Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer Discover Muslim Vehicular Jihad Plots - update 4/4/13
Posted Apr 4, 2013

Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer Discover Muslim Vehicular Jihad Plots

by Sheila Musaji


This week, Pamela Geller published a post titled Vehicular Jihad in Arizona  which is Geller’s take on a simple story about a terrible car accident in Arizona in which the driver of a vehicle crashed into 3 parked vehicles in a parking lot and was killed.  The man was a physician named Ajaz Rahaman, and this just happened.  The man’s name was released on the same day as Geller’s article, and so far that is all anyone knows.  There have been no autopsy findings released, police investigations are still not completed - no one knows what happened.  The name of this man sounds as if he might be a Muslim.  However the name Walid Shoebat might also be identified as a Muslim name.  That’s all the proof Geller needed to call this “vehicular jihad”.


However, no matter what the facts turn out to be - that is irrelevant to those like Geller who are so blinded by hate that they are constantly looking for any possible story that might in any conceivable way be used to prove that Muslims are simply dangerous.  They throw such stories out there, and if they turn out to be wrong, don’t apologize or remove them (or sometimes when they are so far wrong as to look ridiculous, they “disappear” the articles).  If you throw enough garbage at a wall, some of it is bound to stick, and then you can say “I told you so”.

One of the principles of our great country is the presumption of innocence until an individual is proven guilty.  However, for some, being Muslim is all that is required for a presumption of guilt.

This man may have had a heart attack, he may have been criminally liable, all sorts of things might have happened.  He probably has a family that is mourning his death, and such wild speculation based on nothing but the man’s name is cruel beyond belief to those who are mourning the loss of a loved one.

Geller opens her speculation with The number of these incidents is surging. We have seen an unusually high number of suspicious incidents involving Muslim drivers over the last few years. Hassan Daly, a 52-year-old described as a “devout Muslim,” plowed his cab into a crowd on a sidewalk in San Diego, injuring over 24 people.

Geller links to another paranoid post titled “Devoutly Muslim” cab driver plows into crowd outside nightclub, injuring 23  by Robert Spencer on Jihad Watch at the time of the accident involving Daly.  This article was also written before any facts were in, or any investigation completed, simply stating the speculation that this must have been vehicular jihad.

You’d have to search out the actual story (which most of her readers probably will not) - and it turns out that Sam Hassan Daly was involved in a crash in San Diego in which 35 people were injured.  no charges were filed, after analyzing the evidence, law enforcement thought that the evidence showed that the man fell asleep moments before the accident

The San Diego Injury Lawyers Blog noted that Investigators found that he was not speeding in his cab that night, he was traveling within safe limits at 12 to 14 miles per hour. The entire auto accident scene was reconstructed and thoroughly examined by investigators, which led them to determine there was just not enough evidence to criminally prosecute Daly.    In the case of Mr. Daly, the nature of working the night shift combined with his physical ailments at the time could be a fatal concoction.

Geller and Spencer both see an awful lot that doesn’t exist anywhere except in their fevered minds.  The problem is that they pass these bigoted assumptions on to their readers as “facts”.  They are responsible for most of the false - what everyone “knows” ideas about Islam and Muslims that are causing so many to look at every Muslim with suspicion.  This has been a busy week for Geller and Spencer as they also “discovered” that all rapists in Norway are Muslims and uncovered a nefarious plot by New York City cabdrivers to impose Sharia on America.  And, in the last month they discovered other devious Muslim plots - spit jihad, and employment jihad, and even marriage to important men jihad

It’s as if they are out to find out how far it is possible to carry such extremist rantings before people just tune them out.  I wish that were true, but what is more likely to happen is that the FBI, local police departments, and other government agencies are likely to continue to look to such folks as their “go to” experts on all things Muslim.


UPDATE 7/29/2011

I just received an email from a family member of Dr. Ajaz Rahaman and they inform me that he had a heart attack, and that is what caused the accident.  May God rest his soul and comfort his family.

I also received an email which noted that Pamela Geller has pulled the original article from her site but that the article still exists on google cache HERE[url].  Update 1/2012 - the article is no longer on google cache either, but Geller’s original article is referenced on the [url=http://www.conservativesforamerica.com/around-the-web/vehicular-jihad-in-arizona]Conservatives for America site


UPDATE 4/4/2013

Pamela Geller just posted Vehicular Jihad: Muslim plows into Walmart, assaults staff and customers on Easter Sunday. She says:  [blockqute]On March 31 (Easter Sunday), a Muslim drove his pickup truck through a parking lot in San Jose, California, striking parked cars. He then drove through the front of a Walmart store, crashed, got out and began assaulting shoppers with a blunt object before police arrived and arrested him.

Atlas reader FS, “Coverup? Virtually all media outlets are omitting the name of the man who plowed his car into a Walmart in San Jose, California and then began clubbing people this Easter. The man’s name is Haamid Ade Zaid. He lives in Seaside, California—another detail that has been largely omitted. http://beforeitsnews.com/opinion-conservative/2013/04/a-real-san-jose-who-er-why-dunnit-2613188.html The small coastal city of Seaside, and neighboring Monterey, are home to the Defense Language Institute. Monterey is also home to the Naval Post Graduate School, and the Monterey Institute of International Studies. Seaside was once home to Fort Ord until is was shut down. Also, no mention on whether Zaid attended the Mosque in Seaside that was apparently being monitored.”[/blockquote]

Once again, Geller takes an incident that happens to involve a Muslim perpetrator, ignores all of the facts, and attempts to insinuate that the event reflects on Islam and Muslims generally.

Here is the actual information that has been reported about this crime. Why Walmart Suspect Was Free: “When 33-year old Haamid Ade Zaid of Seaside was arrested in the Easter Sunday crash and aggravated assault at a Walmart store on Story Road, he was out on bail in a similar case involving a crash into the Capitol Premier Car Wash on December 16, 2012. ...  Sibley says he reviewed Zaid’s prior record and found mostly low-level drug offenses. ...  Zaid’s attorney, Jeffrey Kaloustian confirmed to NBC Bay Area that his client was ordered to a substance abuse program but did not elaborate. Sibley says he didn’t do the treatment, “tested dirty” and the 90-day mandatory sentence that was on hold under the voter-enacted Propostion 36 and Deferred Entry of Judgement was revoked.”

Police suspect driver was under influence of drugs in California Walmart crash, attack.

San Jose Walmart Rampage Suspect Had Numerous Arrests Since 2011: ”  ...  Haamid Ade Zaid, 33, of Seaside, has had numerous arrests since 2011 for being under the influence of stimulants including methamphetamine and exhibiting what San Jose police reported in Santa Clara Superior Court as “paranoid” and “bizarre” behavior.”

So we have an unbalanced individual, a drug addict and criminal who happens to be a Muslim.  Why should the fact that the individual is a Muslim be of any importance to this story?  Would it make sense for the religious affiliation of every criminal to be listed in the title of every article reporting any such incident?  Are we going to begin seeing articles with titles like “Jewish rapist”, “Christian murderer”, etc.  If so, then based on the simple fact that the percentage of criminals in any group is about the same, and there are more Jews and Christians in America - there will be more stories including the designation “Jewish” or “Christian” than Muslim.  This is simply ridiculous. 

In the article Muslims can be crazy, criminal, or perverted too!, I list many examples of incidents which the Islamophobes characterized as “Muslim” or “Islamic” crimes reflecting on the entire community - in which the religion of the perpetrator had no bearing.

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RESOURCES FOR DEALING WITH ISLAMOPHOBIA SUMMARY

The Islamophobia Industry exists and is engaged in an anti-Muslim Crusade.  They have a manifesto for spreading their propaganda, and which states their goal of “destroying Islam — as a culture, a political ideology, and a religion.” They produce anti-Muslim films.  They are forming new organizations and coalitions of organizations at a dizzying speed, not only nationally, but also internationally.   They have formed an International Leadership Team “which will function as a mobile, proactive, reactive on-the-ground team developing and executing confidential action plans that strike at the heart of the global anti-freedom agenda.”

Currently, the Islamophobia Industry is engaged in a full-scale, coordinated,  demonization campaign against American Muslims and Arabs. In just the past few months we have seen a series of inflammatory provocations:    There was the Innocence of Muslims film Titanic, a German satire magazine plans an “Islam” cover article to be published later this month.   Charlie Hebdo, a French satire magazine published an issue with inflammatory cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.   Newsweek published their ‘Muslim Rage’ cover.  Terry Jones held a “trial of Prophet Muhammad”.  SION held a “global” gathering in NYC to plan propaganda strategy.  A group in Toronto publicized a “walk your dog at the mosque” day.   AFDI/SIOA has run a series of anti-Muslim ads on public transportation across the country.   AFDI/SIOA are planning to run 8 more anti-Muslim ads.  There are three more films on Prophet Muhammad in the works by Ali Sina, Mosab Hassan Yousef and Imran Farasat.   They are even bringing their hate messages into public schools.

Daniel Pipes is encouraging publication of “A Muhammad cartoon a day”, and says “So, this is my plea to all Western editors and producers: Display the Muhammad cartoon daily, until the Islamists become accustomed to the fact that we turn sacred cows into hamburger.”.  Pipes joins Daniel Greenfield (aka Sultan Knish) who published an appeal on David Horowitz’ Front Page Magazine Is It Time for ‘Make Your Own Mohammed Movie Month’?.  And, both are following in the footsteps of such luminaries as Pamela Geller, who promoted just such a plan back in 2010 with her promotion of Draw Muhammad Day, even after the cartoonist who drew the first cartoon and suggested the idea, Molly Norris apologized to Muslims and asked for the day to be called off, and American Muslims had issued a defense of free speech.    None of this is surprising as one of the Islamophobes laid out their strategy as “The Muslims themselves have shown us their most vulnerable spot, which is the questionable (though unquestioned) character of the ‘Prophet’ himself. We need to satirise and ridicule baby-bonking Mo until the Muslims fly into uncontrollable tantrums, then ridicule them even more for their tantrums, and repeat the process until they froth at the mouth and steam comes out of their ears.”

The Islamophobia of these folks is very real, it is also strikingly similar to a previous generations’ anti-Semitism, and it has predictable consequences.   The reason that this is so obvious to so many is that rational people can tell the difference between legitimate concerns and bigoted stereotypes.

Sadly, the Islamophobic echo chamber has been aided by some in the Jewish and Christian clergy, and even by some of our elected representatives, particularly in the GOP.

The claim that the Islamophobes are “truth-tellers” and “defenders of freedom” who actually “love Muslims” and have never engaged in “broadbrush demonization” or “advocated violence”, or that nothing that they say could have had anything to do with any act of violence,  are nonsense.  The claim that they are falsely being accused of Islamophobia for no reason other than their legitimate concerns about real issues and that in fact there is not even such a thing as Islamophobia, or their claim that the fact that there are fewer hate crimes against Muslims than against Jews or that some Muslims have fabricated such crimes “proves” that Islamophobia doesn’t exist,  or that the term Islamophobia was made up by Muslims in order to stifle their freedom of speech, or that anti-Muslim bigotry is “not Islamophobia but Islamorealism” are all nonsense

These individuals and organizations consistently promote the false what everyone “knows” lies about Islam and Muslims (including distorting the meaning of Qur’anic verses, and distorting the meaning of Islamic terms such as taqiyya, jihad, sharia, etc.).

The most commonly repeated false claims about Muslims and Islam are that:

Everyone “knows” that most or all terrorists are Muslims, and there are no Christian and no Jewish terrorists (or terrorists of any other religious stripe), and that Muslims are all militant,  inherently violent, more likely to engage in violence against civilians, and more likely than other Americans to be radicalized. 

Everyone “knows” that Muslims are not interested in dialogue.  That Muslims don’t help Christians in need.  That Muslims can’t have Christians as friends, and are anti-Semites, Holocaust deniers, and intolerant of other faiths. 

Everyone “knows” that Muslims don’t unequivocally denounce terrorism, that American Muslim leaders have not responded to radicalization in their community,  that mosques are the source of radicalization, that 85% of mosques are run by radicals, that Muslims don’t cooperate with law enforcement.

Everyone “knows” that Muslims are not equivalent to real Americans, that they are the enemy within, and a fifth column,  that good Muslims can’t be good Americans, that Muslims are not loyal to America, that they are not a part of our American heritage,

Everyone “knows” that Islam itself is the problem and makes Muslims “backward”, that Muslims have made no contribution to the West, that Islam is “of the devil”, a Crescent menace, a “green peril”, that was spread by the sword,  an “evil encroaching on the United States”, and not a religion.  

Everyone “knows” that this is a Christian nation, which the Muslims are trying to take over, starting with getting an Eid stamp which is the first step towards shariah law which is a threat to America, and a threat to our judicial system, by purposefully having more children than others to increase their numbers, and they will be the majority in this country in 20 years.  Muslims are a threat to America

Everyone “knows” that Muslims have no respect for the Constitution, they don’t obey the laws of the United States,  that they are opposed to freedom of speech, don’t allow and freedom of religion.   

Everyone “knows” that Muslims are given a pass by the elite media.  It’s “us versus them”. 

Everyone “knows” that the Muslims’ goal is world domination under a Caliphate, and the proposed Cordoba House in NYC is a demonstration of supremacism and triumphalism, and that Muslims planned to open it on the anniversary of 9/11.   

Everyone “knows” that Muslims don’t speak out against extremism or terrorism, and even those Muslims who do speak up or seem moderate are simply lying or practicing taqiyyah

Everyone “knows” that the Qur’an is uniquely violent, that the Islamic concept of God doesn’t include God’s love, and does not include the concept of a Golden Rule,  that Allah is a moon god. 

Everyone “knows” that Islam is a monolith and all Muslims are the same, like the “Borg”.  This means that every act committed by an individual who is a Muslim is directly attributable to Islam, and never because the individual is crazy, criminal, or perverted. 

Everyone “knows” that Muslims don’t have a sense of humor

Everyone “knows” that Muslims are like the Fascists and Nazis and that in fact they supported those movements.

The problem is that what “everyone knows” is wrong.  These self-righteous and incorrect statements are usually followed by a demand that the Muslim community do something about whatever is the false flag of the day or face the inevitable consequences.

Islamophobes falsely claim to see “JIHAD” PLOTS everywhere, particularly where they don’t exist.   They, like Muslim extremists, don’t understand the true meaning of the term jihad.  The Islamophobes have uncovered countless examples of “shocking”, non-existent Muslim jihad plots.

Islamophobes generalize specific incidents to reflect on all Muslims or all of Islam.    Islamophobes consistently push demonstrably false memes such as:  - we are in danger from creeping Sharia, - the Muslim population is increasing at an alarming rate, - 80% of American Mosques are radicalized,  -  There have been 270 million victims of “jihad”  -  There have been 17,000+ “Islamic terrorist” attacks since 9/11    - Muslims in government are accused of being Muslim Brotherhood plants, stealth jihadists, and creeping Sharia proponents and should be MARGINALIZED or excluded.  Muslim and Arab organizations and individuals are connected to the infamous Muslim Brotherhood document or the unindicted co-conspirator label, or accused of not condemning Hamas, telling American Muslims not to talk to the FBI, of being “Jew haters”, etc.

When Islamophobes are caught in the act of making up or distorting claims they engage in devious methods to attempt to conceal the evidence. 

There is a reason that many, even outside of the Muslim community see such demonization of Muslims as Islamophobic.  There is a reason that the ADL has stated that Brigitte Gabriel’s Act for America, Pamela Geller & Robert Spencer’s Stop the Islamization of America (SIOA), David Yerushalmi’s Society of Americans for National Existence (SANE)  are “groups that promote an extreme anti-Muslim agenda”.  There is a reason that The Southern Poverty Law Center has designated SIOA as a hate group, and that these individuals are featured in the SPLC reports Jihad Against Islam and The Anti-Muslim Inner Circle.  There is a reason that these individuals and organizations are featured prominently in: — the Center for American Progress reports “Fear Inc.” on the Islamophobia network in America and Understanding Sharia Law: Conservatives skewed interpretation needs debunking. — the People for the American Way Right Wing Playbook on Anti-Muslim Extremism.  — the NYCLU report Religious Freedom Under Attack:  The Rise of Anti-Mosque Activities in New York State.  — the Political Research Associates report Manufacturing the Muslim menace: Private firms, public servants, and the threat to rights and security.  — The ACLU report Nothing to Fear: Debunking the Mythical “Sharia Threat” to Our Judicial System — in The American Muslim TAM Who’s Who of the Anti-Muslim/Anti-Arab/Islamophobia Industry.   There is a reason that the SIOA’s trademark patent was denied by the U.S. government due to its anti-Muslim nature.   There is a reason that these individuals and organizations are featured in just about every legitimate report on Islamophobia and anti-Muslim hatred. 

See Resources for dealing with Islamophobes for many more reasons that these people cannot be trusted.



Sheila Musaji is the founding editor of The American Muslim (TAM), published since 1989.  Sheila received the Council on American-Islamic Relations 2007 Islamic Community Service Award for Journalism,  and the Loonwatch Anti-Loons of 2011: Profiles in Courage Award for her work in fighting Islamophobia.  Sheila was selected for inclusion in the 2012 edition of The Muslim 500: The World’s 500 Most Influential Muslims published since 2009 by the Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Centre in Amman, Jordan.    Biography  You can follow her on twitter @sheilamusaji ( https://twitter.com/SheilaMusaji )