Gord's Notebook : Planned Ground Zero Mosque & The Mosque That is There And America's Growing Hatred Of All Muslims

Mosque At Ground Zero since before 9/11 attacks

The Ground Zero mosque that was there before Ground Zero by Paul Woodward at War in Context on August 22, 2010

If two blocks away from the site of the World Trade Center can be described as “at Ground Zero” then so can three blocks away.

Do those who now object to the construction of a new Islamic center also favor that the existing mosque be removed?

In all likelihood, most Americans who object to Park51 don’t even know that there is already a mosque nearby — one that opened the same year as the World Trade Center and now lacks sufficient space for all those Muslims living and working in the area who wish to gather for prayer. Neither would they know that one of the staunchest defenders of the project is the Jewish Congressman who represents the district, Jerry Nadler.

Unlike the rest of the Democrats in the New York congressional delegation, who have said as little as possible about the issue, Nadler has unabashedly supported the congregation’s right to build the mosque.

“It’s only a slap in the face if you think that the people in the congregation are responsible for al-Qaeda,” Nadler said as he sat in his office, where outdated posters, some featuring the Twin Towers, hung on the wall.

A staunch defender of Israel, Nadler said that it is logical that he is fighting for the rights of a Muslim congregation that he said he might very well vehemently disagree with. “Jews, of all people, should know that we have to support religious liberty,” he said. “Because if you can block a mosque, you can block a synagogue.”

Ignorance Islamophobia bigotry The GOP Tea Partiers & Fox News Triumph
What is happening in America is the result of a decade of hatred towards Islam and all Muslims including Muslim Americans.

As Glenn Greenwald points out that America has been committing one crime after another following the 9/11 attack .

By deeming Islam and all Muslims as potential terrorists and thereby demonizing Muslims this then rationalizes whatever America does to Muslims or those defending Muslims.

So torture, murder, abuse, indefinite detention, renditions , killing the elderly, the infirm , children , women and other non-combatants its all OK since Islam is not just mistaken in its views but is "EVIL" according to its detractors .

Islam is they claim anti-Democracy, intolerant of other faiths and is working against Jesus and Christianity . Therefore they suggests Islam is of the devil or the anti-Christ and must be destroyed.

Why is it they overlook any passages in the Qur'an or Hadith which command Muslims to be respectful of Christians and Jews since they "The peoples of the Book" ( Bible ) Muhammad refers to Moses Abraham, David , Soloman and all the prophets of the Israelites as being the Prophets of the same God as the God of the Prophet Muhammad which Muhammad calls Allah. Muhammad refers to Jesus as one of the great prophets . But Muhammad and Islam agree with the Jews that Jesus may have been a prophet but he was not the Messiah or the Son of God. But Buddhists, Hindus and other faiths also deny Jesus' divinity.

So who are the intolerant ones ?

A million innocent Muslims in Iraq have paid the price for the attacks on 9/11 which Saddam and Iraq had nothing to do with it.

"To kill one innocent person it is as if one had murdered the whole of humankind"

Because of this did We ordain unto the children of Israel that if anyone slays a human being-unless it be [in punishment] for murder or for spreading corruption on earth-it shall be as though he had slain all mankind; whereas, if anyone saves a life, it shall be as though he had saved the lives of all mankind. And, indeed, there came unto them Our apostles with all evidence of the truth: yet, behold, notwithstanding all this, many of them go on committing all manner of excesses on earth.
Qur'an Sura 5/32

http://www.islamawakened.com/Quran/5/32/default.htm

Just by suggesting that America was wrong to go to war with Iraq or Afghanistan or Pakistan or soon Iran is to be characterized as pro-Terrorists.

Anyone who even suggests Islam is a world religion which deserves respect and is not the fountainhead of all evil will be characterized as anti-Christian anti-Israel anti-Western Civilization as a quisling appeaser and pro-terrorists.

The "Mosque" Debate is Not a "Distraction" by Glenn Greenwald Salon.com Via Common Dreams.org, August 23, 2010

Opponents of the Park51 Islamic community center held a rally yesterday in Lower Manhattan, and a 4-minute video, posted below, reveals the true sentiments behind this campaign. It has little to do with The Hallowed Ground of the World Trade Center -- that's just the pretext -- and everything to do with animosity toward Muslims. I dislike the tactic of singling out one or two objectionable people or signs at a march or rally in order to disparage the event itself. That's not what this video is. Rather, it shows the collective sentiment of those gathered, as well as what's driving the broader national backlash against mosques and Muslims far beyond Ground Zero.

The episode in the video begins when, as John Cole put it, "some black guy made the mistake of looking Muslimish and was harassed and nearly assaulted by the collection of lily white mouth-breathers at the event . . . At about 25 seconds in, he quite astutely points out to the crowd that 'All y'all dumb motherfuckers don’t even know my opinion on shit'." As this African-American citizen (whom the videographer claims is a union carpenter who works at Ground Zero) is instructed to leave by what appears to be some sort of security or law enforcement official, the crowd proceeds to yell: "he musta voted for Obama," "Mohammed's a pig," and other assorted charming anti-mosque slogans. I really encourage everyone to watch this to see the toxicity this campaign has unleashed:

and he notes that opposition to Mosques and Muslim Americans has spread across the United States and this is a toxic and dangerous environment being created fueled by the GOP and Right Wing Media Fox News etc.

...The intense animosity toward Muslims driving this campaign extends far beyond Ground Zero, and manifests in all sorts of significant and dangerous ways. In June, The New York Times reported on a vicious opposition campaign against a proposed mosque in Staten Island. Earlier this month, Associated Press documented that "Muslims trying to build houses of worship in the nation's heartland, far from the heated fight in New York over plans for a mosque near ground zero, are running into opponents even more hostile and aggressive." And today, The Washington Post examines anti-mosque campaigns from communities around the nation and concludes that "the intense feelings driving that debate have surfaced in communities from California to Florida in recent months, raising questions about whether public attitudes toward Muslims have shifted."

...The Park51 conflict is driven by, and reflective of, a pervasive animosity toward a religious minority -- one that has serious implications for how we conduct ourselves both domestically and internationally. Yesterday, ABC News' Christiane Amanpour decided to let Americans hear about this dispute from actual Muslims behind the project (compare that, as Jay Rosen suggested, to David Gregory's trite and typically homogenous guest list of Rick Lazio and Jeffrey Goldberg and you see why there's so much upset caused by Amanpour). One of those project organizers, Daisy Kahn, said this during her ABC interview:

This is like a metastasized anti-Semitism. That's what we feel right now. It's not even Islamophobia; it's beyond Islamophobia. It's hate of Muslims, and we are deeply concerned.

...If Park51 ends up moving or if opponents otherwise succeed in defeating it, it will seriously bolster and validate the ugly premises at the heart of this campaign: that Muslims generally are responsible for 9/11, Terrorism justifies and even compels our restricting the equals rights and access of Americans Muslims, and more broadly, the animosity and suspicions towards Muslims generally are justified, or at least deserving of respect. As Aziz Poonawalla put it: "if the project does fail, then I think that the message that will be sent is that bigotry and fear of Muslims is not just permitted, it is effective."

That's exactly the message that will be sent, and that's what makes this conflict so significant. Obviously, not all opponents of Park51 are as overtly hateful as those in that video -- and not all opponents are themselves bigots -- but the position they've adopted is inherently bigoted, as it seeks to impose guilt and blame on a large demographic group for the aberrational acts of a small number of individual members. And one thing is certain: if this campaign succeeds, it will proliferate and the sentiments driving it will become even more potent. Hatemongerers always become emboldened when they triumph.

...The animosity and hatred so visible here extends far beyond the location of mosques or even how we treat American Muslims. So many of our national abuses, crimes and other excesses of the last decade -- torture, invasions, bombings, illegal surveillance, assassinations, renditions, disappearances, etc. etc. -- are grounded in endless demonization of Muslims. A citizenry will submit to such policies only if they are vested with sufficient fear of an Enemy. There are, as always, a wide array of enemies capable of producing substantial fear (the Immigrants, the Gays, and, as that video reveals, the always-reliable racial minorities), but the leading Enemy over the last decade, in American political discourse, has been, and still is, the Muslim.

That's why the population is willing to justify virtually anything that's done to "them" without much resistance at all, and it's why very few people demand evidence from the Government before believing accusaitons that someone is a Terrorist: after all, if they're Muslim, that's reason enough to believe it. Hence, the repeated, mindless mantra that those in Guantanamo -- or those on the Government's "hit list" -- are Terrorists even in the absence of evidence and charges, and even in the presence of ample grounds for doubting the truth of those accusations.

And there's no end in sight: the current hysteria over Iran at its core relies -- just as the identical campaign against Iraq did -- on the demonization of a whole new host of Muslim villains. A population that is constantly bombarded with tales of Muslim Evil (they want to kill your children and explode a nuclear suitcase in your neighborhood) will be filled with fear and hatred -- sentiments always exacerbated during times of economic strife and uncertainty -- and very well-primed to lash out. That's the decade-long brew that has led to this purely irrational, hate-driven demand that they not be allowed to desecrate and infect the Sacred, Hallowed Space of Ground Zero (the religious terminology used to talk about 9/11 is both creepy and no accident). This "debate" over Park51 is many things. An inconsequential "distraction" from what Really Matters is not one of them.

The arguments of those against the Ground Zero Mosque are dismantled in this article By Haroon Siddiqui.

Siddiqui: No grounds for ‘mosque’ hysteria by Haroon Siddiqui at The Star.com August 22,2010

The raging controversy over the “Ground Zero Mosque” is quintessentially American: free of facts and logic and unapologetically exploitative of emotional issues in the tradition of bare-knuckled partisan politics; yet also an occasion for responsible leaders to call on fellow Americans to live up to their highest ideals, despite the lingering trauma of 9/11 and the ravages of an economic crisis.

As he points out those planning the Mosque are not shady characters or would be terrorists :

...The initiators of the project are not “radical Islamists” and “jihadists” but rather Manhattanites, through and through.

Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf, who came to the U.S. as a child from Kuwait, is a graduate of Columbia University. A follower of Sufism, that mystical branch of Islam, he has been called “a Muslim Deepak Chopra” by someone who meant it as a compliment.

Rauf condemns violence, denounces anti-Semitism, attends Seders. He’s vice-chair of the Inter-Faith Center in New York. He did say that “the U.S. policies were an accessory to the crime” of 9/11 but has since been an adviser to the FBI and also helped the State Department promote the U.S. in the Muslim world.

His wife, Daisy Khan, sits on a board of a 9/11 memorial and museum.

The project developer, Sharif al-Gamal, was born in the U.S. and was injured on 9/11 delivering water bottles to emergency crews that fateful day.

...Opponents of the project have advanced several arguments.

• “The mosque” is an affront to the memory of 9/11 victims and should not be anywhere near the site.

This is based on the premise that all Muslims are collectively guilty for Sept. 11. This racist narrative — meant to deflect attention away from American foreign policies — has it that Muslims have not condemned terrorism enough, though they have, repeatedly and forcefully, and been the greatest victims of terrorism. Obama acknowledged both those truths when defending Park51.

• Why can’t “the mosque” be moved elsewhere?

The answer has been that doing so would be to concede to falsehood and discrimination. Besides, how far from Ground Zero would be far enough?

This is a political, not a religious matter. There’s nothing holy about Park51. Muslims can pray anywhere, in a clean space. Ironically, it’s the World Trade Center site that’s being bathed in sacredness. As a Republican contender for a House seat from West Virginia said: “Ground Zero is hallowed ground to Americans.”

• The West need not be nice to Muslims as long as Muslim countries persecute their minorities, such as Coptic Christians in Egypt, Baha’is in Iran, Chaldeans in Iraq, etc.

In other words, since they are awful, we should be as well. Democracies should behave like dictatorships.

• The project’s $100 million funding is suspect — the money may come from Saudi Arabia (15 of the 19 murderers of 9/11 were Saudis).

This innuendo is being circulated just as the U.S. is secretly negotiating a record $60-billion defence contract with Saudi Arabia. Saudi money is halal for armaments, haram for mosques.

• An inflammatory argument has been that all mosques, or most of the 1,900 ones in the U.S., are breeding grounds for extremism, terrorism and terrorists.

This theme has emerged in opposition to mosque projects in California, Connecticut, Kentucky, Michigan, New York state, Texas and Tennessee.

... The protesters include:

• Neo-cons and evangelicals hypercritical of Muslims. They bring in tow a handful of “ex-Muslims,” such as Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and known Islamophobes, such as Dutch politician Geert Wilders. They say that the real problem is Islam itself, Qur’an being so full of violence. (They have obviously never fully read the Bible.)

• Tea Party malcontents looking for scapegoats at a time when there’s little economic hope, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are not going well — wars that for them were all about kicking ass.

• Obama haters, especially the fifth of Americans who believe the myth that he is a Muslim.

These groups are noisy but marginal. This is the opposite of Europe, where Islamophobia has gone mainstream. In North America, it is still held in disdain.