The New York Times says I "have a history with Eltahawy." Really? News to me. So The Times makes stuff up. And such respect they give to this unhinged mess. Journalist! Commentator!
Check out her tweet: Mona on January 26, 2011:
November 2011: Sharia Revolution: Mona Eltahawy Raped by "Freedom Protesters"
Geller on January 26, 2011
The blogger who still loves Mubarak
Pamela Geller cheers for mass arrests, worries that Obama will throw our "ally" under the bus
"Cheering for mass arrests?" Hardly. My fight, always, is for freedom. A secular government in Egypt would be preferable to the most radical and extreme system of governance on the earth. That's the goal.
Leftist Alex Parene wrote of my concern with the Muslim Brotherhood:
Last night, a classic Geller headline: “GOOD NEWS: EGYPT ARRESTS MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD LEADERS.”
In other words, members of the opposition were swept up and jailed in preparation for a day of demonstrations against the authoritatian government. And this opposition group was not even involved in the initial protests, though they joined in the ongoing demonstrations that began on Friday. “It’s a good preventative measure no matter who wins this power struggle,” Geller wrote.
Anyway, the media is clearly in the corner of destroyers, leftist thugs and Islamic supremacists. The Times asked me the following questions for their article on Mona's arrest. Here is my exchange with Matt:
Matt Flegenheimer, NY TIMES: I was curious if you knew how many of the 10 MTA ads have been defaced.Geller: At least five.
Flegenheimer: What happens now? Do the ads get replaced?Geller: Yes.
Flegenheimer: Are you forced to buy more?
Geller: Yes, I had more printed, as I expected this.
Flegenheimer: Are you surprised that the ads have been defaced?
Geller No. I expected this. The defacement is a metaphor for the entire national conversation on these issues. Hundreds and hundreds of anti-Israel posters ran all over the country. Not one was defaced. One anti-jihad poster goes up, and it's defaced within an hour, while its creator faces defamation, smears and libel. Mona Eltahawy, a Muslim writer who was herself assaulted in Egypt by people she called "beasts" took a can of spray paint to our ad and assaulted a pro-freedom blogger, Pamela Hall, who tried to stop her. Islamic supremacists and leftist thugs criminally defaced these ads within an hour. This is a physical manifestation of the way the entire conversation, or lack thereof, always goes: anyone who speaks about jihad and sharia is attacked, defamed, destroyed -- just like these ads. This is exactly what’s happening in the media regarding jihad coverage in general. Anti-American, anti-Israel, pro-sharia hate is all over the airwaves, but anyone who dares to speak the truth about Islam and jihad in the media is immediately smeared and defamed. You can't have this conversation in the media, any more than I can present these pro-Israel ads, and receive any semblance of fair treatment.
Here is the what The NY Times ran: "Commentator Arrested for Defacing Anti-Jihad Subway Poster" By ROBERT MACKEY and MATT FLEGENHEIMER
An Egyptian-American columnist, who rose to prominence on social media last year for her commentary during the revolution in Egypt, was arrested in the Times Square subway station on Tuesday for spraying pink paint on a pro-Israel poster that calls Islamist opponents of the Jewish state “savage.”
The poster was one of 10 placed in subway stations across the transit system this week, on the heels of violent and sometimes deadly protests across the Muslim world in response to an American-made video mocking the Prophet Muhammad.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority had initially rejected the ads, citing their “demeaning” language. The group behind the ads, the American Freedom Defense Initiative, sued, and in July won a federal court ruling on First Amendment grounds. The group’s executive director, Pamela Geller, also led the effort in 2010 to block construction of an Islamic cultural center and mosque near the site of the World Trade Center attack in Lower Manhattan.
The columnist, Mona Eltahawy, is a former Reuters correspondent now based in New York who became a dual citizen of Egypt and the United States last year. Her Twitter feed, which has more than 160,000 followers, became popular last year as a source of information on the Egyptian revolution.
@TheRobinMorgan tweeting 4 me:I'm charged w criminal mischief 4 pink-spraying anti-Muslim 'savages' poster.C judge AM.#ProudSavage #FreeMona
The full text of the ad, which refers to a statement by Ms. Geller’s intellectual hero Ayn Rand, reads: “In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man.” Then, between two Stars of David, the tag line appears: “Support Israel. Defeat Jihad.”
Ms. Eltahawy’s arrest was recorded on video by an activist who supports the ad campaign, Pamela Hall, who placed herself in front of the poster. Ms. Hall’s video and photographs of the arrest were later published on Ms. Geller’s blog under the headline: “Mona Eltahawy Arrested for Assaulting Pro-Freedom Blogger While Defacing AFDI Pro-Freedom Ad.”
The standoff between the two women was also captured on video by The New York Post.
New York Post video of the confrontation on Tuesday.Ms. Eltahawy was charged with criminal mischief, making graffiti and possessing a graffiti instrument, the police said on Wednesday, adding that no additional security measures had been put in place at any of the ads’ locations across the subway system. A spokesman for the Manhattan district attorney’s office said on Wednesday morning that Ms. Eltahawy had not yet been arraigned.
Pamela Geller/The American Freedom Defense Initiative, via Associated Press The anti-jihad ad that has been posted in the subways.Ms. Geller said in an e-mail on Wednesday that at least five of the ads had been defaced. Philip Weiss, a New Yorker whose blog Mondoweiss aims to cover the Middle East “from a progressive Jewish perspective,” posted photographs Tuesday depicting some of the defaced ads.
Aaron Donovan, a spokesman for the transportation authority, said that staff members for the agency’s advertising partner, CBS Outdoor, inspect all ads each day and replace those that have been vandalized or defaced, drawing from a pool of “overage copies” provided by the advertiser.
Ms. Geller’s group provided 20 copies, Mr. Donovan said, but could send in more at its own cost if it chose to.
“I had more printed,” Ms. Geller said on Wednesday, “as I expected this.”
She called the defaced ads “a physical manifestation of the way the entire conversation, or lack thereof, always goes.”
“Anyone who speaks about jihad and Shariah is attacked, defamed, destroyed,” she said, “just like these ads.”
As The Lede blog reported last month, activists who see the posters as insulting to Muslims reworked or destroyed similar posters placed in the transit systems in San Francisco and the New York suburbs.
Ms. Eltahawy, initially known for her commentary on the Egyptian revolution from afar, became personally involved in the protest movement last November, when she used her Twitter feed to document her physical and sexual abuse by Egyptian police officers following a crackdown on a demonstration near Tahrir Square in Cairo.
In May, she earned the enmity of many Egyptians for writing a Foreign Policy cover story on women’s rights in the Middle East published with the headline “Why Do They Hate Us?”
News of Ms. Eltahawy’s arrest made headlines in Egypt and earned her praise from like-minded Internet activists. A Lebanese blogger, who was less impressed with the stunt, wrote a satirical blog post accusing Ms. Eltahawy of attention-seeking.
Ms. Eltahawy also has a history with Ms. Geller. When Ms. Geller rallied opponents of the mosque near ground zero in 2010, Ms. Eltahawy attended a counter-demonstration.
Here is a rational oped on Eltahawy's criminal behavior.
UPDATE: GReat comment from Atlas reader FS:
Last year, Pamela Geller saw anti-Israel ads go up across the US that were not only profoundly offensive, but threatening to Israel and the Jewish people.
Did Pamela Geller deface them? No. Did Pamela Geller attempt to tear them down? No.
Her response: raise money and put up a counter ad. It wasn't easy. It took time. But she did it.
When she encountered unlawful censorship on the part of the authorities, she sued; She won.
It wasn't easy. It took time. But she did it.
At no time did Pamela Geller trespass on the free speech or civil liberties of others. At no time did she engage in violence or vandalism or threats. At no time did she attempt to silence that which she and many others continue to find profoundly offensive, hateful, libelous and threatening.
In contrast Mona H. presents a display of smug elitism and privilege. Indeed, her sense of entitlement is truly breathtaking to behold. She shows us clearly that she assumes for herself the right to determine what is acceptable say and not to say in a public forum -- irrespective of the Constitutional rights of others.
She presents herself as a moderate, liberal, yet treats Pamela Hall as her inferior, as subhuman -- as a dhimmi. She shows us clearly that she sees herself as fully within her rights to physically assault another human being and deface public property to blot out and silence those with whom she disagrees.
Mona H. spouts that she is a U.S. citizen, yet arrogantly places herself above 200 years of American Jurisprudence and the U.S. Constitution displaying utter contempt for the American people, the history and traditions of this nation and the law of the land. Free speech is the very bedrock of this country. It is that which has allowed Americans to combat injustice and grow and evolve as a people and a society-- to fight against slavery, to fight for a woman's right to vote, to fight for decent working conditions, to fight discrimination.
Back in 1837 William Cullen Bryant wrote the following as he sought to defend the rights of abolitionists to free speech; his words are as true today as they were then:
"The right to discuss freely and openly, by speech, by the pen, by the press, all political questions, and to examine and animadvert (speak out) upon all political institutions, is a right so clear and certain, so interwoven with our other liberties, so necessary, in fact to their existence, that without it we must fall at once into depression or anarchy. To say that he who holds unpopular opinions must hold them at the peril of his life, and that, if he expresses them in public, he has only himself to blame if they who disagree with him should rise and put him to death, is to strike at all rights, all liberties, all protection of the laws, and to justify and extenuate all crimes."
Mona showed us, that behind her yuppie, hip appearance, and pseudo feminist intellectualism, is a woman deeply complicit in the ongoing international effort to subvert the 1st Amendment.
This far more offensive than some words on a sign in a New York subway station.
