ANTI-MUSLIM COMEDY DUO COMES TO PHILLY: HOW PAM GELLER AND ROBERT SPENCER PLAYED VICTIM AND PROMOTED FASCISM

Not that it matters all that much, but in the interest of full disclosure it should be noted that noted Islamophobe Pamela Geller has mentioned us in a diatribe against the blog Little Green Footballs when they wrote about the whole James O’Keefe affair earlier this year when we wrote about how he attended a white supremacist forum in 2006. Taking her cues from Andrew Breitbart, on whose website she was writing her little screed, she declared that the event was a “white supremacist conference” as we reported. We are guessing that it is her little tunnel vision problem with seeing Muslims as the root of all evil that is to blame, because she tried to say that not only the English Defence League are not racist, but also not violent – which would come as a shock to the police officers that tangled with them in Oldham, UK on Sept. 11, the day Geller and fellow Islamophobe Robert Spencer turned into a day of hatemongering with their rally against Cordoba House in Lower Manhattan. On Thursday, the not-so-dynamic duo was brought to Temple University courtesy of the same student organization that last year hosted anti-Islam politician Geert Wilders, who spoke at Geller and Spencer’s rally. Just like last year, it was met with protests, and that’s because we have seen this before. Let’s face it, people like Geller and Spencer already lost. Geller tried to keep a Islamic school from being built and failed. In fact not only are efforts to prevent mosques and Islamic centers from being built, including Cordoba House in Lower Manhattan are not being discouraged, but people are seeing people like Geller and Spencer as the bigots they are. That’s why people came out, and that’s why Spencer and Geller played the victim role saying opposition to them is denying them their right to speak – which we should note they were saying during their speaking engagement – and why Geller declared during the Q & A that “mosques are not being protested”! That’s a woman who does not want her anti-Islamic gravy train to run dry, but society is going to see to it, and it won’t just be Muslims sending her, Spencer and people like them away.

One People’s Project

  PHILADELPHIA–For its second public event in its short existence, a student organization at Temple University has brought anti-Muslim speakers to the campus amid protests by students who felt the organization was using the campus to further hatred against Muslims. Pamela Geller of the blog Atlas Shrugged and Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch spoke to students and residents about their opposition to the Islamic center being built in Lower Manhattan near the site of the World Trade Center, but it became a nearly two-hour diatribe against Islam, including a defense of the extremist group from the United Kingdom.

The speaking event, sponsored by Temple University Purpose, also brought over fifty students and local activists, many of them from the Delaware Valley Veterans for America, International Socialist Organization, International Action Center and Socialist Action to denounce Geller and Spencers’ documented hatemongering against Muslims. A flyer they were distributing makes specific points of concern, namely Geller and Spencers’ support for the English Defence League, which the flyer notes “are known for their often violent, anti-Muslim demonstrations and their ties with white supremacist groups like the British National Party”, and Spencer’s books that promote another conspiracy theory that the Islamic faith called for the subjugation and oppression of those who are not Muslims.

Some supporting Geller and Spencer engaged in sometimes loud debates with the protestors, while one person was escorted away by police for being physically aggressive towards one.  Temple University student Erik Jacobs, whose Facebook page says he interns for the Republican National Committee, and a friend walked through the crowd of protestors with hand written signs saying “Support Free Speech”. Jacobs, who along with his friend tried in vain to keep pictures from being taken of them, also attended Wilders’ speech last year at the right-wing Union League in Philadelphia.  

During the event, both the organizers and the speakers attempted to use the charges of promoting racism and bigotry to paint themselves as victims, saying they were unfairly smeared and attacked and being deprived of their freedom of speech. In his remarks Spencer blamed Islam for this. “Sharia in its entirety is absolutely opposed to the freedom of speech, particularly non-Muslims speaking about Islam which can bring the death penalty under Islamic law,” he said, referencing what Muslims see as God’s law. Spencer has been criticized for his use of a distorted view of Sharia for propaganda.

Geller, maintained that while her and Spencer’s views were protected freedoms that they should be allowed to enjoy, she questions that being afforded those involved with building Cordoba House.  “Whatever happens, happens,” she said, “If they build it, they build it, but it is not a religious liberties issue. It is not a First Amendment issue. There are hundreds of mosques in New York, there are thousands of mosques across the country. This is a human decency issue.”

The two speakers discussed a number of items besides the mosque that they felt suggested was evidence that Islam was trying to take over the world. Spencer also put out a rather curious argument that only 30 Muslims are known to have died in the World Trade Center bombing, which cannot be fully proven since there has never been an accurate number recorded.

When asked about her support for the English Defence League, Geller defended her stance, saying she supports anyone fighting for freedom in their country. “The group started in June of last year 2009 when Muslims were berating returning soldiers, calling them babykillers and murderers, and this group started to protest that kind of behavior,” she said. “They are not violent, they march against Islamist supremacism…Am I tied to them? No….Do I write them checks? No. Do I believe they have a right to fight for their basic freedoms in the UK? Yes. Yes, I do.”

Contrary to Geller’s assertion however, The English Defence League has been repeatedly implicated in violence, one of the more recent taking place on Sept. 11, ironically the day Geller and Spencer held their rally against Cordoba House. In the UK town of Oldham, members of the EDL were arrested as a EDL “flash mob” turned into a riot where members attacked police cars. Oldham is best known for the 2001 race riots between White and Asian youth, the worst race riots in the nation’s history. According to the Oldham Chronicle, the Oldham EDL was formed by some of those White youth that participated in those race riots.

An EDL contingent attended Geller and Spencer’s Sept. 11 rally, but its leader was sent back to the UK as soon as his plane touched down at the airport. His colleagues however were allowed to enter the United States, although one of them named Roland Burgess posted on his Facebook that federal agents raided their hotel while they were out the night before. Geller said she did not know about the raid.

In his opening remarks Alvaro E. Watson said that he decided to form Temple University Purpose last year to provide an o
pen forum that would engage in discussion on social issues and be inclusive to the entire student body. Later however, Watson was disputed in this by students who are associated with Temple University’s Interfaith Dialogue Center who later called him on his disingenuous remarks that the event amounted to engaging in dialogue. Watson again took the stance of the victim. “You were the one who claimed to want to engage in dialogue with me,” he said. “You ambushed me.”

There has been some controversy regarding where TU Purpose is getting their funding from. Although an accredited student organization, they have yet to receive funds from Temple University itself, partly due to some contentions between the organization and Temple’s Student Affairs. Their association with the Sherman Oaks, CA-based Freedom Center has been apparent, however. Freedom Center is run by David Horowitz, who has built a 40 year career of being a former leftist that now engages in antagonism on the right against Muslims, people of color, women and the gay community, particularly by attacking universities that allow student activists to advocate for such groups. Horowitz’s race-baiting has put him in the company of white supremacist Jared Taylor’s New Century Foundation, whose 1999 report the Color of Crime was once made available for download on Horowitz’s FrontPageMag.com website. Writers such as James Lubinskas of the New Century Foundation, and Lawrence Auster, who frequently writes for Taylor’s newsletter American Renaissance, have also contributed to FrontPageMag.com.

TU Purpose’s first event last year, brought Dutch anti-Muslim politician Geert Wilders to the school and was also met with protests. When the university’s Republican Party decided not to sponsor Wilders due to his controversial nature, Horowitz funded the event. Robert Spencer also works with the Freedom Center and in 2009 Geller spoke at the Center’s “Restoration Weekend”.

It is not known if Temple University Purpose will be hosting Muslim speakers or those fighting against Islamophobia on campus.