Once again the mainstream media carries water for Islamic supremacists. What do they think it will get them? Pamela Geller’s response to this ridiculous piece is here. My comments are interspersed below, but note first the silly headline in the print edition: “Hating Jih-Ad.” Aside from the stupid wordplay, is the Daily News actually trying to say that opposing jihad — violent jihad, terrorist jihad, as depicted in our ads — is wrong? They’ve really gone off the edge now. And the idea that these ads would be subjected to this kind of negative coverage, although completely expected and unsurprising, is what is really “shocking.” It is now “shocking” and “incendiary” to oppose jihad terror — has Jennifer Fermino ever written with this much scorn about any jihad mass murderer? I highly doubt it. More below.
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“Shocking anti-Islam ad campaign coming to MTA buses, subway stations,” by Jennifer Fermino, New York Daily News, September 19, 2014:
An incendiary ad campaign that includes an image of American journalist James Foley just before his beheading in Syria is coming to 100 MTA buses and two subway stations.
The ads, paid for by flame-throwing blogger Pamela Geller, at a cost of $100,000, are intended as an “education campaign” to warn of the “problem with jihad” and Islamic sharia law, Geller said.
Note that Jennifer Fermino has almost certainly never called a jihad preacher “incendiary” or “flame-throwing” — not even the imams who have lately been caught on film calling for a new genocide of the Jews. Only resistance to jihad mass murder is “incendiary,” not promotion of it. Note also the sneer quotes around “problem with jihad,” as if the problem of jihad were something trumped up by Pamela Geller. Has Jennifer Fermino never heard of the Islamic State? Of course she has, but Barack Obama and John Kerry assure her that it is not Islamic, and that is probably good enough for her.
In one of the placard ads, Foley appears handcuffed, on his knees, next to the hooded, black-clad jihadist who is about to execute him — an image from the video released by the group Islamic State, which boasted of the execution.
The ad also contains a second photo, of the Briton suspected by some of being Foley’s killer. The Brit is shown in happier times, before he allegedly joined ISIS.
“Yesterday’s moderate is today’s headline,” the placard says.
A second ad contains a 1940s photo of a pro-Nazi Palestinian leader chatting with Adolf Hitler under the headline, “Islamic Jew-Hatred: It’s in the Quran.”
In addition to the 100 buses, Geller’s ads will appear at the entrances of the E. 59th St. station on the Lexington Ave. line and the Columbus Circle station.
Geller is a prolific blogger who writes of a “global jihad conspiracy” and calls President Obama a “clown” and an “Islamic apologist.”
Does Jennifer Fermino know what the word “apologist” means? She should look it up and then look up Barack Obama’s statements about Islam, including his recent ones about how the Islamic State is not Islamic. Barack Obama is many things, and there are many other things that people say he is that he isn’t; but there is just no doubt about the fact that he is an Islamic apologist — i.e., someone anxious to absolve Islam of responsibility for the atrocities that Muslims justify by invoking its teachings.
Her ads will surely offend some bus and subway riders, but the MTA said it has no choice but to allow them.
It tried to block Geller several years ago when she wanted to post ads in the subway that labeled enemies of Israel as “savages.”
The MTA said the ads violated its “no demeaning” language policy. But a judge ruled that rejecting the ads violated Geller’s First Amendment rights.
“If you read the court decision on this, our hands are tied,” said MTA spokesman Adam Lisberg.
As always, no one in favor of the ads is quoted.
Following that battle, the MTA updated its policy to force all viewpoint ads like Geller’s to contain language clearly stating that the opinions expressed are not the transit agency’s.
Geller’s new ads will contain the disclaimer.
In addition to the ads featuring Foley and Hitler, Geller has created a placard that links the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim civil rights group known as CAIR, to the terror organization Hamas.
“Hamas is ISIS, Hamas is al-Qaeda, Hamas is Boko Haram, Hamas is CAIR in America,” it reads.
It’s a paraphrase of a quote by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was stressing the links between Islamic extremists.
Netanyahu, though, didn’t mention CAIR.
“Geller is a known hater and there’s no law in this country that forces her to tell the truth,” said Corey Saylor, a CAIR spokesman.
He said the group has considered suing her, but doesn’t think it’s worth it.
“Defamation law being what it is in this country, we understand it would be difficult,” he said.
It would be especially difficult because Saylor knows Hamas-linked CAIR would lose such a suit. Hamas-linked CAIR’s ties to Hamas are not the imaginings of Pamela Geller, as Jennifer Fermino seems to think. Her “civil rights group” was actually named an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas terror funding case not by Pamela Geller, but by the Justice Department. Hamas-linked CAIR operatives have repeatedly refused to denounce Hamas and Hizballah as terrorist groups. Several former CAIR officials have been convicted of various crimes related to jihad terror. CAIR’s cofounder and longtime Board chairman (Omar Ahmad), as well as its chief spokesman (Ibrahim Hooper), have made Islamic supremacist statements. Its California chapter distributed the poster above telling Muslims not to talk to the FBI. CAIR has opposed every anti-terror measure that has ever been proposed or implemented.
But as far as Jennifer Fermino is concerned, none of that is fit to print, as germane as it may be to the assertion in the ad. Hamas-linked CAIR is a “civil rights group” and Pamela Geller is a “flamethrower.” Your moral superiors have spoken. Shut up.