"Ground Zero" Imam: Radicals Win If Mosque Moves - Gothamist
The editors of the magazine wrote "While he cannot quite bring himself to blame the terrorists for being terrorists, he finds it easy to blame the United States for being a victim of terrorism."[34] In 2004, he said the U.S. and the West must acknowledge the harm they have done to Muslims before terrorism can end. Speaking at his New York mosque, Rauf said:
The Islamic method of waging war is not to kill innocent civilians. But it was Christians in World War II who bombed civilians in Dresden and Hiroshima, neither of which were military targets.
Feisal Abdul Rauf is a liar and terror schmata-head!
Faith in our Fear
Posted By Rich Trzupek On September 10, 2010 @ 12:20 am In FrontPage | 4 Comments
The man behind the proposed Ground Zero mosque, Feisal Abdul Rauf, fired back at his critics in an Op-Ed published in the New York Times [1]. It was a carefully crafted piece, one that employed all the right platitudes that appeal to the forgiving and tolerant aspects of the American character. Unfortunately for Rauf, he revealed much more about himself, his attitudes and his tactics than he intended. If the nation overwhelmingly opposed the Cordoba House before Rauf shared his thoughts – and it did – that opposition ought to be stronger than ever once Americans digest just how this man thinks, even when he’s trying to be conciliatory. God only knows what Rauf says in private, or what he has said to Muslim leaders overseas during his recent, State Department-sponsored tour of the Middle East.
Indulge me a personal aside before we get to the meat of Rauf’s message. Like many Americans, the more I learned about Feisal Abdul Rauf once the Ground Zero mosque roared into public consciousness, the more I was troubled by the man and what he appears to stand for. But, like most people raised in the western, Judeo-Christian tradition, I strive to believe the best of a man until they definitively prove otherwise. It has always been clear that Rauf is not that rarest of species, the moderate Muslim leader, but one could hope that he was simply a misguided semi-westernized Muslim who would come to his senses once he understood just how offensive his project was to so many people. But, after reading Rauf’s own words, there’s not a chance – in this writer’s humble opinion – that Feisal Abdul Rauf doesn’t understand precisely how divisive this project is or that he is determined to force it down America’s throats.
The core of Rauf’s argument in favor of the mosque was a thinly-veiled threat that appears near the end of his piece (emphasis added):
“President Obama and Mayor Michael Bloomberg both spoke out in support of our project. As I traveled overseas, I saw firsthand how their words and actions made a tremendous impact on the Muslim street and on Muslim leaders. It was striking: a Christian president and a Jewish mayor of New York supporting the rights of Muslims. Their statements sent a powerful message about what America stands for, and will be remembered as a milestone in improving American-Muslim relations.
The wonderful outpouring of support for our right to build this community center from across the social, religious and political spectrum seriously undermines the ability of anti-American radicals to recruit young, impressionable Muslims by falsely claiming that America persecutes Muslims for their faith. These efforts by radicals at distortion endanger our national security and the personal security of Americans worldwide. This is why Americans must not back away from completion of this project. If we do, we cede the discourse and, essentially, our future to radicals on both sides. The paradigm of a clash between the West and the Muslim world will continue, as it has in recent decades at terrible cost. It is a paradigm we must shift.”
Got that? If we don’t build the Cordoba House, then “radicals on both sides” will continue to be a threat. But, if we do build it, then all the radicals will magically live in peace in harmony. Since anti-Muslim “radicals” in the west consist mainly of protestors brandishing signs, infidel cartoonists and writers quoting verses from the Quran that make Muslims uncomfortable, their continued existence isn’t much of a threat to anybody. On the other hand, Muslim radicals come in much different, far more violent flavors. So, when Feisel Abdul Rauf tells us that we must build the Ground Zero mosque in order to placate the radicals, he’s really saying that Americans must swallow their pride in order to appease the only radicals that are an actual threat to anyone’s existence: Muslim radicals. Is there a way to morally differentiate such a demand from Adolf Hitler’s insistence that ceding the Rhineland, Austria, the Sudetenland and the Danzig corridor were all necessary measures to appease the aggrieved German people? Is Rauf’s stipulation in any way different from Palestinians continuing, insatiable demands on Israel, when satisfying those demands doesn’t do a thing to placate radical organizations like Hamas and Hizbullah?
It’s ridiculous to assert that a mosque built in the shadow of Ground Zero in the singular thing needed to convince “young, impressionable Muslims” that Americans don’t persecute Muslims for their faith, or that the project could possibly accomplish such an end. Rauf has plenty of evidence in hand, should he ever choose to employ it, that amply demonstrates how tolerant Americans are. All he has to do is point to the thousands of Mosques that have been built in America, the way that America’s security apparatus bends over backwards to avoid “profiling” Muslims and the freedom of worship that Muslims enjoy in America. He could educate “young, impressionable Muslims” about the fact that law-enforcement officials in this country scrupulously avoid violating the sanctity of mosques, even though everyone in America is aware that some mosques serve as the focal point for terrorist plots and violent anti-American rhetoric.
Rauf wrote that “My life’s work has been focused on building bridges between religious groups…” but his words make it clear that he is rather intent on securing a bridgehead in America for his particular religion, just as the Quran demands. He claims that the Ground Zero mosque will be based on the common principle “…to love our neighbors as we love ourselves,” a principle that is not expressed anywhere in the Quran, which demands subservience, not understanding. He says that “Our name, Cordoba, was inspired by the city in Spain where Muslims, Christians and Jews co-existed in the Middle Ages during a period of great cultural enrichment created by Muslims.” Yet, the historical fact is that Caliphate of Cordoba represents the highpoint of Islamic influence in the western world and Islam has spent the better part of one thousand years rejecting any possibility of “cultural enrichment” that might involve Christian or Jewish cultures.
In closing, Rauf tells readers that the “…very word “islam” comes from a word cognate to shalom, which means peace in Hebrew.” That may be so, but it’s more relevant to note that the word “muslim” means “one who submits” and Feisal Abdul Rauf’s words make it crystal clear that the Ground Zero mosque is all about submission, nothing more.
Article printed from FrontPage Magazine: http://frontpagemag.com
URL to article: http://frontpagemag.com/2010/09/10/faith-in-our-fear/
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[1] an Op-Ed published in the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/08/opinion/08mosque.html?_r=1&ref=contributors
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