Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Pamela Geller, a Fighter For Free Speech, a Warrior for Israel

September 25, 2012
Nurit Greenger

Advertisement on Buses in San Francisco and New York spill the bin on Moslems' behavior

Today anti-jihad advertisement is set to unnerve people at the New York City subway stations. The advertisement says: "In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel/Defeat Jihad."

While Muslims keep on protesting American culture of freedom of speech and expression, blaming some unknown Internet movie to be mocking the Prophet Muhammad, Americans' freedom of speech is exercised in their country. 


Despite transit officials' efforts to block it, the advertisement, equating Islamic jihad with savagery, is slated to appear in ten New York City subway stations.
The person heading this campaign is the blogger Pamela Geller (http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/); Geller co-founded of the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI) (http://freedomdefense.typepad.com/) and Stop Islamization of America (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Stop-Islamization-of-America/109113042509908 / http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Islamization_of_America).
This campaign started in San Francisco in August 2012.
In San Francisco the Municipal Transportation Agency also objected to the advertisement.
"The reason I wanted to run these ads was to counter the anti-Israel ads that were running in various cities across the country, in New York, in D.C., on San Francisco BART," Geller said. The ads on BART called on the U.S. to cut military aid to Israel. "It was a fallacious and dangerous message and it had to be countered with the truth," Geller said.
Geller is fighting the rejection of her ads based on the US Constitution First Amendment of the Right to Free Speech.
The bus message didn't sit very well with the New York Transit City either; they refused to run them and Geller took the transit authority to court and won. Interestingly enough, the day that she won in court in New York, was the day that the San Francisco approved to run her ads.
The ads are already posted and running on the sides of San Francisco buses. "If I had my way, they'd be in every city in the United States of America and if I can get the funding, that's exactly what's going to happen," Geller says. Her plan is to next run them in Washington DC.
Geller's message is clear; we have the right to express our opinion and call the devil by its name. It is not all right to criticize and delegitimize Israel without the right response; it is not all right to terrorize Israel, to fire rockets at her citizen from Gaza, to abduct her soldiers when they patrol their border on Israel's side, or hijack Israeli cars, throw stones that cause fatalities of innocent Israeli citizens, or murder Israeli children while they sleep. Time to spell it as it is, there is a large section in the Moslem world who are simply savages. That has been proven in the recent anti-America protests all over the Moslem world in which innocent American citizens were brutality murdered.
Today, September 24, 2012, under court order, the New York City's Metropolitan Transportation Authority have started running the ads. Now the Moslem are crying wolf. They do not complain when the attacks are on Israel are in ads that appear on the side of busses. Then it is all right; it flows with their sentiments. Their message is, Jews can feel unsafe, Moslems cannot.
The ads were scheduled to begin appearing in the Washington, D.C. Metro System. However, the DC system balked, citing the violent rioting by Muslims allegedly inflamed by a YouTube video, The Innocence of Muslims: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmodVun16Q4.  So, at the end of last week, Geller initiated an emergency court action to enforce her First Amendment rights to Free Speech in Washington DC, where the First Amendment Rights to Free Speech is the order for the day. Or is it not?
In the mean time two things have since happened. First, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency announced it will give all of the proceeds from AFDI’s ads to the San Francisco Human Rights Commission to support “educational activities.” Secondly, although San Francisco Municipality is apparently convinced that banning AFDI’s ads would violate the First Amendment, yesterday it began running disclaimer ad next to every one of AFDI’s ads, which is, according to Geller’s website is a first in outdoor advertising history, next to her organization pro-freedom, anti-jihad ads. The disclaimer reads: “SFMTA Policy Prohibits Discrimination Based On National Origin, Religion and Other Characteristics and Condemns Statements That Describe Any Group As Savages.”
Really questions Geller? Were the Nazis savages? The Taliban? Hamas? Al Qaeda? Boko Haram? Daniel Pearl’s beheaders? The Fogel family’s cold blooded murderers?
Never one to rest on her laurels, Geller’s AFDI immediately responded with ads placed on the sides of San Francisco buses stating: “Why is the city of San Francisco enforcing Sharia law? San Francisco is running disclaimers next to our pro-Israel ads. Why didn’t they run them next to vicious anti-Israel ads? Stop Anti-Semitism in San Francisco government.”
And Pamela Geller will not rest until she is heard loud and clear.
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References:
Pamela Geller on CNN: Erin Burnett cuts segment at Hamas-CAIR description, AUDIO secretly taped:
Pamela Geller on CBS News NY discussing free speech and AFDI jihad ad
George Igler & Robert Spencer:Stop Islamization of Nations' International Freedom Congress
Savaged for daring to name savagery: Pamela-Geller point made by critics of free speech:

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