Islamophobes Spencer, Geller, Yerushalmi, Gaffney et al: Attempt to Conceal Evidence of “Truth-Telling”

by Sheila Musaji

Some time ago I published an article Robert Spencer and the Disappearing Articles.  However, that seems to be only the tip of the iceberg.  It appears that Spencer and his partner Pamela Geller are now using this tactic regularly to attempt to remove evidence of what they have actually said and/or published.  Since they like to refer to themselves in all sorts of patriotic and glowing terms including “truth-teller” and to refer to Muslims as purveyors of “taqiyyah” (liars), this tactic does seem to call those designations into question.

Here are the cases that I know about at this time.  Please let me know if I am missing any examples.

In 2008, Alex Koppelman on Salon reported that Geller fell for a fake story about a Michelle Obama interview, and posted and then removed the post from her site.  He reported: At Atlas Shrugs, in a post she has since taken down, Pamela Geller wrote:  First thug Michelle Obama is giving us a preview of the tactics the Hussein Obamas will use to block the truth, silence critics and destroy free speech. We ain’t gonna shut up Michelle. She is clearly worried about what we on the blogs are publishing ... She calls everyone who is not a zombie for Obama a racist when in fact her husband is thisclose [sic] to the White House because we are not a racist nation. SHE IS A RACIST ... She’s the psychic twin of the ugly, racist, America hating, Jew hating, Reverend Jeremiah Wright.  (Her emphasis.)

In April of 2008, Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugs posted an article  responding to my article on Phyllis Chesler.  She titled her article Attacking Chesler: American Muslim Female Takes on Chesler.  As could be expected she doesn’t understand how I could possibly say anything negative about Chessler’s article.  Geller calls me a “tool of jihad” who is tearing a “truthteller apart” while “doing nothing for my sisters”.  However, she does not directly address any of the specific points that I made in my article.  And, after I wrote a response, Geller removed the original article from her site. (Note:  Geller’s article still comes up on a Google search, and in a search of my name on her site, but if you click on the link you will only get an error message.  This is how the url still looks http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2008/04/attacking-chesl.html The article has been pulled). 

Media Monitors reported that in July, 2010, she also “ran with a fake Obama quote from fabricated Columbia thesis. After an August 25 post on the blog Jumping in Pools claimed that Obama attacked the Constitution and Founders in his Columbia thesis, right-wing media ran with the “report,” despite the fact that it was tagged as “satire.” In an October 23 post, Geller wrote, “Excerpts from Obama’s Columbia Thesis reveals America’s worst nightmare is in the Oval Office.” She added that the writings revealed “an America hater.” 

On December 21, 2010,  Robert Spencer posted an article on Jihad Watch entitled London: Flight returns to terminal after Muslim starts praying in aisle, won’t take his seat.  The article opens with the claim that “This seems to be a fairly clear provocation—maybe the praying man is hoping to provoke a “discrimination” case that will establish that praying Muslims may have the run of the airplane.”  The problem with this story is that Spencer, as is often the case, has all of his facts wrong, and that the conclusions he draws from those “facts” are purely paranoid fantasies.  It seems that the actual story (from numerous news articles from around the world) was that a Christian man who wore dreadlocks, was dark skinned and was from a Caribbean Island left his seat and knelt in the isle and began reciting the Lord’s Prayer out loud in English as the Air Malta plane began to take off from Heathrow airport headed to Malta.  The man was asked to return to his seat, refused, and this concerned passengers and crew, particularly because the man had an orange plastic shopping bag in his hands.  The plane returned to the terminal and the man was arrested.  The article has subsequently disappeared from Spencer’s site with no explanation, however, it can still be seen on a web cache.  Richard Bartholomew has more information Robert Spencer Scrubs Muslim “Provocation” Story.

In our lengthy article collection on Robert Spencer we have noted:  “The existence of website url’s “f**kallah.com” & “f**kislam.com” which redirected people to Spencer’s Jihad Watch site and which Loonwatch first brought to the attention of the Muslim community.  After Loonwatch noted these sites, the redirection to Jihad Watch suddenly stopped and Spencer denied having any involvement in the two sites.  The two sites still exist but now take visitors to another site with photographs of the 9/11 tragedy.”  Spencer posted an article in November of 2009 complaining about being accused of having anything to do with these sites in which he said For the record, I do not own the domain names f***allah.com and f***islam.com, and have nothing to do with them whatsoever. I have never engaged in such tactics and do not approve of them.  Anyone can buy a domain name and redirect it anywhere he wants. ...  This is clearly a smear designed to discredit Jihad Watch and my work, and I’m engaged in active efforts now to find out who does own those sites—they registered them with Domains By Proxy, indicating that they had something to hide from the beginning.  Anything is possible, however, he goes on to say My ace tech man has been working all day with enon.com, where those domains originated, and has finally succeeded in getting them to redirect these domain names so they don’t bring one to Jihad Watch.  It is puzzling how one can have a server redirect someone else’s website.  This article was published in November of 2009, and as of December of 2011 there has never been an update saying what his “active efforts” to investigate have turned up.

In October of 2010 Geller posted an article titled Hate Crime which included an email from a reader who had supposedly been harrassed by Muslims in her neighborhood and was unable to get law enforcement or elected officials to do anything about it.  When the article was originally posted it included this The hypocrisy loooms [sic] large. Here’s a letter I thought I should share with you. I expect the gutless congressman who witnessed his Muslim constituents dancing on 9/11/01 will do nothing but hide beneath his desk. If this continues — auxiliary law enforcement will be necessary.  Subsequently the original email from the “victim” was removed as was Geller’s lead in to the article, and replaced with an almost incoherent rant.  Geller, rather than explain that she had been taken in by an email from a seemingly unstable person, instead pulled the email, and substituted a rant that still managed to make it seem as if the information contained in tht original email was accurate.

Richard Bartholomew did an excellent debunking article on the fake “Hamas Child Bride” story promoted by Spencer and others.  Bartholomew notes:  The many websites that picked this up have responded in various ways: some issuing corrections, some quickly deleting their postings, and some insisting that it’s all true and that Marshall is trying to cover up the fact: “Why”, demands one site “would Tim Marshall defend the Gaza pedophiles?” One of the sites that decided to scrub was Robert Spencer’s Jihad Watch, which is worth noting as Spencer claims some sort of academic expertise on Islam. Of course, we know that child weddings do occcur in the Islamic world, but the idea of a mass child wedding becoming the focus for popular public celebration in such an urbanized environment as Gaza should have evoked some scepticism. Even WorldNetDaily has - grudgingly -debunked the tale.

Charles Johnson notes (and has preserved screen captures to prove) that Geller published an “Email from Norway” in 2007.  The original email contained the line We are stockpiling and caching weapons, ammunition, and equipment.  This is going to happen fast.  Johnson has one screen capture from June 30, 2011, and the line was still there, but the current article online on Geller’s site no longer contains that line.  [update 7/30/11 - Geller has just posted Clarifying the edit in which she attempts to explain this incident.  In that clarification she says:  “The sentence I edited is not an incitement to anything. It refers to self-defense, but I removed it in the light of recent horrific events in Norway. I thought it insensitive. Nothing more.    Everyone has a right to self-defense.    The idea that I am scrubbing my archives, or “evidence” as many liars are suggesting, is a blatant lie. I have changed nothing else. But that is irrelevant; destroying the counter jihad movement is paramount at this moment.”]  [update 7/31/2011 - Justin Raimondo points out that in the comments section of the original 2007 post one of Geller’s readers warns that the author of the letter could be prosecuted by Norewegian authorities. Geller replies: “Yes … which is why I ran it anonymously.”  So here is some nut stockpiling “weapons, ammunition, and equipment,” because “this is going to happen fast” – with Geller’s enthusiastic encouragement. Indeed, she’s so concerned her correspondent might be arrested that she’s protecting his identity.  Who is Geller’s mystery correspondent – is it the same Norwegian nut-case who ruthlessly cut down dozens of children, or a different one waiting in the wings to do the same? Come on, Pamela – clear up the mystery. Or would you rather continue to shield your fellow “counter-jihadist”?

In July of 2011, Pamela Geller published a post titled Vehicular Jihad in Arizona  which is Geller’s take on a simple story about a terrible car accident in Arizona in which the driver of a vehicle crashed into 3 parked vehicles in a parking lot and was killed.  The man was a physician named Ajaz Rahaman, and this just happened.  The man’s name was released on the same day as Geller’s article, and so far that is all anyone knows.  There have been no autopsy findings released, police investigations are still not completed - no one knows what happened.  The name of this man sounds as if he might be a Muslim.  However the name Walid Shoebat might also be identified as a Muslim name.  That’s all the proof Geller needed to call this “vehicular jihad”.  I published an article giving the facts titled Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer Discover Muslim Vehicular Jihad Plot and within a day Geller pulled the original article from her site but that the article still exists on google cache here.  Note:  As of January 2012, the article is not available on google cache either.

on 7/31 Geller posted a truly hateful article which I wrote about yesterday.  The title is Summer Camp? Antisemitic Indoctrination Training Center.  Geller begins by giving this quote from one of the children who survived from an ABC news article:  “Some of my friends tried to stop him by talking to him. Many people thought that it was a test ... comparing it to how it is to live in Gaza.” Eyewitness statement the day of the shooting.”  Geller explains her view of the meaning of this statement:  The day of the Norway shooting, I was blindsided by one of the survivor’s statements to the press immediately after the shooting (see above). It was so outside the box, I thought it was the kneejerk response of an anti-semite in shock. I didn’t blog on it because I thought it anecdotal, badly anecdotal. But the more that is revealed about that youth indoctrination center, the more grotesque the whole story becomes. Of course, the genocidal leftists will twist what I write here; I am not condoning the slaughter in Norway or anywhere. I abhor violence (except in regard to self defense). But the jihad-loving media never told us what antisemitic war games they were playing on that island. Utoya Island is a Communist/Socialist campground, and they clearly had a pro-Islamic agenda.    Only the malevolent media could use the euphemism summer camp and get away with it.    The slaughter was horrific. What these kids were being taught and instructed to do was a different kind of grotesque. There is no justification for Breivik’s actions whatsoever. There is also no justification for Norway’s antisemitism and demonization of Israel.  NOTE:  see Geller’s original article for included links  She then posts the text of an article by someone called The Anti Mullah full of suggestions of an equivalence between being pro-Palestinian or opposed to the wall or to some Israeli policies and being anti-Semitic.  He even says “Glen Beck was not far off when he compared it to the Hitlerjungend or Young Pioneers.”  This article also includes a photo from the youth camp with the caption underneath “Note the faces which are more Middle Eastern or mixed than pure Norwegian”.  An obviously racist comment that she re-posts.  All of this was bad enough.  However, this morning the bottom of the article still said 192 comments, but the comments were no longer accessible?  Also, that racist comment under the photo has disappeared.  A screen shot of the original photo and caption are still available here thanks to Lee Fang at Think Progress.

Geller and Spencer’s Stop the Islamization of America (SIOA) website at http://sioaonline.com/ has now been completely scrubbed.  If you go to the link, all the articles and everything is gone.  Just a main page with the name of the organization.  According to Richard Bartholomew access to cached versions has been blocked.  This comes at the same time as the release of Geller’s new book of the same name as the organization (named a hate group by the SPLC).  No longer just one article, or one paragraph from an article, but an entire website “disappeared”.  8/6/11 Note:  As of 1/2012 the SIOA site is back online, don’t know how much material has been removed in the meantime.

Geller and Spencer cross posted an article making false claims about Philip Giraldi and Ron Paul.  When Scott Horton wrote comments on both sites giving the actual details, they simply deleted his comments and banned him from further postings.  Truly dishonest behavior.  They have not posted any correction or apology. 

Spencer posted an article by Roland Shirk about the Egyptian Revolution.  The article closed with this sentence:  “If I could have Mubarak’s ear, I would whisper just two words of wisdom: Tiananmen Square.”  Clearly a call to violence against the Egyptian people.  That sentence was later removed, presumably after its inexpediency was realised, but you can see a screenshot of the original here thanks to Loonwatch.  As Loonwatch notes: “This is a very serious charge which Spencer must answer. Yes, the offending line has been removed but who uploaded the original article – Spencer or someone else? If not Spencer, then who? And, perhaps most damning of all, why has Roland Shirk continued to post articles on Jihad Watch since calling for the massacre of countless Egyptians as they demonstrated against one of the Middle East’s most brutal regimes?”

Update 3/19/2012 - Charles Johnson of LGF reports Pamela Geller Quietly Deletes Obama Assassination Comment, Doesn’t Ban Commenter about the deletion of a comment by “Brian_R_Allen” calling for the assassination of President Obama, with no statement about it on her blog.

Update 9/19/2012 - Geller & Spencer Create “Muslim Cat Crucifixion” Lie to Inflame Hatred.  And, now in yet another display of Islamophobic madness, both Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer posted this same photograph on their sites with appropriately dramatic titles - Spencer: Nigeria: Muslims Crucify a Cat to Protest Muhammad Video ( http://www.jihadwatch.org/2012/09/nigeria-muslims-crucify-a-cat-to-protest-muhammad-video.html ); Geller: Muslims in Nigeria Crucify a Cat on the Cross to Protest Freedom of Speech ( http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2012/09/muslims-in-nigeria-crucify-a-cat-on-the-cross-to-protest-freedom-of-speech.html ).  I left the url’s open so you can see that they did exist, and these articles still come up on a google search, but they have been scrubbed.  If you click on the links, there is nothing there.  Geller and Spencer did their dirty work, and promoted a totally false story, and after it was picked up by many other Islamophobic sites, deleted the evidence of their involvement.

Update 10/14/2012 After WND published a Debunked “Obama Wears Muslim Ring” Conspiracy,  Pamela Geller published an article Obama’s ring: ‘There is no god but Allah’ - Atlas Shrugs which was at this link http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2012/10/obamas-ring-there-is-no-god-but-allah.html  There is now nothing there.  Once again, an article has simply disappeared.  If you do a google search the title of the article still comes up, but the link is dead.

Update 3/3/2013 - Phan Nguyen of Mondoweiss reports on ‘Rolling Stones’ anti-BDS hoax.  “Far-right commentators and Israel supporters rejoiced last week when it was announced that the Rolling Stones would play two concerts in Israel—the first to celebrate Israel’s Independence Day, and the second to spite the BDS movement.”  Read the full article for a detailed breakdown, but to summarize:  Geller published an article titled “ROLLING STONES TELL JEW-HATERS TO KISS THEIR ....... ADDS ANOTHER DATE TO ISRAEL TOUR ON ISRAEL INDEPENDENCE DAY”, then hours later changed the title to “ROLLING STONES TELL JEW-HATERS TO KISS THEIR ......./NOT!” and amended the post with a preface.  The preface made it sound as if she was in on the joke all along and was “just testing” her readers.  Nguyen spells out why this is not plausible, and then notes:

... Despite claiming that she was proving a clever point, Geller later removed the posting from her website and also deleted her tweet referencing it. What’s the point of making a point and then deleting all references to the point?

So instead, Geller blamed the situation on her readers (“So many Atlas readers sent this in to me”), claimed she was conducting a social experiment as a comment on the “degenerat[ion]” of “our culture,” and then pretended that her posting never existed.

And despite initially praising the Rolling Stones as “very cool people” and posting a link to the song “Moves Like Jagger,” she soon amended her post to denounce the Rolling Stones for “condemn[ing] Israel along with the rest of the left.” ...

Note:  Bonni at Bare Naked Islam (BNI) also posted a story and included this link to a video promoting this false story.  If you click on the BNI link to the original article there is now nothing there.  Here is the link to that BNI article http://www.barenakedislam.com/2013/03/02/e-c-williams-hails-rolling-stones-for-performing-in-jerusalem-despite-protests-from-leftists-and-muslims/ and the url clearly shows that an article did exist, but has now been scrubbed.

It is not only Geller and Spencer who engage in such devious tactics.

David Yerushalmi

of SANE published a racist article that he must now be ashamed of, as Alex Kane   points out “Yerushalmi has deleted as much evidence of the “On Race” article as he could; he removed it from the Internet Archive and the Google cache, and put his entire website behind a registration wall. But here’s a PDF that contains the full article, and it’s as ugly and twisted a piece of racism as anything I’ve ever seen. Yerushalmi opens by calling Islam “an evil religion,” and “blacks … the most murderous of peoples.”  More on Yerushalmi here

After Pres. Obama’s Cairo Speech,

Frank Gaffney

said “there is mounting evidence that the president not only identifies with Muslims, but actually may still be one himself.”  He said “Barack Hussein Obama would have to be considered America’s first Muslim president.” (This article seems to have been removed from the web?)  However, there are many articles still existing that refer to Gaffney’s article including this one in the Washington Times. 

Frank Gaffney

also used a fake quote from Abraham Lincoln to make his point in another article that objection to the war in Iraq was “treason”.  (This article has also been removed).  Glenn Greenwald’s article discussing this fake quote and Gaffney’s article is still online.  More on Gaffney here

It would be possible to at least give the Islamophobes the benefit of the doubt, and believe that they at least genuinely believe the nonsense they spew about Islam and Muslims if they printed a retraction, or apologized when they made an error.  When instead they engage in this sort of devious behavior, it becomes obvious that their motivation is more likely fleeting fame or financial gain.  It also seems logical that if an individual attempts to hide evidence that something ever happened, that must mean that they have a guilty conscience about what they are hiding.

Geller, Spencer, Yerushalmi, and Gaffney might consider the halakhic prohibition on Motzi shem ra, and the Christian prohibition on slander.