Leaders fear for Netherlands image as anti-Islam populist turns kingmaker (Wilders joins NY protest)

[Turborama]

Source: The Guardian

Geert Wilders's plans to join New York protests against Ground Zero mosque prompt confidential memo to diplomats

Ian Traynor Europe editor

The Dutch government has launched a damage-limitation campaign to try to counter what it fears is the disastrous international impact of the Islam-bashing populist Geert Wilders.

Wilders, whose success in June's general election catapulted him into the role of kingmaker in attempts to form a new coalition government, is to travel to New York to take part in protests on 11 September against the proposed Muslim community centre near Ground Zero.

Maxime Verhagen, the acting foreign minister and Christian Democrats' leader, has voiced fears that Wilders's speech in New York will tarnish Dutch reputations. He has also taken the unusual step of circulating confidential orders to Dutch diplomats around the world on how to answer questions about Wilders's influence in a new government and on the fallout for Muslims in the Netherlands.

With characteristic robustness, Wilders has told Verhagen to mind his own business. He clearly intends to grab attention with a tub-thumping exercise in Islamophobia in New York. "Good feeling. Important speech. No one will stop me. No mosque at Ground Zero," he tweeted after booking a flight to New York. "Stop Islam, defend freedom" is his rallying cry.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug/20/dutch-wilders-ground-zero-mosque

---

Here's his Wikipedia Bio: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geert_Wilders

[maxsolomon]

1. Wilders would oppose any new mosque anywhere

i wonder what he will think when he discovers:
a. its not a mosque
b. its not at ground zero
c. it's not designed, funded, or permitted

[Posteritatis]

11. I doubt he'll discover that at all

There's people here who believe that there is 1) a mosque being built 2) on Ground Zero 3) funded by Saudi Arabia. Someone as loony as Wilders? Not a chance of him noticing anything off in his "facts."

[joeybee12]

2. That is one ugly phucker...

inside and out.

[wuushew]

14. I think he was in A View to a Kill

[Scurrilous]

3. Geert Wilders & Pam Geller are big pals.

Robert Spencer, Geert Wilders, David Horowitz, and Pamela Geller.

[Turborama]

4. The Guardian has a piece on her today, too: "On a mission to save America from Muslims, via a blog"

New York blogger Pamela Geller is one unlikely leader of campaign to halt building near Ground Zero

Chris McGreal in Washington


Anti-Islam blogger Pamela Geller. Photograph: Mariela Lombard/ZUMApress.com

Pamela Geller is on a mission to save the free world and she's doing it, on this occasion, in a bikini as she writhes around in the sea.

"Here I am in my chador, my burka," Geller jokes to the camera in one of a string of video blogs campaigning against Islamic "world domination" shortly before kicking back in the waves. "There is a serious reality check desperately needed here in America and I'm here to give it to you, but I'm just not ginormous enough. What can I say? And on that note I'm going to go swimming in the ocean, and visit my mama, and fight for the free world."

This strange performance might suggest that Geller is a figure consigned to the margins of the widening and increasingly heated debate about the role of Muslims in America. Far from it.

The flamboyant New Yorker, who appears on her own website pictured in a tight fitting Superman uniform, has emerged as a leading force in a growing and ever more alarmist campaign against the supposed threat of an Islamic takeover at home and global jihad abroad – and never more so than in the present bitter dispute over plans to build an Islamic centre near the site of the World Trade Centre, brought down by al-Qaida.

Full article and embedded links: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug/20/rightwing-blogs-islam-america

[Scurrilous]

5. Thanks.

I'm a big fan of Pam Geller.

She was one of my favorite crazies at littlegreenfootballs back in the day.

:P

[boppers]

6. Saw her on a news show.

Give her a phrase, and she busts into a screed of barely connected words, making an argument, but is still totally disconnected from any actual question asked.

We sure are an odd species, us humans.

[sabrina 1]

13. Who is funding these haters? Nancy Pelosi asked the question

and I think it is important to find out.

[superconnected]

15. I want to see who's funding both sides.

I bet Fox and the founder of Xe are in on the anti-mosque funding and Saudi Arabia really is likely funding the Mosque itself as they probably have funded many mosques in America (don't know for sure because I saw this in propaganda).

[Turborama]

16. Haven't you heard?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x8995362

[superconnected]

17. No I didn't know. Thanks for the info.

I wouldn't have guessed.

"The second largest shareholder in News Corp. -- the parent company of Fox News -- has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to causes linked to the imam planning to build a Muslim community center and mosque near Ground Zero in Manhattan, says a report from Yahoo!News.

According to the report from Yahoo!'s John Cook, Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal, who owns seven percent of News Corp., "has directly funded (Imam Feisal Abdul) Rauf's projects to the tune of more than $300,000."

Cook reports that Prince Al-Waleed's personal charity, the Kingdom Foundation, donated $305,000 to Muslim Leaders of Tomorrow, a project sponsored by two of Rauf's initiatives, the American Society for Muslim Advancement and the Cordoba Initiative, which is building the Manhattan mosque.

That Fox News' second-largest shareholder, after Rupert Murdoch, has financial links to the "Ground Zero mosque" will be seen as ironic by critics of the news network, who have watched with chagrin as the network's talking heads attempt to link the mosque to radical Islamism.
"

[superconnected]

18. And now that I remember Eric Prince - the founder of Xe moved to the UAE

I see I was likely dead wrong on both.

[Yeahyeah]

9. Is that a girdle under his shirt or what?

Could David Horowitz look any more like a nasty little troll?

[sabrina 1]

12. That is one scary photo complete with four of the world's

foremost bigots. What are they doing in this democracy getting any kind of respect for their racist views?

Horowitz, a dirty trickster of the highest order should be so discredited by now than any self respecting American should be in fear of uttering his name, lest they be associated with his hate-mongering for everything slightly to the left of Hitler.

[Karenina]

7. This is NOT GOOD.

I hadn't seen the Wilders/Geller connexion. You're in for one nasty media blitz... Minarets symbolize rockets and are a sign of conquest and on and on and on.

Tinfoil going right back on my head. :tinfoil: There, that's better.

[starroute]

8. Geller is far from the only one promoting Wilders here

If you want to know who's inciting the current anti-Muslim hysteria, the names below are a good starting-point.

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=45928

Feb 28, 2009

Since he was charged with incitement to hate and discrimination in the Netherlands in January and denied entry to Britain earlier this month on public safety grounds, Wilders has become something of a cause celebre for the U.S. right. This week, he gave a private viewing of his 17-minute anti-Islam film in the U.S. Senate, where he was hosted by Senator Jon Kyl, an Arizona Republican. He also appeared on Bill O’Reilly’s and Glenn Beck’s popular right-wing TV shows, met privately with the Wall Street Journal editorial board, and hobnobbed with former U.N. ambassador John Bolton at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). . . .

His chief sponsors during the trip have primarily been neoconservative organisations such as Frank Gaffney’s Centre for Security Policy, David Horowitz’s Freedom Centre, and Daniel Pipes’s Middle East Forum, which is also helping to raise money for Wilders’s legal defence.

An event he held at a Boston-area synagogue was sponsored by the Republican Jewish Coalition, an influential group whose board members include casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer, and neoconservative writer David Frum, who attended Wilders’s Friday event in Washington.

His trip has also been heavily promoted by conservative blogger Pamela Geller, who sponsored a reception for him in Washington on Friday. Geller is perhaps best known for alleging during the 2008 presidential campaign that now-President Barack Obama is the illegitimate child of the late Nation of Islam leader Malcolm X; she also continues to argue that Obama is a secret Muslim.


On edit: Looks like the unreccers are out on this one. It dropped from 6 when I loaded the Greatest list to 4 by the time I opened it. I put it back to 5, but it could use a little help from anybody who thinks this is important.

[Douglas Carpenter]

10. kick and recommend!! VERY IMPORTANT!!!