"A Special Place in Hell." Indeed. That is the title of a second front page article on me at the uber-left, viciously anti-Israel newspaper, Haaretz, attacking me for my pro-Israel ads. The piece itself bears the equally absurd title, "Islamophobia, not Islam, will be the end of Israel." The long knives are out. And such ugly hate from within our own ranks against Israel's most fierce defenders is evidence of the freedom, individual rights and diversity of opinion we who practice Judaism enjoy.
Bradley Burston, the misanthrope who scribbled this little invective, may be a pox on our people, but I would defend to the death his right to make a complete ass of himself. Another judenrat greasing the wheels of the genocidal machinery. What else is new?
It is telling that you never see this betrayal on the other side. Ever. Imagine a loud voice in the Arabic media denouncing Islamic Jew-hatred, the genocidal invective spewed daily in Muslim media, and the tactics of a war against innocent civilians. How long would he live?
Here, Bradley Burston posits that naziophobia, not Nazism, will be the end of the European Jewry. Well, not exactly, but pretty damn close.
Truth is the recognition of reality, and the fact is, the root cause of the Palestinian conflict, Islamic Jew-hatred, cannot be ignored or swept under the rug. There can be no peace until the motive for Jewish genocide is understood and combatted. Burston wants to kill the messenger. Does he really believe that can save the Jewish people? We tried that. Remember? It failed in unimaginable proportion.
The war on innocent civilians is savagery. The suicide bombing of women and children on a bus in Bulgaria last month is savagery. The relentless 60-year campaign of terror against the Jewish people is savage. The Islamic death marches calling for the end of the Jewish state during Cast Lead were savage. The torture of hostage Gilad Shalit was savage. The bloody hacking to death of the Fogel family was savage. The Munich Olympic massacre was savage. The unspeakable torture of Ehud Goldwasser was savage. The tens of thousands of rockets fired from Gaza into southern Israel (into schools, homes, etc.) are savage. The vicious Jew-hatred behind this genocide is savage. The endless demonization of the Jewish people in the Palestinian and Arab media is savage. The refusal to recognize the state of Israel as a Jewish state is savage. The list is endless.
Where is Burston's rage against such evil? Where is Burston's defense of his people? Burston and his kind of intellectual savage is the greatest weapon our enemies have in their arsenal. Burston doesn't need a gun to his head. He would have volunteered for kapo-duty at the death camps. I can see him there now.
The title of this piece is so absurd that it is amazing that even a Leftist propaganda sheet like Haaretz published it. Muslims explicitly and proudly motivated by Islamic texts and teachings have murdered countless numbers of Israeli civilians. Islamic doctrine regarding the impermissibility of infidel rule on what they consider to be Muslim land and the quran's demonization of the Jews have doomed every Israeli concession to futility and every attempt at a negotiated settlement to failure. Israel is on the front lines of the global Islamic jihad, and this Jewicidal tool Bradley Burston says that "Islamophobia," not Islam, will be the end of Israel. How many Israeli civilians have been murdered by "Islamophobia"? How many rocket attacks have "Islamophobes" launched against Israel? How many "Islamophobes" have blown themselves up on buses and in pizza parlors full of Jews?
Caroline Glick was so supportive of the ad, she urged her readers to contribute here. Want to help us get these up in other cities where the anti-Israel ad ran? Contribute here.
"Islamophobia, not Islam, will be the end of Israel" by Bradley Burston, Haaretz, August 21:
Israel has elaborate defense systems against military attack and terrorism. Its defenses against its extremists, such as professional bigot Pamela Geller, are much more porous.
Islamophobia, not Islam, will be the end of Israel Israel has elaborate defense systems against military attack and terrorism. Its defenses against its extremists, such as professional bigot Pamela Geller, are much more porous.
A child standing among men kneeling in prayer as Muslims gather on the last day of Ramadan at John D'Amato Field in New Dorp Park, Staten Island, N.Y., Aug. 19, 2012. Photo by APSAN FRANCISCO – Everyone knows how it works. Everyone knows what it sounds like. Everyone knows how easy it is to get away with it.
Everyone knows, deep down, that hatred feeds on tolerance. That however well-intentioned, a society's forbearance for the toxic slur, for the poison of ethnic or religious or racial prejudice, does hatred invaluable service.
No one knows this better than professional bigots. People like Pamela Geller, who pass themselves off as supporters of a worthy cause even as their hatred and prejudice stain and undermine anything and everything worthy about that cause.
Burston sounds as if he is working from Hamas-CAIR talking points (and he could well be). In his eyes, it is "hatred and prejudice" to acknowledge the truth about Islam's doctrines of jihad and Jew-hatred. It is "hatred and prejudice" to work for the freedom of speech against Islam's blasphemy law, and for the freedom of conscience against Islam's death penalty for apostasy, and for equality of rights for all people against Islam's systematic oppression of women and non-Muslims. But what do you think he has written about the real hatred and prejudice that Islamic imams spew on a daily basis against Jews and other infidels? Nothing. Nothing at all. But he did write Haaretz's earlier front-page hit piece on me. Imagine if Haaretz went after the enemies of the Jews with the same energy with which they go after staunch defenders of Israel.
For years, in the guise of supporting Israel, Geller has engaged in promoting hatred of Islam. In recent weeks, in a campaign timed to coincide with Muslims' observance of the sacred month of Ramadan, her American Freedom Defense Initiative has run caustic, self-styled "pro-Israel" advertisements on the sides of public transit buses in San Francisco.
Burston has nothing to say about how about 565 civilians were killed in Iraq in jihad attacks during the just-concluded "sacred month of Ramadan." He has nothing to say about the murderous, Jew-killing Muslims in Bulgaria who said that "Ramadan is a month of holy war and death for Allah. It is a month for fighting the enemies of Allah and God's messenger, the Jews and their American facilitators." None of that bothers him. What bothers him is if I dare during the "sacred month of Ramadan" to point out the number of jihad attacks since 911. How they must be laughing inside the offices of Hamas-CAIR.
"In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man," the ads begin, white letters on black. Below it, in blue letters flanked by Stars of David, it read "Support Israel" and below that, in red, "Defeat Jihad."
Last year, when Geller's group tried to place the ads on public buses in New York, the city's Metropolitan Transit Authority rejected them as violating its prohibition on messages that demean individuals or groups. But in July, a federal judge in Manhattan ruled that the Geller group had been denied First Amendment guarantees of free speech. That same day, the ads went up in San Francisco.
Geller told ABC News that the purpose of the ads was to counter "fallacious and dangerous" ads on San Francisco area transit trains a year ago, urging cuts in U.S. aid to Israel. "If I had my way, the ("support Israel" ads) would 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."
To its credit, Muni, the San Francisco transit agency, did more than simply mount Geller's message. It condemned the ads. Alongside them. In bus ads of its own.
In a move without precedent, Muni said in the new ads that its policy "prohibits discrimination based on national origin, religion, and other characteristics, and condemns statements that describe any group as 'savages.'"
Muni spokesman Paul Rose said that while Muni is bound by the First Amendment, "Obviously we think the [Geller-sponsored] ads in place right now are repulsive and they definitely cross the line."
This is indeed "without precedent." This is the manifestation of Sharia in Western society. Any war on innocent civilians is savage. They are reading the idea that "all Muslims" or "all Arabs" want to destroy Israel into my ad. That is nowhere in my message. They are the Islamophobes and racists. I will be running this counter ad to their counter ad:
Of late, in tandem with anti-Palestinian and anti-Arab attacks by radical settlers and Arab-hating Jewish youths in Israel and the territories ("He's an Arab. He deserves to die," a 14-year-old assault suspect told a court on Monday), there are troubling signs in America of a tendency to conflate hatred of Muslims with support for a Jewish state.
Like Hamas-CAIR, Burston characterizes as "hatred of Muslims" any honest discussion of jihad attacks and what motivates them. It is not "hatred" to resist hatred. It is not "hatred of Muslims" to notice that the quran teaches warfare against unbelievers and Jew-hatred, and that Muslims around the world are acting on those teachings. It is not "hatred" to work for justice and equality of rights for all people.
"The Arabs are one of the least developed cultures," a "pro-Israel" NGO called the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights quotes Geller's ideological inspiration as having said in a 1974 speech. "Their culture is primitive, and they resent Israel because it's the sole beachhead of modern science and civilization on their continent. When you have civilized men fighting savages, you support the civilized men, no matter who they are."
Burston again calls the truth "hatred." Does he seriously equate the "Palestinian" jihad culture of hatred and death with Israeli culture? Does he really not notice the genocidal rhetoric broadcast on official "Palestinian" TV on a regular basis? Let him go live in Gaza for a year and come back and tell us if he still thinks the same way. But he doesn't dare, because while he would never admit it, he knows better.
In this light, Bay Area Jews are to be especially commended for denouncing Geller and her works. J., the community newspaper, said that "any right-thinking person, Jewish or not, must oppose these ads." The Anti-Defamation League called the ads “highly offensive and inflammatory,” and the Jewish Community Relations Council and the American Jewish Committee issued a similar denunciation.
The kapos thought they would be spared the gas chambers, too.
At root, this is what Geller denies: Israel can only exist as a democracy if it continually acts to foster and equalize the rights of its Arab citizens, not abrogate and dismiss them. It can only exist as a democracy if it actively works to end the unperson status of the Palestinians of the West Bank and East Jerusalem. A true democracy cannot treat bigotry with understanding. It has to fight it, or its sense of democracy has no meaning.
Here Burston really goes off the rails. When have I ever advocated that the rights of Israel's Arab citizens be abrogated and dismissed? On the contrary, I am proud of the fact that Israel is a genuine democracy that grants more rights to its citizens than does any neighboring Muslim state. So why does Burston say this? His desperation to smear me is greater than his commitment to any kind of truth or accuracy.
At root, the Geller and pro-Kahane brand of "support of Israel," is little more than a slash and burn Arab–hate that, if left unanswered, will tear apart the Israel and the Jewish community from within. It blinds people to solutions. It convinces people that there are no solutions. It persuades people that there are no options apart from violence, both of word and deed.
Burston wants a solution apart from violence? Here's one: let the "moderate Muslims" he places so much faith in expunge the quran of the texts teaching jihad and Jew-hatred.
Israel has elaborate defense systems against military attack and terrorism. Its defenses against its own extremists are much more porous.
The Gellers and Kahanists attack Israel at the root. An Israel torn apart from within doesn't need an external enemy to destroy it. The enemy is right here.
Yes, and he is Bradley Burston. The "Special Place In Hell" is reserved for him.
UPDATE: Spencer whacks it out of the park: "Pamela Geller skillfully eviscerates this spectacularly vicious and wrongheaded piece in Haaretz. I myself find it astounding that Haaretz considers it more important to denigrate and destroy Pamela Geller and her efforts on behalf of Israel than to devote any serious effort to exposing the jihad against Israel and resisting its advance. What their calculation could be, I cannot fathom. Do they think that if they show themselves to be just as enthusiastic in fighting the foes of jihad as is Hamas-linked CAIR and other Islamic supremacist groups, that the jihadis will go lightly on them?"
