Imam Rauf

9/11, Cordoba House, Ground Zero, Imam Rauf, Michael Bloomberg, sharia, sharia law, Shariah, World Trade Center

Is Mayor Mike blind or brilliant? (‘Bloomberg defends Ground Zero mosque as freedom-of-faith issue’)

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Freedom Tower and WTC 7 would easily by viewed from the top-floor mosque of the planned 15-story Cordoba House

Does Mayor Michael Bloomberg unequivocally support the Cordoba House being built within the kill zone at Ground Zero? You’d likely think so if you read the New York Post today (and you might be wrong):

In his fiercest defense yet of the mosque proposed near Ground Zero, Mayor Bloomberg declared yesterday that it must be allowed to proceed because the government “shouldn’t be in the business of picking” one religion over another.

“I think it’s fair to say if somebody was going to try, on that piece of property, to build a church or a synagogue, nobody would be yelling and screaming,” the mayor said.

“And the fact of the matter is that Muslims have a right to do it, too.”

Placing the proposed mosque two blocks from the World Trade Center site has led to an outcry from opponents, including family members of 9/11 victims, who contend the holy place at 45 Park Place would defile the memories of those who perished in the worst terror attack in US history.

Further down, the Post added this quote from him:

“… If you are religious, you do not want the government picking religions, because what do you do the day they don’t pick yours?“

The ‘Cordoba Initiative’ seeks to “pick” one religion to govern you with: Islam. Imam Feisel Abdul Rauf advocates that the adjudication of legal matters involving Muslims be conducted using Shariah law here in America (for now, only those Muslims here in America who willingly accede to the Shariah court’s authority would be subject to the court’s rulings). Thus, a discriminating government within America’s government would be established by placing the words in the Koran — the traditional teachings of Islam — above the equal rights and protections of our Constitution.

In addition, Imam Rauf wants grants, presumably from public and private entities, to help build and operate the Cordoba House. After all, he says it would only be a “Muslim cultural center.” His wife Daisy Khan adds the neighborhood near Ground Zero needs the “party space.” (Hey, we fund senior centers so what’s the difference?) Politicians in New York City are falling over each other at microphones to tout it as a jobs program as allegedly 150 full-time and 500 part-time jobs would be created. Beyond the establishment of religion by government, liberal foundations are traditionally loathe to contribute towards the building of religious facilities; that is why the Cordoba Initiative removed from its web site that it would be a mosque (screen shot of removed page here).

The owners of the property refuse to open their books to show where the $4.85 million in cash to buy the unused Burlington Coat Factory came from. While Imam Rauf tries to intimate the money came from the local community, the New York Post found that, “Imam Abdul Rauf … told Asharq Al-Awsat that the Islamic center will be financed through contributions from Muslims in the US, as well as by donations from Arab and Islamic countries.” And they are hiding from the general public the professional renderings they had made in line with their concepts:

Last Monday, representatives of 9/11 FSSA 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.

Imam Rauf is now publicly stating in a professionally-organized PR campaign that the building will be a community center, “not a mosque.” However, Mr. El-Gamal showed 9/11 FSSA members architectural renderings in which a mosque, located on the top floor of the 15-story building, would have a commanding view of the entire Ground Zero neighborhood.

Should government officials advocate for the furtherance of political Islam? Should government use public funding and electorate-granted authority to assist in the destruction of an historical building to make way for a political center advocating that Shariah ultimately replace our Constitution as the law of the land? Does not our government, at every level, have an inherent obligation to protect all Americans here against the imposition of oppressive and discriminatory Shariah law?

Before all hell erupts over his remarks yesterday, someone should ask those additional questions of Mayor Mike.

9/11, Cordoba House, Debra Burlingame, Ground Zero, Imam Rauf, sharia, sharia law, Shariah, World Trade Center

NY Post: ‘NYers wage jihad vs. WTC mosque’ (CB1 board approves Shariah ‘fun center’ at Ground Zero)

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That is quite a headline ‘NYers wage jihad vs. WTC mosque’ in the New York Post this morning with their third report on last night’s Community Board 1 meeting. Things got a little heated. But then, “things” were really heated on 9/11, in the Towers, and down in the Pit; 2,752 were murdered and 1,100 families have yet to receive even one speck of human remains after sharia-compliant Muslims slaughtered their loved ones.

Debra Burlingame addressed the board last night, “I am actually, in a way, glad that this has happened, this controversy, because finally, maybe, Americans, New Yorkers will start asking questions. Top of the list: What is Shariah?”

Was it political correctness, ignorance, or submissiveness to political Islam that led 29 board members (with one ‘nay’ and 10 abstentions) to vote in favor of Imam Rauf’s proposed Cordoba House?

The New York Post reports:

“We are Americans, we are Muslim Americans,” Rauf said. “Many of us were born in the United States. We have no higher aspirations than to bring up our children in peace and harmony in this country.”

But the crowd got ugly when he added, “Freedom of assembly is the right of all Americans.”

Amid boos, one woman shouted, “Not at the World Trade Center!”

Rauf’s wife, Daisy Khan, followed him to the microphone to pitched the planned community facility as “much needed party space and much needed venue space” for the area.

She was roundly booed.

Some audience members preached tolerance for the Muslim leaders.

Before the meeting, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, a supporter of the mosque, stood in front of the site and said, “What we’re rejecting here is outright bigotry and hatred.”

Finally, a liberal politician we can agree with: Scott Stringer.

We reject the outright bigotry, oppression, and the savagery of Shariah that Imam Rauf and the money-men inside this Trojan Horse rolling towards sacred ground want imposed here in America upon women, gays, and all non-believers of Islam. And that is why we oppose a sharia-compliant “cultural and Muslim fun center” at Ground Zero two blocks north of the World Trade Center.

“Imam Rauf is now publicly stating in a professionally-organized PR campaign that the building will be a community center, “not a mosque.” However, [property owner] Mr. El-Gamal showed 9/11 [Families for a Safe & Strong America] members architectural renderings in which a mosque, located on the top floor of the 15-story building, would have a commanding view of the entire Ground Zero neighborhood.”

Some “cooler heads” preached tolerance last night. It is a good thing to hear the Word, especially from within ones own heart guiding each of us in our actions. We wish those men and women of God well as they bring their various faiths to Riyadh, Waziristan, Sana’a, Kuala Lumpur, Tehran, and Medina and openly preach to the people there. Godspeed!

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Notes:

More here and here from last night’s CB1 meeting.

Slide show of meeting (12 photos) from DNAinfo.

Our friend Michelle Malkin linked over and weighs in with a reminder of an elevator ride now forever gone.

Imam Rauf, via his allies the editors of the New York Daily News, was ready with his spin this morning. He has already received a lot of feedback in the comments. (Couldn’t the News have blown Rauf up (figuratively) a little larger in its graphic? Remember the grieving Lebanese mother in her black hijab showing up in front of more than one destroyed house during the last Israel-Lebanon war, each time claiming her home had been bombed by Israel? The News should have Photoshopped her in, along with a backdrop of the destroyed WTC, and had Rauf holding a sign saying “Backlash against Muslims; 300 murdered; ‘United States policies were an accessory to the crime.'”)

As I noted at 12:49 PM today in the comments to Rauf’s op-ed:

[The Cordoba House would be] two blocks from WTC 7, within the Ground Zero kill zone. Have you forgotten? A strut from UAL 175 crashed through the coat factory’s roof and the street and building were a foot deep with debris containing the shattered human remains of many. Representatives of 9/11 Families for a Safe & Strong America … saw their Power Point, shown to them last Monday by building owner Sharif el-Gamal; it is 15-stories, not 13, and the renderings showed a 2-story mosque at the top of it. They continue to literally hide (and rhetorically deny) from the public that the faithful would overlook Ground Zero. The[y] have the legal right to build it there yet that does not make it right.