Media During most of the 1980s, Geller worked at the
New York Daily News—first as a financial analyst, and then in advertising and marketing. Subsequently, she was associate publisher of
The New York Observer from 1989 through 1994. In a
Village Voice interview, Geller indicated that she had only become political since the
9/11 attacks, after which she began reading authors on Islam such as
Bat Ye'or and
Ibn Warraq, saying she "spent years studying the matter before I started blogging."
Political activism Geller created a blog called
Atlas Shrugs (a reference to
Atlas Shrugged, the novel by
Ayn Rand) in 2004. Geller was a frequent and prolific commenter on the
blog Little Green Footballs when, encouraged by a fellow commenter, she started her own blog in late 2004. Conversely, it has been praised by
Caroline Glick, managing editor of
The Jerusalem Post, who hailed the blog's coverage of Muslim "
honor killings" and called her "an intrepid blogger," specifically for Geller's coverage of treatment of women under
Sharia law and in Islamic countries. In 2010, Geller co-founded the
American Freedom Defense Initiative organization (AFDI), also known as Stop Islamization of America, with
Robert Spencer, an anti-Muslim activist. Geller is a co-founder of Stop Islamization of Nations, an umbrella organization that includes Stop Islamization of America and
Stop Islamisation of Europe. Both SIOA and AFDI are described as exhibiting anti-Muslim bigotry by the
Anti-Defamation League. The
Southern Poverty Law Center classifies them as
hate groups. At the 2010
Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), Geller criticized the Pentagon's report on the
2009 Fort Hood shooting for failing to talk about the religious motivations behind the attack. Geller was forbidden to appear at CPAC in 2013. Geller attributed her exclusion from the event to her having accused CPAC board members
Grover Norquist and
Suhail Khan of being “members of the
Muslim Brotherhood and secret Islamist agents.” The British government barred Geller's entry into the UK in 2013, citing her anti-Muslim activism, and saying her presence would “not be conducive to the public good.” In April 2013, Rabbi Michael White and Jerome Davidson, in denouncing Geller as an anti-Muslim bigot, opposed her presentation on Sharia law at a Long Island synagogue. It was canceled due to security concerns. Israeli columnist Caroline Glick disputed the assertions by White and Davidson, and argued that Geller opposed
jihadists, not all Muslims. In May 2013, the
Jewish Defense League of Canada invited Geller to speak in
Toronto,
Canada. Initially, Geller was invited by Rabbi Mendel Kaplan to speak at Chabad@Flamingo. Because Kaplan was a chaplain with the
York Regional Police, the police's Hate Crimes Unit stated that Kaplan's invitation conflicted with “our long-held position of inclusivity.” Kaplan consequently cancelled Geller's invitation, and she spoke at the Toronto Zionist Centre. Geller has been a contributor to
The Washington Times,
Newsmax,
Human Events,
WorldNetDaily, the
American Thinker,
Israel National News and
Breitbart News. She has written a column titled "Defending the West" for
WorldNetDaily starting in 2011. She runs the website, The Geller Report, which is registered through her organization, the American Freedom Defense Initiative. In October 2018, the website falsely claimed that a Swedish Christmas concert had been cancelled, so as to not offend Muslims. In November 2018, the website falsely claimed that former National Security Advisor
Michael Flynn had been cleared of criminal wrong-doing in the
Russia probe.
Park51 In May 2010, Geller began a campaign against the proposed
Park51 Islamic community center and mosque, which she called the "Ground Zero Mega Mosque." and asserted: “I'm not leading the charge against the Islamic center near Ground Zero. The majority of Americans—70%—find this deeply insulting, offensive. To call it anti-Muslim is a gross misrepresentation, and to say that I'm responsible for all this emotion, again a gross misrepresentation.” Based upon unsubstantiated evidence, Geller has claimed that Park51's project financing had potential ties to terrorists. According to
Time magazine, Geller "played a pivotal role in making Park51 a national issue." According to Stephanie Wright in
Fear of Muslims?, Geller's language in opposing the mosque was repeated by mainstream politicians, such as
Sarah Palin and
Newt Gingrich. According to Cord Jefferson in the
American Prospect, “the media often craves controversy over substance,” and paid "disproportionate attention" to the
Park51 story, thus furnishing “a small-time political blogger with an obsession” an opportunity “to hijack the news cycle for months.”
Public transit ads Stop Islamization of America has sponsored ads which carried instigative messages, such as "Fatwa on Your Head?" and "Leaving Islam?" in several cities, including
New York City and
Miami, which pointed readers to a website called RefugefromIslam.com. One ad had a picture of the
World Trade Center in flames, with a quote from the
Quran: “Soon we shall cast terror into the hearts of the unbelievers.” Another ad showed a man in a
keffiyah, with the text: “Killing Jews is Worship that draws us close to
Allah. That's His Jihad. What's yours?” New York's
MTA initially refused to display the ads in the
New York City Subway system, but the decision was overturned in July 2012 by the
United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, which ruled that the ad was
protected speech under the
First Amendment, and that the MTA's actions were
unconstitutional. The judge,
Paul A. Engelmayer, held in a 35-page opinion that the rejected ad was “not only protected speech — it is core political speech ... [which as such] is afforded the highest level of protection under the First Amendment.” Opponents argued that an ad with the text, “In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel. Defeat Jihad” implied Muslims are savages. Columnists in the
New York Post and
The Algemeiner argued the opposite—that it was insulting to assume Muslims will identify with violent jihad. Some Muslims argued that Geller's use of the word
jihad is identical to Islamic extremists', and too common in general American usage. There is an effort to focus on the notion of
jihad as a
striving, but find "rebranding" difficult in today's culture. The
Jewish Council for Public Affairs called the ad "bigoted, divisive," and JCPA President Rabbi
Steve Gutow said: “The fact that ads have been placed in the subway attacking Israel does not excuse the use of attack ads against Muslims.” Israel Kasnett, editor for the
Jerusalem Post, argued that Geller is right in her description of violent jihad. Jewish groups, such as the
Jewish Community Relations Council and the
Anti-Defamation League, have “successfully persuaded the
San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency to donate proceeds from the ads to the city's Human Rights Commission.” In a column for
The Wall Street Journal, conservative columnist
William McGurn criticized the "media" for being “too quick to assume the ad is an attack on the religion and all Muslims.” In 2013, Geller purchased ad space at thirty-nine New York City Subway stations for a new ad that “[linked] Islam to terrorism.” Prompted by an ad critical of Israel on the subway, Geller said she was exercising her freedom of speech by showing a picture of the burning
World Trade Center juxtaposed with a quote from the
Koran. The ads went up in January 2013, and ran for about a month. In the fall of 2014, Geller paid $100,000 for a series of ads to run on the MTA again. They linked Islam to the
Islamic State,
Hamas,
Adolf Hitler, and the beheading of
James Foley; a court ruling required the MTA to run the ads. The ads were also run on Philadelphia's
SEPTA transit system, and Washington, D.C.'s
WMATA transit system.
Daniel Pipes wrote the ads backfired, and united people of all religions against what was viewed as an attack on all Muslims. The MTA, SEPTA, and Washington's Metro have decided to ban all political ads. In 2015, Geller announced that she would run ads on public transit systems accusing donors to the
New Israel Fund of being supporters of the anti-Israel
BDS movement, although a spokesperson from NIF said the charge is false. Geller wrote that: “These leaders are 21st-century kapos, but worse ... They are leftists aligned with the jihad force.”
Curtis Culwell Center attack Geller helped to organize a "Draw the Prophet" cartoon contest on May 3, 2015, at the
Curtis Culwell Center in
Garland, Texas, the same site where a Muslim group held a "Stand With the Prophet" event in January 2015, after the
Charlie Hebdo shooting. The same day, shots were fired outside the event in Garland, resulting in the death of two suspected shooters by the police, and the injury of one security guard. The decision to hold the cartoon contest
received both criticism and support from a number of journalists and other public figures.
June 2015 assassination plot On June 2, 2015, a 26-year-old Muslim man, identified as Rahim Nicholas, was shot and killed by police officers in
Boston, after he waved a military knife at them and charged at them with it. Reported to have been radicalized by the militant Islamist group
ISIS, Rahim was plotting to travel out of the state to assassinate Geller. His thwarted plan was in retaliation to Geller's Muhammad art event and contest. Rahim allegedly abandoned the idea, and decided to behead police officers instead. Upon learning of the assassination plot, Geller said in an interview with CNN: “They targeted me for violating Sharia blasphemy laws.” The leader of the plot, David Wright, was sentenced to 28 years in prison in 2017 for the plot, and resentenced to 30 years in 2020. ==Views==