Ground Zero: The battle over a mosque

last updated 8 January 2015

To bigots, said Neil Steinberg in the Chicago Sun-Times, all Jews are the same, all blacks are the same, and all Muslims are the same. Based on that ugly principle, Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, and a host of conservative politicians have launched a nationwide campaign to stop the construction of an Islamic center two blocks from the World Trade Center site in lower Manhattan. Their reasoning: The actions of a tiny group of Islamic radicals in 2001 should “prevent another, completely separate group of Muslims from building a religious center in 2010.” Last week, the Anti-Defamation League signed on to that backward logic, despite its long history of fighting anti-Semitism. The ADL called on the moderate Muslim organization behind the proposal, the Cordoba Initiative, to build its religious center somewhere else, lest it offend the families of 9/11 victims. “Their anguish entitles them to positions that others would categorize as irrational or bigoted,” explained Abe Foxman, the ADL’s national director.

It’s hardly irrational to oppose the construction of a mosque at Ground Zero, said Clifford May in National Review Online. The Muslim cleric behind the plan, Feisal Abdul Rauf, has not explained how he plans to raise the $100 million to construct the 15-story “inter-religious center.” Rauf is reported to have ties to jihadist groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood and to the regime in Iran. Throughout its history as a “warriors’ religion,” Islam has often built mosques on the holy sites of vanquished Christians and Jews. So it’s natural to wonder if the Ground Zero proposal isn’t really an Islamist-funded attempt to “commemorate their victory in what they regard as a historic battle” against America, Jews, and capitalism.

“I know Feisal Abdul Rauf,” and he’s hardly a supporter of terrorism, said Jeffrey Goldberg in TheAtlantic.com. In fact, “he represents what Osama bin Laden fears most”: a moderate, modern form of Islam compatible with citizenship in a pluralistic, Western society. His proposal for a mosque near Ground Zero not only will include an outreach program to Christians and Jews, it will include a memorial to the victims of 9/11. If America starts banning mosques, said William Saletan in Slate.com, it will only prove that bin Laden was right, and that America is waging a global war on Islam. “I can’t think of a surer way to lose both our national soul and the struggle against terrorism.”