Pamela Geller

Pamela Geller (born 1958) is an American anti-Muslim, far-right political activist, blogger and commentator.

Geller promoted birther conspiracy theories about President Barack Obama, saying that he was born in Kenya and that he is a Muslim.

She has denied genocides where Muslims were victims, including the Bosnian genocide and the Rohingya genocide.

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."

Geller launched her first blog, Atlas Shrugs, in 2004.

It was succeeded by the Geller Report.

Both websites have been known for promoting falsehoods and conspiracy theories.

Geller is the third of four sisters born to a Jewish family; her father, Reuben Geller, is a textile manufacturer, and her mother is Lillian Geller.

She grew up in Hewlett Harbor, on New York's Long Island.

She helped out in her father's business, where she learned to speak fluent Spanish.

Two of her sisters became doctors, and the third became a teacher.

Geller attended Lynbrook High School and Hofstra University, leaving before she completed her degree.

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.

In 2006, Geller reproduced the controversial Danish cartoons of Muhammad published by the Jyllands-Posten newspaper on her blog.

She has referred to her blog as “my living room and kitchen—a place where she can kick back and yell, like some people shout at their TV,” in contrast to her books and published articles, which are “more studied and more measured.” The blog gained attention in 2006, when Geller reprinted the controversial cartoons of Muhammad that were originally published in the Danish Jyllands-Posten newspaper.

In 2007, her campaign against an Arabic language public school in Brooklyn was said to have played "an important role" in the resignation of its principal, Debbie Almontaser.

The blog has been criticized by progressive Media Matters for America.

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.

She came to further prominence in 2010 for leading the campaign against the proposed Park51 Islamic community center, which Geller called the "Ground Zero Mega Mosque."

Geller is the president of Stop Islamization of America (also known as the American Freedom Defense Initiative), an anti-Muslim group which she co-founded with Robert Spencer.

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.

Since 2013, she has bought anti-Muslim ads on public transit networks in various cities.

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.” She has been targeted in an assassination attack by Islamic fundamentalists.

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.