Home Who is Really Politicizing Ground Zero?
Home Who is Really Politicizing Ground Zero?

Who is Really Politicizing Ground Zero?

After crunching the numbers and realizing that backing a mosque near Ground Zero, plays to average Americans about as well as flag burning on 4th of July, the Dems have emerged with a new talking point. The Republicans are "politicizing" Ground Zero. Thanks to the exposure of Jornolist, we've already seen how liberal media pundits and Democratic campaign strategists collaborate to develop and distribute talking points in response to a setback. Now we're seeing the same thing at work as Time's Mark Halperin goes around promoting the "politicizing Ground Zero" talking point. It's already been picked up by Senator Robert Menendez and Governor Christie, who worked to help Hamas linked Imam, Mohammad Qatanani, stay in America.

But let's talk about who's really been politicizing Ground Zero. The mosque's biggest supporter, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, had aggressively tried to politicize Ground Zero back in 2005 with the International Freedom Center, with George Soros and the ACLU pushing exhibits on Islamophobia and the loss of civil liberties in America. Governor Pataki shut down the IFC's plans to politicize Ground Zero over Bloomberg's loud protests. Meanwhile the current plans for exhibits commemorating 9/11 at the site are being attacked by liberals complaining about a "lack of context", which is their way of saying that they want to politicize the site by suggesting that America was to blame.

The New York Times has added its voice to the chorus of complaints about "politicizing Ground Zero". But in 2005, the Times editorial complained that Campaign America's call to refrain from politicizing Ground Zero is Un-American. The cynicism here is virtually unbelievable.

The entire "Politicizing Ground Zero" talking point is a response to the fallout from Obama's own attempt to politicize Ground Zero by pandering to a Muslim crowd. When the polls number turned red, the media rushed to attack Republicans for politicizing Obama's own politicization of the issue. They claimed that Obama had just been functioning as a Constitutional law professor, delivering an abstract lecture on law at a White House event aimed at pandering to Muslims. The transparent ridiculousness of this excuse is almost lost in the clamor of self-righteousness, as the biggest supporters of the IFC suddenly discover a heartfelt desire not to allow politics to intrude on Ground Zero.

But just as with the IFC, the real politicization comes from Islam and the Left. It was Imam Rauf's plan for a Cordoba House mosque near Ground Zero that was a deliberate attempt to politicize the site, with an Islamic message. Rauf himself emphasized the location, "New York is the capital of the world, and this location close to 9/11 is iconic." In response to Governor Patterson's suggestion that he move the mosque elsewhere, Rauf backtracked claiming that, "this has always been about serving Lower Manhattan". But there is no actual Muslim community in Lower Manhattan, certainly not one that requires a 100 million dollar mosque. Rauf himself had previously admitted that his mosque does not cater to any Lower Manhattan community: "The people who come here for jum'a [prayer] come from within the New York tri-state area. Of course, the majority work around here, but a number of them come from Uptown, Brooklyn or New Jersey, specifically to participate in the Friday prayer here and to hear my sermon."

The mosque he has now serves Muslims who work in the area. Commuters. This isn't about serving a phantom Muslim community in Lower Manhattan. And commuters don't need a 100 million dollar mosque and community center. Based on the likely number of his worshipers, Rauf would be spending roughly a million dollars per Muslim for a facility that very few of them even live near to.

Imam Rauf and his media defenders have compared this to building a Jewish community center. But there are over 25,000 Jewish household in Lower Manhattan, or almost 20 percent of the population. There is no statistically significant Muslim population in the area. The 2000 census showed 3,522 people living in the Ground Zero mosque zip code, 375 of whom identified as Asian. Considering the proximity of Chinatown, it's likely that they actually are Asian, as opposed to Pakistani or Bangladeshi. (And the director of Al Arabiya has confirmed that: "there are no practicing Muslims in the area who need a place to worship".) What the census numbers also show is that the mosque is being built in an area with a small residential population, that is heavily commercial, with far more offices than homes. Even if everyone living in that zip code were a Muslim, Rauf would still be proposing to spend nearly 30,000 dollars per Muslim on the mosque. But since they are not Muslims, what Rauf is proposing is a 100 million dollar expansion in an area whose Muslims are outside commuters and generally use basement and storefront mosques.

Building a 100 million dollar facility for Muslims that most of them can only use on their lunch break or briefly after work, before they go home to Brooklyn or New Jersey, is not about serving the community. It's about making a statement. There would be no way to raise that kind of money otherwise. Rauf is not building a facility that local Muslims need. His flock comes from different boroughs and states entirely. They hang around Lower Manhattan as part of the Hallal Mafia, peddling unhygienic burned food from carts, or in storefronts selling cheap knockoffs of brand name merchandise, pirated DVD's and used clothes below Broadway. Some of them work as financial analysts helping Wall Street get the whole Sharia Finance thing right.

There might be a call for a 100 million dollar facility aimed at Muslims in Jersey City or off Atlantic Avenue, but no need or use for it near Ground Zero. There is no reason to build a Mosque there, except to make a statement. Rauf admitted as much early on, billing the mosque as part of a campaign of tolerance or healing. knowing that most liberals would not look past such euphemisms and enthusiastically embrace the project to showcase their vaunted tolerance, and rejection of "right wing extremists". That Rauf himself is quite the extremist has not interested them at all. The same Time Magazine which wrings its hands over the "politicization" of Ground Zero has whitewashed Rauf and his own plans to politicize the site. Just as the rest of the media has ignored the inconsistencies in Rauf's changing story, questions about where the money is coming from, and the most elementary question-- who actually needs the Ground Zero Mosque.

But the media's endorsement for the Ground Zero Mosque is radically out of step with most Americans and with most New Yorkers. When the ADL and the Simon Wiesenthal Center both rejected the mosque, they were in line with the 66 percent of Jewish New Yorkers who oppose the mosque. Their leftist critics on the other hand were out of step and wrong. And as a sign that Jewish New Yorkers are ahead of the curve in recognizing what Islam is, a higher percent of Jews, than Catholics or Protestants, said that Islam encourages violence. Despite the leading questions, nearly a tie at 41 to 42 percent. Catholics were not very far behind at 31- 48. New York City Protestants on the other hand insisted that Islam was peaceful at a ratio of 68 to 12.

Latinos oppose the Ground Zero Mosque in higher numbers than even whites at 60 percent to 56 percent. Jews oppose it by 66 percent. 49 percent of them have an unfavorable view of Islam. New York Women were more likely to have an unfavorable view of Islam than men. Women were more likely to think that Islam encourages violence, and less likely to see it as a peaceful religion. And they were more likely to oppose the mosque than men, 54 to 50. Statistics that can probably be explained by Muslim gendered violence and attacks on women. But what these numbers mean is that even Democrats in one of the more liberal cities in America, can't win on this issue with Latino, Jewish, Catholic or Women voters. And without those votes, their only base of support is located on the Upper East Side.

This is why Congressional Democrats and their media defenders are running scared. Because they can't win on this, and they know it. And so after endorsing Rauf's politicization of Ground Zero, they're now claiming that it's Republicans who oppose his Islamist politicization of Ground Zero that are the ones politicizing it. It's a repeat of the same cynical game they played 5 years ago with the IFC. The only right answer is to stand up to the Cordoba House's attempt to politicize Ground Zero. But instead of doing that, they've tried to take the issue off the table. Which just means silencing anyone who dares speak out against the Ground Zero Mosque.

The facts are in We know Imam Rauf's support for Islamic law, which treats Christians, Jews and Women as inferior. We know that the Ground Zero Mosque has no legitimate purpose. That it does not exist to serve a local community. We know that the money is coming from the same countries that financed Al Queda. We know. And we know who's really politicizing Ground Zero. It's the Left and Islam who refuse to let the dead rest, without shoving in their revisionist history into the mix. Without trying to hijack the site to suit their own agenda. Enough is enough. We know the truth. And we will not be silenced.

Comments

  1. It is such a basic thing to see that the mosque is wrong. People have fallen downhill so far to think that any of this could be right.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yes, we know. And Obama has handed the Republicans a ripe plum, which has already roiled the waters among the Democrats. Yep, Mr Jughead is making this almost too easy.

    Those Dumbocrats who aren't distancing themselves from his campaign financing soiree will wish they had.

    Thanks for all your work, Daniel.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous18/8/10

    Apart from the common decency issue - the numbers themselves are disgusting £30,000 per Muslim! And you're right, most of those Chinese will call themselves Asian instead of oriental, as it's flavour of the month, and people have learned they're more likely to get the job if they tick the Asian box. This is something I'd not thought about and it needs to be brought out into the open and discussed to the authorities of your 'new, transparent government' - I'm going to pass this piece onto my MP, as what happens in the big apple, happens to us.

    Politics = The art/science (methods/tactics/activities) of governing a nation. Islam is a religion, and politic; they claim in the Qur'an that they are at war with us, so the rules of war have changed so our attitude to Islam (submission) must change now the boundary between religion and politics is blurred. The white house is effectively flying the Hamas flag, but outsiders don't see Washington as the capital, we all think it's New York. NY stands for America in our eyes.

    And the other day, just want to say sorry for putting that point about wine/joy/spirit in, couldn't resist it, I was thinking about the Shiiite Ayatolla Khomeni's quote:

    "There are no jokes in Islam,
    there is no humour in Islam,
    there is no fun in Islam,
    There can be no fun and joy in whatever is serious"

    What I'd been reading seemed like a warning and just sounded like this lot who are politicizing away our world with their religion, with kuffr money under the flag of 'religious tolerance'. So again apologies. kb

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous18/8/10

    A great speech

    BILL WHITTLE: IN UNDERSTANDING THE GROUND ZERO MOSQUE ONE MUST UNDERSTAND APPEASEMENT ENCOURAGES OUR ENEMIES .......

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qg_iDPRud_c&feature=player_embedded#at=602

    ReplyDelete
  5. mindrider18/8/10

    You did not only make the "why there" clear in your blogs, but showing on top of this the total superfluousness considering the small number of Muslims in down-town Manhattan as a proof of the bad-intent.

    ReplyDelete
  6. The Victory Mosque is just the visible tip of a very large iceberg. Beneath the surface of Western societies, Muslims are waging a campaign of infiltration, subversion, sedition and social sabotage, with the objective of destroying our countries and way of life from within.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Anonymous18/8/10

    When Christians and Jews can build a Church and a Synagogue next to the Kaba in Saudi, it will be OK to build a Mosque near Ground Zero.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Anonymous,

    it's not even 30,000 per Muslim. It's 30,000 per resident in that zip code, regardless of religion.

    It's more likely to be about 500,000 to 1,000,000 per Muslim worshiper.

    ReplyDelete
  9. mindrider,

    yes I think it's an important point that really hasn't been made nearly enough

    ReplyDelete
  10. There was a truly bizarre statement made on the Fox New 'all stars' panel discussion about the mosque yesterday. A woman (don't know her name as she was new to the panel, but she was sitting next to Charles Krauthammer) was trying to justify the mosque and ridicule its opponents. Her 'piece de resistance' was that "Imam Rauf worked with the FBI in 2003" and that this "fact" therefore proved that Rauf was "a genuine moderate, thus making a mockery of the mosque opponents claims made against him. I was very disappointed that Krauthammer did not pick her up on this, which has to go down as the dumbest statement I have seen yet on this issue.

    ReplyDelete
  11. that's their excuse for every single imam in the country

    since the FBI routinely visited local mosques after 9/11 to ask them to provide tips on "extremists", every single imam got to use this excuse

    ReplyDelete
  12. The latest spin is now that protests against the Mosque are being funded by another vast right-wing conspiracy.

    Pelosi calls for investigation of WTC mosque opposition

    This is political ineptness on a level rarely seen. Dems should be backing away from this like the proverbial hot potato. It's like they can't help themselves, moths being drawn to the flame...

    It's also strategic stupidity on the Taqqiya Imam Rauf's part, who's doing more to expose and bring to the awareness of the average American the reality and nature of Islamic stealth jihad, than all of our warnings and efforts at persuasion could ever do.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Daniel forgot to mention that the $100m will almost certainly be from middle eastern oil--and that this is stolen money due to the nationalization of infrastructure built by western companies. To adopt this criticism, the US needs to change it's policy and no longer accept nationalization of western assets--particularly when the assets underwrite attacks on the west.

    Also the main organizer has links to terrorism, and shouldn't even be allowed into this country (except in a prison cell).

    ReplyDelete
  14. MORE ALARMING THAN THE MOSQUE ARE THOSE HIGH PERCENTAGES SUPPORTING IT.

    Daniel, the percentages of opposition to the mosque and to Islam you cite are nothing to be proud of.

    If in the freest country on Earth, with plenty of access to information, and in a city that experienced a bloody massive Muslim attack less than a decade ago the percentages against this mosque are so feeble - then God help us.

    JEWS oppose it by 66% and ONLY 49%of them have an unfavorable view of Islam!!!

    Their opposition is not much better than those of Latinos at 60% and whites at 56%.

    Personally I think this is a troubling sign of something very wrong with the mindset of non-Muslim Americans, regardless of their ethnic background and politics.

    So the Muslims destroy the Towers and kill thousands, and more than 30% of the city inhabitants still think that Muslims are just fine folks after all, and welcome their megamosque and their imams and a greater number of them hanging around.

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    They are building mosques everywhere, not only in NYC but all over the USA.

    It should be noted that "Build it and they will come" works for Muslims as well.

    They perfected this method in Germany. They build a small mosque in a Muslim-free neighborhood. Just a storefront. Maybe a few of them work in the area. Maybe not. But it is a method for establishing a presence so that Muslim families will begin to move into the neighborhood. And so they expand. Once they break the first barrier of timid resistance to a place of worship, they're in.

    Just as new ethnic waves displaced established ethnic groups in New York City, there may come a time when rich and middle class Muslims will begin to take over Manhattan. With or without the megamosque. What a coup that would be for Islam!

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    Anyway, I just want to express a BIG THANK YOU to all of those who are indefatigably vocal and active in opposing this mosque. Considering how almost half of the local population is dozing, they will have to work twice as hard.

    ReplyDelete
  15. lkorrow18/8/10

    Excellent piece of work, Daniel!

    It should be noted that then Gov. Pataki fully endorsed the IFC until it became a political issue.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/29/nyregion/29blocks.html?_r=1

    ReplyDelete
  16. Isn't there a saying that goes something like this -

    "If you build it, they will come"?

    ReplyDelete
  17. Fantastic again, Daniel.

    Mindrider--excellent point. I never considered the size of the Muslim community in Manhattan. Which make such a mega mosque and Islamic Center all the more ridiculous.

    I see it in two ways--planting a flag so to speak of their perceived victory on 9/11, and an elaborate PR stunt to show people "we're not bad guys."

    Liberals will always support liberal causes.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Here's the info on Rauf and the FBI.

    http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=2462

    ReplyDelete
  19. THE MORE I THINK ABOUT the Ground Zero Mosque, the more I realize that New Yorkers and other Americans are fighting symbols but not daring to fight the real battle.

    Whether the mosque gets built or not, the real issue is the Islamic colonization of America.

    Constrained by the very ideals, values and laws that give the USA meaning, Americans are handing over the country to people who despise those same values. You can't win that way.

    We need a MORATORIUM ON MUSLIM IMMIGRATION. Or if that is too unpalatable, then to immigration in general.

    I just wonder whether Americans will ever create a cool-headed and multi-racial organization to demand an immigration moratorium and a stop to the economic and cultural takeover of the country by Islam.

    We need such an organization if only to get the conversation going and to dispel some taboos.

    The Tea Party is too interested in votes and in avoiding accusations of racism.

    Even the strongest opponents to this mosque rush to assure reporters that they are not opposed to the construction of mosques or to Muslims in general, only to this particular mosque and to Jihadists.

    The battle must be expanded beyond symbols and assorted cultural defensive measures to deal with the main threat.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Another excellent article sultan.
    "There is no reason to build a Mosque there, except to make a statement. Rauf admitted as much early on, billing the mosque as part of a campaign of tolerance or healing."
    Here is a kinda convoluted; but, most likely true in it's premise, article I stumbled across...
    "Ground Zero Mosque’s Hidden Websites: Follow the Shariah"...
    http://bigpeace.com/cbrim/2010/08/17/ground-zero-mosques-hidden-websites-follow-the-shariah/

    ReplyDelete
  21. With serving Lower Manhattan Rauf is probably addressing some future expectation...

    The numbers in favour (or at least not in contempt) of this mosque are truly frightening, even considering that New York is about as socialist as California.

    Too many people must be scared to death of being accused of 'racism', for just pointing out some inconvenient facts. I can't think of any other reason than fear of being branded. Which of cuarse sais a lot about their 'racism', as I would never consider that a factor in my observations.

    I have already been warned to be not too open when discussing with foreigners, as they might feel offended. And these warnings did not come from those foreigners...

    Judge people by their actions, not by their color or heritage. And don't judge a group based on an individual's behavior. The biggest risk with the muslim community is not that they will disrupt society, but once the fundamentalists have disrupted society, they will join in, not for want, but for fear.

    The fundamentalists need to be stopped. And in order to do that, appeasers like Obama, Bloomberg, Peloci and Reid, to name just a few, need to be held accountable for their betrayal.

    ReplyDelete
  22. Anonymous21/8/10

    From a comment above: "I see it in two ways--planting a flag so to speak of their perceived victory on 9/11, and an elaborate PR stunt to show people "we're not bad guys."- Keli Ata

    "planting a flag" is an interesting choice of words . . .and quite plausable considering

    Quote: ". . .a second mosque near Ground Zero that is also looking for a new location downtown. At that time, prior to being scrutinized," the Masjid Manhattan website displayed a banner on its website stating: Build the “House of Allah” next to the World Trade Center ! Help us raise he flag of “LA ILLAHA ILLA ALLAH” !. . ."

    [follow link to watch the video and view the screenshot of the websites banner.]
    *****
    this Masjid Manhattan is the same mosque mischaracterized as moderate by Bill Whittle in his latest powerful video mentioned in DP111's comment above as well.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

You May Also Like