The "Ground Zero" Mosque Belongs Nowhere Near Ground Zero

Posted: September 19, 2010  Author: Dr. Moss

The matter of the Ground Zero Mosque has been chewed over remorselessly by almost everyone.  The specifics revolve around the decision of Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf to create a thirteen story edifice replete with classrooms, lecture halls, and a mosque named, not insignificantly, Cordoba House, near Ground Zero, the site of radical Islam's most violent attack against the West. 

It is here where nearly 3000 Americans were massacred, and the impact of that aggression, with Americans still fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq, is very much with us today.

Mr. Rauf, one would think, would have had some inkling of the displeasure the location for such a project would cause for most Americans.  Yet, he claims to be prompted by a desire to build interfaith “bridges.”

Mr. Rauf, indeed, has promoted unity and friendship between religions in the past.  He has condemned terrorism and anti-Semitism, participated in "peace Seders" and supported human rights and democracy for the Muslim world.  But there are also other more troublesome aspects to his record.  

For example, he blamed US policies for 9/11, which he stated, “…were an accessory to the crime that happened on 9/11.”

He published a book in the US in 2004 entitled What's Right with Islam Is What's Right with America, but reissued it overseas in 2007 as A Call to Prayer from the World Trade Center Rubble: Islamic Da’wa from the Heart of America Post 9/11. 

Da'wa is jihad employing insidious, non-violent means.  Through various institutions (the media, Academe, the government, "cultural centers," advocacy groups), activists integrate themselves into society, furthering Islamic interests on an unsuspecting public, until, having acquired sufficient strength, they can impose their will.

His book was also reissued in the US by two organizations connected with the Muslim Brotherhood, a group that supports Hamas and calls for "destroying ...Western Civilization from within and sabotaging its miserable house." 

Rauf's choice of the name Cordoba House is also not encouraging.  Cordoba is a city in southern Spain conquered by invading Muslim armies in 711 AD; a Caliphate was established and the largest church was converted to a Mosque. 

The building of Mosques atop churches, synagogues, and temples of other faiths is an old Muslim practice.  It has been done also in Jerusalem, Istanbul, India, and elsewhere.  It humbles the subjected peoples and establishes Islamic primacy. 

He equivocated on whether Hamas was a terrorist organization.  "The question of terrorism is a very complex question," he said. 

He has been less than forthcoming on the issue of funding.  But at a price tag of $100 million, it would not be surprising if Saudi Arabia or even Iran were behind such a venture. 

And so for expressing reasonable concerns about the building of such a complex, spearheaded by such an individual, at Ground Zero, the response of many elites has been to scold critics as intolerant boobs motivated by nothing more than … racism. 

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg lectured that opponents of the Mosque were disgracing the memory of firefighters who died in 9/11. 

President Barack Obama endorsed the Ground Zero Mosque, saying "Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as everyone else in this country." 

Which no one ever questioned.

 Such sneering, however, is consistent with the general attitude of the intelligentsia and media who seem unable to fathom why 70% of the population opposes the Ground Zero Mosque beyond blind bigotry or “Islamophobia.”

Carmelite Nuns were not part of the Nazi killing apparatus and yet agreed to move their convent from Auschwitz.  Nor would racism explain why many would oppose a Japanese cultural center at Pearl Harbor or a German monument at Yad Vashem. 

Liberal progressives in government and the media have attempted to frame the Ground Zero mosque debate in terms of first amendment rights and "tolerance."  But it is neither.  America has nothing to prove in regards to religious freedom and no one questions the Imam’s legal "right" to build the mosque.

Rather, it is a matter of common sense, decency, and respect. 

There are, after all, 2300 mosques in the US and 200 in NYC alone.  Muslims worship freely in this country as do others of all faiths.  Muslims have immigrated to this country of their own volition, as do millions of others each year, seeking a better life; they enjoy far greater religious freedom here than in their nations of origin.

Rauf, the genteel Jihadist, claims to want to build bridges through his “Cordoba House” but cannot be taken seriously since he must have known his choice of address would achieve just the opposite. 

His initiative, rather, should be seen as a thinly veiled provocation, a marker presaging some final Islamic triumph, deliberately placed at the site of Islam’s greatest assault against our nation, an expression of monumental insolence and contempt.

The controversy surrounding the Ground Zero Mosque is not about religious freedom but whether America will continue to be bullied and hectored by its detractors. 

America’s record of pluralism, diversity, and freedom is second to none and should be vigorously defended - notwithstanding liberals prattling about “tolerance” and their Islamist allies who would take advantage of our liberties to humiliate us.

The “Ground Zero” Mosque belongs no where near Ground Zero.