October 13: The 'Day of Jihad' That Never Came (original) (raw)

Illinois man Joseph Czuba believed he was ready for the apocalypse. He had been convinced by his favorite radio shows that Muslims were planning a "day of jihad" on October 13, 2023. When the day passed without incident, Czuba told his wife that something was still coming the next day. Ready to face down the attacking hordes, he withdrew $1,000 from the bank, just in case "the grid" went out. There was only one loose end: his Palestinian-American tenant, Hanaan Shahin.

"He came to the house and said he was angry at [Shahin] for what was happening in Jerusalem," prosecutor Michael Fitzgerald said after the incident, citing detectives investigating the crime. When Shahin told Czuba to "give peace a chance," Czuba allegedly chased Shahin through her apartment with a knife. Then he stabbed Shahin's 6-year-old son Wadea Al-Fayoume to death, prosecutors say. Police found Czuba outside the apartment, dripping blood.

Czuba was not the only one who feared October 13 would be a "day of jihad." After Hamas attacked Israel on October 7 and called for protests in other Arab nations the following Friday, the media speculated about a wave of terror on U.S. soil. Politicians whipped their followers into a frenzy. Police beefed up security, and schools closed down in fear of impending attacks.

Then nothing happened. There were no armed attacks on America by Muslims that week—and the rumor provoked armed attacks against Muslim Americans. It was like a speed run of post-9/11 paranoia. American society saw an incomprehensible foreign threat, and overreacted. Innocent people were hurt. Later, as the perceived danger wore off, the false rumors and the violence they inspired were memory-holed, with no one held accountable.

"The War on Terror disappeared into normality, rather than disappearing. A lot of the infrastructure that was created post 9/11 just remained in place," says Arun Kundnani, an expert on counterterrorism and mass surveillance. "When October 7 happened, the default reflex from a lot of institutions was already shaped by the War on Terror."

Through interviews and documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, including a never-before-seen FBI memo, Reason has reconstructed how the panic spread, and the damage it did to Jewish, Palestinian, and other American communities.

The rush by powerful figures and institutions into mass hysteria—and the lack of reflection on the consequences—vividly reveals what the politics of the war on terror have done to America.

'THERE WILL BE BLOOD'

The phrase "day of jihad" was an invention of the tabloids. Hamas never used those words. In fact, "there is no history of Hamas attacks on U.S. soil or U.S. troops," says Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi, a scholar of classical Arabic who has extensively researched Islamist movements. (Hamas has killed and kidnapped Americans during indiscriminate attacks on Israel.) Its ambitions, however violent and repressive, are limited to taking power in the Holy Land.

Groups that have attacked America, such as Al Qaeda and the Islamic State, want "never-ending armed jihad" aimed at "world domination," Al-Tamimi says. In September 2024, an Islamic State supporter in Canada was arrested for allegedly plotting a mass shooting against Jewish Americans. By contrast, Hamas' goal is "a Palestinian state that should be Islamic in its identity, and governed by Islamic law," Al-Tamimi says.

Still, there was a kernel of truth behind the idea that Hamas was trying to mobilize foreign supporters. As it became clear that Hamas had killed hundreds of Israelis on October 7, and reports of atrocities against Israeli civilians flooded out, someone associated with Hamas did make a call for some action in foreign countries. In an interview with a Yemeni media outlet on October 11, former Hamas chairman Khaled Meshaal asked people to "head to the squares and streets of the Arab and Islamic world" in two days.

Meshaal told "scholars who teach jihad," or religious warfare, that "this is a moment to practice" what they preach. Specifically, he asked neighboring Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Egypt to intervene in the war. It echoed a written statement by Hamas the day before, asking foreign Muslims to gather on October 13 and "march towards the borders of our beloved Palestine."

"This was not a call for a global war of jihad against infidels or a call to terrorism in Western countries," Al-Tamimi says. Arabic-language media covered Meshaal's speech in passing, if at all, as a straightforward attempt to stir up pro-war demonstrations in the countries bordering Israel.

English-speaking media had a different reaction. The Middle East Media and Research Institute, a controversial think tank run by a former Israeli intelligence officer, reposted clips of Meshaal's speech with English subtitles. Journalists ran with the most sensational framing possible.

"THERE WILL BE BLOOD," declared a headline from The Daily Signal, a news outlet formerly published by the conservative Heritage Foundation. The headline was not a quote from anyone involved with Hamas—it was a quote from Heritage Foundation expert and former U.S. intelligence official Robert Greenway, who claimed Meshaal's video was "an unambiguous global call to arms" that "will be heeded." Greenway did not respond to multiple emails asking for comment.

The Daily Mail, a British tabloid, coined the phrase "day of jihad," which was quickly picked up by other media. CBS News reported matter-of-factly that "Hamas has called for a day of jihad on Friday" without any context. NewsNation ran a five-minute segment on a "call for bloodshed" and the potential threat to American cities, full of wild speculation, without specifying what they were actually talking about.

"That's what the whole framework of counterterrorism enables. You don't have to ask those kinds of questions: Precisely what are you talking about, which organization you're talking about, what is the actual evidence for a threat," says Kundnani, the counterterrorism expert. "You just have to take whatever measures you can imagine and get on with it, and you don't stop and ask questions. That's the danger of the whole framework of counterterrorism, as it's been set up since 9/11."

Political figures played up the fear. "Do not leave your homes that day unless there is an emergency. Avoid public transit. Avoid airplanes. Avoid public events," conservative podcaster Joey Mannarino warned. Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk urged his followers to "arm up."

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R–Fla.) stated on social media that Floridians would be armed that day. Republican congressional candidate from Minnesota Dalia al-Aqidi went on Fox News to claim that Hamas was "ordering every terrorist sympathizer, not only in the United States but globally, to entice [_sic_] violence, and antisemitism, and hate." Former Trump administration official Stephen Miller, meanwhile, argued that Americans should "design your nation's immigration policy so you don't have to worry about a global day of jihad."

As the House of Representatives debated who would be its next speaker, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R–Ga.) even tried to use the rumors to accelerate the vote. "Do not make us all travel tomorrow on Hamas' announced global day of jihad," she said. "And we all know we aren't going to be here this weekend." Mannarino, Kirk, Gaetz, al-Aqidi, and Greene did not respond to requests for comment. Neither did Miller's organization, America First Legal.

'Abundance of Caution'

Law enforcement agencies raced to respond to the public's fears. The New York Police Department ordered all officers to report in uniform on October 13, activated a Joint Operations Center, and stepped up patrols out of an "abundance of caution." Other big city police departments made similar announcements. Quietly, officers across America discussed whether there really was a threat.

Many of these conversations took place through fusion centers, a system of offices created after 9/11 for information sharing between local and federal law enforcement. Although fusion centers sometimes help police officers report real threats and receive sober guidance from higher-ups, they also allow for the spread of panicky rumors from the internet.

Government repression "is inseparable from the news cycle, and the news cycle is inseparable from social media panics. These things all feed into each other," says Dylan Saba, a half-Jewish and half-Palestinian attorney at Palestine Legal, a Palestinian-American legal aid nonprofit.

The Austin Regional Intelligence Center (ARIC), a fusion center in Texas, issued a bulletin about the upcoming "Day of Global Jihad." It includes a brief quote from Meshaal urging Muslims to sacrifice their "blood and souls," without mentioning anything else about the context or target audience of his statements. The footnotes cite an AmericanMilitaryNews.com article based almost entirely on a social media thread by a Christian televangelist.

The ARIC bulletin's disclaimer that there is no "intelligence indicating a potential threat to individuals, groups, or critical infrastructure within the Central Texas region" rings a little hollow, especially because the bulletin was forwarded to police across the country. Reason found a copy among the emails of the San Diego Law Enforcement Coordination Center.

The same social media thread cited in the ARIC bulletin made it as far as Clifton, New Jersey. "The link below brings you to a social media post that has brought much fear to communities within Clifton," a police captain wrote in an email to officers ordering additional patrols outside Jewish and Palestinian community centers on October 13. ARIC declined to comment in response to Reason's questions.

Other fusion centers became a source of calm. In response to a question from the Ada County Prosecutor's Office, the Idaho Criminal Intelligence Center reassured local police that there is "no indication of threats to the area." When the North Dakota governor's chief of staff emailed state officials claiming that "the Hamas is calling for violence against Israeli and in some instances in Americans [_sic_]," the state fusion center concluded that "We have not seen anything brewing in ND."

The Northern California Regional Intelligence Center correctly reported that Hamas had demanded "general mobilization to stand in solidarity with Palestine," calling for "protests across the Muslim world and for Muslim countries neighboring Israel to attack Israel." The bulletin clarified that there were no specific threats to northern California.

The FBI emerged as a particularly levelheaded voice. For example, New Jersey's fusion center hosted a conference call with Nelson Delgado, the FBI's assistant special agent in charge in Newark, New Jersey, to discuss Meshaal's speech.

"While the rhetoric is disconcerting, it mirrors that released by FTOs [foreign terrorist organizations] in the past decade and these types of statements historically have had minimal violent impact in the NKAOR [Newark area of responsibility] and homeland overall," Delgado said, according to briefing notes he emailed out afterward. "That said, the call to action, coupled with the date (Friday the 13th in October) may lead to some unrest by opportunists. So, it is important to keep yourselves aware and vigilant."

The FBI agent underscored that New Jersey has witnessed "peaceful mass gatherings by various groups in support of either the Palestinian and Jewish communities," that "a protestor is a USPER [U.S. person] exercising his/her First Amendment Right," and that "acts of violence/terror against any members of any community will not be tolerated." The words "First Amendment Right" were underlined in the email.

But that wasn't necessarily the message that was passed on to the public. When FBI Director Christopher Wray told the nonprofit Secure Community Network that he was "most assuredly paying attention" and "working to confirm if there is any validity" to the rumored threats, the Jewish News Syndicate ran the headline "Remain vigilant ahead of suggested 'Day of Jihad,' says FBI."

'Exploited by Bad Faith Actors'

Jewish Americans were feeling a "really visceral" fear at the time, according to Larry Yudelson, a Jewish journalist and book publisher from Teaneck, New Jersey. "If you're in the Modern Orthodox Jewish community of Teaneck, you're two degrees of separation" from one of the 1,200 people killed by Hamas on October 7, he says.

There was a worry that antisemites wanted to bring the violence home. Even before October 7, antisemitic attacks made up over half of religious hate crimes in America and were rising, according to FBI statistics. After October 7, several incidents of Americans cheering on violence against Israelis went viral, including an October 8 rally in New York City where protesters mocked the concertgoers kidnapped by Hamas.

On the other hand, outright disinformation spread, mixing up sympathy for the Palestinian people, support for Hamas, and unrelated symbols. For example, multiple videos of college students chanting "We charge you with genocide" went viral in early October after the chant was mislabeled as "We want Jewish genocide."

In a mass email thread discussing how the town of Clifton, New Jersey, planned to protect its Jewish community, a local man complained on October 10 that there was "currently a Palestinian flag on city hall property" and demanded that the police "investigate." Over the next few minutes, he went back and forth with himself about whether it was really a Palestinian flag—or just a misidentified Italian flag.

The media reports about a "day of jihad" seemed to confirm that the war was coming to America. Anticipating the worst, Jewish parents pulled their children out of school, and Jewish schools across the country canceled classes on October 13. So did a nondenominational charter school in Las Vegas, simply because it was housed in a former synagogue.

Jewish writer David Klion penned a widely circulated essay comparing the American reactions to October 7 with the post-9/11 climate. He tells Reason that "the trauma that Israelis and diasporic Jews experienced in the wake of October 7 is real, and valid, and shouldn't be discounted, but it was also encouraged and exploited by bad faith actors who are responsible for a climate of total dehumanization of Palestinians that preceded October 7 and has facilitated Israel's genocidal war since."

Israeli leaders were promising a harsh war of revenge for October 7, and some U.S. politicians wanted to expand the conflict. "They want to kill Israel. So does the Iran [_sic_], the ayatollahs," Sen. Lindsey Graham (R–S.C.) declared on Fox News. "We're in a religious war." Though America had not been attacked directly, the "day of jihad" story helped hawks act like America was about to be attacked. Graham signed onto an October 13 statement, along with nine other senators, vaguely warning about "domestic threats" related to the war.

Private actors jumped on the bandwagon, too. The controversial security nonprofit Magen Am pitched its services to Jewish communities in Los Angeles. (One of its staffers is a Navy SEAL veteran who waterboarded his own child on camera.) Magen Am head Ivan Wolkind warned CBS News that Jewish parents should not let their children walk to school or go outside without supervision due to "elevated risk" around the "day of jihad." Magen Am did not respond to a request for comment.

'What Did You Think Was Going To Happen?'

Meanwhile, many Palestinian Americans were mourning for their loved ones killed by Israeli bombing in Gaza while bracing for a return of the post-9/11 crackdown on civil liberties.

It was striking "just how quickly the anti-Arab, anti-Palestinian, anti-Muslim sentiment came out," says Tariq Kenney-Shawa, the U.S. policy fellow at Al-Shabaka, a Palestinian think tank. "A lot of our generation was under the impression that with the anti-war movement and the movement against the forever wars came a rejection of the post-9/11 anti-Muslim and anti-Arab sentiment."

But that same combination reemerged. The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee reported multiple fishing expeditions by FBI agents, who visited mosques and community members looking for "troublemakers" in the first few days after October 7. The Council on American-Islamic Relations received 1,283 bias incident reports in the month after October 7.

The "day of jihad" rumor was an especially ominous development. The public was being conditioned to see Muslims as an immediate personal threat. And the supposed threat was not a plot by any one organization that could be stopped, but a spontaneous call to arms that would pit neighbors against neighbors.

New York City councilwoman Inna Vernikov, one of the major local boosters of the "day of jihad" story, showed up at Brooklyn College on October 13 to confront pro-Palestinian protesters. Carrying a gun, she claimed that every one of the protesters was "a terrorist without the bombs."

Some Americans took that notion literally. On October 12, former Democratic congressional candidate Max Steiner grabbed a 13-year-old Palestinian-American girl by the neck and smashed her phone after she wrote the words "Free Gaza" on a California beach—a "pro-terrorist sign," in Steiner's words. Steiner was later convicted of battery.

The following day, Army veteran Richard Blandy allegedly stopped his car outside a pro-Palestinian protest at the Pennsylvania State House and asked whether the protesters "hate Jews" or "agree with Hamas." He then pointed a gun at the face of an Arab-American woman who was there with her 11-year-old son. Blandy, who faces charges of terroristic threats and ethnic intimidation, claims he pulled out the gun because he felt threatened.

It's unclear whether Steiner and Blandy specifically had the "day of jihad" rumors in mind, or just acted out of a more general fear of Palestinians. But the deadliest incident was directly related to fear of a "day of jihad." Czuba, an avid media consumer, had become convinced that the "day of jihad" was coming and that his tenant was going to summon "her Palestinian friends or family to harm him," Czuba's wife told police.

"You are killing our kids in Israel. You Palestinians don't deserve to live," Czuba yelled, according to a friend of Shahin, the tenant. (Czuba is neither Israeli nor Jewish.) Then he made good on the threat. Czuba had once built a treehouse for Shahin's son; now, he stabbed the boy, al-Fayoume, to death in his bedroom while Shahin was trapped in her bathroom, prosecutors say.

Nashwa Bawab, a Palestinian Youth Movement member in Chicago, attended the funeral along with thousands of other Muslims in the city. There, people mourned Al-Fayoume along with the 1,900 other Palestinians who had been killed by the war by then. Bawab chokes up while describing the atmosphere.

"So many people in our community have families in Gaza, too. It was happening in our backyard," she says. "The fact that it happened in such a brutal way to a child—it was this violence that reverberated."

For many members of the community, the murder also felt like the logical conclusion of the previous few days. "I'm not saying that people could have predicted it, but if Palestinians are made to be seen as non-humans," Bawab says, "then the Palestinians who are in your backyard are also going to face the same repercussions."

She has a question for public figures who promoted the "day of jihad" rumors: "What did you think was going to happen?"

'We Kind of Just Moved On'

None of the blood-soaked predictions came true. No public transit or public events in America were attacked. Members of Congress went about their business without any disruption. There were pro-Palestinian protests in New York, as there had been the day before and would be the day after. Both Jewish and Palestinian groups were among the protesters. The New York Times reported "no violence" at the October 13 demonstrations.

Wrongdoers did exploit the fear of terrorism that day to disrupt schools and houses of worship, without firing a single shot. Bomb threats on October 13 forced authorities to evacuate people from a high school in Silver Spring, Maryland; a high school in Anchorage, Alaska; and several synagogues and public schools across Pennsylvania. None of the threats were carried out.

The only person to kill another American over the conflict that week was Czuba, who apparently thought he was preempting the "day of jihad."

What didn't happen was much self-reflection. No elected official or media personality admitted that they had wrongly predicted violence, let alone acknowledged that the mass hysteria had disrupted Americans' lives and provoked violence. Law enforcement did not tell Americans to breathe a sigh of relief when the worries about Hamas attacks proved to be false.

Wray, the FBI director, testified to Congress two weeks later that "the ongoing war in the Middle East has raised the threat of an attack against Americans in the United States to a whole 'nother level." Cue the sensationalized headlines that Hamas "could inspire" attacks in America. The scary vibes would continue indefinitely.

"Having a fear reaction, you learn from the fear," says Yudelson, the book publisher. "But the absence of fear doesn't un-condition you."

The news cycle moved on. The outlets that had spread the initial stories about a "day of jihad" did not run follow-up stories on whether any attacks happened that day—except for the New York Post, which insisted that the pro-Palestinian demonstrations and Jewish anti-war protests in New York City were the "day of jihad" unfolding.

"A lot of Americans have just thrown their hands up. Their response to this torrent of misinformation is, 'I don't understand and I won't understand,'" says Kenney-Shawa, the Palestinian-American think tanker. "That's dangerous, because there are objective truths. It is an objective truth that the day of jihad wasn't a thing."

The war on terror "was a complete and utter disaster, and destroyed the lives of millions of people," says Kundnani, the counterterrorism expert. "And then we kind of just moved on from it without ever taking stock and reflecting on what happened. So long as we don't do that reflection, we keep falling back into the same reflexes, and we can keep making the same mistakes."