Ground-Zero Green Light for Islamic Supremacism

AINA News, by Robert Spencer

On Tuesday morning, the New York City Landmarks Commission, as expected [1], voted unanimously to deny landmark status to 45 Park Place [2], thus clearing the way for the demolition of the building currently there and the construction of the Islamic supremacist mega-mosque at Ground Zero.

The Commission swept aside calls to landmark the Burlington Coat Factory building for its historical significance: into it crashed the landing gear from one of the 9/11 planes. It ignored appeals to do this despite the fact that buildings of far lesser historical significance, like the Triangle Shirtwaist Company and the Stonewall Inn, have been designated as landmarks in New York. Never mind also that other buildings in the area that are architecturally similar have been landmarked. Who cares? Muslims need a triumphal mega-mosque at Ground Zero (and that is certainly how this mosque will be understood in the Islamic world, despite the deceptive moderate protestations of mosque organizers)! Make way!

Until the mosque is actually built, however, the game isn’t over — and with an increasing number of prominent politicians coming out against the mega-mosque, it can still be won in the court of public opinion.

What’s more, immediately after the Tuesday vote, the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) characterized the Landmarks Commission decision as “deeply offensive to many of the victims and families of the 9-11 tragedy.” Jay Sekulow of the ACLJ explained: “The actions taken by the City of New York represent a blatant disregard for the city’s own procedures, while ignoring the fact that this is a historic and hallowed site that should not be destroyed to build an Islamic mosque. It has been clear from the beginning that the city has engaged in a rush to push this project through – ignoring proper procedure and ignoring a growing number of New Yorkers and Americans who don’t believe this site is the place to build a mosque.” As the ACLJ is representing a firefighter who survived 9/11 at the World Trade Center site, Sekulow announced: “We’re poised to file legal action on behalf of our client to challenge this flawed decision and put a stop to this project.”

The primary argument in favor of construction of the mosque, of course, is that it is a matter of religious freedom. We are endlessly told that if Muslims are denied permission to build this mega-mosque at Ground Zero, the door will be opened to the denial of the construction of synagogues and churches elsewhere. That argument advances in ignorance of the political and supremacist character of Islamic law, qualities that have no parallel in Jewish or Christian doctrine, but even aside from that, the question of this mosque is not actually a religious freedom issue.

Why not? Because opponents of the mosque, be they Pamela Geller’s group Stop Islamization Of America (SIOA), or Sarah Palin, or Rudy Giuliani, or Newt Gingrich, or anyone else, are not talking about banning mosques altogether. I do believe that mosques connected with the Saudis and/or the Muslim Brotherhood warrant careful scrutiny from law enforcement, but no one who is in the front line of the opposition to the mega-mosque at Ground Zero is calling for all mosques to be closed or for a ban on the construction of new mosques. And unless the property is marked as a war memorial, as it should be but will not be, no one is even calling for the expulsion of the Muslims who are currently praying in the existing former Burlington Coat Factory building at 45 Park Place; the Burlington Coat Factory is not a thirteen-story triumphal mega-mosque.

The question is, does the First Amendment really give every religious group the right to construct a house of worship wherever it wishes to do so? Is there never an occasion in which a location might be inappropriate? Many people have likened the construction of the mega-mosque at Ground Zero to the construction of a shrine to the kamikazes at Pearl Harbor or of a statue of Hitler outside the Auschwitz gates. Would the KKK be greenlighted to build a “reconciliation center” on the site of the 16th St. Baptist Church, as this parody [3] has it? (Others have rejected these comparisons based on the claim that the Cordoba Initiative leaders are “moderate” Muslims who hold to a radically different point of view from that of the Muslims who took down the Twin Towers on 9/11, but the Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf’s record of deceit [4] and advocacy of Sharia should be enough to establish that that argument is fallacious. And of course they’ll be reading from the same Qur’an that inspired the 9/11 attacks; there is no “reformed” version.) The question is, if the shrine to the kamikazes were sponsored by a religious group, or Auschwitz were subject to First Amendment law, would there be no stopping the building of such things?

I expect there would be a way to stop such construction, and that many people who are saying today that this mosque is a religious freedom issue would be calling for the construction to be stopped. The U.S. Government outlawed Mormon polygamy in the nineteenth century; considerations of religious freedom were not considered absolute.

And today, government agencies do not hesitate to put roadblocks in the way of the construction of houses of worship [5] — at least non-Islamic ones. St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church [6] stood in the shadow of the World Trade Center and was crushed under the rubble when the towers collapsed on September 11, 2001. Almost nine years later it has still not been rebuilt; the rebuilding project is mired in bureaucracy, with New York City officials being uncooperative and throwing up roadblock after roadblock.

The contrast is telling with the mad rush on the part of New York City officials to build the Islamic supremacist mega-mosque at Ground Zero. A March 2009 New York Times story [7] on the church stated that “in recent negotiations,” New York’s Port Authority “cut the size of the church slightly and told church officials that its dome could not rise higher than the trade center memorial.”

But a thirteen-story mega-mosque? Fine!

Unable to rebuild their church, the St. Nicholas congregation has held St. Nicholas Day services in a tent at Ground Zero.

But a thirteen-story Islamic supremacist mega-mosque headed by a pro-Sharia, anti-free speech imam who refuses to denounce Hamas and has a history of duplicitous statements? Let’s clear aside every hurdle, tar opponents as bigots, and get that baby built!

In any case, it seems clear that no one assumes that any religious group has an absolute right to build a house of worship wherever it wants, except in this case. But once this mega-mosque is built, if it is, I expect that many who today are anxious to prove their multiculturalist, non-”bigoted” bona fides will rue the day.

Heated opposition to a proposed Mosque

THE NEW YORK TIMES

A church may be a church, and a temple a temple, but through the prism of emotion that still grips many New Yorkers almost a decade after 9/11, a mosque can apparently represent a lot of things.

In the last few months, Muslim groups have encountered unexpectedly intense opposition to their plans for opening mosques in Lower Manhattan, in Brooklyn and most recently in an empty convent on Staten Island.

Some opponents have cited traffic and parking concerns. But the objections have focused overwhelmingly on more intangible and volatile issues: fear of terrorism, distrust of Islam and a linkage of the two in opponents’ minds.

“Wouldn’t you agree that every terrorist, past and present, has come out of a mosque?” asked one woman who stood up Wednesday night during a civic association meeting on Staten Island to address representatives of a group that wants to convert a Roman Catholic convent into a mosque in the Midland Beach neighborhood.

“No,” began Ayman Hammous, president of the Staten Island branch of the group, the Muslim American Society — though the rest of his answer was drowned out by catcalls and boos from among the 400 people who packed the gymnasium of a community center.

Yasmin Ammirato, president of the Midland Beach Civic Association, which organized the meeting in an effort to dispel tensions, bellowed into her portable microphone in the first of many efforts to keep control during the subsequent three hours: “Excuse me! This is a civic association meeting! Everybody have a little respect!”

Opposition to new mosques has become almost commonplace. A similar uproar erupted during a Lower Manhattan community board meeting on May 25 over plans to build a mosque near ground zero. Protests also have broken out in Brentwood, Tenn.; Sheboygan County, Wis.; and Dayton, Ohio.

Recent cases of so-called homegrown terrorism, like the Times Square car bomb episode, have increased anxieties, experts say.

But organizations like the Muslim American Society, a Washington-based nonprofit group that helps plant new mosques in communities throughout the country, have adopted a strategy of engagement that they say they hope will eventually build mutual understanding.

“We are newcomers, and newcomers in America have always had to prove their loyalty,” said Mahdi Bray, the society’s executive director. “It’s an old story. You have to have thick skin.”

That admonition was tested on Wednesday, as irate residents took turns at the microphone, demanding answers from the three Muslim men who had accepted the get-acquainted invitation of the civic association.

“I was on the phone this morning with the F.B.I., and all I want to know from you is why MAS is on the terrorist watch list,” said Joan Moriello, using the acronym for the Muslim American Society. Her question produced a loud, angry noise from the audience.

Mr. Hammous, a physical therapist who lives on Staten Island, exchanged a puzzled look with two other Muslim men who had joined him on the podium, both officers of the society’s Brooklyn branch, which operates a mosque in Bensonhurst and faces opposition to opening another in Sheepshead Bay.

“Your information is incorrect, madam,” he replied. “We are not on any watch list.” The other men, Mohamed Sadeia and Abdel Hafid Djamil, shook their heads in agreement.

The State Department maintains a terrorist watch list for foreign organizations, and the Justice Department has identified domestic groups it considers unindicted co-conspirators in various terror-related prosecutions. The Muslim American Society is on neither of those lists.

But more than a dozen speakers, including Robert Spencer, a writer whose blog, Jihad Watch, is widely read in conservative foreign policy circles, said that the society and its national director, Mr. Bray, had ties to Hamas, Hezbollah and the Muslim Brotherhood. The first two are on the State Department’s list.

“Will you denounce Hamas and Hezbollah as terrorist organizations?” Mr. Spencer demanded. “Yes or no?”

Mr. Hammous said he denounced “any form of terrorism, any act of terror — by individuals, by groups, by governments.”

The plan to make a mosque out of the convent building on the grounds of St. Margaret Mary church — which would be used only for Friday prayers — is still in its initial stage. The church’s pastor, the Rev. Keith Fennessy, signed an agreement last month to sell the property to the society. The deal must still be approved by the parish board of trustees, which is made up of the pastor, two lay trustees and two officials of the Archdiocese of New York, including Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan. It is also under review by a State Supreme Court justice, as required under New York’s Religious Corporations statute, said Joseph Zwilling, spokesman for the archdiocese.

The timetable for completing all that, he added, was “not known at this time.”

But for the near term, Wednesday night’s meeting indicated that the questions of neighborhood residents may take some time to answer.

Among them: “Is Sharia law better than democracy in your view?” “How do you feel about the role of women in society?” “What are your views on Israel?” “Can you point to any single statement in the Koran that you would consider to be incorrect?”

The tenor of the inquiry became so fraught that the meeting eventually collapsed in shouting around 11 p.m., prompting the police and security guards to ask everyone to leave.

But just 20 minutes earlier, as Bill Finnegan stood at the microphone, came the meeting’s single moment of hushed silence. Mr. Finnegan said he was a Marine lance corporal, home from Afghanistan, where he had worked as a mediator with warring tribes.

After the sustained standing ovation that followed his introduction, he turned to the Muslims on the panel: “My question to you is, will you work to form a cohesive bond with the people of this community?” The men said yes.

Then he turned to the crowd. “And will you work to form a cohesive bond with these people — your new neighbors?”

The crowd erupted in boos. “No!” someone shouted.