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Jewish World Review May 26, 2010/ 13 Sivan 5770 A Mosque At Ground Zero By Arnold Ahlert
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
A mosque to be built built near Ground Zero in Lower Manhattan has stirred up a lot of passion. There are many issues involved here, most of which will be likely dealt with irrationally. Let's try to bring a little rationality to the table:
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Constitutionality. Strictly in Constitutional terms, there is nothing "prohibiting the free exercise thereof" of worshipping Allah. Muslims, like everyone else, are free to worship however they see fit. Assuming nothing in New York City building codes prohibit the erection of a mosque in a particular area, then the Cordoba Initiative, a group of ostensibly "peaceful progressive Muslims" cannot be legally prevented from building near Ground Zero.
Unlike a majority of leftists, this is one American who supports the rule of law — even when I find it aggravating. Of course were I to believe, like so many leftists, that the Constitution is a "living document," perhaps I would endeavor to find an activist judge with similar sympathies, one who would simply "transcend" such an "impediment" and kill the project. If I could pull it off, is there any doubt that those screaming the loudest would be the very same leftists who consider such tactics perfectly permissible when it applies to anything that conflicts with their worldview?
Perhaps it's time for a "boycott" of New York City, if you get my drift.
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Cultural sensitivity. Here's where the rubber meets the road. Despite all protests to the contrary, I find it impossible to believe two things:
One, that these "progressive" Muslims are unaware of the grievous insult this project represents to most Americans. One could say the insulted Americans are "insensitive," but such an assessment is itself the essence of insensitivity. It is beyond dispute that this particular area of the United States endured the worst domestic attack in our nation's history. That many Americans are yet unready to "turn the other cheek" — especially while the war against Islamic terror is ongoing — is very understandable.
Two, the word Islam itself means "submission." Again, many Americans see this project as an "in your face" attempt to further insinuate Islamic fundamentalist goals and ambitions into the fabric of U.S. culture in the most blatant way possible. The counter-argument is that groups like al Qaeda, et al, would be just as upset that Muslims who support "peace with infidels" would build a mosque near the center of their greatest triumph over "American imperialism."
Perhaps I'm naive, but I suspect any manner of official Islamic presence at Ground Zero, no matter how at odds with the fundamentalist view of Islam, would be considered a great victory by the terrorists. Building a worldwide Caliphate is their ambition, and anyone who thinks an ostensibly progressive mosque couldn't be "fundamentalized" in the future is smoking the same hopium as every progressive who can't imagine that "creeping Sharia" is anything more than unreasonable fear-mongering.
Really? Ask Europeans if such "creeping-ness" is preposterous. When the Archbishop of Canterbury suggests that certain aspects of Sharia Law are "unavoidable," as he did in 2008, the bigger picture becomes clearer: we already have Westerners in positions of power more willing to submit to "some" Islam. How much becomes the ultimate question. It is a question that has to have been considered by the Cordoba Initiative — and one that Americans will be wrestling with for the foreseeable future.
The other thing about cultural sensitivity with regards to Muslims is that it seems every one-sided. Much of the Middle East is openly hostile to non-Islamics, aka "dhimmis," and Saudi Arabia bans the construction of churches completely. I would suggest that if so-called moderate Muslims were as engaged in changing such attitudes in the Muslim world as they are in the United States, they might get a better reception from the average American. Americans might even be more open-minded if there were evidence of wholesale rejection of Islamo-fascism by moderate Muslims. But there is not, which brings me to the next category.
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"Moderate" Islam. Ever since 9/11, starting with George W. Bush — and continuing with gusto in the Obama administration — Americans have been told the "overwhelming majority" of Muslims are "on our side." Perhaps I am more cynical than the average elitist, but I believe most Muslims are neutral at best — exactly like any other group of people whose primary objective is putting food on the table for their families. But pardon me, and I suspect many other Americans, if I draw no comfort from that fact. Why? We've also been told fundamentalists represent only five to ten percent of Muslims worldwide. The number of Muslims worldwide? Between 1.2 and 1.5 billion. Using both low-end figures that means that there are over fifty million Muslims who might be persuaded to engage in jihad.
It might be too much to ask moderate Muslims to forcefully refute a bunch of remorseless killers in their midst, much like trying to find out what happened in a Mafia-controlled neighborhood where "no one saw a thing" after a crime was committed. But in terms of real-world consequences, whether or not moderate Muslims look the other way or actively abet their fundamentalist brethren, the results are distressingly the same: thousands of innocent people blown to bits by fanatics, year in, year out.
Many self-professed moderate Muslims like to say much of the animus Americans feel towards Muslims is media-generated. On that we have no disagreement. The phony "Koran flushed down the toilet at Guantanamo Bay" story is the epitome of such media irresponsibility.
Yet what do moderate Muslims themselves make of the violent reaction to that story across the entire Muslim world — even after its debunking — resulting in government buildings being burned and fifteen people being killed? What do they make of the voting patterns in several Muslim countries where fundamentalist views garner the majority of the popular vote? Those are not media exaggerations. Those are facts, which leads me to my last category.
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Follow the money. Where is the Cordoba Initiative getting its funding? While a thorough investigation of such funding might be inappropriate (or even illegal) in peacetime, during wartime anything which has the potential to advance the jihadist agenda within the United States should be scrutinized. The "money trail" would be the best indication of the real motives behind building a mosque at Ground Zero. If the funding is from non-terrorists sources, such would bolster the contentions of the Cordoaba Initiative and their supporters. On the other hand, if it came from terrorist sympathizers or terrorists organizations themselves, that would pretty much stick a fork in the whole project.
If the Cordoba Initiative is on the up-and-up, they would welcome the opportunity to demonstrate their funding is completely legitimate, wouldn't they? Unfortunately, such an investigation would likely be characterized as a "witch hunt" by the American left — and several so-called moderate Muslim political groups. Muslim groups who themselves should be more thoroughly scrutinized.
Don't think so? How many Nazi organizations named as an "unindicted co-conspirator" by the Justice Department would have been allowed to freely operate in this country during WWll? Yet the Council of American Islamic Relations (CAIR) was give that designation by Justice in 2007, and they are still in operation, despite evidence they funded Hamas.
In a column for the New York Post on Sept 12, 2001, I pleaded with my fellow Americans not to let the actions of nineteen terrorists color their attitudes towards Muslims in general. In the last ten years, American have demonstrated enormous restraint with regard to Islam, in spite of ongoing atrocities — and a couple of failed attempts that would have tested the limits of that restraint. How about if Northwest Flight 253 had been blown to bits by the underwear bomber, or Times Square was littered with the bodies of innocents?
Would we still be hearing about building a mosque at Ground Zero, even from liberals?
Assuming their motives are pure, it's time for the Cordoba Initiative to demonstrate an equal amount of restraint. Can you build a mosque at Ground Zero? Absolutely. Can you ever make such a decision sit well the majority of Americans? Absolutely not. The American left likes to say that a mosque at Ground Zero will reveal "who we are as a people."
This is one American who says the shoe is on the other foot: it's time so-called progressive Muslims reveal who they are as a people.
Mutual respect is just that — mutual.
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