Pamela Geller is a terrorist

The news media has had a field day in headlining Anders Breivik’s actions as those of someone from the “far Right,” and as actions that are a consequence of Rightist ideology. Yet Breivik is an avid Zionist whose motives were predicated on Islamophobia. His ideological influences are libertarian and “neo-conservative.” He was playing his part, albeit as a loose cannon, in the “clash of civilizations.”

Although the news media has focused on his previous membership in the Progressive Party, his ideological commitment is to Zionism. Why then did not the news media headline Breivik’s atrocity as being that of a “Zionist,” and as a “stanch supporter of Israel”? As is often the case, the fictional “far Right” connection is a red herring. Headlines could have read “Zionist extremist on shooting spree,” “Israel supporter massacres youngsters at Labour camp in Norway,” and the like.

While Breivik advocates banning the Islamic religion from Europe, he seems to have been totally oblivious to the intrinsically anti-Christian nature of Orthodox Judaism,[1] and while he wrote at length on the supposed enmity between “Judaeo-Christianity” and Islam, he wrote nothing of the anti-Christian record of Israel,[2] including the demolition of Christian holy sites, and the common practice of spitting on Christian clergy in the Holy Land. Although he did recognize the historical predominance of Jews in Leftist movements, this is an acknowledgement of the rivalry within Jewry between liberals and leftists on the one side and “neo-conservatives” on the other, the latter being considered by Breivik to be his best potential allies in the fight against Islam. Breivik is Judaeophilic to the extent that he is Islamophobic, writing in his manifesto:

Regardless of what the Jewish communities motives are I think it’s imperative that they take a stance on multiculturalism and Muslim immigration as soon as humanly possible. They have to recognize that “multiculturalism” is the system that allows Europe to be Islamised and it’s obviously not in their interest to contribute to this. Jews will in a much larger degree start to support the ‘new right’ (just like everyone else), who oppose multiculturalism as a means to stop Islamisation, at least this is my hope. In the back of their minds they realize that a Muslim Europe will be more “anti-Semitic” than a Christian Europe. Muslims don’t have the guilt complex that Europeans have. Many Jews feel they are trapped between the ‘bark and the wood’, they are both skeptical of Muslim immigration on one side and of the nationalist far right wing movements on the other side. Nevertheless, time is off [sic] the essence and it is imperative that the European Jewish community without delay take a stance on the ongoing Islamisation. Neutrality on this issue is not an option. The only way of doing this is to back the new right wing (antimulticulturalism, pro-Israel) groups and political parties (also manifested through views such as by moderate Jewish writers such as Daniel Pipes and Bat Ye’or).[3]

Breivik’s opposition to Jewish leftists, as with his opposition to liberals and leftists of any type, is no more antagonistic towards Jews per se than the opposition of Jewish neo-cons towards Jewish leftists. The above passage from Breivik is in total accord with the pro-Zionist neo-con party-line.

Israel & Islam

The only “Right” that Breivik can be said to identify with is the Zionist extreme Right. This calls to mind the likes of the Jewish Defense League, Likud, the settler movement, etc. Breivik’s support for the expansion of Israeli borders north and south also reminds one of the “Greater Israeli Empire” that has always been a basis of the Zionist “extreme right.” He sees Israel as the vanguard in the fight against Islam, writing:

While most people refer to Israel’s security fence as a ‘wall’, the fact remains that less than 5 percent of the barrier is actually concrete slab. The rest is a network of fence and sensors. The fence has cut terrorism incidents by more than 90% since its completion. What was the reason for establishing the Security Fence Area? The Security Fence is being built with the sole purpose of saving the lives of the Israeli citizens who continue to be targeted by the terrorist campaign that began in 2000…[4]

His justification for the “security wall” is the same party line as that of other pro-Zionists, including the neo-con ideologues. The main difference is that Breivik is happy to call this situation ‘apartheid’, while the neo-cons recoil at the word.[5] Was Breivik inspired in his shooting rampage of Norwegian youths more by the example of the Israeli security forces than by the crusader knights whose legacy he claimed to be reviving, albeit only with a handful of members who included two atheists and an agnostic, by his own account?

Clash of Civilizations

Breivik is a product of the “clash of civilizations,” formulated by neo-con ideologues and used by American and Zionist interests to philosophically justify the so-called “war on terrorism.” He is the product of a legacy that is anything but “conservative” in the Western historical sense: he sees himself as an underground resistance fighter against the Islamic occupation of Europe, who, in other circumstances, would be honored as a war hero. He sees Islamic laws and customs taking the place of Western laws. The attitude is no different from that of Sarkozy’s attempts to ban the Burka in public, Breivik writing:

Several recent incidents have demonstrated that Muslims are now trying to apply these dhimmi rules to the entire Western world. The most important one was the burning of churches and embassies triggered by the Danish cartoons depicting Muhammad. This was, down to the last comma, exactly the way Muslims would treat the persecuted non-Muslims in their own countries. The cartoon Jihad indicated that Muslims now felt strong enough to apply sharia rules to Denmark, and by extension NATO.[6]

The Mohammed cartoon saga was symptomatic of the “clash of civilizations.” The cartoons published in Denmark were a contrived provocation against Muslims in order to create a climate of tension. It is such a strategy of tension that Breivik sought in a more dramatic way. The American neo-con magazine Human Events, which by-lines itself as ‘leading conservative media since 1944’, was among the Western media that republished the cartoons.[7] It is of added interest in that one of those instrumental in the 2006 Muhammad cartoon provocation was Daniel Pipes, cited as one of Breivik’s ideological gurus, whom he calls a ‘moderate Jewish writer’ along with Bat Ye’or. Christopher Bollyn, writing for American Free Press, stated of this:

The anti-Muslim cartoon scandal has turned out to be a major step forward for the Zionist Neo-cons and their long-planned ‘clash of civilizations’, the artificially constructed conflict designed to put the so-called Christian West against the Islamic world.[8]

Bollyn wrote that Flemming Rose, the “cultural editor” who commissioned the cartoons for his newspaper Jyllands‑Posten, visited the Philadelphia office of Daniel Pipe’s website Middle East Forum in 2004. “Rose then penned a sympathetic article about Pipes entitled ‘The Threat from Islamism,’ which promoted his extreme anti‑Islamic views without mentioning the fact that Pipes is a rabid Zionist extremist.” Bollyn cited references by the individual whom Breivik recommends as a “moderate Jewish writer,” Pipes having written that a “change of heart” of the Palestinians can only be achieved by their “being utterly defeated.” After three days of Muslim rioting in Denmark USA’s CNN TV network turned to Pipes as their pundit on the situation, who then blamed ‘Islamic extremists’. At the time, neo-con US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice condemned the Syrian and Iranian governments for protests in those states. Pipes appealed to Western liberal secular values in regard to the tumult that was sparked by his Danish comrade:

Will the West stand up for its customs and mores, including freedom of speech, or will Muslims impose their way of life on the West? Ultimately, there is no compromise. Westerners will either retain their civilization, including the right to insult and blaspheme, or not’.[9]

This is the Breivik line that he learned at the metamorphical knees of his neo-con and Zionist gurus. Pipes at the time cited in support another Breivik ideological hero, Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch, which is part of the network of neo-con luminary David Horowitz. Pipes wrote: “Robert Spencer rightly called on the free world to stand ‘resolutely with Denmark.’ The informative Brussels Journal asserts, ‘We are all Danes now.’”’[10]

Now Pipes states of Breivik that “authors and artists” such as himself cannot be held responsible for the actions of those they inspire and, like Robert Spencer and other neo-cons, he reiterates what seems to be their party-line on the matter by giving the example, among others, of how The Beatles’ “Helter Skelter” influenced Charles Manson.[11] However, the connection is just not that cryptic: the neo-con coteries, including Daniel Pipes, have been promoting the “clash of civilizations” and when a foot solider goes rogue and gets out of control they protest: ‘don’t blame me.” Pipes is more than a street corner agitator. He is a visiting fellow of the Hoover Institution of Stanford University, with columns appearing in newspapers around the world. He has lectured at the US Naval War College, Harvard, and others, and appears on leading TV networks. His Middle East Forum has a budget of $4,000,000.[12] In a 2010 interview with the Washington Post, Pipes stated that he is no longer regularly criticized as Islamophobic because of the proliferation of more extreme Islamophobes. This means that Pipes’ and others such as Spencer and Horowitz now look ‘moderate’ because of the shifting of the center of Islamicophobic gravity by years of propaganda. The interview also mentions a particularly interesting phenomenon; the support Pipes had given to the Dutch “right-wing” politician Geert Wilders who, like Breivik, wants to ban the Koran in The Netherlands. While regarding the “new crop of bloggers” as “unsophisticated”, a Washington Post interview states:

Pipes says he shares “the same enemies” with people like Wilders and the new crop of bloggers. “We’re in the same trench but we have different views of what the problem is. We both see an attempt to impose Islamic law, sharia, in the West. We are both against it, and want to maintain Western civilization. But we understand the nature of the problem differently.”

Important distinction, in your eyes?[13]

It is just this type of alliance between the neo-cons, Zionists and the European so-called ‘right-wing’ that Breivik regards as a basis for the anti-Islamic civil war he hoped to foment in Europe. It is not an isolated phenomenon. The well-publicized English Defense League’s anti-Muslim demonstrations and riots are marked by the number of Israeli flags appearing amidst their shaven headed ranks.[14] Breivik regards the EDL as one of the better organizations, writing:

The British EDL seems to be the first youth organization that has finally understood this. Sure, in the beginning it was the occasional egg heads who shouted racist slogans and did Nazi salutes but these individuals were kicked out. An organization such as the EDL has the moral high ground and can easily justify their political standpoints as they publicly oppose racism and authoritarianism.[15]

According to the anti-Zionist former Israeli Gilad Atzmon, the EDL has formed a “Jewish Division,” which the London Jewish Chronicle states immediately drew “hundreds” of followers. The Division is led by Roberta Moore, who was interviewed by the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz, and boasted of how the ‘Jews were exploiting’ the EDL:

Roberta Moore, aged 39, the leader of the Jewish Division, admitted this week to Ha‘aretz that it is ‘actually the Jewish Division that exploits the EDL’. In an interview with the Israeli newspaper on 13 July 2010, she said: “They [the EDL] think the league is exploiting us, while it is really we who initiated the Jewish Division. If anything, we are exploiting them.”[16]

Of the previously mentioned Bat Ye’or, a Jewish woman of Egyptian birth, resident in Britain, she specializes in writing of Jewish experiences in Muslim states.[17] Her theme of “Eurabia” is a condemnation of relations between Europe and the Arab states.[18] It is a concept that was taken up by Breivik. Ye’or contends that Eurabia is a development of ‘Nazi’ and ‘fascist’ origins in alliance with radical Arabs, and has placed European states in a foreign policy position inimical to the interests of both Israel and the USA. In other words, it is indicative of Europe as a new force rather than as a lackey to the USA. This Eurabia was formalized in 1974 in Paris in an association called Euro-Arab Dialogue. Ye’or has outlined her views in many articles, one of which was published in the neo-con National Review.[19] She has attracted the support of neo-cons such as Robert Spencer. From a Western cultural perspective, the concept of Eurabia so abhorred to Ye’or and other neo-cons, plutocrats and Zionists, is hopeful. The relations souring the Arab states and the West are of intrusive origins and could be addressed diplomatically. The origins of poisoned relations between the West and the Arabs will now be considered.

Goldblog's position: Geller is a hatemonger, but she didn't pull the trigger. Free speech means free speech. But she should be aware now that violent people look to her for guidance, and she should write with that in mind. Which brings me to the subject of the Murfreesboro, Tennessee, mosque, the new "Ground Zero mosque" controversy. People like Herman Cain, who vilify this mosque (and other mosques) should think carefully about the ways in which their words are heard. I worry about a violent reaction to the Tennessee mosque more than I worry about any other terrorism target in America. More on this later, when I have better access to the Web.

And that may be exactly what has happened, says Beirich. The 2008 burning of a mosque in Tennessee is evidence of what Beirich says has been a spike in anti-Muslim attacks, including arsons and bombings in Florida, Michigan and Oregon."

The report even went so far as to feature former Department of Homeland Security terrorism analyst Daryl Johnson, who warned: "This attack in Norway should be a wake-up call for our country, for decision makers....we could have a similar type of attack here. And that's my greatest fear, is that we would have a Timothy McVeigh-type carry out a mass shooting event."

As footage appeared on screen of people protesting the Ground Zero Mosque, Isikoff concluded: "Homeland security officials told us tonight they are careful not to monitor political protests, but watch for domestic violent extremist activity regardless of ideology. And so far, they say, they see no evidence the problem is getting worse."

In a manifesto posted online, the admitted killer, Anders Behring Breivik, praised Geller. He cited her blog, Atlas Shrugs, and the writings of her friends, allies, and collaborators—Robert Spencer, Jihad Watch, Islam Watch, and Front Page magazine—more than 250 times. And he echoed their tactics, tarring peaceful Muslims with the crimes of violent Muslims. He wrote that all Muslims sought to impose "sharia laws" and that "there are no important theological differences between jihadists and so-called 'peaceful' or 'moderate' Muslims." He reprinted, as part of the manifesto, a 2006 essay by "Fjordman"—a blogger whose work appears frequently on Geller's site—which argued that "radical Muslims and moderate Muslims are allies" and that because Islam teaches deception, no Muslim who claims to be moderate can be trusted.

In a nutshell,yes. During the Bush Administration, the FBI was on record saying that the biggest domestic terrorist threat was from eco-terrorists. They were very reluctant to take on right-wing extremism as a serious threat. Sadly, under the Obama Administration, we know that the Department of Homeland Security walked away from this part of their mission after a conservative firestorm greeted a report they released in 2009 warning of possible right-wing terrorism. The Southern Poverty Law Center is very concerned about this situation and we have written to DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano asking that she reconsider the department’s priorities.

Pretty much everyone, from right-wing bloggers to the director of a Norwegian peace research institute, assumed that last Friday's attacks in Norway were the work of Islamic jihadists. That it turned out to have been perpetrated by a right-wing Christian nationalist has led to much introspection and questioning.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, founded as a small civil rights firm in 1971, has been studying right-wing extremism for decades. They issue regular reports on the prevalence of hate groups in the United States and the underestimated threat they pose to national security.

The SPLC's Research Director, Heidi Beirich, spoke to Business Insider today about America's extreme right-wing.

1. The most recent installment of Intelligence Report, the magazine published by the Southern Poverty Law Center, had a cover story with the headline, "Jihad Against Islam." Do you think that accurately describes what happened last week in Norway? Could something similar happen in the United States?

Sadly, our report has turned out to be prescient. We are very concerned whenever a particular population group, in this case Muslims, is singled out for demonization. In the U.S., increased demonization of Latinos over the last decade has led to increasing levels of hate violence against that population. It is not surprising that the anti-Muslim hysteria that broke out last Summer when the Park 51 project became a flashpoint would eventually lead to violence against Muslims. Many of the anti-Muslim ideologues who influenced the Oslo shooter—Pam Geller and Robert Spencer in particular—became well-known during those protests. Their hatred of Muslims spread to Norway and influenced Brievik’s views.

As to whether it could happen here, we’ve already had a lot of violence against populations demonized by the radical right, the Holocaust Memorial Museum shooting in 2009 being an obvious example. In fact, the Southern Poverty Law Center has documented some 100 terrorist plots since the McVeigh bombing in 1995. So, yes, these things can happen here. You hope beyond hope that they won’t.

2. Has the anti-Muslim backlash been as vicious in the U.S. as in Europe? Does the fact that most immigration to the U.S. is Hispanic and not Muslim draw some of the xenophobia away from Muslims here?

Xenophobia in the U.S. has mostly been directed against Latinos, because they make up the largest part of America’s immigrants. That’s different in Europe where "immigrant" has come to be equated with "Muslim" based on the origin of the bulk of their immigrants. But in the last year, the backlash here has been quite vicious and prominent conservatives have taken up the anti-Muslim charge. Perhaps this horrible tragedy will cause some of those folks to rethink their demonizing of America’s Muslims.

Andres Behring Breivik was a prolific blogger and visitor to online sites that reaffirmed his worldview.

Breivik's taste in online conversation shows a compulsive interest in websites that see the modern world in terms of a "clash of civilizations," where Christian values are supposedly under siege in the face of an Islamic onslaught.

But rarely if ever does he seem to have advocated a violent response to what he saw as the Islamization of Europe, even as he planned a massacre for years.

The head of Norway's intelligence police, Janne Kristiansen, told a Norwegian newspaper Monday that Breivik had "deliberately desisted from violent exhortations on the net. He has more or less been a moderate, and has neither been part of any extremist network."

The blogs and websites Breivik enthused about were pro-American and pro-Israel, extremely hostile to Islam and despairing that the European political elite would ever see the error of its liberal multicultural outlook.

One such site is Gates of Vienna, whose banner reads: "At the siege of Vienna in 1683 Islam seemed poised to overrun Christian Europe. We are in a new phase of a very old war."

 

Breivik regularly applauded a writer who goes by the name of Fjordman on the site, one of whose contributions, from 2007, reads: "When the Swedish welfare state collapses, the immigrants who lose their payments will have to go somewhere. Denmark will probably be fairly successful at keeping them out. A lot of them will migrate to Norway, some will move to Germany and the Netherlands, and some will probably end up in Eastern Europe."

Breivik also praised Fjordman's book, "Defeating Eurabia," describing it as "the perfect Christmas gift for family and friends."

The book contends that Europe is being overrun by Muslims -- and that its governing class is complicit in this surrender. "According to some, one out of three babies born in France is a Muslim," Fjordman writes.

"Hundreds of Muslim ghettos already de facto follow sharia, not French law. Some believe France will quietly become a Muslim country, while others predict a civil war in the near future."