Pamela Geller discussed with Janet Mefferd her new campaign with ads that read, “In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man,” and the arrest of journalist Mona Eltahawy for vandalizing one the ads in a New York subway station. In a blog post, Geller called Eltahawy’s actions “a classic case of Stockholm Syndrome” since she survived physical and sexual assault while detained by Egypt’s Interior Ministry. Geller backtracked in the interview and said she didn’t refer to her actions as a case of Stockholm syndrome, even though she did exactly that on her blog, but went on to say that Eltahawy now stands up for the “savage” (i.e. Muslim) only “once they become Jew-haters.” Or maybe, because unlike Geller, Eltahawy does not paint all Muslims with the same brush and blame every single Muslim for the attack she faced in Egypt.
Mefferd: This is interesting, you write today about this woman Mona Eltahawy who went and defaced your ad in the name of free speech, it was just vandalism, the Stockholm syndrome angle was new to me, I had not realized she had been assaulted last year. Why in the world would she go from being assaulted in Cairo to doing this, wouldn’t she think these people were savages after what she went through?
Geller: Why indeed. Actually the word that she used for them at the time was beasts, they were beastly, she said. I guess they cease being beastly once they become Jew-haters, once they’re Jew-haters they are I guess cleansed of any beastliness. I don’t mean to be funny but it’s really true, it’s the same jihad, it’s the same mandate that possessed them in Tahrir Square that possess them in their war on the Jews in Israel. Yes I agree it was decidedly—I know people have called it Stockholm syndrome, I don’t, because when the attacks were on her she saw it in crystal clear moral terms, when the attacks are against the tiny state of Israel, then all the sudden she is attacking.
Geller, who literally runs a group called the American Freedom Defense Initiative, told Mefferd that “it’s interesting how fascists always cloak themselves in the word ‘freedom’” and claimed that anti-fascists are the new fascists. She even blamed the vandalism on a culture of “lawlessness” promoted by the media, the “very violent and misogynist” Occupy Wall Street movement and Obama, who she says is also “aiding and abetting of Al-Qaeda and jihadist elements.”
Not to be outdone, Mefferd claimed that the “radical left agenda” is pushing a “creeping anti-Semitism” reminiscent of the Holocaust.
Geller: We certainly don’t think this should be encouraged, which the media is doing; they are encouraging this kind of lawlessness. It is sort of the whole Obama administration culture that we are living in, the OWS, the Occupy Wall Street, this was sanctioned by Obama, very violent and misogynist, lawless movement. Good people have to stand up, we have to defend ourselves, we have to defend our freedom.
Mefferd: I agree. You know what really depresses me, I was talking about this with my husband not too long ago, I remember at the time Schindler’s List came out and there was so much discussion as Steven Spielberg had done all these interviews with Holocaust survivors and we heard so much good with ‘never again’ and remember these stories that we want to preserve so this will never ever happen again. And yet we’re seeing this creeping anti-Semitism come up and it’s scary, it scares me, because it doesn’t just affect the Jewish population, it affects Christians, it affects anybody who goes against the radical left agenda.
Geller: Oh yeah. It’s pure fascism. Of course the new fascism—it’s interesting how fascists always cloak themselves in the word ‘freedom’ and now they’re cloaking themselves, I mean actually many of these groups are called ‘anti-fascist groups.’ I’m telling you it’s the big, giant lie and the more absurd the lie the more they tell it with absolute certainty and conviction. These are dangerous times. I think it’s most manifest in the handling of the attack, which was an act of war on our embassy in Libya and here you have Obama who was largely responsible for sanctioning the aiding and abetting of Al-Qaeda and jihadist elements in the revolution against Gaddafi.
