Sunday, 12 September 2010

Ground Zero Imam: if mosque's location is changed, "anger would explode in the Muslim world" / Trump's Offer to Buy Site of Proposed Mosque Denied

"Moderate bridge-builder" behind Ground Zero Mosque warns that if mosque's location is changed, "anger would explode in the Muslim world"

In other words, imam Rauf, the self proclaimed "bridge-builder", threatens with worldwide Muslim violence if we dare to decide that his provocation of a mosque should be moved from the location near the Ground Zero to a different place.

The message is clear: "build it, or we will kill."
Imam Rauf Predicts Violence In Muslim World If He Does Not Get His Way

Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf, the self-professed bridge builder “devoted to peacemaking,” is now claiming that the Muslim world will erupt in violence if he withdraws his plan for the Muslim community center and mosque he intends to build right near Ground Zero.

Rauf told Soledad O’Brien on CNN’s “Larry King Live” that:

If we move that location, the story will be that the radicals have taken over the discourse. The headlines in the Muslim world will be that Islam is under attack.

Rauf went on to say that the violent reaction in the Muslim world could be worse than it was to the Danish cartoons depicting Prophet Muhammad in a negative light.

O’BRIEN: But the controversy itself–
RAUF: So the Cordoba house —
O’BRIEN: –though, right, isn’t that causing to some degree an instability and a risk, a risk of safety? I mean, there’s an address now that has become the flash point for a lot of anger. Isn’t that a risk to Muslims and Americans?
RAUF: There is a certain anger here, no doubt. But if you don’t do this right, anger will explode in the Muslim world. If this is not handled correctly, this crisis could become much bigger than the Danish cartoon crisis, which resulted in attacks on Danish embassies in various parts of the Muslim world. And we have a much larger footprint in the Muslim world. If we don’t handle this crisis correctly, it could become something which could really become very, very, very dangerous indeed.

Instead of trying to calm down the Muslim world, whatever the ultimate fate of his prized project turns out to be, the bridge builder warns us that we better do things his way or there will be security risks for the United States and Americans abroad.

O’BRIEN: What’s the risk? When you say “national security,” what’s the risk?
RAUF: As I mentioned, because if we move, that means the radicals have shaped the discourse. The radicals will shape the discourse on both sides. And those of us who are moderates on both sides — you see Soledad, the battle front is not between Muslims and non-Muslims. The real battle front is between moderates on all sides of all the faith traditions and the radicals on all sides. The radicals actually feed off each other. And in some kind of existential way, need each other. And the more that the radicals are able to control the discourse on one side, it strengthens the radicals on the other side and vice versa. We have to turn this around.

In Rauf’s twisted world of moral equivalency, 70 percent of New Yorkers who oppose the specific location of his mega mosque community center complex are bigots who have been manipulated byAmerican radicals as bad as the Islamic radicals leading al Qaeda. He essentially defines ‘moderation’ as giving in to his demands under the mantle of religious tolerance. His way or his highway bridge to violence.

We don’t need to be lectured about religious tolerance by this fake moderate. Muslims must first have a dialogue within their own faith. Muslims who truly believe their religion can embrace reason and modern-day humanistic values must focus their challenge solely on those retrograde ideologues whom they have permitted to define Islam today, not create a false paradigm of moral equivalency.

Imam Rauf might start by telling the truth about Islamic law (sharia) rather than sugar-coating it. He should set up his Cordoba House in the Muslim world, not two blocks from Ground Zero, and preach to his fellow Muslims against sharia’s inherent discrimination on the basis of religion and sex.

By his words and deeds, Imam Rauf is not trying to change sharia but to impose its edicts on Americans. Instead of respecting the right of free expression, for example, he tries to suppress it by threatening a severe violent reaction in the Muslim world where sharia commands death for blasphemy. Instead of making his community center a showcase of equality of the sexes, Rauf boasts that the Cordoba House pool will be segregated by sex.

Build your bridges to modernity and enlightenment within the Muslim world first, Imam Rauf, and then you can worry about religious tolerance in the United States.

Editor’s Note: See Bosch Fawstin’s illustration on this issue here.

–

Joseph Klein is the author of a new book entitled Lethal Engagement: Barack Hussein Obama, the United Nations and Radical Islam, which is available now for pre-order on Amazon.com

Trump's Offer to Buy Site of Proposed Mosque Denied

Donald Trump, the great peacemaker or mega-publicity hound?

No stranger to a big gamble and chasing down a little free press, the Donald has offered to buy out the main owner of the site of the proposed Islamic Center that is being developed two blocks from Ground Zero.

The offer, however, fell flat.

Wolodymyr Starosolsky, a lawyer for the investor in the real estate partnership that controls the site, says Trump's offer is "just a cheap attempt to get publicity and get in the limelight."

In a letter to Park51 investor Hisham Elzanaty, an Egyptian-born businessman who says he provided a majority of the financing for the two buildings where the center would be built, Trump offered to pay 25 percent more than what Elzanaty paid for the site at 45-47 Park Place.

Trump writes that his reasons to buy are not business but patriotic.

"I am making this offer as a resident of New York and a citizen of the United States, not because I think the location is a spectacular one (because it is not), but because it will end a very serious, inflammatory, and highly divisive situation that is destined, in my opinion, to only get worse," wrote Trump.

He states that as part of the offer the developers would have to agree that they would not build another mosque any closer than five blocks from the World Trade Center site.

Trump's offer is "all cash" with an "immediate closing."

It's unclear how much control Elzanaty has over the property, which is owned by an eight-member investment group led by Soho Properties.

On Wednesday, Elzanty told The Associated Press that he has always viewed the project primarily as an investment opportunity, and would sell some of the site if the price is right.

And the imam slated to lead the spiritual component of the center told CNN that if he had realized how some Americans would react to the location, he would have picked some other spot.

"If I knew this would happen, if it would cause this kind of pain, I wouldn't have done it," Feisal Abdul Rauf said.

Meanwhile, a Florida pastor who had said that he would burn Qurans on 9/11 to protest the mosque now says that he will not set fire to copies of the holy book. Pastor Terry Jones said he canceled his plans because Imam Rauf agreed to move the mosque -- but that was completely wrong.

Posted by Britannia Radio at 11:09