Mosque to go up near New York's ground zero

[Al-zakir]

Mosque to go up near New York's ground zero
By Nicole Bliman, CNN
May 7, 2010 3:19 a.m. EDT

New York (CNN) -- Plans to build a mosque two blocks away from ground zero have set off an emotional debate among area residents and relatives of victims of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks.

Cordoba House project calls for a 15-story community center including a mosque, performance art center, gym, swimming pool and other public spaces.

The project is a collaboration between the American Society for Muslim Advancement and the Cordoba Initiative, both of which work to improve relations with followers of the religion.

The two groups presented their vision to part of the Community Board of lower Manhattan on Wednesday night.

Ro Sheffe, a board member who attended the meeting, said the project did not need to get the board's approval.

"They own the land, and their plans don't have any zoning changes," Sheffe said. "They came to us for our opinions and to let us know their plans. It was purely voluntary on their part."

The 12 members who were at the meeting voted unanimously to support the project. Community board members are appointed by the borough president and serve as advisers to the borough president and the mayor's office.

Daisy Khan, executive director of the Muslim society, described her vision of a center led by Muslims, but serving the community as a whole.

"It will have a real community feel, to celebrate the pluralism in the United States, as well as in the Islamic religion," Khan said. "It will also serve as a major platform for amplifying the silent voice of the majority of Muslims who have nothing to do with extremist ideologies. It will counter the extremist momentum."

The need for the center is twofold, Khan said, because it will support the needs of the growing Muslim community.

"The time for a center like this has come because Islam is an American religion," Khan said. "We need to take the 9/11 tragedy and turn it into something very positive."

Sheffe said a community center for lower Manhattan residents is "desperately needed." The area was mostly commercial, Sheffe said, but as more people move downtown, the lack of residential amenities is a problem.

The project got mixed reviews from families and friends of September 11 victims.

"I think it's the right thing to do," said Marvin Bethea, who was a paramedic at ground zero. "I lost 16 friends down there. But Muslims also got killed on 9/11. It would be a good sign of faith that we're not condemning all Muslims and that the Muslims who did this happened to be extremists. As a black man, I know what it's like to be discriminated against when you haven't done anything."

Herbert Ouida, whose son was killed in the attacks, supports the project as a way to bridge cultural divide.

"I understand the anger, the bitterness and hatred, but it only generates more hatred," Ouida said. "Such a large part of the world has this faith, and to say anyone who has this faith is a terrorist, it's terrible."

Others decried the idea of building a mosque so close to where their relatives died.

"Lower Manhattan should be made into a shrine for the people who died there," said Michael Valentin, a retired city detective who worked at ground zero. "It breaks my heart for the families who have to put up with this. I understand they're [building] it in a respectful way, but it just shouldn't be down there."

Others such as Barry Zelman said the site's location will be a painful reminder.

"[The 9/11 terrorists] did this in the name of Islam," Zelman said. "It's a sacred ground where these people died, where my brother was murdered, and to be in the shadows of that religion, it's just hypocritical and sacrilegious. "

However, Khan emphasized that the attacks killed Muslims, too.

"Three hundred of the victims were Muslim, that's 10 percent of the victims," she said. "We are Americans too. The 9/11 tragedy hurt everybody including the Muslim community. We are all in this together and together we have to fight against extremism and terrorism."

Cordoba House is still in its early stages of development. The American Society for Muslim Advancement is hoping to raise funds for the center to be completed in three to five years.

Mosque to go up near New York's ground zero - CNN.com

 

[sohan]

Sigh.

Private property? I don't see what the fuss is about.

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

Sigh.

I don't see what the fuss is about.

Prejudice, bigotry and Islamophobia.

 

[Al-zakir]

^^^
There is!!! Right wing cons are trying hard to stop this Mosque constraction. They are trying to mix up Islam with terrorism. So far I know, Mayor of NY okeyed this construction as it is being done under legal framework. I am hoping to see this Mosque plus community center rise up in City as I live not far from the spot.

 

[Al-zakir]

New York Board to Vote on 'Ground Zero' Mosque Plan: Should it be Approved?
'World News' Wants to Hear What You Think: Let Us Know Below

May 25, 2010



A plan to build a mosque two blocks away from the Ground Zero site in lower Manhattan has opened a fiery debate that raises questions about religious freedom, tolerance and sensitivity.

A plan to build a mosque two blocks away from the Ground Zero site in lower Manhattan has opened a debate. We want to know what you think: Should the plan for a mosque near Ground Zero be approved?
(Getty Images)Plans drawn up by a group called the Cordoba Initiative call for a 15-story, $100 million building to replace an existing structure, which was damaged on 9/11 when part of a plane's landing gear smashed through the roof.

The building is already used by Muslims for Friday prayer service, and the new structure would be a cultural center open to the public, with a theater, classes and exhibits which organizers say would promote religious understanding.

Related
Plans: A Mosque at Ground Zero?Mosque Going up in NYC Building Damaged on 9/11"There would be no better place because the tragedy of 9/11 affected us all," said Daisy Kahn, executive director of the Cordoba Initiative. "It is our job as Muslims to clear ourselves and create a space where this kind of dialogue can take place."

But others, including some family members of 9/11 victims, see the plan as a poke in the eye.

"They can have their mosque but have it somewhere else. I don't want it overlooking the site where my son was murdered that day by 19 Muslim terrorists," family member Jim Riches recently told ABC's Linsey Davis.

Critics of the plan call it a "flag of conquest" at Ground Zero, but others say such fears amount to religious intolerance or ignorance.

Whether the plan goes forward is still an open question. The Landmarks Preservation Commission may consider protecting the existing building, and a community board will vote on whether to support the plan today.

'Ground Zero' Mosque Up For Community Board Vote - Should It Be Approved? - ABC News

 

[TATA]

Landmark status could stop mosque near ground zero

(AP) – 21 hours ago

NEW YORK — New York City officials say a plan to tear down a building and put up a mosque near the World Trade Center site will need the approval of a commission that protects landmarks.

They say the building Muslim groups plan to tear down to make room for the mosque and a cultural center is historically and architecturally significant. The building was constructed in the 1850s in the Italian Renaissance palazzo style and is noteworthy for its cast-iron storefront.

The Landmarks Preservation Commission is expected to hold a hearing to determine whether to preserve the lower Manhattan building, which is just blocks from ground zero.

The mosque plan has been opposed by Sept. 11 victims' families and tea party activists.

A community board plans to vote Tuesday on whether to support the project.

The Associated Press: Landmark status could stop mosque near ground zero

 

[TATA]

New York's fury at plans for Ground Zero mosque

By Mail Foreign Service
Last updated at 2:03 AM on 18th May 2010

Outraged protesters are planning a massive rally to try to block plans to build a giant mosque near New York's Ground Zero.

Angry relatives claim the move is an ‘insult’ to the victims of the World Trade Centre atrocity.

The mosque is part of a proposed 13-storey Muslim community centre, which will include a swimming pool, gym, theatre and sports facilities.
World Trade Centre attacks

'Sacred' ground': The World Trade Centre attacks claimed 3,000 lives. Plans to build a mosque at Ground Zero site have been described as a 'slap in the face'
Rebuilding: The Ground Zero site earlier this year, as reconstruction continues

Rebuilding: The Ground Zero site earlier this year, as reconstruction continues

The building, which was damaged by the fuselage of one of the hijacked planes, is at 45 Park Place - just two blocks from Ground Zero.

It formerly housed a Burlington Coat Factory store. The store's two selling floors were destroyed when the landing gear from one of the planes tore through them during the attacks.

Construction is due to begin on September 11 next year – the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attack.

A massive rally protesting the plans has been scheduled for June 6 as anger grows.

Rosemary Cain, whose fireman son was killed, said: ‘I think it’s despicable. That’s sacred ground. It’s a slap in the face.

'How could anybody give them permission to build a mosque there?’
This aerial photo shows the New York city block, lower right, where a 13-storey mosque is planned for construction two blocks north of the World Trade Centre site, centre left

This aerial photo shows the New York city block, lower right, where a 13-storey mosque is planned for construction two blocks north of the World Trade Centre site, centre left

Enlarge Traffic passes a building in Lower Manhattan that once housed the Burlington Coat Factory store.

Traffic passes a building in Lower Manhattan that once housed the Burlington Coat Factory store. A mosque and Islamic cultural center is planned to replace the building

Bill Doyle, whose son was also among the 3,000 victims, said: ‘What I’m frightened about is that it’s almost going to be another protest zone – a meeting place for radicals.’

Paul Sipos, a member of the New York community board, said the £68million community project should be located somewhere else.

‘If the Japanese decided to open a cultural centre across from Pearl Harbour, that would be insensitive. If the Germans opened a Bach choral society across from
Auschwitz, even after all these years, that would be an insensitive setting,’ he told the New York Post.

‘I have absolutely nothing against Islam. I just think, why here?’

But the organisation behind the mosque has said they picked the spot precisely because of its location near Ground Zero.

Building a mosque 'where a piece of the wreckage fell.... sends the opposite statement to what happened on 9/11, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, the cleric leading the project, told the New York Times last year.

'We want to push back against the extremists,' Feisal, 61, added.

Director of the mayor's Office of Immigrant Affairs Fatima Shama told the New York Times: 'We as New York Muslims have as much of a commitment to rebuilding New York as anybody.'

The FBI has also given Feisal its seal of approval after he helped them reach out to the Muslim population in the wake of the attacks.

'We've had positive interactions with him in the past,' a spokesman was quoted as saying.

Since the attacks, Ground Zero has become a shrine to the victims, with millions of visitors paying their respects every year.

Pamela Geller, executive director of the Stop Islamisation of America activist group, is organising the June 6 rally in protest against the development, which will be called Cordoba House.

She said: ‘What could be more insulting and humiliating than a monster mosque in the shadow of the World Trade Centre buildings that were brought down by an Islamic jihad attack?

‘Any decent American, Muslim or otherwise, wouldn’t dream of such an insult.’

But Daisy Khan, executive director of the American Society for Muslim Advancement, said: ‘The time for a centre like this has come because Islam is an American religion.

‘We need to take the 9/11 tragedy and turn it into something very positive. It will also serve as a major platform for amplifying the silent voice of the majority of Muslims who have nothing to do with extremist ideologies.’

She added that up to 2,000 Muslims would be expected to pray at the mosque every Friday.

Herbert Ouida, whose son died in the attacks, said: ‘I understand the anger, the bitterness and hatred, but it only generates more hatred.’

A community board backed the project last week, but organisers are still seeking funding.

* A radical cleric has called for the creation of a ‘Greater Iran’ that would rule over the Middle East and Central Asia. Hezbollah leader Ayatollah Mohammad Bagher Kharrazi said the formulation of an ‘Islamic United States’ would herald the coming of Islam’s messiah.


Read more: Plans for mosque at Ground Zero | Mail Online

Plans for mosque at Ground Zero | Mail Online

 

[TATA]

The Ground Zero Mosque - First You Bomb And Then You Occupy

By Daniel Greenfield

Did you know that downtown Manhattan has a huge Muslim population. That's right, a Muslim population so huge that it can only be serviced by a 100 million dollar mosque to be constructed in a 13 story building.

With that kind of project, you would have to assume that there's a local Muslim community in the tens of thousands that need to be served by a Muslim center. In fact there is no such community. The existing local mosques, including a nondescript metal door stamped Masjid, 5 blocks from Ground Zero, mainly cater to vendors selling burned meat from stores and carts, the "Halal Mafia" who insist on sending waves of foul smelling black smoke everywhere in their vicinity and are known to violently assault other vendors who want to do business in their vicinity.

Then there are the employees of closeout and discount stores selling everything from items bought up from stores that have gone out of business to used clothes and pirated movies in the vicinity of City Hall. These are being gentrified out of business as the neighborhood continues attracting a better class of businesses. Also the majority of those who work there are women. There are a few Muslims working at financial firms on Wall Street, but they are a minority, and they are also not neighborhood residents.

Unlike Park Slope or Boerum Hill or that ugly part of Midwood lined with rundown shops selling phone cards and cheap beads, Lower Manhattan is not home to a large Muslim community. No one seriously claims that it is. Manhattan's storefront mosques are largely used by Pakistani and Afghan Muslims who work nearby but who actually live in Brooklyn, Queens or New Jersey. None of this is seriously in dispute.

Imam Feisal himself admits in an interview that the majority of the worshipers at his mosque in Tribeca are not local members of the community.

The people who come here for jum'a [prayer] come from within the New York tri-state area. Of course, the majority work around here, but a number of them come from Uptown, Brooklyn or New Jersey , specifically to participate in the Friday prayer here and to hear my sermon.


Feisal doesn't even mention any actual Lower Manhattan residents attending his mosque. Only Muslims who work in the area and some who travel just to hear him preach. Which means that contrary to what Feisal told the Community Board, his proposed mosque is not similar to local Jewish and Christian community centers which serve local Jewish and Christian populations. Instead this will be a mosque that may serve something like a 100-200 committing Muslims at a cost of approximately 1 million dollars per Muslim.

The question then is who is this Ground Zero mosque actually for? If there aren't thousands of Muslim families in need of a 100 million dollar Mosque/Islamic cultural center-- why is it actually being built?

The number of mosques in New York City has increased dramatically in a generation, going from under 10 in 1970 to over a 100 in 2001, including 17 in Manhattan. That number is much higher today and many of the mosques have gone from storefront operations to occupying large buildings and using outreach programs to find converts. Those mosques have also begun to muscle in on local businesses, trying to shut down nearby bars. This establishes the mosque as not just a building where Muslims enter and do what they do, but as a foothold for controlling and remaking entire neighborhoods on a street by street basis.

A number of Manhattan liquor stores have already lost their licenses as the New York Muslim brethren of the Taliban use the municipal bureaucracy to drive them out of business, and if they can't do it legally, then they use threats and intimidation. These are not isolated incidents. Like the Minnesota Muslim cabbies who refused to transport passengers carrying alcohol and instead tried to impose two lines, one for those obedient to Sharia and one for the infidels, or the Target cashiers who refused to scan pork products, this is about imposing Islamic law on Americans.

Turkey's Islamist Prime Minister Erdogan once wrote, "The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets and the faithful our soldiers." Erdogan's vision of Islam is the same as that of the Saudis, which awarded him the "King Faisal International Prize for Service to Islam". And it is Saudi money that is behind the Islamist groups in the US such as CAIR which serve as the public face of Muslims in America.

What does building an Islamic "barracks" near Ground Zero really mean? What does taking over a building that was made defunct by the 9/11 attacks, buying up property for a fraction of their real price in a neighborhood whose commercial property values were destroyed by Islamic terrorism... in order to build one of those "barracks" really say? It's the next phase of the invasion. First you bomb and then you occupy.

After Al Queda "cleared the ground" in the attacks of September 11. This not only killed 3,000 people, but it also poisoned large numbers of rescue workers and damaged a number of nearby buildings, such as the Deutsche Bank building and the old Burlington Coat factory building-- which the proposed Mosque is taking over. And thanks to the massacre and devastation staged by their co-religionists, the 18 million dollar building was instead sold to a Muslim company for under 5 million dollars.

Quite a discount, wouldn't you say? Kill 3,000 infidels and you get to buy the building that your co-religionists devalued at less than a third of the price. Now that is what real Sharia economics looks like.

But occupation forces do this all the time. When the US occupied Germany, it used the IG Farben building, formerly the keystone of the Nazi industrial war machine as its military government headquarters. When the US occupied Baghdad, it took over and used Saddam's palaces as ops centers. First you bomb, then you occupy the headquarters of the enemy. The proposed mosque will be built on property that was hit by Muslim terrorism. Now it will serve as the staging ground for the next phase of the invasion.

As I have demonstrated, this proposed mosque is not meant to serve local Muslims. For one thing there are hardly any. For another thing, Imam Feisal has repeatedly emphasized that the mosque will be an educational and cultural center in order to promote Islam. It will have a swimming pool, a restaurant, a theater, a basketball court and all the trappings of Jewish and Christian community centers-- which makes perfect sense since it is really only aimed at Jews and Christians (and any other assorted infidels that may wander in). Its real model however is that of the Scientology centers which seek to lure in people so that they will join up. And this is just the beginning.

“From a programmatic point of view, this has never been done before,” Feisal added. “If we do this right, we want to franchise this concept, and build other Cordoba Houses like this in other American cities, and cities around the globe.”


Like McDonalds, except for Islam. One billion served. Or is that really one billion serving.

Remember those mosque barracks again? The barracks train the faithful in the way of Islam. And since the days of Mohammed, the way of Islam has been Jihad. And converts to Islam have proven to be extremely reliable terrorists.

The name Cordoba House is a popular one among Muslims operating in the West, because gullible Westerners can be convinced that it's about looking back to a golden age of tolerance between Muslims, Christians and Jews in Spain. In reality however, the use of Cordoba references the Muslim domination of Christians and Jews under the Caliphate of Cordoba which invaded and occupied Spain and parts of France.

The mission of Feisal's Cordoba Initiative; "to achieve a tipping point in Muslim-West relations within the next decade, bringing back the atmosphere of interfaith tolerance and respect that we have longed for since Muslims, Christians and Jews lived together in harmony and prosperity eight hundred years ago"... can be read in one of two ways.

There is the gullible Westerner reading, which is thrilled by the idea of everyone living in peace. And then there is the informed reading which understands that in the Muslim cultural worldview, co-existence and harmony is the product of living under Islamic law. In the Muslim reading of history, there was general tolerance and prosperity under Islam, which can only be restored when the "tipping point" of a global Caliphate is reached and everyone once again is living happily under Islam. Just like in the good old days of Al Andalus and the Cordoba Caliphate.

Is this what Imam Feisal means? Let's consider his explanation of what the Cordoba Initiative is named for.

During its peak in the tenth and eleventh centuries, Cordoba was the most enlightened, pluralistic and tolerant society on earth, one where Muslims and Jews enjoyed a special relationship. My own organisation, the Cordoba Initiative, draws upon this legacy to once again shift Jewish-Muslim relations towards collaboration around our common values and interests


This of course sounds perfectly innocuous to Western ears. Except that one minor detail has been left out. The 10th and 11th centuries were the period of the Cordoba Caliphate. This "special relationship" that Imam Feisal is speaking about consisted of Jews living under Muslim rule and being tolerated by Muslim rulers.

What did this wonderful "special relationship" in Cordoba really look like?

In 1011 in Cordoba, Spain, under Muslim rule, there were pogroms in which, according to various estimates, from hundreds to thousands were murdered.


Meanwhile last month, before wowing gullible Community Board members, Imam Feisal was busy whitewashing Sudan's election where Sudan's El Bashir, who had presided over the genocide of Animists and Christians, was reelected by a sizable majority. The actual election was hopelessly corrupt. How bad was it really? So bad that even the Carter Center panned it. And the Carter Center had previously endorsed Chavez's and Hamas' elections. But that didn't stop Imam Feisal from giving it the green light in numerous articles posted on his Cordoba Initiative site and on Al Jazeera, urging "constructive engagement" with the genocidal Sudanese regime.

Because Cordoba can be anywhere. Anywhere at all that Muslims rule over non-Muslims. So long as Islamic law rules. And what's a little genocide between "believers"? And speaking of Islamic law, another project of the Cordoba Initiative, is the Shariah Index which measures the "Islamicity" of a state that determines how well the country complies with Islamic law. And that is where we are now. The next phase of the invasion. Occupation.

Imam Feisal has already said that terrorism won't end until the West acknowledges the harm it's done to Muslims. This of course is always the starting point at which the cycle of appeasement begins with terrorists. Acknowledge the harm you've done to us. Stop drawing cartoons of Mohammed. Give over some of your civil rights, your women's rights and your rights period. Accept the Medina Charter under which all conflicts are to be resolved by Islamic law. Submit.

The Ground Zero mosque is an obscenity and an abomination. It is no better than raising the Swastika over Auschwitz. Like the Crescent of Embrace, it symbolizes the Islamic dominance even over the graves of its victims. It is a despicable crime against the living and the dead, against the memory of an atrocity, by those who have profited from it.

The Prophet Elijah's rebuke to Ahab, "Have you murdered and also inherited?" would ring in the ears of any civilized person who sees such a terrible thing done. Who watches as the religion of the murderers seeks to erect a monument to its own self-glorification over the incinerated bodies of its victims. Not victims who happened to be killed by people who just happened to be Muslims. But who were murdered in the name of Islam. So that, in the words of the Koran, Islam may be, "victorious over all religions even though the infidels may resist". (Koran 61:9)

So where will the next Times Square bomber come from? Perhaps he will be an ordinary American college student who stops by to look over Ground Zero and is puzzled over the beliefs of those who did this. And so he takes a free tour at the nearby Cordoba House. He is given the heavily whitewashed version of Islam, and he accepts it. He stops by whenever he's in the area and eventually he converts to Islam. As he goes through the stages, he's given more and more of the real beliefs of Islam. And by now he accepts those too. Soon he has no more use for the watered down preaching of Imam Feisal, who has served his purpose by bringing him and so many others through the door. Instead he grows a beard and begins attending a real mosque. Where they talk about the resistance in Palestine and Chechnya and Iraq. Where the Believers are really doing their part to make the world a better place by forcing everyone to live under Islamic law.

Three years later he is standing in front of a Manhattan bar wearing a heavy vest. Underneath it is a bomb. He enters the bar, and cries out, "Allah Akbar." Two years later, the burned remains of the bar finally find a buyer at a fraction of its original price. There is an Imam who wants to open a mosque there.

The Ground Zero Mosque - First You Bomb And Then You Occupy | Eurasia Review

 

[happy.muslimah]

Wow MAshAllah great news...inshAllah we will see mosque there soon
may Allah Bless This World with peace and brother Hood

 

[Al-zakir]

^^^

There you have it but policy maker of NY including mayor arei okey with the construction of Mosque. Let see what happen...

100 millions dollar project....

 

[Dr.Evil]

If the whole community feels OK with the Mosque on the site, that should be fine. Let the elected representative have open discussions with the community.

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

(from the articles) And the hate mongering and bigotry is in high gear ..

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

If the whole community feels OK with the Mosque on the site, that should be fine. Let the elected representative have open discussions with the community.

Since there are already Christian and Jewish centers, there is no reason other than prejudice that the local community (if they do oppose it) could have for opposing the Islamic Center.

 

[FreekiN]

I didn't know 300 of the 3000 victims of 9/11 were Muslim.

Holy !!!

 

[Al-zakir]

Since there are already Christian and Jewish centers, there is no reason other than prejudice that the local community (if they do oppose it) could have for opposing the Islamic Center.

As you have pointed out so I do not think that the comity can oppose the construction of Mosque. As a matter of fact, Mayor of NY already welcomed the project. It's the head of Tea party and few other making all the noise...

We pay our taxes just like everyone else.