mosque

Cordoba House, Ground Zero, Hamas, Imam Rauf, mosque, Muslim Brotherhood

NY Post: Imam terror error; Ground Zero mosque leader hedges on Hamas

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Today, the New York Post reports:

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.

Rauf also would not answer a question about Egypt’s outlawed Muslim Brotherhood.

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:

Cordoba House, Ground Zero, mosque

NYPD investigates non-crime, puts ‘the fear of God’ into opponent of Ground Zero mosque

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NYPD officers, while knowing no crime had been committed, “put the fear of God” into a man who voiced his opposition to the Cordoba House mosque being built at Ground Zero by telephoning Community Board 1 members. DNAinfo has the story:

“The guy used four-letter words and said I should die a horrible death,” the board member said. “He just launched into an attack, screaming at me.”

The board member called the police, and they tracked down the harassing caller, who had used a cell phone with a 347 area code.

Since the caller had said, “You should die,” not, “I will kill you,” he was protected by the First Amendment, officers told the board member. So instead of arresting him, the officers talked to the man and “put the fear of God in him,” the board member said. The calls stopped.

The same caller also harassed Dr. Lewis Gross, a TriBeCa dentist and former CB1 member.

The caller first told Gross, 58, that he’d been selected as a New Yorker of the week and asked whether he was a community board member. The caller then asked what Gross thought of the mosque.

When Gross said he had mixed feelings, the man “started screaming and cursing and going off the wall,” Gross said. “I said it’s a free country. He didn’t like that.”

NYPD officers are not Saudi Arabia’s religious police or Barney Fife of Mayberry.

The officers involved had no legal authority and they damn well knew better. If the board member felt harassed, the officers should have suggested they ask a judge for a protective order.

People should not tell someone “you should die” anymore than Muslims in Queens should burn the American flag yet that is only my opinion.

But NYPD officers taking sides in a 1st Amendment protected debate or putting the fear of God (or Allah) into a non-criminal when some muckety muck complains is not their job.

Police Commissioner Ray Kelly is not going to be happy.

One final point: DNAinfo got their headline wrong; non-threatening calls are not “Threatening Phone Calls.” [quotation marks mine]