Recently in Freedom Defense Initiative Category

We're going over the heads of the mainstream media and telling the truth. Help us take this campaign nationwide and match Islamic supremacist propaganda city for city: contribute here.

Photos thanks to Pamela Geller, who has more here.

A message from Pamela Geller:

Now more than ever, we have to educate the American people. You see the spin the enemedia is in in the wake of the Boston jihad. And they blew up our families in our streets. Help us get our ads up. Go here.

As you know, ads calling Israel an apartheid state are running on NY Metro platforms (above). Our Islamic apartheid ads are going up on NY subways and DC dioramas this week to counter the Muslim lies and expose the truth about the sharia. We need your help. We have five days left on our crowdfunder campaign. Please contribute.

Injecting a bit of sanity into the public discourse. From Yahoo:

NEW YORK, April 24, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI), a foremost civil rights and human rights advocacy organization, today decried the wave of inflammatory victimhood posturing by Islamic supremacist groups such as the Hamas-linked groups following the Boston Marathon bombings and the revelation that the suspects in the case are Islamic jihad terrorists.

AFDI also noted that Americans of all faiths have rejected the call by a minority of extremists to deflect responsibility for jihad terror and obfuscate its root causes in Islamic texts and teachings.

While yet another violent jihad hate plot has been uncovered in Toronto in the wake of the Boston bombings, AFDI calls upon Muslims in the U.S. and Canada to take responsibility for cleaning up their communities and instituting programs to teach against the ideology of jihad hatred that fuels these plots. Instead, groups such as the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations is trying to fool Americans into thinking after these bombings that Muslims are victims.

"Americans need to understand the threat they're facing," said AFDI Executive Director Pamela Geller. "That is the chief lesson of the Boston jihad bombings. Hamas-CAIR, an unindicted co-conspirator in the largest Hamas funding trial in our nation's history, has created out of whole cloth a propaganda campaign that dissembles, deceives, and deliberately lies about what happened in Boston and its implications. This only serves to prevent an effective response to jihad terror, thereby enabling jihadists to strike again more easily."

CAIR is indeed an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas terror funding case — so named by the Justice Department. 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 posters telling Muslims not to talk to the FBI.

Although it has received millions of dollars in donations from foreign Islamic entities, it has not registered as a foreign agent as required by the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), despite spreading Islamic supremacist propaganda within the United States.

And although it presents itself as a civil rights group, CAIR actually has numerous links to hateful and violent Islamic supremacist and jihad groups.

CAIR founders Omar Ahmad and Niwad Awad (who still serves as CAIR's executive director) were present at a Hamas planning meeting in Philadelphia in 1993 where they and other Hamas operatives conspired to raise funds for Hamas and to promote jihad in the Middle East. CAIR has steadfastly refused to denounce Hamas and Hizballah as terrorist groups.

Several former CAIR officials have been convicted of various crimes related to jihad terror:

• Ghassan Elashi , founder of CAIR's Texas chapter, in 2009 received a 65-year prison sentence for funneling over $12 million from the Islamic charity known as the Holy Land Foundation to the jihad terrorist group Hamas, which is responsible for murdering hundreds of Israeli civilians
• Mousa Abu Marzook, a former CAIR official, was in 1995 designated by the U.S. government in 1995 as a "terrorist and Hamas leader." He now is a Hamas leader in Syria.
• Randall Royer, CAIR's former civil rights coordinator, in 2004 began serving a 20-year prison sentence for aiding al-Qaida and the Taliban against American troops in Afghanistan and recruiting for Lashkar e-Taiba, the jihadist group responsible for the 2008 Mumbai jihad massacres.
• Bassem Khafagi, CAIR's former community relations director, was arrested for involvement with the Islamic Assembly of North America, which was linked to al-Qaida. After pleading guilty to visa and bank fraud charges, Khafagi was deported.
• Rabih Haddad, a former CAIR fundraiser, was deported for his work with the Global Relief Foundation (which he co-founded), a terror-financing organization.

In 1998 Omar Ahmad, CAIR's co-founder and longtime Board Chairman, said: "Islam isn't in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant. The Koran should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on Earth."

After he received unwelcome publicity as a result of this statement, Ahmad denied saying it, several years after the fact. However, the original reporter, Lisa Gardiner of the Fremont Argus, stands by her story.

CAIR's spokesman Ibrahim Hooper once said: "I wouldn't want to create the impression that I wouldn't like the government of the United States to be Islamic sometime in the future."

AFDI stands for:

• The freedom of speech – as opposed to Islamic prohibitions of "blasphemy" and "slander," which are used effectively to quash honest discussion of jihad and Islamic supremacism;
• The freedom of conscience – as opposed to the Islamic death penalty for apostasy;
• The equality of rights of all people before the law – as opposed to Sharia's institutionalized discrimination against women and non-Muslims.

From Yahoo:

NEW YORK, April 24, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The human rights organization American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI) has unveiled an 18-point platform for preserving and defending free societies. The Platform for Defending Freedom is the fruit of the International Freedom Defense Congress of the international group Stop Islamization of Nations (SION), which was held in New York City at the UN Millennium Plaza Hotel on September 11, 2012, and is rendered urgent in the wake of the Boston Marathon jihad bombings.

AFDI Executive Director Pamela Geller said in a statement: "After deliberation and consultation with our international SION President's Council and our colleagues, we have developed these eighteen points to help freedom fighters focus on solution to the threat at hand. At the International Freedom Defense Congress, which was held across the street from the United Nations in New York City, representatives of European nations, as well as India, Israel, Malaysia, and Egypt's Coptic community were present. World-renowned authorities in legal strategy and political action addressed the attendees."

Geller continued: "Now we have formulated this Platform for Defending Freedom as a tool for counter-jihad activists and a set of principles to unite the counter-jihad movement in the wake of the Boston jihad bombings. We need to press our politicians and parties to accept these goals and pursue political action to make them reality, and we will rate politicians on the basis of these points. We plan now to form an international group of politicians and activists committed to these principles in countries across the globe."

AFDI calls for the U.S. and other non-Muslim governments to recognize officially that Islam is a political movement and so not solely religious in the strict sense of the U.S. Constitution. AFDI recognizes that Islam in it mainstream theological formulations and its dominant form throughout its history, not "extremist Islam" or "hijacked Islam" or "Islamism," but Islam in the Qur'an and Sunnah as understood by Islamic jurists and theologians, can and should be regarded as an authoritarian and supremacist political system as well as a religion, and thus that Muslim groups should be subject to all the scrutiny and legal requirements of political organizations, without being able to shield their political activities behind the protection of religious freedom.

• AFDI denounces the crippling rules of engagement under which our soldiers are forced to labor. They should be given the freedom to defend themselves and protect their comrades.
• AFDI calls for profiling of Muslims at airports and in hiring in professions in which national security and public safety could be compromised.
• AFDI calls for immediate investigation into foreign mosque funding in the West and for new legislation making foreign funding of mosques in non-Muslim nations illegal.
• AFDI calls for surveillance of mosques and regular inspections of mosques in the U.S. and other non-Muslim nations to look for pro-violence materials. Any mosque advocating jihad or any aspects of Sharia that conflict with Constitutional freedoms and protections should be closed.
• AFDI calls for curriculum and Islam-related materials in textbooks and museums to describe the Islamic doctrine and history accurately, including its violent doctrines and 1,400-year war against unbelievers.
• AFDI calls for a halt of foreign aid to Islamic nations with Sharia-based constitutions and/or governments.
• AFDI denounces the use of Sharia law in any Western court or nation.
• AFDI advocates deportation hearings against non-citizens who promote jihad in our nations.
• AFDI calls for an immediate halt of immigration by Muslims into nations that do not currently have a Muslim majority population.
• AFDI calls for laws providing that anyone seeking citizenship in the United States should be asked if he or she supports Sharia law, and investigated for ties to pro-Sharia groups. If so, citizenship should not be granted.
• AFDI calls for the cancellation of citizenship or permanent residency status for anyone who leaves the country of his residence to travel for the purpose of engaging in jihad activity, and for the refusal of reentry into his country of residence after that jihad activity.
• AFDI calls careful investigation of Muslims resident in non-Muslim country who have obtained naturalized citizenship or permanent residency status, to ensure that that status was not obtained under false pretenses.
• AFDI calls for the designation of the following as grounds for immediate deportation: fomenting, plotting, financing, attempting or carrying out jihad attacks; encouraging or threatening or attempting to carry out the punishments Islamic law mandates for apostasy, adultery, blasphemy, fornication or theft; threatening or attempting or carrying out honor murders, forced marriage, underage marriage, female genital mutilation, or polygamy.
• AFDI calls for the U.S. and other free nations to have jihad, as it is traditionally understood in Islamic jurisprudence to involve warfare against and subjugation of non-Muslims, declared a crime against humanity at the U.N., or to withdraw from the U.N. and have its headquarters moved to a Muslim nation.
• AFDI calls for legislating making illegal the foreign funding of Islamic Studies departments and faculty positions in our universities.
• AFDI demands the repeal of U.N. resolution 16/18 and any other resolutions that might limit the freedom of speech.
• AFDI calls for all Muslim chaplains in prisons and the military to be thoroughly vetted, and dismissed if they have ties to any Islamic supremacist group, or if they advocate jihad.
• AFDI calls for the development of energy policies that will free us from dependence upon oil from Muslim countries.

Through SION, AFDI establishes a common American/European coalition of free people determined to stand for freedom and oppose the advance of Islamic law, Sharia. Islamic law is not simply a religious system, but a political system that encompasses every aspect of life; is authoritarian, discriminatory, and repressive; and contradicts Western laws and principles in numerous particulars. SION respects Muslims as fellow human beings and rejects Islamization as a comprehensive political, religious, cultural and social system of behavior and ideology.

AFDI and SION stand for:

• The freedom of speech – as opposed to Islamic prohibitions of "blasphemy" and "slander," which are used effectively to quash honest discussion of jihad and Islamic supremacism;

• The freedom of conscience – as opposed to the Islamic death penalty for apostasy;

• The equality of rights of all people before the law – as opposed to Sharia's institutionalized discrimination against women and non-Muslims.

Join the SION Facebook group here.

Help us keep exposing the truth about jihad and Islamic supremacism! Contribute to this campaign here!

Our AFDI Islamic Apartheid ad campaign is giving the Leftists, Islamic supremacists, and mainstream media fits: the truth about Islam, jihad and Islamic supremacism that they have worked so hard to suppress and obfuscate is getting out, and try as they might, they cannot stop it. Here is the latest addition to our Pamela Geller's brilliant Islamic apartheid ad series -- they will soon be going up in New York City Metro and subway platforms. We are buying additional cities this week as well. Many thanks to Andrew Bostom for the flag and translation.

The Arabic on the flag shown above says, “On Saturday we kill the Jews, and on Sunday we kill the Christians.” It was displayed during the first Palestinian Muslim Intifada

This is confirmed at the google books link, below, from Leila Gilbert’s recent book, Saturday People, Sunday People: Israel Through the Eyes of a Christian Sojourner Google books direct page link here.

"It's Saturday, so kill (/ fa-qattil /), i.e. massacre (frequentitive usage of Form II verb), the Jews; on Sunday, massacre the Christians."

Thus:
"It's Saturday, so massacre the Jews; on Sunday, massacre the Christians."

Contribute to this campaign here or via paypal. Send your donation to americanfreedomdefense@aol.com (it's a 501c3).

Read the New York Post story on our new AFDI ad campaign responding to these anti-Israel ads, and Pamela Geller's comments, here.

Help us keep our pro-freedom ads going: contribute here.

"Vicious, anti-Israel ads in New York subway," by Pamela Geller in WND, March 26:

In typically disrespectful and offensive fashion, Muslim Americans (for “Palestine”) have issued the latest blood libel against the Jews on the holy day of Passover.

The Islamic supremacists announced triumphantly in a press release Friday that an “Israeli Apartheid ad” was going to begin to appear in New York train stations on Monday (Passover began Monday night). “The American Muslims for Palestine” described itself as a “national grassroots organization educating the public about Palestine and its rich cultural and historical heritage” – not an easy job to do for a made-up country and a fictional people.

They said that their new “nationwide outdoor advertising campaign” called for “an end to Israeli apartheid and to unconditional American aid for Israel.” And they said that the New York run was just the beginning, and that the ads would run elsewhere around the country as well.

And so again, with little fanfare and no outraged opposition or media firestorm or condemnation, Muslim Jew-haters are running their fourth repulsive anti-Semitic campaign in the New York City transit system. It is important to point out that it is these campaigns that were the impetus for the pro-Israel and #MyJihad campaigns of my organization, the American Freedom Defense Initiative, or AFDI. And I can assure you that this latest Goebbels-style demonization of the Jews will not go unanswered. We are working feverishly right now to get ads responding to these ready for submission.

Apartheid? Anne Bayefsky notes that “there were once an estimated 900,000 Jews” in the Muslim world, “but today there are less than a few thousand. They were given a choice: Die, convert or flee.” That’s apartheid. The slaughter of gays across the Muslim world: that’s apartheid. The persecution of Christians across the Muslim world: that’s apartheid. The prohibition of non-Muslims from even entering Mecca: that’s apartheid. Muslims are freer in Israel than in any Muslim country.

This anti-Israel ad is exactly the technique that Hitler’s minions used. If you read the writings of Goebbels, the Nazi narrative was that they were the victims. They were the put-upon ones. That’s how they sold annihilation. And this is the same thing. It’s not surprising that Islamic supremacists would appropriate the propaganda methods of the Third Reich, as they partnered with Hitler and shared the same goal.

This war on the Jews has nothing to do with land. That’s the evil and fallacious narrative that the annihilationists and Jew-haters have appropriated to sell this steaming pile of dung to normalize the genocidal imperative of the Islamic jihad against the Jews.

It’s the Big Lie, and it has been going on since 1948. For that matter, it has been going on for 1,400 years. Khaybar, Khaybar, ya yahud, jaish Muhammad sa yaoud (“Khaybar, Khaybar, O Jews, the army of Muhammad shall return”) is a frequently-heard war chant of genocidal jihadis, referring to Muhammad’s massacre of the remaining Jews of Arabia (the ones he hadn’t already killed, exiled or enslaved) at the oasis of Khaybar. Muhammad also suggested that Muslims could hasten the coming of the end times by murdering Jews, when he said that “the last hour would not come unless the Muslims will fight against the Jews and the Muslims would kill them until the Jews would hide themselves behind a stone or a tree and a stone or a tree would say: Muslim, or the servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me; come and kill him” (Sahih Muslim 6985).

Modern-day Muslims have taken this genocidal bloodlust to heart. One of our ads features a quote from a music video that ran on Hamas’s Al Aqsa TV: “Killing Jews is worship that draws us close to Allah”

We are the only ones who are effectively countering this anti-Semitic propaganda campaign. We will be unveiling a new campaign this week to expose the lies and massive deceit about ongoing Islamic tyranny. Help us keep our pro-freedom ads going: contribute here.

Whatever else it may be, the Daily Mail is certainly the most absurd paper in Britain. It generally has the best coverage in Britain of jihad activity and Islamic supremacism, and is a refreshing antidote to the dreary dhimmitude and pro-Sharia cheerleading of the BBC and the Guardian. But it cheapens its coverage with sensationalism and cheesecake, and even worse, it manifests an inexplicable hostility to the very people who are leading the resistance to the jihad that it so comprehensively documents -- a hostility that would be much more expected coming from dhimmis, collaborators and Useful Idiots, who otherwise seem to have no place at the Daily Mail. And here they go again: "'Killing Jews is worship that brings us closer to Allah': Outrage over 'racist' ad campaign launched in San Francisco," by Beth Stebner for the Daily Mail, March 12:

Several anti-Islamic ads featuring the photographs and quotes of Osama bin Laden, the Times Square Bomber, and the alleged Fort Hood shooter have caused outrage in San Francisco after their release today.

The ads, which will run for the next month, are featured on 10 buses in the Bay Area and have caused a stir in the community, sparking a fierce debate between free speech and hate speech.

The mainstream media, Leftists and Islamic supremacists really have to tie themselves into knots to explain why this campaign is "hate speech." After all, they profess to oppose the violent jihadis depicted in our ads. So what's the problem? If they really opposed them, they would be standing with us. The fact that they are not doing so is extremely revealing.

The ads were paid for by the American Freedom Defense Initiative. One of the spots contains a quote attributed to Hamas, the militant Islamic group, and reads: ‘Killing Jews is worship that brings us closer to Allah.’

"Attributed to"? Can't the Daily Mail do research? This statement ran on Hamas' official al-Aqsa TV station. Here is the video:

Another ad features Osama bin Laden’s explanation of why he decided to take down the Twin Towers on 9/11. ‘The first thing we are calling you to is Islam,’ the quote reads.

It is accompanied by a picture of the former Al Qaeda leader, who was killed in a covert operation a year and a half ago.

Yet another shows would-be Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad and says how jihad involving ‘weaponry’ is an ‘obligation and duty in Islam on every Muslim.’

Again: can't the Daily Mail do research? Their report here suggests that it is we who stated that "jihad involving ‘weaponry’ is an ‘obligation and duty in Islam on every Muslim," and just slapped a picture of Shahzad next to the assertion. In fact, it was Shahzad himself who said that. Here is the video:

San Francisco civil officials and Arab and Muslim leaders alike were quick to denounce what they said was ‘racist’ and offensive ads.

What race is jihad terror again? I keep forgetting.

District Attorney George Gascon told the Associated Press today that the ads were ‘offensive’ and ‘serve no purpose than to denigrate our cities Arab and Muslim communities.’

Mayor Ed Lee added, 'San Francisco is a city that celebrates its diversity and hateful speech and discrimination against our Arab and Muslim communities will never be tolerated.'

The hateful speech is from the jihadis, but San Francisco officials refused to condemn them. They're not upset about that real hatred; they just don't want anyone resisting it. And if the "Arab and Muslim communities" reject the jihadis' understanding of Islam, then they should stand with us in resisting it.

Board of Supervisors president David Chiu was expected to introduce a resolution on Tuesday condemning the ads.

Similar ads have appeared on transit systems in Washington, D.C., Chicago and Portland, Oregon.

The group ran similar ads in San Francisco in August and has also posted ads in New York City, including one in September that called enemies of Israel 'savages.'

Officials with San Francisco's Municipal Transportation Authority believe a First Amendment court decision protecting freedom of speech means it must accept the advertising.

That pesky First Amendment!

As it did last summer, the transit agency plans to give the $5,000 paid for the ads to the city's Human Rights Commission to study the impact of discrimination on San Francisco's Islamic communities and run its own ads against discrimination.

What discrimination? Who is calling for any denial of any legal right to Muslims? This is sheer fantasy. And it wasn't $5,000, it was $20,000. Pamela Geller notes: "We have spent upwards of $20,000 on bus ads in San Francisco. San Francisco city officials have turned over all the revenue generated from our ad campaigns to the Human Rights Commission to 'study discrimination against Muslims.' Wasting taxpayer dollars in so craven a manner violates the public trust. But more importantly, this is a violation of the establishment clause. It is showing preference by the U.S. government of one religion over another. San Francisco is giving 'preferential' 'accommodation' to Muslims to benefit one religion over all others. How are these dollars being spent? We want an accounting. We wish to file a lawsuit against the city of San Francisco for violation of the establishment clause."

AFDI executive director Pamela Gellar [sic] said in a statement Tuesday that Americans ‘need to understand the threat they’re facing,’ adding: ‘That is the point of our ads. The slaughter of Christians in Nigeria, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Malaysia, Algeria, et al… Hundreds of thousands dead, but it would be blasphemy to talk about.’

Messages sent to Geller by MailOnline were not immediately returned.

I asked Pamela Geller today if she had been contacted by the Daily Mail: she had not. How they can lie outright like this is beyond me.

The AFDI ‘Jihad Awareness Campaign’ that has raised just over $1,200 of a $50,000 goal.

The Daily Mail doesn't bother to note that that $1,200 was raised in the first 24 hours of the campaign -- it had just started. Now, a day later, the total is close to $3,000 and climbing. People realize that no one else is getting the truth out about the jihad threat the way we are. Please help us keep these ads going: contribute here.

Gellar [sic] has also been outspoken on the controversial building of a mosque blocks away from Ground Zero.

At least the Daily Mail admits that it is a mosque, which is all that it is -- not the vaunted "community center" of media and Islamic supremacist claims. And it was to be built on the site of a building that was extensively damaged in the 9/11 attacks -- hence it was at Ground Zero, not "blocks away."

That's the Daily Mail for you: the most absurd paper in Britain.

Chicago Transit Authority, after cheerfully running Hamas-linked CAIR's cynical and deceptive #MyJihad ads, has reluctantly acquiesced to the First Amendment and agreed to run our counter-jihad ads. Pamela Geller has more details here.

Help us run these ads in Chicago, San Francisco and Washington: we want to counter Hamas-linked CAIR's propaganda. everywhere they run it. Please donate via Paypal to writeatlas@aol.com or tax-deductible to director@jihadwatch.org. Mailing address: 1040 1st Avenue, Box 121 NY NY 10022.

Here is the letter from the CTA, full of the usual Leftist/Islamic supremacist smears and contempt:

Our lawyer, David Yerushalmi of the American Freedom Law Center, responded:

Dear Ms. Seimetz:

Thank you for your letter of today's date. To the extent that the indemnity you will ask my client to sign is commercially and legally reasonable and indeed an agreement required of all advertisers, I don't imagine that will be an issue.

As to you prefatory comment about my client's ad being morally reprehensible, I must note that you provide no basis for your professed moral outrage other than conclusory language about advocating racism, hatred and the like. For a lawyer employed by a state entity, your comments are both inappropriate and logically inept. My client's ad advocates no such thing. That suggests, of course, that your commentary is a political cover for the CTA, which in turn speaks to the lack of intellectual integrity and moral rectitude of both the CTA and its spokespersons.

Be that as it may, the CTA has capitulated grudgingly, apparently, to the First Amendment of the Constitution. And, apparently, we have my clients to thank for that.

Fine with Detroit

Banned in Detroit

Predictable Sharia compliance in Detroit on our latest AFDI ad. Pamela Geller explains: "Our message parallels the atheist ads. Since they were accepted, I modeled this ad after theirs, to see if the freedom of speech applied to criticism of Islam in our cowardly and politically correct age. This is the same government agency that refused to run our "Leaving Islam?" ads that were designed to help Muslim girls who wanted to lead more Western lives escape dangerous devout households. SMART refused. My legal team, David Yerushalmi and Robert Muise of the American Freedom Law Center and I sued. We won. They appealed to the 6th circuit court (a sharia-sensitive court). The Sixth Circuit said that the ad was a political ad -- SMART doesn't run political ads. So in my quest to fight on, I wanted to point out their hypocrisy as we go back to court. This rejection does just that.  We fight on."

"Conservative’s Anti-Muhammad Ad Rejected by Detroit Transit System — But Can You Guess Which Ad Was Accepted?," by Billy Hallowell for The Blaze, January 30 (thanks to Pamela Geller):

Religious advertisements have been known to spark intense debate. Consider the anti-God billboards that are regularly posted by non-theist groups like the Freedom From Religion Foundation and American Atheists. But it isn’t only non-believers who invoke controversy with their messaging.

Pamela Geller and her American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI) have also come under intense scrutiny for subway and bus ads that target Islamic extremism. Now, the AFDI is embroiled in a new battle over a proposed anti-Muhammad ad that was rejected this week by Detroit’s Suburban Mobility Authority for Regional Transportation (SMART) bus system.

In an e-mail to TheBlaze on Tuesday evening, the AFDI president noted that, while SMART previously accepted an “anti-God” atheist ad from the Detroit Coalition for Reason (DCOR), the public transit company has rejected her organization’s ad. This is particularly interesting, seeing as the AFDI modeled its design almost entirely after the DCOR’s banner.

“Our ad, same ad, with one word flipped, was rejected,” Geller told TheBlaze.

The original atheist design featured clouds and the words, “Don’t believe in God? You are not alone.” The organization’s web address was also present to the bottom left of the ad, sending Internet users to a web site that encourages people to “shine the light of reason” and to reject faith and religion.

As you can see [above], AFDI ad looks almost entirely similar to the aforementioned description. The only difference between the designs is that the word “God” is swapped out for “Muhammad,” the holy prophet in the Islamic faith. And the web address in the latter ad encourages those viewing it to go to TheTruthAboutMuhammad.com, a web site that wages some potentially-offensive allegations against the religious figure.

Obviously the similarities were intentional, with Geller telling TheBlaze that her quest to see the Muhammad ad get placed had everything to do with examining free speech as it applies to the Islamic faith.

“This message parallels the atheist ads — ‘Don’t Believe in God? You’re Not Alone’ — that ran previously,” she explained. “Since they were accepted, I modeled this ad after them to see if the freedom of speech applied to criticism of Islam in our cowardly and politically correct age.”

In a letter that Geller forwarded to TheBlaze, CBS Outdoor’s Howard Marcus rejected the ad, citing a past legal battle that AFDI waged against SMART over a previous rejection.

“The proposed advertisement submitted by Pamela Geller has been reviewed under SMART’s content policy. SMART, consistent with its review process, also reviewed the referred-to website: thetruthaboutmuhammed.com,” read Marcus’ e-mail. “Consistent with its policy, with the Sixth Circuit opinion in AFDI v SMART, and consistent with other law, SMART declines to post the advertisement.”

Geller, who is less-than-content with the decision not to allow the Muhammad ad, called SMART’s response to her request “sharia compliance in accordance with blasphemy laws under Islam.”...

Indeed.

Our new ads have gone up in the New York subways. Pamela Geller has details and more photos here.

While Hamas-linked CAIR lies brazenly in its own ads in order to lull the public into further complacency and ignorance about the jihad threat, our ads show clearly where that threat comes from.

We are hoping by this campaign to raise awareness of the reality of the jihad threat, and to challenge law enforcement officials to face that reality. The campaign likewise challenges Muslim groups in the U.S. to take genuine action within their own communities to combat the spread of the beliefs and assumptions that lead to jihad terror attacks -- something they are not doing now.

Many would say yes, but here Jacob Sullum provides a capably argued rejoinder to them. Reason has been a consistently dhimmi publication, eagerly repeating the "Islamophobia" Big Lie and defaming counter-jihadists, so this piece is good to see.

"The Rioter’s Veto: Can violence in the Middle East justify censorship in the United States?," by Jacob Sullum in Reason, from the January 2013 issue (thanks to Ron):

On September 6, the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI) signed a contract to buy space for this message from the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA), which had concluded that the First Amendment required it to accept the controversial ad. Less than two weeks later, WMATA declared that AFDI’s advocacy was not constitutionally protected after all, pointing to violent Middle Eastern protests blamed on Innocence of Muslims, an online video mocking the prophet Muhammad.

The idea that riots in other countries justify censorship in the U.S. represents a new form of heckler’s veto, making freedom of speech contingent on the predicted responses of the touchiest listeners anywhere in the world. Such a policy is dangerous to freedom of expression, providing a license to suppress speech deemed provocative, and to public safety, encouraging violence aimed at eliminating offensive messages.

WMATA said it was indefinitely postponing placement of the AFDI ad because of concerns about “security and safety.” Specifically, as U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer noted in an October 12 opinion explaining why she had overturned the transit authority’s decision, “WMATA cited two ways in which the ad could threaten public safety: (1) inter-passenger disputes on subway platforms that could result in passengers falling into the tracks or (2) a terrorist attack.”

Collyer mentioned no evidence supporting the first fear, which gives new meaning to the phrase “third rail of American politics.” And the only evidence of a terrorist threat was a general warning from the Department of Homeland Security and the Transportation Security Administration’s opinion that “WMATA’s Metrorail system is a unique target because of its close association with the federal government.”...

Although Collyer reached the right result, her openness to the argument that speech can be restricted based on the anticipated violence of people it offends was troubling. So was her description of the AFDI ad as “hate speech,” a constitutionally irrelevant category....

On September 27, three days after the AFDI ad began appearing in subway stations, the MTA adopted a new policy barring any message it “reasonably foresees would imminently incite or provoke violence or other immediate breach of the peace.” For defenders of free speech, those are fighting words.

Indeed. Read it all.

One thing we have learned, or should have learned, in 2012 was that the old approaches haven’t worked. The organizations and think tanks that talk endlessly about the problem have failed. Enemies of freedom and enablers of Islamic supremacism are in the mainstream of the media, the government, the educational system, and the entertainment industry. Only one hope remains for free people: going over all their heads for a direct appeal to the people, and by doing so, forcing a public discussion of the issues that matter most in these dark days. And there is only one organization that is doing that, and forcing public discussion of the gravest threats to our freedom: our American Freedom Defense Initiative.

Once again, in 2012 our organization has done groundbreaking work with unprecedented results. There is no group that can match our effective guerrilla style media and legal warfare. And we had come off a very successful year in 2011 in defeating the Ground Zero mosque.

Here is just some of what we accomplished in 2012:

-- Our anti-jihad subway and bus campaigns have forced and are continuing to force a deeply compromised and willfully ignorant media to talk about what they otherwise refuse to discuss: jihad and sharia. We broke out of the ghetto that the media elites have reserved for voices that defend freedom, and made it impossible for them to avoid holding a public discussion and analysis of the most serious threat to our national security.

-- We are exploding the deceptions of Hamas-linked CAIR's cynical #MyJihad campaign with our own ad campaign depicting the actual words about Islam and jihad of actual jihadists.

-- We expanded the "Support Israel, Defeat Jihad" bus campaign to 100 NYC buses to include "Support the Troops, Defeat Jihad"; "Support the Copts, Defeat Jihad"; "Support the Bahais, Defeat Jihad"; "Support the Nigerian Christians, Defeat Jihad"; "Support the Hindus, Defeat Jihad"; et al.

-- We countered Hamas-linked CAIR's deceptive Qur'an ads that are designed to lull Americans into complacency about the jihad threat.

-- We won historic, landmark free speech cases in New York and Washington against politically correct transit officials who refused to run our pro-Israel ads after accepting vicious anti-Israel ads. These cases are crucial in these days of ever-increasing encroachment upon our freedom of speech, our fundamental bulwark against tyranny. See the stories in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and Reuters.

-- Our anti-jihad conferences and freedom rallies in Stockholm; our bringing the truth to conservatives at CPAC 2012: Islamic Law in America; the Honor Killing Human Rights Conference in Dearborn; our Former Muslims for Freedom conference in Manhattan Beach; and our First International Freedom Congress at the UN on 9/11 raised awareness of these crucial issues across the world. No one had ever focused so much attention to the plight of Muslim apostates and honor killing victims; the exposure of Sharia’s human rights abuses put the Islamic supremacists in the U.S. on the defensive for the first time ever.

-- We exposed pro-sharia media bias when we submitted an exact replica of an anti-Catholic ad that ran in the New York Times, exchanging the falsehoods about Catholicism with truth about Islam. The New York Times refused our ad, but ran the anti-Catholic ad. It made television and mainstream media news round the world, shedding light on media duplicity and hypocrisy.

We never retreat. We refuse to accept a dark future. We fight. We will continue on the offense, but we can't do it without funds.

No one is pushing back and getting the results that AFDI and SIOA has gotten. No one. But we can’t do it alone. We have no big foundations funding us, no big endowment. We can’t do it on fumes.

Every dollar you contribute to AFDI/SIOA goes to the fight. We don’t draw salaries. We don’t have expensive offices or a huge staff (in fact, we don’t have an office or a staff at all).

Please make an effective fight for freedom top priority in your end-of-the-year donations. Donate now to the most effective freedom fighters in the war of ideas today: Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer of AFDI.

Please donate via Paypal to writeatlas@aol.com or tax-deductible to director@jihadwatch.org. And above all, fight for freedom. Never give up. Never give in.

(AFDI, Washington, D.C., 10/31/2012) -- An anti-hate coalition of Jewish, Christian, Hindu and secular pro-freedom organizations is asking all people of conscience to contact the Washington Area Metropolitan Transit Authority (WMATA) and ask that it help mitigate the negative impact of deceptive Islamic supremacist advertisements now on display in DC-area metro stations. The ads strongly mislead the public about jihad terror and the Islamic supremacist threat. They are sponsored by the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations, a designated unindicted co-conspirator in a terror funding case led by avowed Hamas supporter Nihad Awad.

Last week, the coalition sent a letter to WMATA Board Chair Catherine Hudgins asking to meet and discuss simple steps to help mitigate the impact of the deceptive Islamic supremacist ad. To date, the coalition has received no response from Hudgins or any other WMATA representative.

In its letter, the coalition requested that:

* WMATA work closely with organizations representing people who have been victimized by jihad and Sharia during all phases of the response and follow up to the CAIR ads.

* WMATA take a similar approach to that of the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) in response to the CAIR ads by placing disclaimers that show that the deceptive speech promulgated by such ads is not representative of the view of WMATA.

* WMATA provide free space for counter ads, focused on promoting understanding of the nature and magnitude of the jihad threat to the Greater Washington DC Metropolitan area, and awareness of the harm caused by deceptive Islamic supremacist campaigns to demonize those fighting for human rights against jihad and Sharia.

The Hamas-linked CAIR ads severely mislead Americans about the nature of the jihad against free nations by quoting a peaceful passage of the Qur'an that many Islamic scholars believe has been abrogated by passages enjoining violence and hate. This masks the organization's true intentions and leads to complacency, when in reality 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 posters telling Muslims not to talk to the FBI.

Hamas-linked CAIR's attempt to defame AFDI is consistent with its long record of pro-jihad duplicity, deception and thuggery. One member of this unsavory gang has even previously called for these ads to be defaced. Although it has received millions of dollars in donations from foreign Islamic entities, it has not registered as a foreign agent as required by the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), despite spreading Islamic supremacist propaganda within the United States.

Although it presents itself as a civil rights group, CAIR actually has numerous links to hateful and violent Islamic supremacist and jihad groups.

CAIR founders Omar Ahmad and Niwad Awad (who still serves as CAIR's executive director) were present at a Hamas planning meeting in Philadelphia in 1993 where they and other Hamas operatives conspired to raise funds for Hamas and to promote jihad in the Middle East. CAIR has steadfastly refused to denounce Hamas and Hizballah as terrorist groups.

Several former CAIR officials have been convicted of various crimes related to jihad terror:

-- Ghassan Elashi, founder of CAIR's Texas chapter, in 2009 received a 65-year prison sentence for funneling over $12 million from the Islamic charity known as the Holy Land Foundation to the jihad terrorist group Hamas, which is responsible for murdering hundreds of Israeli civilians

-- Mousa Abu Marzook, a former CAIR official, was in 1995 designated by the U.S. government in 1995 as a "terrorist and Hamas leader." He now is a Hamas leader in Syria.

-- Randall Royer, CAIR's former civil rights coordinator, in 2004 began serving a 20-year prison sentence for aiding al-Qaida and the Taliban against American troops in Afghanistan and recruiting for Lashkar e-Taiba, the jihadist group responsible for the 2008 Mumbai jihad massacres.

-- Bassem Khafagi, CAIR's former community relations director, was arrested for involvement with the Islamic Assembly of North America, which was linked to al-Qaida. After pleading guilty to visa and bank fraud charges, Khafagi was deported.

-- Rabih Haddad, a former CAIR fundraiser, was deported for his work with the Global Relief Foundation (which he co-founded), a terror-financing organization.

In 1998 Omar Ahmad, CAIR's co-founder and longtime Board Chairman, said: "Islam isn't in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant. The Koran should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on Earth."

After he received unwelcome publicity as a result of this statement, Ahmad denied saying it, several years after the fact. However, the original reporter, Lisa Gardiner of the Fremont Argus, stands by her story.

CAIR's spokesman Ibrahim Hooper once said: "I wouldn't want to create the impression that I wouldn't like the government of the United States to be Islamic sometime in the future."

The pro-freedom coalition is led by the human rights organization the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI). Other members include Stop Islamization of America (SIOA); Stop Islamization of Nations (SION); Stop Islamisation of Europe (SIOE); the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA); Voice of the Copts; Former Muslims United (FMU); Traditional Values Coalition (TVC), Virginia Anti-Shariah Taskforce (VAST); Christian Seniors Association; Faith Freedom International, an organization of former Muslims; Akhand Hindusthan Morcha (a part of Vishwa Hindu Parishad), Sardar Kiranpal Singh Tyagi, President; Akhil Bhartiya Hindu Mahasabha, Sardar Raviranjan Singh (Member High Power Steering Committee); Sant Sipahi Vichar Manch, Sardar Hari Singh Matharu (Convener); Nanak Shahi Parivar, Sardar Jaspal Singh Manchanda (Head of the Organization).

Individual members include Lieutenant Alan T. DeVona (Retired), PAPD WTC 9/11/01 Patrol Sergeant; Steven M. Goldberg, National Vice Chairman of the Zionist Organization of America; Paul Schnee, President, Zionist Organization of America, Los Angeles Chapter; Dr. Naftali Moses, PhD, whose son was murdered in the jihad attack at the Mercaz HaRav library in Jerusalem in March 2008; Marine combat veteran Jesse Nieto, whose son was killed in the 2000 jihad attack on the USS Cole; Iraq ex-Muslim human rights activist Bushra Qader; and many others.

AFDI is one of America’s most prominent human rights organizations. Its mission is to defend the freedom of speech, the freedom of conscience, and equality of rights for all people – no special rights for special classes.

CONTACT: Pamela Geller at pamelageller@gmail.com; phone (917) 310-4710.

SOURCE: American Freedom Defense Initiative

It is forbidden to offer apostates help

Pamela Geller has the story:

As I predicted after witnessing our hearing in our landmark "Leaving Islam" case back in July, the Sixth Circuit has ruled that SMART was justified in rejecting our ads because Islam is political. So does that open the door to removing the religious protections afforded this political system (sharia) that assets authority over non-Muslims?

Our ad was a religious ad. The intention was to save lives like that of Rifqa Bary (Noor Almaleki, Amina Said, Sarah Said, Jessica Mokdad, et al). The court, in a tortured and twisted opinion, said it was a political ad. Even so, all religious speech is political. The Constitution says so. It's protected as a political right under the first amendment.

The court ignored Beth Gibbons's testimony -- the actual woman who made the decision for SMART, who said it was NOT political. This court wanted to reach a certain result. Neither the facts nor the law grants them that option. The court chose to change the facts (Gibbons' testimony).

This is where we are with a hostile judiciary . . . .we will first ask for a full court rehearing on this matter (we will be filing a petition for rehearing en banc within 14 days). Moreover, this is just a preliminary ruling, and not a final ruling on the merits. We intend to engage in aggressive discovery to demonstrate on a complete record that SMART’s speech restriction was arbitrary and ultimately unconstitutional. This case is not over. Not by a long shot.

Read it all.

Pamela Geller has the story:

Hamas-CAIR has unveiled a new ad campaign to "counter" our historic anti-jihad ads running in lighted display cases on Washington DC Metro train platforms. Our now-famous ad reads,  "In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel, Defeat jihad."

Counter-Ads quoting Quran coming to DC Metro FOX DC

CAIR's 16-foot banner ads are scheduled to go up this week and stay up for a month in stations featuring our AFDI ads (Glenmont, Georgia Avenue/Petworth and U Street). CAIR's "counter" ads feature an abrogated verse from the Quran (above). Why is a little girl wearing a covering? Is she considered a sexual object?

Citing the quran, are we? I think that's a grand idea. AFDI is launching a new ad campaign much like Hamas-CAIR's. Here is the ad we have submitted to WMATA. I want to thank Hamas-CAIR. What a wonderful way to educate millions of Americans on what is that book. We hope to feature all of the verses that call for jihad.

This is the first of our series. Here are a few of the quranic verses we intend to highlight. These are my top picks. Atlas readers, I'd like your input. Which verse for our next ad?

Surely the vilest of animals in Allah's sight are those who disbelieve -- 8:55

Soon shall We cast terror into the hearts of the Unbelievers -- 3:151

Lo! Those who disbelieve Our revelations, We shall expose them to the Fire. As often as their skins are consumed, We shall exchange them for fresh skins that they may taste the torment. Lo! Allah is ever Mighty, Wise. - 4:56

Then, when the sacred months have passed, slay the idolaters wherever ye find them, and take them (captive), and besiege them, and prepare for them each ambush. But if they repent and establish worship and pay the poor-due, then leave their way free. Lo! Allah is Forgiving, Merciful. -- 9:5

Lo! those who disbelieve, among the People of the Scripture and the idolaters, will abide in fire of hell. They are the worst of created beings.-- 98:6

Against them make ready your strength to the utmost of your power, including steeds of war, to strike terror into the enemies of Allah and your enemies -- 8:60

Muhammad is the apostle of Allah. Those who follow him are merciful to one another, but ruthless to the unbelievers. -- 48:29

Righteous women are therefore obedient, guarding the secret for God's guarding. And those you fear may be rebellious admonish; banish them to their couches, and beat them. -- 4:34

When you meet the unbelievers, smite their necks, then, when you have made wide slaughter among them, tie fast the bonds; then set them free, either by grace or ransom, till the war lays down its loads. -- 47:4

Lo! those who disbelieve, among the People of the Scripture and the idolaters, will abide in fire of hell. They are the worst of created beings. -- 98:6

Many will say that Deuteronomy and other Biblical books have violent passages as well. However, nowhere do the Jewish or Christian Scriptures tell all believers in general to wage war against unbelievers as such. Only the Qur'an contains such passages. Also, Islam, unlike Judaism and Christianity, has never gone through a period of reformation and enlightenment either involving or resulting in any thoroughgoing reevaluation of the literal sense of its sacred texts. This is why you do not see Jews or Christians slaughtering unbelievers and justifying their actions by quoting their Scriptures, while Muslims around the world do this with depressing frequency.

Yahoo News:

WASHINGTON, Oct. 15, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A coalition of pro-freedom groups is responding to an advertising campaign in the D.C. mass transit system that seeks to quash the freedom of speech.

The coalition, which includes representatives from Christian, Jewish, and secular human rights groups, is calling on Metro to donate proceeds from the deceptive Islamic supremacist ad campaign to a charity that supports human beings fleeing jihad and the sharia. The Islamic supremacist ads that are being placed by the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) mislead about the nature and root cause of jihad terror, and demonize those trying to resist jihad and Islamic supremacism.

The pro-freedom coalition is led by the human rights organization the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI). Other members include Stop Islamization of America (SIOA); Stop Islamization of Nations (SION); Stop Islamisation of Europe (SIOE); the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA); Voice of the Copts; Former Muslims United (FMU); Traditional Values Coalition (TVC), Virginia Anti-Shariah Taskforce (VAST); Christian Seniors Association; Faith Freedom International, an organization of former Muslims; Akhand Hindusthan Morcha (a part of Vishwa Hindu Parishad), Sardar Kiranpal Singh Tyagi, President; Akhil Bhartiya Hindu Mahasabha, Sardar Raviranjan Singh (Member High Power Steering Committee); Sant Sipahi Vichar Manch, Sardar Hari Singh Matharu (Convener); Nanak Shahi Parivar, Sardar Jaspal Singh Manchanda (Head of the Organization).

Individual members include Lieutenant Alan T. DeVona (Retired), PAPD WTC 9/11/01 Patrol Sergeant; Steven M. Goldberg, National Vice Chairman of the Zionist Organization of America; Paul Schnee, President, Zionist Organization of America, Los Angeles Chapter; Dr. Naftali Moses, PhD, whose son was murdered in the jihad attack at the Mercaz HaRav library in Jerusalem in March 2008; Marine combat veteran Jesse Nieto, whose son was killed in the 2000 jihad attack on the USS Cole; Iraq ex-Muslim human rights activist Bushra Qader; and many others.

"Hate speech must be challenged wherever it appears, not with censorship but with more civil speech promoting mutual understanding," said AFDI National Executive Director Pamela Geller. "Left unchallenged, hate of any kind harms our nation and can lead to bias crimes. We hope to expand this anti-hate campaign in the nation's capital and throughout the nation. We need the community's help to challenge the growing propaganda campaign of deceptive Islamic supremacists in our society with positive messages of why we must defend freedom against jihad and Sharia."

This coalition is preparing a letter to the Washington Area Metro Transit Authority (WMATA) expressing concern over advertisements now on display in DC-area metro stations sponsored by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a designated unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas terror funding case.

NOTE: The coalition is urging people of conscience to contact Washington, D.C., transit officials to ask that they help mitigate the negative impact of anti-free speech advertisements.

The Hamas-linked CAIR ads severely mislead Americans about the nature of the jihad against free nations by quoting a peaceful passage of the Qur'an that many Islamic scholars believe has been abrogated by passages enjoining violence and hate. This masks the organization's true intentions and leads to complacency, when in reality 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 posters telling Muslims not to talk to the FBI.

Hamas-linked CAIR's attempt to defame AFDI is consistent with its long record of pro-jihad duplicity, deception and thuggery. One member of this unsavory gang has even previously called for these ads to be defaced. Although it has received millions of dollars in donations from foreign Islamic entities, it has not registered as a foreign agent as required by the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), despite spreading Islamic supremacist propaganda within the United States.

Although it presents itself as a civil rights group, CAIR actually has numerous links to hateful and violent Islamic supremacist and jihad groups.

CAIR founders Omar Ahmad and Niwad Awad (who still serves as CAIR's executive director) were present at a Hamas planning meeting in Philadelphia in 1993 where they and other Hamas operatives conspired to raise funds for Hamas and to promote jihad in the Middle East. CAIR has steadfastly refused to denounce Hamas and Hizballah as terrorist groups.

Several former CAIR officials have been convicted of various crimes related to jihad terror:

-- Ghassan Elashi, founder of CAIR's Texas chapter, in 2009 received a 65-year prison sentence for funneling over $12 million from the Islamic charity known as the Holy Land Foundation to the jihad terrorist group Hamas, which is responsible for murdering hundreds of Israeli civilians

-- Mousa Abu Marzook, a former CAIR official, was in 1995 designated by the U.S. government in 1995 as a "terrorist and Hamas leader." He now is a Hamas leader in Syria.

-- Randall Royer, CAIR's former civil rights coordinator, in 2004 began serving a 20-year prison sentence for aiding al-Qaida and the Taliban against American troops in Afghanistan and recruiting for Lashkar e-Taiba, the jihadist group responsible for the 2008 Mumbai jihad massacres.

-- Bassem Khafagi, CAIR's former community relations director, was arrested for involvement with the Islamic Assembly of North America, which was linked to al-Qaida. After pleading guilty to visa and bank fraud charges, Khafagi was deported.

-- Rabih Haddad, a former CAIR fundraiser, was deported for his work with the Global Relief Foundation (which he co-founded), a terror-financing organization.

In 1998 Omar Ahmad, CAIR's co-founder and longtime Board Chairman, said: "Islam isn't in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant. The Koran should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on Earth."

After he received unwelcome publicity as a result of this statement, Ahmad denied saying it, several years after the fact. However, the original reporter, Lisa Gardiner of the Fremont Argus, stands by her story.

CAIR's spokesman Ibrahim Hooper once said: "I wouldn't want to create the impression that I wouldn't like the government of the United States to be Islamic sometime in the future."

The coalition requests that:

* WMATA work closely with organizations representing people who have been victimized by jihad and Sharia during all phases of the response and follow up to the CAIR ads.

* WMATA take a similar approach to that of the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) in response to the CAIR ads by placing disclaimers that show that the deceptive speech promulgated by such ads is not representative of the view of WMATA.

* WMATA provide free space for counter ads, focused on promoting understanding of the nature and magnitude of the jihad threat to the Greater Washington DC Metropolitan area, and awareness of the harm caused by deceptive Islamic supremacist campaigns to demonize those fighting for human rights against jihad and Sharia.

The coalition also states:

"With respect to WMATA's response in this matter, it is not our desire that WMATA disallow advertisements that contain any political speech, as this would curtail the use of an important forum where ideas are frequently exchanged. We respect the protections afforded to political speech, and do not wish that our position be misinterpreted as advocating for the curtailment of such speech. This being said, we do believe there are measures WMATA can take to mitigate the effect Islamic supremacist deception and hate speech has on the community and encourage you to take the above listed steps in crafting a principled and effective response."

In this illuminating interview, the creator of our AFDI pro-freedom, anti-jihad ads explains what is behind them, and what is behind the campaign against them. "Arutz Sheva Speaks to Pamela Geller," by Fern Sidman for Arutz Sheva, October 12:

As the controversy continues to escalate over the placement of ads in New York City subways that call for a moral outcry against jihad and the jihadist deeds of radical Islamists around the world, Arutz Sheva sat down with Pamela Geller, co-founder of the American Freedom Defense Initiative, the organization that has spearheaded this ad campaign....

A7: The anti-Jihadist ads placed by the American Freedom Defense Initiative on New York City subways have generated much controversy. Your ad says, ""In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel. Defeat Jihad". They also appeared in the San Francisco Rapid Transit System as well and were defaced, while disclaimers were placed on buses by the Rabbis for Human Rights. Why, at this time, did you decide to place these ads and what message are you trying to communicate?

PG: I first attempted to place these ads in 2011 when an anti-Israel ad campaign was running in the New York City subway system. There was no controversy or opposition to those anti-Semitic ads. Our ad campaign was hung up by legal battles. Anti-Jewish ads are okay; anti-jihad ads are "offensive."

Once I won my First Amendment rights, the ads finally went up. I intended the ads as a response to the anti-Israel ad campaign.

The message is clear. Any war on innocent civilians is savage. The war on Israel is a war on innocent civilians.

The relentless 60-year campaign of terror against the Jewish people is 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.

One of the many emails I have received in support of the ads was from the parent of a young victim in the massacre at Mercav HaRev Yeshiva in Jerusalem. Unimaginable inhumanity. Anyone who has a heart understands. The world media and political elites aligned with the jihad force, and whitewashed this horror. The objective of the campaign is to increase awareness of this unspeakable evil among good and decent people.

A7: Many anti-Israel ads have been placed in subway systems and buses throughout the nation, yet the first amendment rights of free speech were granted to the groups that sponsored them. Can you tell us about your legal battles for free expression with the NYC MTA and the Washington, DC subway system? And what is your reaction to Donna Lieberman's statements at the ACLU? Has the Washington, DC system agreed to place the ads?

PG: The NYC MTA refused the ads on the pretext that they were "demeaning." This was struck down on First Amendment grounds. Obviously the idea that my ads are "demeaning", but the anti-Israel ads weren't, was politically motivated.

Civilized men do not sanction jihad or the Islamic Jew-hatred that is commanded in the Koran as interpreted by Islamists. The response to our ads by anti-Israel and self-hating Jewish groups is expected. The silence of Zionist and pro-Israel organizations is enormously disappointing.

In D.C., they wanted to delay the ads for fear of violence from jihadists. But this, too, failed in court: in America we do not censor ourselves to kowtow to savages. Donna Lieberman said the ads were "patently offensive." In reality, they're offensive only to jihadist savages and their useful idiot non-Muslim defenders. Yes, D.C. has agreed to run the ads, and they are running.

A7:I understand that a female Egyptian blogger has embarked on a crusade to deface the ads in the NYC subway. Do you have any information about this person and do you know if she is being sponsored by CAIR, or groups of that nature?

PG: Mona Eltahawy is a frequent analyst for CNN and Reuters. She is noted for having criticized Islam's mistreatment of women in an article several months ago. Also, she was sexually assaulted in Tahrir Square last year by men she termed "beasts." But now she is displaying full-on Stockholm Syndrome, identifying with her oppressors and furthering their agenda. Maybe she was trying to get back into the good graces of her Muslim Brotherhood friends who were angry about her article.

Hundreds of anti-Israel ads have run in every major city across this country. Not one was defaced. Ten little anti-jihad ads go up, and every one of them is destroyed. This is a physical manifestation of the entire conversation, or lack thereof. 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.

A7: Rep. Mike Honda (D) of California has taken a leading role in condemning your ad campaign. He asserts that he is an outspoken supporter of free speech and feels that the answer to "bad speech" is more speech. He has called for a boycott of WMATA. What are your thoughts on his position and why do you feel that he is wrong?

PG: Honda is a stooge of Islamic supremacist forces in the U.S. He has appeared with Islamic supremacist leaders and harshly criticized the King hearings on jihad activity in the United States.

We are facing opposition from elected officials who have aligned themselves with the Muslim Brotherhood in the U.S., and with those who would undermine national security. I hope Honda's constituents realize on election day how he is carrying water for Islamic supremacist enemies of free speech.

Read it all.

The creator of the controversial anti-jihad ads defends them against attacks from self-deluded Leftist clergy: "Choose Love: Defeat Jihad," by Pamela Geller in the Jewish Voice, October 10:

There are now three separate ad campaigns devoted to opposing my pro-Israel ad in New York subways, and more are coming.

My ad reads: “In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel. Defeat Jihad.” Some Jewish and Christian groups have called this message hateful, and have decided to put up counter-ads that they say are more “loving.”

One of these ads says, “help stop bigotry against our Muslim neighbors.” Another: “love your Muslim neighbor.” And a third: “support peace in word and deed.” Rabbi Jill Jacobs of Rabbis for Human Rights explained: “We, as an organization of rabbis want to make it clear to New York and to the U.S. that neither rabbis nor the mainstream Jewish community support this dehumanization, but in fact we value partnership with our Muslim neighbors and Muslim organizations."

These rabbis have good intentions. But is my ad really “bigoted” and “dehumanizing”? Or does it just state unpleasant facts? The jihad against Israel is a jihad against innocent civilians, and the targeting of civilians is indeed savage. The relentless 60-year campaign of terror against the Jewish people is 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.

I am all for countering hate. The ad speaks to the defense of freedom and individual rights for all. There’s nothing hateful about it. 9/11 was hate. 3/11 in Madrid was hate. 7/7 in London was hate. The Fort Hood jihadi was hate. The Christmas underwear bomber was hate. The Fort Dix Six was hate. Pushing back against such hate is not hate.

I doubt that the rabbis in Rabbis for Human Rights know anything about the jihad doctrine that relentlessly seeks to violently impose islamic law and pursues jihad against non-muslims, or about the Islamic antisemitism that is deeply ingrained in the qur’an and sunnah, and that identifies the Jews as the worst enemies of the Muslims (qur’an 5:82) and under allah’s curse (qur’an 9:30). When have they spoken out against that hate, because of which Jews suffer daily? When have they called upon Muslim leaders to reform the qur’an and expunge its virulently antisemitic texts, which are routinely quoted on Palestinian Authority TV as justifying endless warfare against the state of Israel and Jews everywhere? What topsy-turvy moral compass have they employed to come to the conclusion that the “hater” is not the imams who routinely preach violence and antisemitism in mosques and on TV in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, but me when I try to call attention to the barbaric cruelty of the jihad against Israel?

Read it all.

Refusing to cower before violent intimidation. Pamela Geller defends her ads in the videos above, and has more here.

It was quite an eventful day in Washington today. Pamela Geller has a full report:

Today was a dark day in American history, but you'd never know because the media is complicit in this sharia enforcement. I had a front-row seat to witness the rape of the First Amendment in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Judge Rosemary Collyer, presiding. Robert Spencer and I went down to Washington as defenders of America's most fundamental and unalienable right. And in return, we had the sad misfortune of watching a U.S. District Court Judge discard, denigrate, downplay and dismiss our most basic law of the land: the freedom of speech.

The Judge went out of her way to validate and substantiate the ridiculous premise of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA), that the AFDI pro-freedom ad would endanger passengers on the D.C. subways and thus must not be posted, or at least delayed until some (fanciful) time when the jihad threat would subside. It was painful to watch Judge Collyer almost physically wrestling with the First Amendment, trying to tackle it and pin it to the floor. But the First Amendment was much too wily for the wrongheaded, utterly subjective, and clueless judge.

Philip Staub, the lawyer for WMATA, invoked the international Muslim riots that have been blamed (falsely) on the Muhammad video, and said the WMATA had received an email threatening them if they posted our ad. He was, in other words, counseling submission to violent Muslim intimidation, and the curtailing of the freedom of speech to appease savages. He made the laughable argument that if the ad ran after November 1, the threat would have subsided by then, and would be well -- as if the jihad terror threat would completely die down by then. Judge Collyer then asked him if the ads could be posted sooner if they were moved away from the train platforms, so that passengers would be less likely to get caught up in fights or terrorist attacks over them. He seemed open to that idea.

The whole issue about moving the ads represented the judge’s attempt to find a way to accommodate the WMATA’s fearmongering argument that the ad would endanger passengers. And is that now the American response to threats of violence from a fascist ideology – to accede and submit to that very same fascist ideology? The judge was an embarrassment to every proud American who understands what is at stake. I can’t speak for our lawyer, Robert Muise, but his frustration was palpable.

Staub also argued that the ad constituted fighting words, but here even Judge Collyer couldn’t go along with what he was saying, although she struggled mightily to do so. She gently pointed out to Staub, whom she treated with kid gloves and like a special-needs child the whole afternoon, leading him by the hand to the disbelief of the open court (in sharp contradistinction to her frequent interruptions and contradictions of Robert Muise – stop making sense!), that for the ad to constitute fighting words, there had to be an imminent threat of violence. But the ads have run without incident in San Francisco and New York – they were vandalized in New York in an attempt to shut down free speech, but there was no violence aside from Muslim Brotherhood poster girl Mona Eltahawy’s pink spray can) – and so it was impossible for Staub or Collyer to sustain the idea that they constituted an imminent threat to the safety of the passengers. But Collyer certainly tried, coaching and coaxing Staub, and at one point saying to him, “The imminence issue is hard for me to get to. Just trying to tell you where I am going.” She never gave Muise any such hints.

Collyer further coached Staub by saying that she assumed – assumed! – that he was arguing (since he was so inept at actually doing so, the point wasn’t clear) that the government’s “compelling interest” in refusing or delaying these ads was concern for the safety of the passengers. She then said, with obvious reluctance, that against that concern there had to be balanced “the very broadly read First Amendment,” and asked him how he thought this could be done.

Staub answered that the safety of the passengers could be balanced against the First Amendment by delaying the ads. He said that he thought things would cool down in Africa, Asia and the Middle East by November 1, and that the ads could run then. Remember, guys, we’re talking about four little ads here, and the WMATA is talking about unrest on two continents. That’s how paralyzed with fear of savages the U.S. Government has become.

Then our lawyer, Robert Muise, called for an immediate injunction overruling WMATA’s delay and ordering that the ads run immediately. He cited ample legal precedent to show that it was an established point of law that the delay of a citizen’s freedom of speech constituted irreparable harm.

But then Judge Collyer broke in with her most disquieting, most un-American argument of all. She said that while Muise was arguing that the ad was core political speech, and thus the most protected category of speech of all, Collyer said, “I see hate speech. When you defend this ad as core political speech, I have a problem with that." Muise pointed out that U.S. District Court Judge Paul Engelmayer in New York had ruled that the very same ad was core political speech, Collyer said peremptorily that she disagreed with Judge Engelmayer, and rudely cut Muise off when he tried to explain that the ad was not hate speech and that the main part of it -- "In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man" -- was adapted from the work of Ayn Rand. Collyer snapped defensively that she knew who Ayn Rand was and still thought the ad was hate speech, constituting a hateful message.

The ad is not hate speech, it's love speech. It's love of life speech. The ad speaks to the defense of freedom and individual rights for all. There's nothing hateful about it. 9/11 was hate. 3/11 in Madrid was hate. 7/7 in London was hate. The Fort Hood jihadi was hate. The Christmas balls bomber was hate. The Fort Dix Six was hate. Pushing back against such hate is not hate. This poor woman hasn't a clue as to the jihadic doctrine that relentlessly seeks to violently impose Islamic law and pursues jihad against non-Muslims. Judge Collyer is on her own personal jihad to defend and sanction the very dull knife that will be employed to cut her own head off.

In the midst of this nonsense, Muise kept acting like the one kid in the sixth grade classroom who was trying to keep his classmates from running wild in front of the hapless substitute teacher: he kept trying to remind Collyer (and Staub) of basic points of American law. He reminded Collyer that there is no law against "hate speech" in America, so that even if she did think the ad was "hate," that should have no bearing on her ruling. Speech is only considered inciteful, he said, if the speech itself is calling for the lawless, violent action. WMATA's argument about the threat this video posed to the safety of the passengers, he pointed out, rested entirely on riots that took place not in the U.S. but in Muslim countries, and not because of this ad, but (supposedly) because of the Muhammad video. The video and the ad, he said, did not have remotely the same content. There was one email that the WMATA received that apparently contained threats related to this ad, he said, but he explained that we cannot allow those who threaten violence to restrict our First Amendment rights, and cannot have the government acquiesce in the restriction of those rights in response to threats.

Collyer seemed to grasp none of this, and went on to say contemptuously to Muise, "No threat? Where have you been?" But in trying to show her awareness of the jihad threat she only demonstrated how little she knows about it, naming the recent riots and the London attack of 2005 ("admittedly, that was a few years ago") as if that was all there was. She said that it was not reasonable to think that in light of the worldwide riots over the Muhammad video that WMATA was not right to be concerned about the safety of its passengers if this ad went up.

In response to that, Muise pointed out that DHS had issued guidelines for precautions public agencies can and should be taking, and that to stand down from saying things that might offend the rioters would be giving the heckler's veto the sanction of American law, and saying that in that case anyone could threaten violence to silence someone whose speech he disliked. Collyer showed her reflexive willingness to submit and acquiesce to savagery when Muise said that to postpone or cancel the ads would be to validate the threat of that one emailer and encourage people to make more such threats. He said that this emailer could even rightly be called a "savage," whereupon Collyer said, "He could be standing behind you" -- as if that should change what Muise would be saying about him, and implying that Muise should curb his speech to appease the violent.

Muise further reminded her that the First Amendment was put into place precisely so as to protect speech that some might find offensive. He also completely torpedoed the idea that the ad is hate speech when Collyer asked him to summarize in his own words what he thought it meant, and he patiently explained that it was calling for support for Israel against those who commit savage attacks against innocent civilians in the name of jihad. Collyer then demonstrated even more vividly that she has no idea what the jihad is and what it's all about, when she complained that our ad wrongly applied the concept of jihad to what she termed a "long-standing territorial dispute" between Israelis and Palestinians -- one that she obviously thinks has nothing to do with jihad.

Finally, Collyer explained that she was going to make no ruling today. This poor, silly woman said she needed to give the case more thought. She is clearly going to take some time to try to figure out a way to circumvent the First Amendment and allow WMATA to kowtow to violent intimidation.

And worst of all? She's a Bush appointee. As we pursue free speech cases around the country, I have come to dread Bush appointees: they always side with the government, no matter what, even against (as Collyer probably will in this case) the Constitution. Clinton and Obama appointees, meanwhile, while they're far to the left, often will see the merits of a case against the establishment elite in a way that the Bush judges don't. This is no endorsement of Obama by any stretch of the imagination. It's just an indication of just how hard times have become for the rule of law and above all for the First Amendment in the United States.

Free speech is in its death throes. Clearly, Collyer is trying to establish a precedent that will allow for the criminalizing of "hate speech" -- which will mean any speech the political elites want to silence. It is indeed a very dark day.