many others, is that they don’t seem to care a whit for the truth. All they care about is destroying their enemies.
4international 