Hallowed ground: No Mosque at Ground Zero - unfortunately, Obama thinks otherwise

President Barack Obama on Friday forcefully endorsed allowing a mosque near ground zero, saying the country’s founding principles demanded no less.

“As a citizen, and as president, I believe that Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as everyone else in this country,” Obama said, weighing in for the first time on a controversy that has riven New York City and the nation.

“That includes the right to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in lower Manhattan, in accordance with local laws and ordinances,” he said. “This is America, and our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakable.”

Obama made the comments at an annual dinner in the White House State Dining Room celebrating the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

The White House had not previously taken a stand on the mosque, which would be part of a $100 million Islamic center two blocks from where nearly 3,000 people perished when hijacked jetliners slammed into the World Trade Center towers on Sept. 11, 2001. Press secretary Robert Gibbs had insisted it was a local matter.

It was already much more than that, sparking debate around the country as top Republicans including Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich announced their opposition. So did the Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish civil rights group.

Obama elevated it to a presidential issue Friday without equivocation.

While insisting that the place where the twin towers once stood was indeed “hallowed ground,” Obama said that the proper way to honor it was to apply American values.

“Our capacity to show not merely tolerance, but respect towards those who are different from us — and that way of life, that quintessentially American creed, stands in stark contrast to the nihilism of those who attacked us on that September morning, and who continue to plot against us today,” he said.

Obama harkened back to earlier times when the building of synagogues or Catholic churches also met with opposition. “But time and again, the American people have demonstrated that we can work through these issues, and stay true to our core values and emerge stronger for it,” he said. “So it must be and will be today.”

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, an independent who has been a strong supporter of the mosque, welcomed Obama’s words as a “clarion defense of the freedom of religion.”

But some Republicans were quick to pounce.

“President Obama is wrong,” said Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y. “It is insensitive and uncaring for the Muslim community to build a mosque in the shadow of ground zero. While the Muslim community has the right to build the mosque they are abusing that right by needlessly offending so many people who have suffered so much.”

Entering the highly charged election-year debate, Obama surely knew that his words would not only make headlines but be heard by Muslims worldwide. The president has made it a point to reach out to the global Muslim community, and the over 100 guests at Friday’s dinner included ambassadors and officials from numerous Muslim nations, including Saudi Arabia and Indonesia. Seated around candlelit tables, they listened closely as Obama spoke, then stood and applauded when the president finished his remarks.

While his pronouncement concerning the mosque might find favor in the Muslim world, Obama’s stance runs counter to the opinions of the majority of Americans, according to polls. A CNN/Opinion Research poll released this week found that nearly 70 percent of Americans opposed the mosque plan while just 29 percent approved. A number of Democratic politicians have shied away from the controversy.

The group behind the $100 million project, the Cordoba Initiative, describes it as a Muslim-themed community center. Early plans call not only for prayer space but for a swimming pool, culinary school, art studios and other features. Developers envision it as a hub for interfaith interaction, as well as a place for Muslims to bridge some of their faith’s own schisms.

Opponents, including some Sept. 11 victims’ relatives, see the prospect of a mosque so near the destroyed trade center as an insult to the memory of those killed by Islamic terrorists in the 2001 attacks. Some of the Sept. 11 victims’ relatives, however, are in favor.

The mosque has won approval from local planning boards but faces legal challenges, and New York’s Conservative Party is planning a television ad campaign to pressure the New York City utility to use its power to block the project.

Anyone who knows a little about the history of Islam in Europe would first of all raise an eyebrow at the very name of the enterprise: ‘The Cordoba Initiative’. The Cordoba Caliphate was one of the names given to al-Andalus, the area comprising a large part of what is now Spain; which was conquered and governed by Muslims between 711 and 1492.

The ‘Great Mosque of Córdoba’, or Mezquita de Cordoba, was a triumphalist Moorish edifice to Islam – a recurring theme wherever Muslims have conquered infidel lands (see the Hagia Sophia Mosque in Istanbul, converted from a captured church); and Muslims refer wistfully to al-Andalus as a time when Muslims and non-Muslims lived together peacefully.

However, as always with Islamic double talk and Taqiyya, it sounds wonderful, but on close inspection reveals itself as little more than dissembly and spin. The Jews and Christians of al-Andalus lived as dhimmis, second-class citizens who not only had to pay a tax (Jizya) to the Muslims, but also had to live with severe limits on their ability to worship, dress and on their behaviour.

In short, they were afforded the same options as all non-Muslims under a Sharia régime: conversion, subjugation, expulsion, or death.

It is interesting to note that in recent weeks as the Ground Zero Mosque debate has progressed – and that writers familiar with the history of the Cordoba name have weighed in, the organisers are suddenly seeking to re-title the project; touting the anodyne sobriquet of ‘Park51′; as if to spare their blushes.

Writer and Middle East scholar Raymond Ibrahim has written a superb article about the deception behind this controversy – and, more generally, how Muslim public figures say one thing to the liberal West, and quite another to their ‘home audiences’ here. It is indispensible reading.

The people behind the project also have questionable backgrounds, not least its frontman, Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf. Proclaiming himself a ‘moderate’ Muslim working for peace and interfaith harmony, his links and actions tend to belie his words. He has:

• links with the IHH, the Turkish fake charity behind the Jihad-motivated Gaza ‘flotilla‘.
• on several occasions blamed U.S. policies for the Sept. 11 attacks, often refusing to admit Muslims carried out the attacks.
• claimed that the US was ‘an accessory to the crime’ of the 911 attacks
• refused to condemn Hamas as a terrorist organisation

Much more on the background of Rauf at the excellent Infidels Are Cool. Prepare be shocked at the little-reported facets of a man the US State Department is sponsoring on global ‘Muslim Outreach’ trips and who now has the backing of President Obama for his conquest mosque.

The same President who appears to be doing all he can to facilitate this insult to the victims of 911, their families and non-Muslims everywhere – and who is using a false argument of ‘freedom of religion’ and its enshrinement in the US constitution, to do it.

This debate is about common decency, not freedom of worship. If the backers of this project had any human decency they would not even have conceived of such an insult; and would have located the building well away from hallowed ground.

[Source: AP]

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