As France reels from two bloody terrorist attacks in as many days, Pamela Geller warns this is just the beginning and unless Americans take action, “Such attacks are coming here.”
In an exclusive interview with WND, the author of “Stop the Islamization of America: A Practical Guide to the Resistance” painted a dire picture of the Western future. Even after the most devastating terrorist attacks in French history, Geller judged that “no European nations are doing anything against Islamization at this time, and I don’t see any indication that any will in the near future.”
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The attacks were sparked by caricatures of the Islamic prophet Muhammad deemed offensive by many Muslims. As WND has reported, Islamic nations have been trying for years to impose a worldwide prohibition on criticism of their religion and their prophet through the United Nations.
With so many people so deeply invested in the goal of a global ban on criticism of Islam, Geller says the murder of the satirists at the French magazine Charlie Hebdo will not halt the drive to end free speech.
“There is absolutely no evidence that they’re backing away from efforts to impose ‘hate speech’ laws,” Geller told WND. “In fact, just [earlier this week] a Canadian imam called for the criminalization of satirical cartoons of religious leaders.”
Geller declares in her book that “the gravest threat this Islamization poses is the restriction of the freedom of speech.” While European countries and Canada already have laws against criticism of Islam under the guise of “hate speech,” President Barack Obama has shown a willingness for years to expand such laws to the United States and other nations around the world.
According to Professor Jonathan Turley of George Washington University, “The Obama administration shockingly supported Muslim allies trying to establish a new international blasphemy standard” in 2009.
Following the terrorist attacks on an American facility in Libya and the murder of the American ambassador on Sept. 11, 2012, President Obama intoned that the “U.S rejects efforts to denigrate the religious beliefs of others.”
At the time, Geller argued Obama effectively was “sanctioning Islam’s blasphemy laws, which forbid criticism of Islam.”
As WND reported, only two weeks later, President Obama told the United Nations General Assembly on Sept. 25, 2012, “The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam.”
And after the latest attacks in Paris, President Obama carefully tailored his speech so as not use the words “Islam,” “radical Islam,” “Muslim,” “jihad” “or “Shariah” when condemning the shootings.
Shariah expert Joy Brighton called President Obama’s speech “Shariah compliment.”
As WND reported, the United Nations followed President Obama’s lead and refused to link the attacks to Islam.
Geller warns that free speech restrictions are only a matter of time in the United States: “If things don’t change, [radical Muslims] will succeed in imposing them here, because the mainstream media is already doing their bidding – not showing the [Charlie Hebdo] cartoons, etc.”
Americans haven’t yet seen the same kind of street-level Islamic terrorism or widespread political intimidation that exists in France, but the “only significant difference is that the Muslim population of France is so much bigger than the Muslim population of the U.S.,” Geller claims.
That may not remain true for much longer, as a recent study from the Center for Immigration Studies shows that immigration from Islamic nations has dramatically increased during Obama’s time in office even as immigration from Europe and Israel has declined. A 2011 study from the Pew Research Center shows the Muslim population in the United States is expected to more than double over the next two decades.
This larger Islamic population will add new strength and resources to the already powerful Muslim lobby in the United States. Geller’s “Stop the Islamization of America” contains a detailed history of the background, funding and activities of many of the “mainstream” Muslim groups operating in the United States, including the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, the Muslim Students Association and the Muslim Brotherhood.
Geller believes that these and other Islamic organizations have a lot to answer for in the aftermath of the attacks. Instead of forthrightly condemning the murders, Geller charges “they’re doing what they’ve always done: deflecting attention away from the attacks to a fictional ‘Islamophobic backlash’ and defaming and discrediting anyone and everyone who stands up and opposes jihad terror.”
In the aftermath of the attacks, American government officials told reporters that “eliminating the threat is impossible” and that the potential for Paris-style attacks in the United States “is the new normal.”
In contrast, Geller has recommendations about what needs to be done if the United States is to defend itself from the threat of Islamic terrorism.
“We should monitor the mosques and demand that Muslim groups renounce the aspects of Islam and Sharia that are violent and supremacist and in conflict with Western principles of freedom and human rights,” Geller says. “This has to be backed up by honest, transparent and inspectable programs teaching young Muslims to reject this understanding of Islam. The French government should do the same.”
Geller is a leading organizer against Islamic supremacism through her group the American Freedom Defense Initiative. Following the Islamic terrorist attacks on the Boston Marathon in 2013, AFDI issued a “Platform of Defending Freedom” aimed to prevent terrorist attacks, including surveillance of mosques, a ban on the foreign funding of mosques and a moratorium on Muslim immigration into non-Muslim nations.
Geller is largely pessimistic about the ability of European nations to respond to the terrorist threat.
After all, she says, “There were several jihad attacks in France in the last few weeks, all of which were dismissed by French authorities as manifestations of ‘mental illness.’ ‘Mental illness’ is becoming epidemic in France.”
One possible exception is the rise of Marine Le Pen’s National Front, a party invariably described as “far right” in the mainstream media. The National Front takes a strong stand against mass immigration and is perceived as an opponent of Islamization.
Geller notes, “The National Front may benefit from these attacks if they can articulate to the French people what the jihad threat is and why it must be combatted. It must also effectively counter the leftist smear that all opposition to jihad terror is really just ‘racism.'”
Ultimately however, Geller believes it will be the attitude of ordinary Westerners that will determine whether “jihad terror” can be defeated and free speech can be preserved.
As she told WND, “We are the soldiers in this war to defend freedom. The real fight for freedom isn’t a military struggle. It’s a war to defend our free societies. All of us must fight in this war, or we will certainly lose.”
Get Pamela Geller’s “Stop the Islamization of America: A Practical Guide to the Resistance”
