A combative Fox News segment pitted a radical Muslim imam against embattled anti-Islam blogger Pamela Geller on Wednesday night — just a day after an apparent Islamic State threat called for Geller’s “slaughter.”
Host Sean Hannity was in the middle of the on-air hate-a-thon, during which the imam condoned the ISIS threat against Geller.
“You’re talking about people who deliberately had a competition to insult the messenger Muhammad,” extremist Anjem Choudary said, referring to the Prophet Muhammad cartoon contest Geller helped organize in Texas last weekend, which was attacked by two gunmen supposedly working with ISIS.
“If you saw the cartoons that Charlie Hebdo drew, you would understand the anger,” declared the fuming imam from London, who smirked throughout his antagonistic appearance.
As the shouting match dragged on for nearly 10 minutes, Choudary never denied his support for the threat on Geller’s life, noting Islamic law states that drawing depictions of the Prophet Muhammad should be punishable by death.
Hannity stoked the flames of Choudary’s fury, yelling at him: “You want to kill her! You want her to die!”
The Fox host finished by calling his guest “evil and pathetic” and cutting him off the screen as he was speaking.
Geller, who remained comparatively poised during the spat, told Hannity she reached out to the FBI for extra security in light of the Islamic State’s threat, which was posted on an online message board.
She also blamed President Obama for creating “an environment that raised the stakes” on Islamic extremism in America.
The director of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Project, Heidi Beirich, criticized the combative segment to Media Matters, writing: “We’re disappointed, but not entirely surprised, that Sean Hannity would offer a national platform to two well-known haters.”
Hannity is clearly familiar with Choudary’s extremist views, having previously brought him on to discuss the Charlie Hebdo shootings in Paris in January. That interview also led to much yelling, and Hannity proclaimed his guest “an evil S.O.B.”
The threat against Geller, which investigators have not confirmed as an authentic ISIS message, also claimed the terror group has “71 trained soldiers in 15 different states.”
Follow @jaysunsilver
