Popular hate blogger Pam Geller has received scrutiny in recent days as the public became aware that the right-wing terrorist in Norway, Anders Behring Breivik, had praised her blog and thoroughly cited her writing in his political manifesto. After a number of blogs made the connection, as well as the New York Times, the Atlantic, and other major outlets, Geller became incensed and began lashing out at her critics.
In a post defending herself yesterday, Geller — who has called Obama “President Jihad” and claimed that Arab language classes are a plot to subvert the United States — reached a new low. Geller justifies Breivik’s attack on the Norwegian Labour Party summer youth camp because she says the camp is part of an anti-Israel “indoctrination training center.” She says the victims would have grown up to become “future leaders of the party responsible for flooding Norway with Muslims who refuse to assimilate, who commit major violence against Norwegian natives including violent gang rapes, with impunity, and who live on the dole.”
To get her point across, Geller posts a picture of the youth camp children Breivik targeted. The picture was taken on the Utøya island camp about 24 hours before Breivik killed over 30 children, so it is likely Geller is mocking many of the victims. Under the picture, Geller writes: “Note the faces which are more MIddle [sic] Eastern or mixed than pure Norwegian.” View a screen shot (click to enlarge) of Geller’s blog post below:
Could Geller’s outburst of smears be a distraction against mounting evidence that she might have communicated with Breivik in the past? A post from Geller in 2007 reprints a reader-submitted letter in which an anonymous Norwegian complains of Muslim immigration and boasts that he is “stockpiling and caching weapons, ammunition and equipment.” In the comment section, Geller claims that she provided anonymity to the reader to protect him from being prosecuted. Although Geller recently deleted the ammunition line from her post, a cached version is available. As Glenn Greenwald notes, “If this were an attack by a Muslim group, and a Muslim had something like this on his/her website, the FBI and multiple other groups would be swarming.”
Geller, a fixture on Fox News and conservative gatherings, gained a large national following last year after fueling a campaign to smear a planned community center several blocks from the Ground Zero site as a “victory mosque.” Her influence extends beyond Breivik and the anti-Muslim blogosphere to the Republican Party, given the fact she has appeared with politicians like Newt Gingrich. And she is not the only leading conservative to rationalize Breivik’s beliefs and actions. Pat Buchanan wrote a column recently arguing that “Breivik may be right.” On his radio show, Glenn Beck said the youth camp Breivik targeted, which could be compared to the College Democrats or other mainstream political organizations, reminded him of “Hitler Youth.”
Update:
Geller appears to have deleted the line about race mixing from her post. A screen shot of the post before the deletion can be found here.