Pamela Geller

Pamela Geller is best known as the public face of the protest against the Park51 community center in lower New York City, which she named “Mega Mosque at Ground Zero.” She also referred to the community center the “ultimate flag of conquest” and “a shrine to the very ideology that inspired the jihadist attacks at ground zero.”

Geller is the president of the American Freedom Defense Initiative, or AFDI, which describes itself as an organization "act[ing] against the treason being committed by national, state, and local government officials, the mainstream media, and others in their capitulation to the global jihad and Islamic supremacism." According to the organization's tax filings, AFDI's revenue was $958,800 in 2013 and Geller's annual salary was $192,500. While AFDI's source of funding has not been publically disclosed, according to Jihad Watch's tax filings, Geller's organization received a $388,865 grant from Jihad Watch in 2013.  

In an interview with the New York Times on September 28, 2010, Geller said "In the war between the civilized man and the savage, you side with the civilized man. … If you don't lay down and die for Islamic supremacism, then you're a racist anti-Muslim Islamophobic bigot.”

Geller’s many commentaries, blog posts, and media appearances promote a slew of conspiratorial claims. These include assertions that President Obama is a Muslim; Arabic is not just a language but actually a spearhead for anti-Americanism; radical Islam has infiltrated our government, which is being run by Islamic supremacists; and Muslims are engaged in stealth cultural jihad by wearing their head scarves at Disneyland.

In recent years, Geller drew widespread criticism for her anti-Islam advertisements in subway stations and on buses in San Francisco, New York City, and Washington, D.C. In 2014, Geller's anti-Islam bus ads in New York City and Washington, D.C. featured a picture of Adolf Hitler and a former grand mutfi of Jerusalem with the caption: “Islamic Jew-hatred: It's in the Quran.”  

Pamela Geller is deeply connected to the major players in the Islamophobia network. Her personal attorney is David Yerushalmi, who has provided legal counsel for two of her organizations: Stop Islamization of America and Stop the Madrassa Community Coalition. For her part, Geller has promoted Yerushalmi’s anti-Sharia legislation in a number of state campaigns.

In addition to these connections, Geller supports Brigitte Gabriel, founder of ACT! for America. After Gabriel had a confrontational appearance on comedian Bill Maher’s TV talk show, Geller came to her defense, writing a piece, “Standing Up for Brigitte.”

After the attack on the French satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo, Pamela Geller lashed out over the coverage of the terror attacks by The New York Times. In an interview with Breitbart, Geller maintained that “when it comes to Islam the mainstream media by and large is enforcing the Sharia” by refusing to show the controversial caricatures of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad.