Leftist Jewish groups are vocal in their opposition to our pro-Israel ads. Oh, the irony. Where is their vocal opposition to the vicious Jew-hatred in Islamic media, mosques and madrassas? Where are these Jewish groups condemning the daily howls for blood that come daily in the Muslim media outlets from Morocco to Indonesia, calling for the killing of the Jews and saying that Muslims have a duty to destroy Israel?
The whole point of JCUA’s response to Geller’s ads is that hate speech is destructive. As Jews and as Americans, we can’t stand idly by as people fan the flames of divisiveness by using hateful words and outrageous characterizations.
JCUA doesn’t think Americans should be talking to each other like this. When hate and inflammatory language is injected into the discourse, nothing good comes of it.
That’s not a Jewish value and it certainly isn’t an American value.
Actually what isn't a Jewish value is attacking Jews for speaking the truth and providing cover to annihilationists and their genocidal rhetoric. This group had nothing to say when Hillary Clinton called the Libyan jihadists "a small and savage group," or when the New York Times printed a piece by a Tunisian citizen calling Tunisian Islamic supremacists "bearded savages." Their outrage, in other words, is politically motivated and selective -- and ultimately suicidal.
Look how quick these quislings are to condemn me, but they stand by like sheep in the face of the most monstrous and ugly assault on the Jews since Hitler. How dare Judy Levey invoke Jewish values and American values, when what she is fronting for is the complete opposite? There is nothing Jewish about attacking a fellow Jew for standing up for Israel. There is nothing Jewish about providing cover for those who seek the annihilation of the Jewish State.
Nothing made the need for these ads clearer than the absolutely criminally biased coverage of the latest events in the Middle East. The outrageous blood libel against the Jewish people is exhibited yet again on the front page of today's Washington Post, and everywhere. What a desperate need there is for truth, and fact, and accuracy.
Pam Geller compares Jewish group to Nazi sympathizers Salon
A Jewish group opposes the Islamophobic activist-blogger's new bus ads and gets labeled "judenrat" in return By Alex Seitz-Wald(Credit: flickr/WarzauWynn)
For some people, stoking fears about Islam and Shariah is an election year issue (ahem, Rep. Michele Bachmann), but for others, like influential Islamophic blogger Pam Geller, it’s a life’s mission. Geller led the campaign against the so-called Ground Zero Mosque in lower Manhattan and is one of a handful of activists at the core of the anti-Shariah movement; a few months ago, she paid for controversial ads on New York City buses and subways defaming Islam as “savage.” The campaign provoked a backlash, including vandalism and lawsuits, but the law sided with Geller’s right to free speech in both cases, with a court ordering New York’s transit authority to display the ads and arrests for some who defaced her ads.
Notice how Alex Seitz-Wald viciously misrepresents my ads, which not only do not "defame" Islam, but don't even mention Islam or Muslims. The ads says, "In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel. Defeat jihad." We are always told that only a tiny minority of extremists support jihad terror against innocent civilians. So why does everyone assume that when I speak about the jihad against Israel, I am referring to all Muslims or Islam in general? By making this charge, they contradict their own line.
Now she’s taking her act to Chicago, where her ad went up on 10 buses yesterday afternoon. “In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Copts. Defeat Jihad,” the ads read. Copts are Egyptian Christians who have been persecuted by the Muslim majority in the country.
But this time, activists, led by the Chicago-based Jewish Council on Urban Affairs, were prepared. They launched a campaign against the ads before they even appeared. “These ads are meant to create false divisions among our communities, generating suspicion and animosity,” Judy Levey, the executive director of the group, said in a statment [sic]. “It is very important to say in a clear voice, ‘not in our city.’ We’re better than that.” The JCUA held a rally Tuesday night against the ads and set up an online campaign to coordinate action and to collect voices of Jews in the area upset with the ads.
While Geller’s actions have been met with resistance from multi-faith groups in the past, opposition has usually been led by Muslim groups like CAIR, the Council on American Islamic Relations. How did she react to the novelty of a Jewish-spearheaded opposition? By comparing them to Nazi sympathizers, naturally.
True to form, Alex Seitz-Wald doesn't mention CAIR's ties to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood. He doesn't mention CAIR's status as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation case, the largest terror-funding case in the nation's history.
“As if on cue, dhimmi Jews in Obama’s old stomping ground did the step ‘n fetchit for Islamic supremacism. Taking their cue from the Jewish councils of Germany and the judenrat that sold out their own people, they immediately denounced from ads,” she wrote on her blog.
There’s a lot to unpack there. “Dhimmi” refers to non-Muslims who live under Islamic states and connotes inferior status. “Judenrat,” in case it’s not obvious from the context, were Jewish councils who collaborated with the S.S. in Nazi-occupied lands to coordinate the affairs of the ghetto and “were responsible for organizing the orderly deportation to the death camps.” And finally, lest any group be left unoffended, “step ‘n fetchit” refers to Stepin Fetchit, the stage name of one of Hollywood’s first African-American actors, Lincoln Perry, who has since become controversial for playing racist or stereotypical roles, not unlike black minstrels of an earlier era.
Geller continued: “I expect Hamas-CAIR to denounce our ads … [But] These Jewish ‘leaders’ are failing not just the Jews in Israel, but all persecuted and oppressed people. Did we not learn our lesson from World War II? Did we not have to make amends for our gross negligence while millions were slaughtered?” She even went after Manya Brachear, who wrote a news item about the ad in the Chicago Tribune, saying she’s “only too happy to subjugate herself in the cause of Islam.”
“CTA understands that this ad may be offensive to our customers,” he added. “While the courts have ruled this ad is a form of protected speech under the First Amendment, we object to its divisive message,” a spokesperson for the Chicago Transit Authority told Brachear.
At least we know the CTA is not a tool of al-Qaida.
UPDATE: Levey, the Executive Director of the JCUA sent over the following response to Geller:
“The whole point of JCUA’s response to Geller’s ads is that hate speech is destructive. As Jews and as Americans, we can’t stand idly by as people fan the flames of divisiveness by using hateful words and outrageous characterizations.
JCUA doesn’t think Americans should be talking to each other like this. When hate and inflammatory language is injected into the discourse, nothing good comes of it.
That’s not a Jewish value and it certainly isn’t an American value.”
