New Yorker goes Sharia, attacking Pamela Geller and refusing to show winning Muhammad cartoon

The New Yorker — famous for its cartoons — describes but doesn’t dare show the winning Muhammad cartoon. This epitomizes the cowardice of the mainstream media, and the rot that could end up destroying our free societies if it isn’t addressed.

“Pamela Geller and the Anti-Islam Movement,” by David K. Shipler, New Yorker, May 12, 2015:

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The winning cartoon in the contest to draw the Prophet Muhammad, early this month in Garland, Texas, which two gunmen attacked, depicts a fierce Prophet waving a scimitar and saying, “You can’t draw me!” The artist, whose hand and pencil are visible, replies from outside the frame, “That’s why I draw you.”

And so the principle of free speech confronted American society’s unwritten code of restraint on contemptuous stereotyping. Mocking Islam’s ban on images of Muhammad, the contest’s organizer, Pamela Geller, of a crusading anti-Muslim group called the American Freedom Defense Initiative, invited cartoonists to compete for a ten-thousand-dollar prize. The winner, Bosch Fawstin, an Albanian Muslim who had renounced Islam, went into hiding.

Bosch is actually not in hiding; that turned out to be a false report. He wrote on Twitter: “Despite a Dishonest Wall Street Journal headline story saying I’ve gone into hiding b/c I’ve gotten death threats, I’ve Not gone into hiding.” The way Shipler words this, it sounds as if Bosch entered the contest without being aware of the risks involved, and that we exposed him to danger; nothing could be further from the truth.

Freedom of expression suddenly looked like two overlays on a map, the legal landscape and the cultural landscape, each with its own boundaries. The First Amendment protects the legal right to almost all expression, on the understanding that the best answer to offensive speech is more speech. Culturally, however, Americans have generally limited what they say out of respect for the dignity of others. People who violate the limits can suffer opprobrium, damage to their reputations, and even the loss of their jobs. Let us hope that they cannot also lose their lives.

When he speaks about respect for the dignity of others, he is, of course, talking about respecting the sharia prohibition on drawing Muhammad — prescinding from offending Muslims out of respect for them at human beings. That’s all to the good. The point at which it becomes a secondary consideration is the point when Islamic jihadists start murdering those who transgress this prohibition. When they murdered the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists, they made it imperative for free people to stand up and say, We will not be intimidated. We will not be cowed into submission by threats and violence. You can kill us, but you will not silence us.

Otherwise, what is the alternative? Submission. Acceptance by non-Muslims of the Sharia blasphemy restrictions. And once we set the precedent that we will be silenced by threats and murder, and intimidated into submitted to Sharia, it won’t end with cartoons. There will be more. In Pakistan, Muslims have recently been threatening Christians, saying they will kill them if they build more churches. In Bangladesh, Muslims have been killing atheist bloggers. The Christians in Pakistan and the atheists in Bangladesh know they were provoking Muslims; why don’t they submit? Shouldn’t they stop what they’re doing to avoid offending Muslims? Aren’t they being needlessly provocative?

The issue with our Muhammad cartoon contest is between freedom and submission. That’s the beginning and the end of the issue.

No such opprobrium exists in the subculture of anti-Islam activists that has developed since 9/11.

Geller, who gained fame by opposing the effort to build a mosque and Muslim community center near the site of the World Trade Center, is “the anti-Muslim movement’s most visible and flamboyant figurehead,” according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate groups.

The fact that Shipler cites the SPLC uncritically is an indication of how biased he really is. The SPLC lists my organizations as hate groups. AFDI, the American Freedom Defense Initiative, is a human rights organization dedicated to freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and individual rights is designated a hate group by a vicious uber left, pro-jihadist organization widely cited by the media and Obama’s Department of Justice. My group is a human rights group, and the SPLC calls us a hate group.  This is the morally inverted state of the world.

Geller operates within a context that includes groups with names like Jihad Watch, Now the End Begins, Unmasking the Muslim Brotherhood in America, Understanding the Threat, and Discover the Networks, which sound the alarm about the supposed encroachment of Sharia, or Islamic law. They work to convince the public that the Muslim Brotherhood is pursuing a grand plan to infiltrate and subvert the United States, facilitated by Americans’ complacency, and in the process earn ample profits, judging by the flourishing cottage industry of books, videos, Web sites, and training courses for police departments.

Remember this: Shipler is writing this right after two Islamic jihadis attempted to commit mass murder at a free speech event. He is writing this after Muslim Brotherhood-linked groups like Hamas-CAIR and its allies have for years been opposing every counter-terror measure that has ever been proposed or implemented. CAIR has distributed posters telling Muslims, “Don’t talk to the FBI.” He is writing this while knowing that every major Muslim group in the U.S. has never made any significant effort to prevent Muslims in the U.S. from imbibing the ideology of jihad groups such as the Islamic State.

Shipler acts as if it is our “Islamophobic” fantasy that there are Muslims trying to infiltrate and subvert the U.S. Infiltration and subversion is hard to prove. But one thing we can see are the actual policies of the U.S. government. Former U.S. prosecutor Andrew C. McCarthy several years ago listed a great many strange collaborations between Hillary Clinton’s State Department and Muslim Brotherhood organizations, including:

• The State Department announced that the Obama administration would be “satisfied” with the election of a Muslim Brotherhood–dominated government in Egypt.
• Secretary Clinton personally intervened to reverse a Bush-administration ruling that barred Tariq Ramadan, grandson of the Brotherhood’s founder and son of one of its most influential early leaders, from entering the United States.
• The State Department collaborated with the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, a bloc of governments heavily influenced by the Brotherhood, in seeking to restrict American free-speech rights in deference to sharia proscriptions against negative criticism of Islam.
• The State Department excluded Israel, the world’s leading target of terrorism, from its “Global Counterterrorism Forum,” a group that brings the United States together with several Islamist governments, prominently including its co-chair, Turkey—which now finances Hamas and avidly supports the flotillas that seek to break Israel’s blockade of Hamas. At the forum’s kickoff, Secretary Clinton decried various terrorist attacks and groups; but she did not mention Hamas or attacks against Israel—in transparent deference to the Islamist governments, which echo the Brotherhood’s position that Hamas is not a terrorist organization and that attacks against Israel are not terrorism.
• The State Department and the Obama administration waived congressional restrictions in order to transfer $1.5 billion dollars in aid to Egypt after the Muslim Brotherhood’s victory in the parliamentary elections.
• The State Department and the Obama administration waived congressional restrictions in order to transfer millions of dollars in aid to the Palestinian territories notwithstanding that Gaza is ruled by the terrorist organization Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood’s Palestinian branch.
• The State Department and the administration hosted a contingent from Egypt’s newly elected parliament that included not only Muslim Brotherhood members but a member of the Islamic Group (Gamaa al-Islamiyya), which is formally designated as a foreign terrorist organization. The State Department refused to provide Americans with information about the process by which it issued a visa to a member of a designated terrorist organization, about how the members of the Egyptian delegation were selected, or about what security procedures were followed before the delegation was allowed to enter our country.

Maybe there are completely different reasons for all this (and so much more like it), but can Shipler really be so sure of that that he can dismiss infiltration and subversion out of hand?

Virtually all the alarm over the coming Islamic takeover and the spread of Sharia law can be traced back to an old document of questionable authority and relevance, “An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America.” Dated May 22, 1991, it was found in 2004 by the F.B.I., buried in one of a large number of boxes uncovered during a search of a house in northern Virginia. (I reported on the discovery and the use of the document for my book “Freedom of Speech: Mightier than the Sword.”) It is cited on numerous Web sites, and in articles, videos, and training materials, which quote one another in circular arguments. Its illusion of importance was enhanced by federal prosecutors, who included it in a trove of documents introduced into evidence in the 2007 trial of the Holy Land Foundation, a charitable organization ultimately convicted of sending money to Hamas.

This memorandum is indeed telling. But Shipler is wrong that “virtually all the alarm over the coming Islamic takeover and the spread of Sharia law can be traced back” to it. The document is confirmed by the fact that every U.S. Muslim group has followed out its program since then. Shipler never considers that. It seems as if he doesn’t want his readers to know it.

The memo, however, is far from probative. It was never subjected to an adversarial test of its authenticity or significance. Examined closely, it does not stand up as an authoritative prescription for action. Rather, it appears to have been written as a plea to the Muslim Brotherhood leadership for action, by an author we know little about, Mohamed Akram. He is listed elsewhere as a secretary in the Brotherhood, but he writes in the tone of an underling. Islam watchers do not quote his appeal that the recipients “not rush to throw these papers away due to your many occupations and worries. All that I’m asking of you is to read them and to comment on them.” These lines reveal the memo as a mere proposal, now twenty-four years old. No other copies have come to light.

Two features of the memo are highlighted by the Islam watchers: first, its assertion that “the Ikhwan [Muslim Brotherhood] must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within,” and, second, “a list of our organizations and the organizations of our friends.” One of the more prominent organizations on the list is the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which opposes discrimination against Muslims and, on its Web site, has featured videos of American Muslims rejecting acts of terrorism as violations of Islam’s tenets. But the peaceful rhetoric is just a ruse, John Guandolo, a former F.B.I. agent, contends.

Shipler’s carelessness is revealed here. The memorandum doesn’t actually mention CAIR. It was written before CAIR was founded. It mentions the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP), CAIR’s parent group, which was shut down for its ties to Hamas. Shipler doesn’t mention that, either.

Guandaolo allowed me to attend a training session he held for community activists. In his presentations, he conflates the named organizations with the Muslim Brotherhood, and the Brotherhood with Hamas, the radical movement that evolved from the Brotherhood and now rules the Gaza Strip. So the memo’s list of friendly organizations, which may have been compiled casually by a wishful-thinking operative, becomes a tool of guilt by association.

Shipler is quite wrong that the Muslim Brotherhood memorandum is the only thing linking these organizations to Hamas. Nihad Awad of Hamas-tied CAIR stated openly that he supported Hamas in 1994. The Justice Department named many of these groups unindicted co-conspirators in the Holy Land Foundation (HLF) Hamas funding trial — not just based on this document, but on the groups’ activities aiding and abetting the HLF.

Whenever a sheriff’s department or local police force hires Guandolo to train officers in the dangers of a Muslim takeover, CAIR and Muslim community centers push back hard, urging that the sessions be cancelled.

Notice that Shipler is fine with this efforts to strongarm local police and smear and defame Guandolo.

They don’t always succeed, but when a department capitulates and calls off the course, Guandolo publishes blog posts accusing police officials of giving in to Hamas. Last fall, after the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona opposed a scheduled training session, he urged that the group be indicted, for giving “material support” to Hamas, as a designated terrorist organization.

What these activists say about Islam and their right to say it are different issues, now entangled. By attacking the cartoon gathering, the gunmen in Texas have reframed the argument about it in favor of their enemies. Without their attack, the focus would have been on the bigotry of the cartoon exercise.

For Shipler and the New Yorker, it’s “bigotry” to stand against violent intimidation in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo jihad attacks.

It is now also on freedom of thought—“not free thought for those who agree with us but freedom for the thought that we hate,” as Oliver Wendell Holmes declared.

Geller claimed that from the beginning the cartoon contest “was about freedom of speech, period.” Handed the chance to bask in righteousness, she took it with her customary flair for hyperbole, telling CNN, “Increasingly, we are abridging our freedoms so as not to offend savages. The very idea that if something offends me or I’m insulted by something I’ll kill you and that way I can get my way, and somehow this is O.K. with members of the élite media and academia, is outrageous.”

Shipler says it’s “hyperbole” to call people who would commit mass murder over cartoons “savages.” Will he be telling them that as the jihadi blade slices through his neck? “Hey, boys, let’s cut out the hyperbo–“

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dagawker

8 years ago

You had me at “Convert or Die”.

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BonnieRJasso

8 years ago

Reply to  dagawker

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disqus_HlH4Faibhw

8 years ago

Reply to  dagawker

And in all this, I have yet to see any muslim come forward to explain why all of this is meant “spiritually”.

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DanielC

8 years ago

Reply to  dagawker

Cartoon drawings are the only tip of the iceberg for example in several parts of the UK they do not teach about the holocaust because it’s considered offensive to muslims.
Several European courts already allow Sharia courts under the ridiculous claim that it is part the muslims freedom of worship even if the Sharia courts contradict basic human rights.

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Honest Citizen

8 years ago

Within the first amendment is not only freedom of speech, but also freedom of religion.

The essence of freedom of religion is I am free to not be required to adhere to the tenants of your religion. A drawing in and of itself is not offensive. The islamic religion says it is offensive. I do not follow izlam, i do not have to believe it is offensive to draw mojomed.

The oppressors chose the battle lines for the oppressed. Sitting at a counter is not in and of itself offensive. Those who wished to subjugate others made sitting at a counter a civil rights issue.

Today in America we are told that a drawing is so abhorrently offensive as to provoke mass murder. In predominantly moslem countries it is no longer just pictures or words, but multiculturalism that offends moslems. Everywhere, everyone, has been required to become adherents of sharia (no drawings is just a small part) whether they realize it or not.

We must hold dear and defend our freedoms in our bill of rights, end of discussion. Because without it we are left to abide by sharia law or face the consequences.

“America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.” Abraham Lincoln

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JacktheRipper

8 years ago

There seems to be this tortured need among certain journalists to complicate this free speech issue with all manner of sophistry and moral wrangling. But it’s very simple, our constitution does not bow to superstitious dogma, our freedoms are not to be abridged for religion. Pam said, “The issue with our Muhammad cartoon contest is between freedom and submission,” and I interpret that to mean there is no middle ground where freedom can mingle with submission and still be called freedom. She’s right.

If we give in on this issue we open that door to every religious crackpot with a tin god and foxed-paged book. If we are cowardly we send the message that we are willing to forfeit our freedoms for fear of offending religion. With such a precedent we only embolden religious tyranny over our constitutional rights. No religious superstition tells Americans they can’t draw cartoons of long-dead murderers. No religion deprives me of my right to be free, in mind, body, or soul.

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JacktheRipper

8 years ago

Reply to  JacktheRipper

This republic was not established by cowards; and cowards will not preserve it. ~Elmer Davis

The New Yorker has bowed to Islam’s god over a cartoon. They prefer pagan religious beliefs over our right to be free. I guess their employees will be going in the back entrance this week.

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Jay Adams

8 years ago

I’m considering ordering these for “winners” like David Shipler @ the New Yorker – http://www.IslamicPrayerRugs.com 🙂

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Jim Austin

8 years ago

“(U)nwritten code of restraint on contemptuous stereotyping”? What unwritten code? I haven’t noticed any such restraint on behalf of the media.

The particular code most likely is the one involving politically favored groups such as black, women, Hispanics, LGBT types whose members are not held to the standards of behavior applied to everyone else, where saying anything insensitive about any of the groups’ members could bring ruin to a person. The liberal contingent is rapidly trying to include Moslems as yet another politically favored group.

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nacazo

8 years ago

The New Yorker said:

“American society’s unwritten code of restraint on contemptuous stereotyping.”

Never heard of such unwritten code when discussing crucifixes immersed in urine or virgin mary in elephant dung. I think there is an unwritten rule in the circles of the elite media and academia of restraint on offending a religion that scares the s..t of of their whiny assets.

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Rafael37

8 years ago

Great post, Pamela.

For far too long, the New Yorker has got away with one-sided commentaries. The recent David Remnick hatchet job against PM Netanyahu was no more than an anti-Israel Obama advertorial.

It’s excellent to see the way you have so quickly and throroughly fisked Shipler, in the same way you demolished Cathy Young’s arguments.

That the New Yorker couldn’t even bring itself to show the winning cartoon speaks volumes for its bias. “Free speech for me but not for thee”

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nacazo

8 years ago

The New Yorker says:

“Pamela Geller, of a crusading anti-Muslim group called the American Freedom Defense Initiative,”

Pamela has been clear that she’s not anti-muslim. She is anti-jihad and anti-sharia. Who wouldn’t?

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nacazo

8 years ago

The memorandum doesn’t actually mention CAIR.

BWAHAHAHA!! Shipler’s sloppy journalism at its best….

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Tomas De Torquemada

8 years ago

You don’t get rid of Islam by drawing cartoons. You get rid of it with… well… it’s unpleasant, but I think Charlie Hebdo showed the world what I’m talking about. Don’t get shocked now- it has many historical precedents, and they tend to be more effective than talking or drawing.

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D

BonniePrinceCharlie

8 years ago

Wonderful article, Pamela. Too bad that few people other than subscribers to your website will get a chance to read it. We need to find a way of reaching a wider audience.

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Jay Adams

8 years ago

Good article on Shipler from PJ Media this AM – bit.ly/1RDnAxo

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Robert Bayer

8 years ago

Every month Islamic people kill gays by the hundreds …

Everyone month Islamic people kill non-Islamic people in the most brutal fashion by the thousands…

Where are all the non-violent Muslims and Death-Seeking Leftists protesting against this abhorrent brutal slaughter? Why do they still permit the Koranic verses to be followed to the letter which sanctions all of the above brutality? Why do they permit the Islamic leaders to use these verses to incite and brainwash their followers into mass murder?

But lets blame the cartoonists for daring to point out the need to fight against these heinous acts of terrorism!

So some group, in order to highlight and protest this rampant murder spree by Islam that is continuing day after day …. some group satires Islam in cartoons … to raise awareness of the unspeakable brutality by Islam ..

And YET there are those in western civilization, both political and MSM leaders, who also are ignoring these horrors and yet DO NOTICE this group attempting to protest these horrors!

The Murderous Horrors and Dismemberments are fine by them .. But cartoons that protest the same! Down with freedom of speech!

So leftist jackazzes blame the protesters … and remember .. these same leftist jackazzes are DOING NOTHING to stop these horrors .. simply keep blaming the victims …

I guess Islam will save these useful idiots as the last infidels to be beheaded and raped …

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gern451

8 years ago

Here is the text of a post I put up on Facebook last night, when I had an epiphany about all the criticism from the loony left about being “provocative”. . . .

Alright folks, I have been somewhat upset over the criticism of “draw Mohammed” and I think I just saw the most profound movie ever seen on a small or large screen that really speaks to my feelings about it. It is all about America and the freedom of thought and expression it stands for and the reason why that will always prevail over tyranny.

I am watching the TCM classic movie channel presentation of Charlie Chaplin’s “Modern Times”. I was directed to this broadcast by my wife who is a silent movie buff. This movie was made in 1936, long after soundtracks had been introduced into movies, but Charlie Chaplin purposely made this a silent movie to preserve the art form, but also to preserve the greatest human element of all and that is satire. As you may or may not know, Charlie Chaplin lived in the 1930’s and you may know who he based his character on, but it was the world’s leading German dictator of the times. Charlie Chaplin is a brilliant satirist, ranking up there with the author Johnathan Swift.

As I review the important news events of this past week, I am reminded of the leftist media attack on Pamela Geller and her sponsorship in Texas of a “draw Mohammed” cartoon contest this last week. as you know, she was vilified in the press as a provocateur and an antagonist.

In reality, if you go back and study the work of Charlie Chaplin and his body of work which most certainly could also be considered “provocative” back in the 1930’s and whom he was parodying, it most certainly puts the work of Pamela Geller in perspective. Look at the body of work of Charlie Chaplin and think before you spout off about Pamela Geller.

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lamb4usa

8 years ago

I love the New York Times. Their editorial pages make for great bird cage lining. My cockatiels love craping on the NYT.

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Gail Combs

8 years ago

Reply to  lamb4usa

AHHHhh, The New York Times supporting communism from Stalin to Obama. Supporting genocide from the Ukraine in the 1930s to the Middle East today.

What would we ever do with out such a great propaganda outlet.

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Gail Combs

8 years ago

“American society’s unwritten code of restraint….”

You have GOT to be kidding!

The guy ought to get out of his office and read some of the graffiti found in NYC.

http://s3.amazonaws.com/rapgenius/1362258737_VLSqvxe.jpg

Or listen to the words of current music hits.

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Michael Copeland

8 years ago

Shipler writes of “Mocking Islam’s ban on images of Muhammad”.
The winning drawing is not mocking: it is DEFYING.
US citizens are not subject to Islam’s ban.
US law for US.

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