Friday, June 28, 2013

Pamela Geller: 'With Friends Like These...'

There's been some significant developments since Britain banned Pamela Geller.

At Atlas Shrugs, "WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE ......"

Also, "MORE FRIENDLY FIRE."

It turns out that Melanie Phillips had some not so supportive things to say about the whole thing, at her blog, "The British government's jihad against free thought." It's an otherwise quite excellent denunciation of the cowardice of the British government, all except Phillips completely declaims Pamela and Robert Spencer. If anyone is diminished it's Ms. Phillips:
By banning from the country as extremists the American anti-jihadis Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller, the Home Secretary Teresa May has not only made herself look ridiculous but has sent the enemies of the United Kingdom the message that they have it on the run.

I do not support the approach taken by either Geller or Spencer to the problem of Islamic extremism. Both have endorsed groups such as the EDL and others which at best do not deal with the thuggish elements in their ranks and at worst are truly racist or xenophobic.

The result has been a serious blow to the credibility of these two writers, with particular damage being done to Spencer whose scholarship in itself is scrupulous. It has also split the defence against Islamic extremism, and handed a potent propaganda weapon to those who seek falsely to portray as bigoted extremists all who are engaged in the defence of the west against the Islamic jihad.
The bitter irony here is that Ms. Phillips is nearly as reviled as is Pamela, and if she wasn't British she'd long ago have been banished from the country one way or another. The Times of Israel has more on that, "The woman Britain's left loves to hate." She has a new book out called "Guardian Angel." And from what I've been reading of her lately she's attempting to reposition herself on the left, hence, she's been frequently seen as softening her attacks on Islam. It's too bad, but it's not easy standing up for truth, consistently and with no prevarication.

In any case, I took to Twitter this afternoon to express some thoughts about all of this:



And click on this:



And this:



BONUS: There's further background, with embedded tweets, at the New York Times, "American Declared Blogger Non Grata in Britain for Anti-Islam Crusade."

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