What the LIHOP Crusade of Jon Gold's 911Blogger Perpetuates

The Layalina Review
VOL. VI NO. 14, July 2-July 15, 2010

Ground Zero Tolerance

A group of Muslim Americans seeking to build a community center named The Cordoba House in Manhattan next to the 9/11 site, known as Ground Zero, faces strong protests from several groups in the New York city area opposed to the construction of what they misleadingly call the “Ground-Zero Mosque,” reports Alex Pareene of Salon. “Through misinformation and shameless fear-mongering,” he alleges, protectors managed to rally 36 percent of Manhattan inhabitants to support their cause. The poll did not report how Muslims as a religious group felt about the community center.

Pareene denounces some of the attacks and implications that have been made against the Cordoba House, such as the allegation by GOP gubernatorial candidate Rick Lazio, who implied that the provenance of center’s funds is unclear, thus raising suspicions of terrorist ties. The Cordoba House is a joint effort between the American Society for Muslim Advancement and The Cordoba Initiative, which states that its mission is to improve relations between Muslims and the West.

Ironically, Pareene remarks that televangelist Bill Keller proposed “a solution” to assuage an alleged fear of growing radicalization: a one million dollar “Christian center in lower Manhattan in response to the Cordoba Initiative’s plans for a 13-story mosque and community center there.”

"If they can put a mosque near Ground Zero, we should be able to put a Christian center near Ground Zero and give people a choice," Keller said in a phone interview. He stated that the Islamic center was "a spit in the face of the people of New York."

Pareene dismisses this idea, pointing out that there is already a church near the Ground Zero site. He additionally questioned Keller’s motives and past, as the televangelist spent some time behind bars.

Bill Keller described his moment of revelation that led him to plan his own 9/11 Christian Center near Ground Zero to Charisma Magazine. "I was in prayer and God said, ‘Listen, if the Muslims can build a temple to their false god at Ground Zero, why can't there be a place dedicated to the true God of the Bible on that same area?'" said Keller, whose website claims 2.4 million subscribers. , "Rather than a [protest] event we're going to have an ongoing work of God right there because the Bible says you combat the darkness with the light," he continued.

Feisal Abdul Rauf, an imam based in New York and Chairman of the Cordoba Initiative, explained that the principal aim of the center is to prevent radicalization and the recurrence of events like 9/11. He added that The Cordoba House will include a public memorial to the nearly 3,000 victims of the terrorist attack.

"My colleagues and I are the anti-terrorists," Rauf wrote in a New York Daily News op-ed. "We are the people who want to embolden the vast majority of Muslims who hate terrorism to stand up to the radical rhetoric. Our purpose is to interweave America's Muslim population into the mainstream society.

Yet many remain opposed to the project and the building of the center, with various groups attempting to confer landmark status on a century-old building at the proposed site. New York's Landmarks Preservation Commission held a hearing to debate the issue, reveals Charisma, but the final decision won’t be announced until later this summer.

Some critics of the project have expressed their disagreement with the building of The Cordoba House, claiming that “building a mosque so near Ground Zero would be viewed as a victory for Muslim terrorists.” Many interpret the project as an attempt to impose political Islam in New York.

"The situation in New York is really insulting," said James Lafferty, head of the Virginia Anti-Shariah Task Force. Last month, he led a protest against the building of The Cordoba House. "All of the people who were involved in the cowardly attacks on the World Trade Center were from radical Islam ... and they are now establishing a mosque ... in the shadow of the World Trade Center," he stated.

James Lafferty, head of the Virginia Anti-Shariah Task Force who led a protest last month against the building of Cordoba House, whose wife Andrea Lafferty is executive director of the Traditional Values Coalition, said that the Islamic center is part of an effort to establish Shariah law in the US. “Building a mosque near Ground Zero is like building a memorial to Hitler at Auschwitz,” was one of the phrases on a protester's sign, reports Aline Reynolds at The Downtown Express. A group of men with Vietnam veteran hats carried a banner that read: “All I need to know about Islam, I learned on 9/11.”

The debate was also taken on TV where CBS and NBC have refused to air a controversial advert funded by the National Republican Trust, a conservative group not affiliated to the Republican Party, condemning plans to build The Cordoba House, reports the BBC. The video entitled "Kill the Ground Zero Mosque," describes the center as a "monstrosity" that will invite further attacks on the US.

The video has been relatively popular on YouTube, receiving over 100 000 pages, but as to date of publication, it is unclear if other networks in the US will broadcast it. In emails obtained by the news website Politico, NBC Universal advertising standards manager Jennifer Riley wrote that because it did not make a distinction between terror groups and the religious organization behind the mosque, "the ad is not acceptable under our guidelines for broadcast".

The advert displays “dramatic images” of the 9/11 attacks and “images of rejoicing Islamic militants set to a soundtrack of Muslim prayer.”

Alex Parenee of Salon expressed his concern that the behavior displayed by Keller and his supporters may convey the idea that America has become an anti-Muslim nation. Reynolds concurs and concludes that Muslim Americans feel demonized and that as far as they are concerned “the damage is done.”