Mona Eltahawy Gets Her Jihad On In the NYC Subway
Irony had a busy day yesterday.
Some of you may know Pamela Geller who runs the blog Atlas Shrugs. Pamela has devoted her life to letting folks know the violent side of Islam – not the big events that make the news but the equally awful everyday stuff of honor killings and the like. The photos she presents are not for weak stomachs. If you are looking for proof of a gigantic cultural divide between Islamic run countries and the West, you’ll find it on Geller’s blog.
In August Geller won in Court the license to run pro-Israeli ads on the New York subway in response to some anti-Israeli ads. In addition to supporting Israel, her Ayn Rand inspired message also opposes “savages" and "jihad.”
Enter Mona Eltahawy. She is a journalist born in Egypt who became an American citizen. She is a guest pundit for CNN and MSNBC. Why folks like her who at worst don’t like America or at best don’t understand America want to join us as citizens is baffling.
The video below shows Mona’s reaction to seeing the advertisement. If only she actually understood its message she might not have acted the way she did.
While watching her vandalize the advertisement with spray paint, an odd position of the “occupy” movement came to my mind; the one where they say “vandalism” is not “violence.” Speech however, particularly what they call “hate speech,” is treated by them as the most violent thing you can do to a person.
As she vandalizes the property of others, Mona commits the following acts of Irony:
She claims to have the “right” to destroy the posters, while denying the right of others to have them.
She claims stopping the free speech of others is a legitimate furthering of free speech.
She claims the woman trying to stop her is “defending racism” while the ad she paints over protests those who wish to kill Jews.
After the police arrived, she insisted on her American right to know what she was being charged with. That fact that the police officer pulled the paint can out of her hand mid-spray seemingly escaped her. She began yelling “I hurt no one! Non-violent protest!” That must be that “vandalism isn’t violence” rhetoric clogging her thinking.
Then came the whopper. She yelled, “You see this America? This is what happens to non-violent protestors in America in 2012!”
Listen Mona - what happened to you is SUPPOSED to happen in America. If you vandalize the property of others you get arrested. Absolutely. If there was a legitimate “Americanization School” required prior to becoming a citizen that stressed our culture as well as our laws, you might understand that.
What great irony it is that a woman who both CNN and MSNBC have on television to talk about rights and freedom has such little understanding of the interplay between the two.
There was a bit of comedy toward the end of the video. Mona’s outrage turns to opportunity as she implores the growing crowd to tweet that “Mona Eltahawy has been arrested for non-violent protest!” Thoughts of cable news appearances must have been dancing through her head. Harrowing as the moment of her arrest was, Mona musters the clarity of mind to spell her name for potential tweeters. Then she starts shouting her bio for good measure. When she says she is an Egyptian-American, a bystander says, “Oh, that’s why.” She stops her bio and says, “What do you mean that’s why?”
There is a conversation we haven’t had in America that we need to start having, so folks like Mona can better understand us. Let’s talk about the “sanctity of our stuff.” Our stuff is important to us. We work hard to buy our stuff. If you vandalize our stuff, it’s a violent act that will get you arrested. The importance of our stuff goes back to our founding. The indictment of King George in our Declaration of Independence contains American protestations of his taxing and taking our stuff. So important is our stuff that we protected our right to buy stuff by putting the Contract Clause in our Constitution even before we amended it with the Bill of Rights.
So Mona – if you really want an American aesthetic to go along with your citizenship papers, start respecting our stuff.
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Mar '11
Re: Mona Eltahawy Gets Her Jihad On In the NYC Subway
Right on the mark, Tommy. Particularly inexcusable for a 'journalist'.
Not only does she apparently not understand, at least in her sanctimonious rant in the video, that free speech requires tolerance for views one may find offensive; she evidently believes that property is merely contingent and that defacing it should carry no penalty--and that the law supports her!
Perhaps she subscribes to the view that anything which strikes one as intolerant is itself an act of violence. Where have we heard that lately?
How many times do you think she walked by that poster in simmering anger before she went out and bought the spraypaint?
May '10
Re: Mona Eltahawy Gets Her Jihad On In the NYC Subway
Hope the woman who got painted presses charges for assault.
Sep '10
Re: Mona Eltahawy Gets Her Jihad On In the NYC Subway
Tommy De Seno
Palaeologus: Nice post Tommy.
I guess you have the answer to your question from awhile back. · 30 minutes ago
Found an interesting little piece where Mona said the outrage over Muhammad cartoons was manufactured and Yale University should not have pulled some that were published.
I think Leslie is right maybe Mona has blown a gasket recently.
http://www.newser.com/story/68097/yale-sides-with-dictators-by-censoring-cartoons.html · 10 hours ago
Edited 10 hours ago
So it sounds as though her outrage is not based on a love of Islam but on a hatred of Jews.
Nov '10
Re: Mona Eltahawy Gets Her Jihad On In the NYC Subway
Kay Ludlow: Defending free speech is now the same thing as defending racism? Could someone please start a wiki for all the different contortions that the liberal argument has made this year?
Sincerely,
A Confused Conservative · 11 hours ago
Sadly, that actually is the #1 roadblock to being a defender of free speech; the ones who need the most defending are the ones least likely to deserve it. Not that that necessarily applies here; I don't see anything racist about that particular sign, but this is sadly not a new contortion. To the statist defending someone's right to speak is functionally equivalent to defending the speech itself; if you really condemn it why wouldn't you want to ban it?
May '11
Re: Mona Eltahawy Gets Her Jihad On In the NYC Subway
How about an alternative explanation?
This was a publicity stunt, pure and simple. When was the last time she was on CNN or MSNBC? Something like this will surely boost her stock at either of those networks. I just don't see her getting all "het up" over the poster, especially given her previous statements.
This was a publicity stunt.
Oct '11
Re: Mona Eltahawy Gets Her Jihad On In the NYC Subway
She has quite obviously failed her citizenship test - post facto. Actually this sort of reminds me of the riots in Lebanon (over the movie of course #sarcasm) where I saw a Hardees and a KFC vandalized and burned. I suspect the restaurants were locally owned and destroyed by the owner's and, the now unemployed, employees' neighbors.
Mar '11
Re: Mona Eltahawy Gets Her Jihad On In the NYC Subway
"I non-violently sprayed her in the face with paint when she didn't do what I told her to do."
That's some mighty fine free speech right there.