Pamela Geller, the blogger behind the movement to stop an Islamic center from being built a couple of blocks from Ground Zero, told TPMMuckraker that she doesn’t know who is behind the attack on the taxi cab driver — but noted the attacker worked with a company that was pro-Park51.
“We don’t know, we don’t know how he came to do what he did,” Geller said in a brief phone interview as she was driving last week. “But clearly, the Cordoba… Park 51 people are ginning up their fringe element. It’s very, very dangerous.”
“I don’t know why people put him up to it,” Geller said. “We know what side he’s on and it’s not ours,” she continued.
Michael Enright, the 21-year-old aspiring filmmaker who accused of stabbing the cab driver, was transferred to the psychiatric ward late last week.
There had been reports that notebooks found on him after he was arrested contained anti-Muslim writings, but New York City Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said Friday that the notebooks discussed his recent trip to Afghanistan and his drinking problem.
“There’s nothing in those books that would indicate any anti-Muslim feelings or any linkage to the mosque controversy,” Kelly said in reference to the debate over whether the Islamic center should be built two blocks away from Ground Zero.
In a post “Set Up to Lynch Ground Zero Opposition: Muslim Cab Slasher Worked for Cordoba/Park 51,” Geller wrote:
How deranged is the left? The slasher of Muslims works for the Cordoba/Park 51. This is what is building an Islamic supremacist mosque on Ground Zero. The only reason we know who this human filth is and who he worked for is because of the brave and brilliant cab driver who, despite being slashed multiple times, locked this savage in the back of his cab.
Can you imagine if the would-be Cordoba murderer got away? They would be hanging us in the public square as we speak.
Geller said that “outlets like [TPM] ginned up the idea… that the opposition was behind it.”
We asked if she was suggesting that those building the mosque were behind the attack on the taxi driver.
“I would never say that, I don’t know that,” Geller said. “He is affiliated with them, we do know that. He is pro-mosque, he works with [them],” she added.
“It’s obvious what the intent was. That’s how vile and debased this difference of opinion has gotten. People are not allowed to be insulted or offended,” Geller said.
Meanwhile, the victim of the stabbing, Ahmed Sharif, is worried how he can provide for his wife and four children without a job, reports CNN. Sharif is receiving about $30,000 a year, two-thirds of his salary, in workers’ compensation and a taxi union representative expected he would not be able to work for unable to work for at least four months.
