The imam behind plans to build a controversial Ground Zero mosque yesterday refused to describe Hamas as a terrorist organization.
According to the State Department’s assessment, “Hamas terrorists, especially those in the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, have conducted many attacks, including large-scale suicide bombings, against Israeli civilian and military targets.”
Asked if he agreed with the State Department’s assessment, Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf told WABC radio, “Look, I’m not a politician.
“The issue of terrorism is a very complex question,” he told interviewer Aaron Klein.
“There was an attempt in the ’90s to have the UN define what terrorism is and say who was a terrorist. There was no ability to get agreement on that.”
Asked again for his opinion on Hamas, an exasperated Rauf wouldn’t budge.
“I am a peace builder. I will not allow anybody to put me in a position where I am seen by any party in the world as an adversary or as an enemy,” Rauf said, insisting that he wants to see peace in Israel between Jews and Arabs.
What is Islam’s mission at Ground Zero and everywhere else? “To transform sinners into believers, to transform wrongers into being good people,” according to Imam Rauf. Here is the audio:
Mahdi Bray has been a leading member of the Muslim American Society (MAS) for a decade and clearly supports Hamas and Hezbollah.
Muslim American Society leader Mahdi Bray at Lafayette Park Rally, in Washington, D.C., on October 28, 2000
As you read the rest of this post, please keep in mind three yet to be answered questions: 1) where did the cash come from for Soho Properties to purchase the Burlington Coat Factory at 43-45 Park Place just two blocks north of the World Trade Center, 2) where will $150 million come from to tear the building down and for Imam Feisel Abdul Rauf to build a mosque, cultural center, and “much needed party space” to be called the Cordoba House, and 3) who is funding the purchase of two other controversial mosques in New York City?
[On May 17, 2010], representatives of 9/11 [Families for a Safe & Strong America] met with Sharif El-Gamal, owner and CEO of Soho Properties, the corporation that purchased the two buildings where the mosque will be built at 43-45 Park Place, and asked him to name the investors in the mosque project. Mr. El-Gamal refused, citing the advice of his attorneys, stating that “this is private property” and that “we can build this ‘as of right.’” The property was purchased with $4.85 million in cash.
Today, the New York Times identifies Ayman Hammous, Abdel Hafid Djamil and Mohamed Sadeia as members “of the Muslim American Society” and reports that a meeting they attended last night in support of two planned mosques got very heated. Within their report, the Times quotes Mahdi Bray this way, “We are newcomers, and newcomers in America have always had to prove their loyalty,” said Mahdi Bray, the society’s executive director. “It’s an old story. You have to have thick skin.” Yet Mahdi Bray was born in America:
“…in 1950 and was more than 30 years old when he amassed at least three felony convictions during the 1980s. And, if his recollection of the timing of his conversion to Islam is accurate, it did not straighten him out. He had changed his faith years before becoming a felon. … He was convicted on the cocaine and larceny charges and sentenced to three years in prison, only to find himself in even bigger trouble toward the end of the decade. Throughout these ordeals, and even while incarcerated, Bray secretly was keeping hundreds of dollars a month in workers’ compensation money intended for his grandfather. … Wrighty Bray, Jr. died on December 1st, 1975 … The payments continued while Mahdi Bray was in prison for the drug and larceny charges. They continued after the Labor Department sent forms to Wrighty Bray, Jr. to update his status. He was indicted in June 1988 on 64 counts of mail fraud and receipt of stolen U.S. Securities. … In all, Bray kept more than $71,000 that the U.S. Government intended go to his grandfather. He pled guilty to one count of mail fraud on June 26, 1989 and was sentenced to 36 months in prison and ordered to make full restitution.”
At best, the Times provides sketchy backgrounds on those it quotes when reporting on hot-button issues such as the plans to build the largest mosque in the country at Ground Zero in lower Manhattan, to convert a Roman Catholic convent into a mosque in the Midland Beach neighborhood of Staten Island, and to build a mosque on an empty lot in the Sheepshead Bay area of Brooklyn.
Nor does the Times report on how the Muslim Brotherhood moved to America and transformed itself into the Muslim American Society and a number of other groups known collectively as the U.S. Brotherhood, and, through them, became the leading advocate for replacing our Constitution with political Islam, i.e. sharia law. For that, you must look to the detailed, credible research somewhere else. Let’s start here:
