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Go Home Mosque Notes

POLITICS SEPTEMBER 2, 2010

Mosque Notes

BY LEON WIESELTIER

Collective responsibility. One of the most accomplished Jewish terrorists of our time, Baruch Goldstein, came from the Jewish universe in which I was raised. When he committed his crime, there were a few former and present citizens of that universe, a revered rabbi of mine among them, who demanded a stringent communal introspection; but the critics were denounced as slanderers who tarred all of religious Zionism, or all of “Modern Orthodox” Judaism, or all of Judaism, with the same treasonous brush. The killer, we were angrily instructed, was an aberration, and any generalization from his action was an unwarranted imputation of collective responsibility. I disagreed. Baruch Goldstein murdered in the name of Judaism, with an interpretation of Judaism, from a social and intellectual position within Judaism. The same was later true of Yigal Amir. They did not represent the entirety of Judaism, or of the Jewish institutions that formed them—but the massacre in Hebron and the assassination in Tel Aviv were among their effects. If the standpoint of broadly collective responsibility was the wrong way to explain the atrocities, so too was the standpoint of purely individual responsibility. There were currents of culture behind the killers. Their ideas were not only their own. I am reminded of those complications when I hear that Islam is a religion of peace. I have no quarrel with the construction of Cordoba House, but not because Islam is a religion of peace. It is not. Like Christianity and like Judaism, Islam is a religion of peace and a religion of war. All the religions have all the tendencies within them, and in varying historical circumstances varying beliefs and practices have come to the fore. It is absurd to describe the perpetrators of September 11 as “murderers calling themselves Muslims,” as Karen Hughes recently did. They did not call themselves Muslims. They were Muslims. America was not attacked by Islam, but it was also not attacked by Jainism. Mohammed Atta and his band (as well as the growing number of “homegrown” Islamist killers and plotters) represent a real and burgeoning development within Islam, an actualization of one of Islam’s possibilities, an indigenous transnational movement of apocalyptic violence that has brought misery to Muslim societies, and to us. It is not Islamophobic to say so. Quite the contrary: it is to side with Muslims who are struggling against the same poison as we are. Apologetic definitions of Islam will not avail anybody in this struggle.

 

Sacred space. Nationalism has always arrogated to itself a hallowing power, and the sanctification of Ground Zero is the natural expression of the memory of a nation. But this is a secular sanctity. I see no justification for establishing a mosque, a church, or a synagogue at Ground Zero, even though Muslims, Christians, and Jews died there. (Irreligious people also died there.) Yet nobody is proposing to establish a mosque at Ground Zero. Sacralization is an act of demarcation: its force is owed to its precision. Outside the line is outside the line. Park Place is outside the line, in the “profane” realm. Or has the right finally found a penumbra in which it can believe? On September 13, 2001, a construction worker at Ground Zero discovered two large steel beams in the shape of a cross. Given the design of the towers, the likelihood of such perpendicularity was high—when I visited the unimaginable place a short while later there were smoldering right angles everywhere—but the discovery of this cross was deemed a miracle, and it was raised on a concrete base, and there was talk of incorporating it into the memorial at the site. (It now stands a block away, at a church on Barclay Street.) I was always discomfited by the sight of it. Christianity was not attacked on September 11. America was attacked. They are not the same thing. The image of the Ground Zero cross now appears in TV ads excoriating the “Ground Zero mosque.” The people behind those ads do not deplore a religious war, they welcome one.

 

Insensitivities. There are families of the victims who oppose Cordoba House and there are families of the victims who support it. Every side in this debate can invoke the authority of the pain. But how much authority should it have? I do not see that sentiment about the families should abrogate considerations of principle. It is odd to see conservatives suddenly espouse the moral superiority of victimhood, as it is odd to see them suddenly find an exception to their expansive view of religious freedom. Everybody has their preferred insensitivities. In matters of principle, moreover, polling is beside the point, or an alibi for the tyranny of the majority, or an invitation to demagogues to make divisiveness into a strategy, so that their targets come to seem like they are the ones standing in the way of social peace, and the “decent” thing is for them to fold. Why doesn’t Rauf just move the mosque? That would bring the ugliness to an end. But why don’t Palin and Gingrich just shut up? That, too, would bring the ugliness to an end. Certainly the diabolization of Rauf, an imam who has publicly recited the Shema as an act of solidarity and argued that the Declaration of Independence “embodies and restates the core values of the Abrahamic, and thus also the Islamic, ethic,” must cease. In a time when an alarming number of Muslims wish to imitate Osama bin Laden, here is a Muslim who wishes to imitate Mordecai Kaplan. Turn away, from him? But he may be replaced at his center by less moderate clerics, it is said. To which I would reply with a list of synagogues whose establishment should be regretted because of the fanatical views of their current leaders. I also hear that there should be no mosque on Park Place until there are churches and synagogues in Saudi Arabia. I get it. Until they are like us, we will be like them.

 

A night at the J. At the JCC on Q Street a few weeks ago, there was a family night for “kibbutz camp.” As the children sang “Zum Gali Gali,” an old anthem of the Zionist pioneers, I noticed among the jolly parents a Muslim woman swaddled in black. Her child was among those children! Her presence had no bearing on the question of our security, but it was the image of what we are protecting. No American heart could be unmoved by it. So: Cordoba House in New York and a Predator war in Pakistan—graciousness here and viciousness there—this should be our position. For those who come in peace, peace; for those who come in war, war.

Leon Wieseltier is the literary editor of The New Republic. This article ran in the September 23, 2010 issue of the magazine.

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94 comments

Awesome piece. Thank you.

- Sophia

September 3, 2010 at 1:26am

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"I also hear that there should be no mosque on Park Place until there are churches and synagogues in Saudi Arabia. I get it. Until they are like us, we will be like them." Excellent point, Leon. Here I am reminded of the rationale for waterboarding that our enemies use even crueler methods of torture. We will not maintain moral superiority by sinking to the lowest common denominator.

- drheingold

September 3, 2010 at 3:54am

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I've missed this: a Leon W. piece that I can agree with unreservedly and whole-heartedly. Thank you, sir.

- austinexpat

September 3, 2010 at 7:49am

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Every word of this is worth repeating. Beautiful.

- rlgordonma

September 3, 2010 at 8:35am

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"I also hear that there should be no mosque on Park Place until there are churches and synagogues in Saudi Arabia. I get it. Until they are like us, we will be like them." This is not quite an accurate representation of the realities, Mr. Wieseltier. Since there are mosques everywhere in the US, Canada and Europe, I don't see how "we" are anything like Saudi Arabia, to begin with. If it were up to me, I would invoke a different precedent involving sacred grounds, provocations and freedom of religion: "On 28 September 2000, just after dawn, Sharon enters the mosque enclave above Temple Mount. With him comes hundreds of police and security stuff. During the visit, Ariel Sharon says to the press: "I came here with a message of peace. I believe that we can live together with the Palestinians. I came here to the holiest place of the Jewish people in order to see what happens here." Following Sharon's arrival at the holy place, a crowd of outraged Palestinians rushes to his security cordon and tries to stone him, but his bodyguards surround him and keep the attackers off. The Palestinians crowd starts shouting at Sharon, telling him to quit this provocation and and get out of the holy al-Aqsa mosque." http://www.ariel-sharon-life-story.com/16-Ariel-Sharon-Biography-2000-Visit-to-the-Temple-Mount.shtml Let me repeat: "I came here with a message of peace. I believe that we can live together with the Palestinians."

- noga1

September 3, 2010 at 8:54am

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As for Saudi Arabia, I don't know. Noone should hold their breath expecting anything good coming from that kingdom: http://mickhartley.typepad.com/blog/2010/08/nails-and-pins.html

- noga1

September 3, 2010 at 8:57am

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Yes, Mr. Wieseltier, you've got it exactly right. Unlike some people at TNR....

- zardoz67

September 3, 2010 at 10:30am

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"So: Cordoba House in New York and a Predator war in Pakistan—graciousness here and viciousness there—this should be our position. For those who come in peace, peace; for those who come in war, war." Exactly! This is not only justice, it is self-interest. For us to consider all Muslims our enemies is precisely what those who flew the planes into the World Trade Center would have wanted.

- K_Wilson

September 3, 2010 at 10:32am

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The Goldstein and Rabin issues were 15 years ago in Israel. One only has to go back 15 hours to find violence in Islam's name (Pakistan, Iraq, West Bank, Somalia, etc.). 9/11 was an attack on America by people claiming to act as good Moslems so it is perfectly understandable, natural and even right that, as Americans, they are concerned about an Islamic facility adjacent to ground zero. We don't need a lecture about how we should be above it all.

- JerryL

September 3, 2010 at 11:15am

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This is a wonderful article. I disagree with the last couple of sentences (because viciousness can be counter-productive, even though it feels redemptive), but it's still a great piece.

- SMacEachern2

September 3, 2010 at 11:44am

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Too often, "balance" in journalistic articles is used as an excuse for Brooksian or Broderian "pox on both their houses" inapposite equivalences. And then there are times when a sublime pen manages to strike a positive balance. This is one of those times. I do not always agree with Wieseltier's ruminations. This one, however, from beginning to end, is a masterpiece of deliberation, of poise and of humanism. Takes me back 26 years, to the very first time I picked up a copy of TNR - and got hooked. Thanks.

- icarusr

September 3, 2010 at 12:32pm

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Apart from a little too much hewing in favour of "collective responsibility", this piece says everything I have been trying to say on these issues, only infinity times better.

- basman

September 3, 2010 at 1:07pm

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Agreed. All of those who have been posting on this subject on TNR for the last few weeks should be referred to this piece. Dhurtado

- NR143296

September 3, 2010 at 1:37pm

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Hello dhurtado. I think, though, that NR143296 is a much punchier handle. It has the virtues of poetry, mellifluousness and a certain jailhouse authenticity--as in convict NR143296--all wrapped up in one. An a different note, I guess you know what "The Natural" did to "Lights Out".

- basman

September 3, 2010 at 1:54pm

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basman: I thought of exactly the same qualification, but then rethought it. Not collective responsibility as such, but, I think, "cultural responsibility", which I think is a different and a valid point. After all, all the talk about "reforming Islam from within" has to have, as a starting point, a notion of cultural collectivity; and it would be daft to insist that every act of Islamic terrorism - or, for that matter, anti-abortion terrorism - is simply an isolated criminal incident. And so I think that even in respect of this highly difficult question, Wieseltier manages the right "balance".

- icarusr

September 3, 2010 at 2:04pm

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ick: Here's me: I thought it as did you, then rethought it as did you and then came back to my original thinking. So your little post has got me re-re-thinking and having tried to tdo so, here's where I now am. In grappling with the notion of collective responsibility, Wieseltier charts a tentative spectrum between the inapplicability of two extreme accounts: —“If the standpoint of broadly collective responsibility was the wrong way to explain the atrocities, so too was the standpoint of purely individual responsibility.” In justifying his rejection of the extremes he goes on to say, “There were currents behind the killers. Their ideas were not their own.” I think there is another distinction to be broached: between those instances when we can meaningfully talk about purely individual responsibility detached from the cultural context formative of the obsessions that inform such individual actions and those instances when we can identify a viable continuum between context and individual action. The first side of that distinction recognizes that no one acts in a social and cultural vacuum. And the first side wants to avoid the reductive bromide that in the instance of someone like, say, Marc Lepine, social or cultural misogyny is at fault. The second side wants to recognize viable nexuses where they exist so that the informing culture can properly be assigned some blame, say a supine culture that turns its back on the evil done in its name or in its behalf—hence an intelligible notion and instance of collective responsibility. Which is all probably a windy way of getting to what you said more directly and economically. So I think you're right: I just had to figure it out a little better for myself.

- basman

September 3, 2010 at 3:23pm

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Har-di-har, Basman. A bit of a pain in the a__ to type, though, don't ya think. I tried a couple of times to get my handle back, to no avail. So I gave up. Icarusr- I see what you are saying, but what, really, does it mean to share "collective" or "cultural" responsibility for individuals that purport to act in the name of a religion? For some here, that is the precise rationale for not establishing an Islamic place of worship near Ground Zero. If anti-abortion terrorists purport to be acting in the name oif Christianity, would it be "insensitive" or irresponsible for a Christian sect to build a church across the street from an abortion clinic at which an abortionist had been murdered? I know that is not what you are saying, but, what then, does "cultural" responsibility mean in this context?

- NR143296

September 3, 2010 at 3:38pm

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Well, I'd still like to know how any of that has any application to the placement of an Islamic place of worship in lower Manhattan, or to an act of anti-abortion terrorism, for that matter.

- NR143296

September 3, 2010 at 3:44pm

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Dhurtado you put the question to icarusr, but having just give the notion of collective responsibility a tad of thought, I'd say, the way I'm conceiving of the notion, it could not, intellectually honestly, be a ground for opposing the mosque, though a demagogue could try to use an absolutely vile notion of it--as in not distinguishing between Islam and Islamism but, rather, co-identifying the two--as a ground of opposition. The way I'm thinking about it--icarusr can speak well enough for himself--is the opposite of that vile use of the notion. Which is to say, it's about those bearing some intelligible connection to the evil done in their name, at a minimum, speaking out compellingly and unequivocally in denouncing it, as do, for example, Isrhad Manji, Canada's own at that, and Ayaan Hirsi Ali , each in her own distinct way. From the failure to do so, it can be persuasively argued, should come some moral stigma. I don't think Wieseltier developed the distinction he drew, leaving it at, in his phrase, "those complications". But that's where I at least presently come to on the idea of "collective responsibility" and it's a notion of broad application to many instances of public evil.

- basman

September 3, 2010 at 4:09pm

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Irshad Manji is a Muslim reformer. Aayan Hirsi Ali has left the religion and converted to Christianity. Manji is not only criticizing Islam but, in the spirit of true reform, offers a way out of its current Jihadist ethos. She calls it Project Ijtihad, Islam’s own tradition of independent thinking which, in the earlier centuries, produced 135 schools of thought. She asks these questions about the Cultural Center: "– Will the swimming pool at Park51 be segregated between men and women at any time of the day or night? – May women lead congregational prayers any day of the week? – Will Jews and Christians, fellow People of the Book, be able to use the prayer sanctuary for their services just as Muslims share prayer space with Christians and Jews in the Pentagon? (Spare me the technocratic argument that the Pentagon is a governmental, not private, building. Park51 may be private in the legal sense but is a public symbol par excellence.) – What will be taught about homosexuals? About agnostics? About atheists? About apostasy? – Where does one sign up for advance tickets to Salman Rushdie’s lecture at Park51?" http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/the-culture-of-offence/article1686660/

- noga1

September 3, 2010 at 4:44pm

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I didn't know that Hirsi Ali had converted to Christianity. My understanding has been that she's an atheist.

- basman

September 3, 2010 at 4:59pm

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This is something different isn't it? Q: One of your more startling arguments in Nomad is that Christian churches should proselytize in immigrant communities to try to convert Muslims. Ali: Look at the amount of money Saudi Arabia spends on coming into Muslim communities in America and Europe, building schools and also taking leaders and training them in Mecca and Medina, then replanting them. It’s surprising that no other group of people is targeting the same communities. If you look at Western civilization, at the institutions [and movements] that were engaged in changing people’s hearts and minds—the Christian Church, humanists, feminists—they are doing next to nothing in these Muslim communities. When I was in Holland [recently], I heard about a Christian mission that had been proselytizing in Morocco. The government kicked them out and sent them back to Holland. I thought, “You don’t have to stop proselytizing—just go to the Muslim community in Amsterdam west and carry on there.” But of course there, they’re not only going to face the radical Muslims as opponents, they’re also going to face the multicultural opponents, saying they’re not supposed to be telling people to leave their religion.

- basman

September 3, 2010 at 5:05pm

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By the way, just for the sake of clarity: from the standpoint of collective responsibility, Manji's op ed is on the money. From the standpoint of the central issue raised by Wiesletier--not the issue of collective responsibility--her comments are beside it. That issue, put most broadly: ...So: Cordoba House in New York and a Predator war in Pakistan—graciousness here and viciousness there—this should be our position. For those who come in peace, peace; for those who come in war, war...

- basman

September 3, 2010 at 5:17pm

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Ms. Maji asks excellent questions. Let's ask some more. St Peter's Roman Catholic Church is located at 22 Barclay St, a block closer to the World Trade Center site than the proposed mosque. Some questions for the good people of St. Peter's: - Can women be ordained as priests in this church? - Can Jews and Muslims , fellow People of the Book, use the sanctuary for their services just as Muslims share prayer space with Christians and Jews in the Pentagon? (Spare me the quibbling " technocratic" arguments.) – What will be taught about homosexuals? About agnostics? About atheists? About apostasy? – Where does one sign up for tickets to Richard Dawkins' lecture at St. Peter's?" Go forbid we should allow houses of worship that have doctrines we disagree with!

- K_Wilson

September 3, 2010 at 5:24pm

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Bingo K_Wilson Dhurtado

- NR143296

September 3, 2010 at 5:33pm

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I recently heard an interview with Hirsi Ali on Wisconsin Public Radio's To the Best of Our Knowledge; she described herself as an atheist as a matter of doctrine and a Muslim as a matter of culture, and spoke approvingly of the notion of Muslims who are not willing to embrace extremism converting to Christianity.

- rhubarbs

September 3, 2010 at 5:35pm

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| K_Wilson, Cordoba Initiators have been protesting that their project is intended as a multicultural center, not a mosque. Hence Manji's questions are intended to find out whether they are aware of what a center like they propose actually means. If their answers, which they have not yet provided, should indicate that the customs of that place will be Islamic rather than multicultural then perhaps what they say they intend and what they actually intend are not the same. Since they have a right to build a mosque at that location then there is nothing to prevent them from declaring their purpose explicitly, is there? When churches and synagogues are being planned, it is clear these are going to serve certain constituencies. Therefore, no bingo to you. Apples and oranges as the tired cliche goes.

- noga1

September 3, 2010 at 6:00pm

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Whether she is a Christian or an atheist, the point remains the same: she cannot be a reformer of Islam if she is not inside the pale. Manji is. Most Canadian-Muslims dismiss her but she has succeeded in reaching many women and young girls who listen to her. She offers a criticism and an alternative way.

- noga1

September 3, 2010 at 6:10pm

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I am also interestede in whether deists of all ages can worship in the embrace of New York Dolls, a strip club also within two blocks of ground zero. Will children who firmly believe in God, whatever they call hir, be allowed to worship within? Will they be allowed to join the adults, in their worship on that sacred ground, and offer their dollar bills, folded carefully into the sacred g-strings that stand as an emblem of sanctity and honor?

- miceelf

September 3, 2010 at 6:28pm

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Well I was simply dealing with the factual point of her conversion. I'm not sure what outside the pale means for someone like Ali. I'm not sure where the pale precisely ends. It seems to me that if she is a lapsed Muslim, who proclaims her cultural connection to to Islam, it's too prescriptive both to cast her beyond the pale and to say, either disjunctively or conjunctively, that she can't be a reformer. One doesn't necessarily need to be member of a group to try to reform it. If I'm wrong, why am I wrong? What's the argument for that necessity?

- basman

September 3, 2010 at 6:45pm

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I'm not the one making the argument, basman. I am only reflecting on her acceptability by Muslims who regard her as an apostate and deserving of the death penalty. "One doesn't necessarily need to be member of a group to try to reform it. If I'm wrong, why am I wrong? What's the argument for that necessity?" Reformers come from within a tradition. You can argue with the recorded history of reform if you wish. Do you know of anyone who is not a Muslim whose reformist activism would be acceptable to Muslims? Karen Armstrong, perhaps?

- noga1

September 3, 2010 at 7:11pm

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"Vigilance and Tolerance: How To Think About the 'Ground Zero Mosque'" I just noticed the title of this article as it is published in the headline. "Vigilance and Tolerance" - respect and suspect. כבדהו וחשדהו "A common Hebrew expression is "Respect them and suspect them". We should always act in a respectful way towards others, but that doesn't obligate us to trust them with our property. The source of this is in a story of the Talmudic sage Rabbi Yehoshua. A complete stranger asked to stay the night. Rabbi Yehoshua obliged him by giving him a room in the attic, but also exercised prudence by removing the ladder so that the guest wouldn't be able to sneak out. The guest turned out in fact to be a thief; he wrapped all the valuables in the top floor in a cloak and tried to sneak out, but fell in the dark because of the missing ladder, and was caught red-handed. One of the most common reasons people end up in litigation in rabbinical court is that they make "friendly" informal agreements, leading to endless misunderstandings. Our sages summarized: "Other people should always be like thieves in your eyes, yet respect them as if they were Rabban Gamliel" (an especially honored and dignified Torah leader). Of course that doesn't mean we should treat every guest this way, and the passage explains that a person who has a good reputation should be trusted more. But it shows how we can simultaneously respect and suspect someone, by helping them to the best of our ability but taking reasonable safeguards against harm." http://www.aish.com/ci/be/48918612.html

- noga1

September 3, 2010 at 7:23pm

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The Manji article Nogfa references does not tie those questions to any claim that the center will be a multicultural center, not a mosque. The questions clearly are meant as a condemnation of fundamentalist Islam. From the exposure I have had to Manji, seems to be to Islam what Bill Maher is to Christendom. To the extent she is decrying sexism and other kinds of discrimination within Islam, I agree with her. But as K_Wilson points out, those same questions could justifiably be asked of fundamenalist, and even non-fundamentalist, Christendom. So to the extent others are using questions like Manji's to single-out Islam, that smacks of religious bigotry. Dh Dhurtado

- NR143296

September 3, 2010 at 7:49pm

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"Cordoba Initiators have been protesting that their project is intended as a multicultural center, not a mosque. " A multicultural center which will include a mosque. I see no more reason Muslims should let other religions use the mosque than St. Peter's should allow Muslims to use their sanctuary. The swimming pool might be another matter. My point however, is that religious freedom requires us to tolerate churches and mosques and temples and synagogues where they teach things we disagree with, even things which we find profoundly distasteful. (This does not include violence and terrorism, obviously.) If a Southern Baptist church wished to build in lower Manhattan, would you quiz them about the role of women in their church? Whether they agree with Randall Terry or Scott Roeder? Whether they will let a Muslim basketball team use their gym to practice? Not bloody likely.

- K_Wilson

September 3, 2010 at 7:54pm

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Here is how she describes the project: "Now apply this point to Park51, the proposed multi-storey Islamic community centre and prayer space to be erected at the edge of Ground Zero. Let me be blunt about my own emotions: I am offended by its proximity to the site of 9/11. I am also disappointed that Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf – who is not an Islamist – has nonetheless played crass politics unbecoming of a man of dialogue." Is an Islamic community center is for Muslims only, then why have the project initiators claimed it was meant to serve the entire community, an inter-faith center for the augmentation of harmony among Americans?? Only if the Center is to serve Muslims exclusively would K_Wilson's "questions" be relevant. A church serves Christians. A synagogue serves Jews. A mosque serves Muslims. But an 'Islamic community center"? Whom does it serve?

- noga1

September 3, 2010 at 8:03pm

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I apologize Noga, for misspelling your tag, as well as the other typos in my post. Again, I am in complete accord with K_Wilson. Dhurtado

- NR143296

September 3, 2010 at 8:07pm

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Certainly the prayer space (widely referred to as a mosque) will serve Muslims. In any event, under what rule is a religious entity that establishes a community center required to abandon its fundamental tenets?

- NR143296

September 3, 2010 at 8:21pm

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The best essay by Leon Wieseltier that I have read in quite a long time.

- hsny

September 3, 2010 at 8:25pm

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This is a terrific column. I admire its eloquence and argument. Either we are Americans and live that way, or "the terrorists win." I live in NYC, by the way.

- JGORDON@LAW.COLUMBIA.EDU

September 3, 2010 at 8:28pm

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I don't know the "recorded history of reform." But I do know that Malise Ruthven in reviewing Paul Berman's The Flight of the Intellectuals and Ali's The Nomad criticized Ali for delivering her her message to more sophisticated Muslim women in Europe and America and elsewhere, I suppose, who could access her rather than to Muslim women trapped in traditional Muslim societies emboweled in clan, custom and kinship. I thought this a particularly stupid criticism but it reflects who Ali's potential converts might be as she argues for the rejection of the worst of Islamic traditions and customs. In doing so how can she be conceivably beyond any pale. If a consequence of her denunciations leads women to stand up against those terribly misogynistic practices how is she any less of a reformer than Manji? As to the analytic issue: might not a highly influential charismatic figure like Obama who preaches and reasons for moderation in all things and makes his plea to various specific groups have an impact on Muslims? Might not a group of reform minded religious leaders who make a plea for moderation and humanity in religious practices make an impact? Might not a celebrity who sways masses--like a Bono or whomever--make an impact? Might not a Sarkozy who exposed Ramadan for the wispy equivocator he is in their debate have an impact? It may well be as a pragmatic and practical matter that those working within the tradition will ultimately be more effective in effecting reform. But i see no analytic necessity for it. Islam aside, I can think of infinite varieties of groups whose reform does not--even as a pragmatic matter--require that to be come from "inside the tradition." Finally you say, "I'm not the one making the argument, basman. I am only reflecting on her acceptability by Muslims who regard her as an apostate and deserving of the death penalty." Well we know how she is regarded by some Muslims. I'm not so sure that in those precincts of Islam, Manji would be received more benignly. But that is only some precincts. What those extremes have to do with the effectiveness of either of them as reformers I do not know. I read it as your argument--not merely reflecting the antipathy of crazies--that because she is beyond the pale, Ali can't be a reformer: "Whether she is a Christian or an atheist, the point remains the same: she cannot be a reformer of Islam if she is not inside the pale..." Finally, I don't know whereby you measure what most Candian Muslim women think of Manji--"Most Canadian-Muslims dismiss her"?

- basman

September 3, 2010 at 8:52pm

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I've been following Manji's ascent for a few years now and I have yet to see her on a panel with other Muslims even one of whom accepts her views. She is derided and attacked. If there are Canadian-Muslims, (except those women and girls who write to her) who support her, perhaps you know something I don't know. I will be only too happy to re-assess her status in the Muslim community if you could provide some proof that she has been successful in reforming Muslim Canadians. I disagree with you about Ayaan Hirsi Ali. My opinion is that she has no credibility within any mainstream Muslim communities either here or in Europe. She is an outcast and a persecuted one at that. Sarkozi, a reformer of Islam? What are you talking about? Do you have any idea how much he is hated in the Muslim world? Next you'll be telling me that Salman Rushdie is a reformer of Islam, too. Are you very bored this evening, basman?

- noga1

September 3, 2010 at 9:43pm

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the lyrics of Wieseltier collide with the sleaze of reality: The NYC CBS affiliate now adds 'how to use shell medical companies to defraud auto insurance' to the financing questions. Yeah, old-fashioned, all-American insurance fraud: "...The man who reportedly put up a “significant” amount of the $4.8 million El-Gamal used to buy the mosque’s Park Place building owns Bronx medical companies that were charged with bilking State Farm Insurance of over $1.7 million by filing reportedly bogus claims for treating car accident victims. The 2007 civil “RICO Fraud Against Insurance Company” case filed by State Farm names El-Gamal’s money man, Hisham Elzanaty, as one of the defendants, along with three companies he is charged with fraudulently incorporating. State Farm charged that Elzanaty and his companies knew that “the consultations and tests were performed pursuant to a fraudulent, predetermined protocol designed to maximize the charges to State Farm and other insurers, not because they were medically necessary or designed to benefit…the insured.” ..." http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2010/09/03/exclusive-concerns-mounting-over-... since Wieseltier and his fellow Oiks refuse to acknowledge that 45 Park Place is part of the sacred space of Ground Zero because it is the only building to survive a direct hit on 9/11, and also refuse to understand that the only reason Community Board 1 voted a non-binding resolution in support of the OPEN TO THE PUBLIC NON-SECTARIAN community/cultural center facilities, and NO comment on the mosque, well, the Oik-heads can blissfully lull themselves to sleep with the lyrics of the really clueless Leon Wieseltier. I guess TNR is solely a magazine of fiction.

- K2K

September 3, 2010 at 10:27pm

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There are progressive Muslims who share Manji's way of thinking: "Progressive Muslims have produced a considerable body of liberal thoughts within Islam[1][2] (الإسلام التقدمي or "progressive Islam"; but some consider progressive Islam and liberal Islam as two distinct movements [3]). The methodology of reform can be classified into two groups, one depending on re-interpreting the traditional texts which constitutes Islamic law (ijtihad)[4]; this varies widely from little deviation from the traditional interpretation, to the more liberal which considers only the meaning of Quran as a divine inspiration, while the wording is believed to be from the prophet Muhammad intended by him to suit his time and situation, therefore interpreting the problematic verses in modern times allegorically or even not considering it. The second is questioning the authentic status applied to texts by the Traditional Islamic Scholars, resulting in the most liberal case as of the Quran Alone Muslims in rejecting the islamic narratives of the sayings of Muhammad (Hadith) completely. The most liberal muslim intellectuals who focused on religious reform include Sayyid al-Qimni, Nasr Abu Zayd, Abdolkarim Soroush, Mohammed Arkoun, Mohammed Shahrour, Ahmed Subhy Mansour, Edip Yuksel, Gamal al-Banna, Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na'im, Ahmed Al-Gubbanchi, Mahmoud Mohammed Taha, and Faraj Foda, the last two were killed after Apostasy claims which most of them have been accused of by traditional islamic scholars. Liberal Muslims generally claim that they are returning to the principles of the early Ummah and to the ethical and pluralistic intent of their scripture, the Qur'an.[5] They distance themselves from some traditional and less liberal interpretations of Islamic law, as they consider these to be culturally based and without universal applicability. The reform movement uses monotheism (tawhid) "as an organizing principle for human society and the basis of religious knowledge, history, metaphysics, aesthetics, and ethics, as well as social, economic and world order."[6]" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_movements_within_Islam _____________ I believe the most important reform movement known in Islam is Wahhabism "a reform movement that began 200 years ago to rid Islamic societies of cultural practices and interpretation that had been acquired over the centuries. The followers of Abdul Wahab (1703-1792) began as a movement to cleanse the Arab bedouin from the influence of Sufism. Wahhabis are the followers of Ibn 'Abd ul-Wahhab, who instituted a great reform in the religion of Islam in Arabia in the 18th century. .... Aroused by his studies and his observation of the luxury in dress and habits, the superstitious pilgrimages to shrines, the use of omens and the worship given to Mahomet and Mahommedan saints rather than to God, he began a mission to proclaim the simplicity of the early religion founded on the Koran and Sunna (i.e. the manner of life of Mahomet). " http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/gulf/wahhabi.htm

- noga1

September 3, 2010 at 10:28pm

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How could I be bored yakking with you Nogs! I'll admit Sarkozy wasn't an inspired example.

- basman

September 3, 2010 at 10:43pm

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He says sheepishly.

- basman

September 3, 2010 at 11:01pm

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K2K- The only reason anyone cares about all the crap you are raising is that it is a Muslim facility. The issue isn't Rauf or El-Gamal, it's what is going on in the brains of the people who oppose the facilityu without knowing anything at all about Rauf or El-Gamal. They oppose it because it is a Muslim facility to be placed near a spot where some jihadists committed a terrorist act. They conflate jihad with Islam. And they would have the government stop the project on that basis. Or they seek to entreat or pressure Rauf and company to relinquish their constitutional rights in order not to offend those whos offense is based on ignorance.

- NR143296

September 3, 2010 at 11:46pm

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NR143296: "K2K-The only reason anyone cares about all the crap [facts = crap] you are raising is that it is a Muslim facility [not really - I would be at a real estate blog dissecting the scam. It is the liberal media that made a mountain out of a two-bit mole-hole solely because Muslims are involved]. The issue isn't Rauf or El-Gamal, it's what is going on in the brains of the people [that would be maybe 180,000,000 brains] who oppose the facilityu without knowing anything [180,000,000 know NOTHING?] at all about Rauf or El-Gamal. They oppose it because it is a Muslim facility to be placed near [on] a spot [specifically chosen because it was damaged on 9/11/2001] where some jihadists [sent on their mission by AlQaeda, a violent global network of Wahabbist Islamists as practiced by tens of millions of Muslims and supported by hundreds of millions of Muslims] committed a terrorist act [that incinerated more than 2,700 people and destroyed two iconic buildings that symbolized western capitalism - named the World Trade Center -which is a bit more than 'a terrorist act' like a suicide bomber murdering 100 people in a disco or 241 American military in Beirut]. They [the ignorant, possibly mentally disabled, majority of Americans] conflate jihad with Islam [so YOU think]. And they would have the government stop the project on that basis [so Statist - the preferred technique of the Left!]. Or they seek to entreat or pressure Rauf and company to relinquish their constitutional rights in order not to offend those whose offense is based on ignorance. [if you say so, oh, Zombie-king of the Orwellian land called Onebigliefullofoiksistan]." [The inability of any one person to perceive that 60% to 70% of Americans may have different knowledge levels and different reasons for opposition is a threat to American pluralism and democracy, a form of political repression that is like Stalin, Pol Pot, or Chavez]. If a few Muslims wanted to create a mosque with a swimming pool to serve the downtown NYC community, they had ample opportunity to develop their concept the way everyone else in NYC does, instead of deliberately using access to Mayor Bloomberg to bypass all normal processes and whining about persecution with each criticism. Example: it took five years to get acceptance from all stakeholders for a non-denominational community center in Battery Park City, the residential neighborhood immediately to the west of southern Tribeca, with zero zoning or legal issues. Oik all you want, but do not arrogantly demean and insult two thirds of America with sweeping generalizations and accusations of mindless ignorance and bigotry in a grand display of your personal ignorance and bigotry. The New York Times assigned themselves to arrogantly demean and insult everyone with a different opinion]

- K2K

September 4, 2010 at 12:49am

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You completely confirm my thesis K2K. You conflate Jihad with Islam. It was conservative demagogues like Newt Gingrich that made this a big deal, precisely because it is a Muslim facility. As you yourself acknowledge, it is the proximity to Ground Zero that has caused the protest. Of course I can't speak for the thinking of every individual who opposes the mosque. But do you think the vast majority of your 180 million would be protesting if the facility were something other than Muslim? Of course not. If simply observing reality is arrogant -- so be it. There were tens of millions of people who supported Jim Crow, etc. I guess those civil rights activists were just arrogant, right?

- NR143296

September 4, 2010 at 1:54am

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"You conflate Jihad with Islam." Jihad is a religious duty embedded in Islam. It's not some external idea and practice imported by some extremists into the religion. "There were tens of millions of people who supported Jim Crow, etc. I guess those civil rights activists were just arrogant, right?" NR143296 is on to something. The best way to go forward in defense of this "Muslim facility" is to suggest that the people who protest against it are like those "who supported Jim Crow". S/He will manage, in one fell swoop, to elevate the Cordova Initiators to the level of civil rights activists while vitiating the term "Jim Crow" of its historical injustices and horrors.

- noga1

September 4, 2010 at 8:15am

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Beautiful, sharply reasoned.

- dfrank@uoregon.edu-old

September 4, 2010 at 10:10am

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I agree: a great article. I think that in the section of sacred space though, there are two very important things that should be separated: sacred spece (with an argument about how within two blocks of ground zero one can find absolutely anything, a lot of profane things), and religious war (with the argument about the cross).

- candela

September 4, 2010 at 1:11pm

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Not quite right Noga. You are abolutely correct that I think those who oppose the mosque because it is Islamic are like those who supported Jim Crow. The result of their bigotry is not as devastating as Jim Crow, but it is bigotry nonetheless. Those who are like the civil rights activists are those who point out and oppose the bigotry. The "Cordova initiators" are merely the victims of the bigotry. In your eyes, I suppose, we cannot call bigotry what it is unless it as virulent and pervasive as Jim Crow. Well, I respectfully disagree.

- NR143296

September 4, 2010 at 1:16pm

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"You are abolutely correct that I think those who oppose the mosque because it is Islamic are like You are abolutely correct that I think those who oppose the mosque because it is Islamic are like those who supported Jim Crow. " I see. The families of 9/11 victims who actively oppose this mosque are just like those white families in the south who supported Jim Crow. And it is " The "Cordova initiators" who are "the victims of the bigotry." ("... the ability to believe that black is white, and more, to know that black is white, and to forget that one has ever believed the contrary. This demands a continuous alteration of the past..."—Orwell, 1984)

- noga1

September 4, 2010 at 1:34pm

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No, not "just like" the families who supported Jim Crow. Their commonality is that they both harbor prejudice. Perhaps we can excuse the "9/11 families" because of their pain, but that doesn't stop their prejudice from being prejudice. And let's not forget that the opponents of the mosque, according to some on these threads, number 180 million strong. So even if we can excuse the "9/11 familes," there is no reason to excuse the remainder of th 180 million of their bigotry.

- NR143296

September 4, 2010 at 1:58pm

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"So even if we can excuse the "9/11 familes," there is no reason to excuse the remainder of th 180 million of their bigotry." So, 180 million Americans are motivated by anti-Islamic bigotry except for the 9/11 families which are also bigoted but get a pass because of their pain. Other than bigotry, there is no conceivable bona-fide justification to protest this mosque at this location. If that is the case, then I think you convinced me of the need for this Islamic Center. It is urgently needed to be built and operated, with its inauguration date being as declared, 9/11/11, under its current title "The Cordova Center" because we cannot wait another day for the Muslim civil rights activists to instruct bigoted, prejudiced Americans, and the rest of the West, about the true meaning of tolerance and freedom of religion.

- noga1

September 4, 2010 at 2:19pm

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I wonder sometimes if those who see the Cordova Mosque initiative primarily in terms of civil liberties and constitutional guarantees of religious freedom do so because they remain largely ignorant or ill-informed about the progress of Islamization today. Not knowing much about what's actually happening in parts of the world where the process is far more advanced than it is in America, they remain blissfully unaware and unafraid. Their principled stance in defending religious freedom far outweighs any strategic considerations for resisting those who ultimately seek to destroy religious freedom. I'd be curious to know how many of the defenders of the Cordova initiative there are who have read Hirsi Ali, Paul Berman, Pascal Bruckner, Sam Harris and the other scholars who have carefully studied the issues around Islamization. Having blind unwavering faith in the salvific power of American values is easy to see when it's coming from the Right; it's harder when it fits in neatly with progressive values.

- willjames77

September 4, 2010 at 2:24pm

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"...Russia is an animist country. Ordinary physical objects are alive in Russia far more than they are in America. ... The animism applies especially to buildings. In Russia a building is regarded and spoken of not just as itself but as a manifestation of the will of the person who ordered its construction or who held power when it went up. ...By this metaphysic, the camp I was looking at, and all the camps along this road, and the road itself, were Stalin. His was the single animating spirit of the place. ..." Ian Frazier, "On the Prison Highway: The gulag's silent remains" (full text in the print edition) abstract at : www newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/30/100830fa_fact_frazier Many opponents of Park51 see the 1858 building at 45 Park Place as part of the cemetery of Ground Zero, because this building was damaged during the attack, and no remains have yet been found of 1,000 of those vaporized on 9/11/2001 although remains are still being found elsewhere since the search resumed. When I read Ian Frazier's moving search for the now-abandoned gulag camps of Siberia, I was struck by his personal agreement with the Russian animism, and Frazier's desire to see ALL the abandoned camps be made into an historic district and museums, expounding on his vision in detail. Many opponents see 45 Park Place as the only building to survive, no different from a human survivor. Many see 45 Park Place as part of the graveyard, still containing some of the ashes of those who were incinerated. Are millions of Americans Animists? It is not to be acknowledged. The Orwellian ideologues like NR143296, unable to see their own bigotry, will only believe the majority of Americans are stupid, ignorant bigots regardless of what we say or write.

- K2K

September 4, 2010 at 2:28pm

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noga "..."The Cordova Center" because we cannot wait another day for the Muslim civil rights activists to instruct bigoted, prejudiced Americans, and the rest of the West, about the true meaning of tolerance and freedom of religion. ..." I believe Imam Rauf, Daisy Khan, and Sharif El-Gamal are rethinking their vision. They have discovered a greater service need - how to teach all Americans how to commit tax fraud, which will require more classroom space. Swimming pool to be replaced by the 'Elzanaty Hall for Auto Insurance and Medicaid Claims Processing'

- K2K

September 4, 2010 at 2:38pm

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To mention that there are some wild, strange, wonderful, cynical, inspiring, confounding, bedeviling, and paradoxical cross currents which flow from this issue and its contemplations is a profound understatement.

- jacko

September 4, 2010 at 3:25pm

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of course, self-promotion, fraud and general douchebaggery are completely unheard of among NYC real estate developers. I guess, I am still not clear on why it isn't possible that critics of 45 Park Place are motivated by a variety of things: for some, it's feelings about the historical nature of the site, for others, it's a general dislike of development or religion, and for some, it's rank bigotry. Wieseltier seems to be primarily addressing this third group. To the extent to which some critics are in the first two groups, well, PBUT, but they aren't who he's talking about. "if it don't apply, let it fly," to quote Flavor Flav. If we want to pretend that the third group simply doesn't exist, or isn't important, I simply don't see how we can square that with the statements of Gingrich, or with many of the people in the rest of the country, who couldn't have picked ground zero out of a lineup that included downtown Detroit or Trenton New Jersey before Gingrich and his ilk stirred this issue into the national pot. Basman- But as to Hirsti Ali, I see her vis-a-vis Islam similar to how I see Christopher Hitchens vis-a-vis Christianity (and religion generally): providing important and useful critiques, but partially undermining their own credibility by tending to paint what they criticise with a broad brush, and allowing the worst elements to define all of what they criticise. One wonders sometimes, if Hitchens really believes that every Catholic is a pederast at heart, and if Ali believes that all Muslims are woman-hating mutilators. Both people I enjoy listening to and reading, but both tend to be more provacateurs in matters of religion (a useful role, but not the same thing as people who are in a position to actually inspire any adherents, even the moderate ones, to support reform).

- miceelf

September 4, 2010 at 4:03pm

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I'm certain that there are all kinds of valid reasons to oppose the "Cordoba" project. The point is that it cannot reasonably be denied that most opponents, particularly the nearly 170+ million that don't live in NY, would not care a whit about a place of worship being established in that location but for the fact that it is Muslim. Dhurtado

- NR143296

September 4, 2010 at 4:09pm

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Mice- My last post crossed yours. I agree with your first paragraph (and pretty much your second one as well). I would observe, however, that for the people in the first two categories to be excluded from the third, their feelings about the historical nature of the site, or their dislike of development or religion, as the case may be, should drive them to oppose ANY development, or at least any place of worship, anywhere within that distance of the site of the 9/11 attack.

- NR143296

September 4, 2010 at 4:18pm

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Interesting Willjames. I think we tread on very dangerous ground when we imply that the Constitution should be suspended with regard to American Muslims because they seek to destroy religious freedom in the United States. I think your burden of proof is very high.

- NR143296

September 4, 2010 at 4:31pm

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Both antibiotics and chemotherapy compromise the immune system, but they help to keep us alive. If you believe that a solid commitment to pluralistic values is enough to keep America strong, please consider the fate of the Dutch who believed and practiced the same for at least as long as us. However, based on their experience with Islamization over the past decade, the majority of the public is now ready for draconian measures. One quick example from a casual conversation with a Dutch businessman whom I met last week at a Florence hotel: the board that supervises intramural soccer at his local school district had one Muslim member on the board for a number of years. Last year, three out of five posts were occupied by Muslims. New rules were immediately put through by the new majority banning coed practice and competition and reorganizing everything to prevent contact between the sexes. It's a relatively trivial example, but a telling one. Holland, despite its centuries of liberalism, is on the verge of electing a far right government because the populace has had enough of tolerance that leads inexorably toward the imposition of Sharia. The building of a mega-mosque at ground zero is a grossly insensitive project that should be thwarted. Not because we dislike Muslims, but because we don't need to aid and abet their triumphalist fantasies.

- willjames77

September 4, 2010 at 7:16pm

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Bull, willjames. The Dutch had an explicit policy of non-inclusion with regard to their Muslim guest workers. They approached the muslims, not as a group to be integrated, but as a separate and temporary group within their country. Treating Muslims differently than the native dutch is exactly what led to the current problems there. And you are advocating we follow their lead here, rather than doing what we know has worked here.

- miceelf

September 4, 2010 at 8:28pm

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In the Netherlands, "...all foreign nationals who have legally resided in the country for five years have the right to vote in local elections..." How is that "an explicit policy of non-inclusion"? 9/11/2001 was an assymetrical military attack on America, the first military attack on America since 12/7/1941 at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, when Hawaii was still a colonial territory of the United States. If 180+million Americans see Ground Zero as their national wound, and a cemetery for those who died, so be it. NR143296 is ignorant of the nine years of controversy over the re-development of not just the original WTC site, but the adjacent areas that were also destroyed on 9/11. The NATIONAL September 11 Memorial and Museum is finally under construction - and there is a reason why it is not called the "Local Downtown NYC September 11 Memorial and Museum". The NATIONAL Museum and Memorial expects to attract seven million visitors per year, mostly from outside NYC. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_September_11_Memorial_%26_Museum As to willjames77's warning about Islamization, it is already happening in Brooklyn (part of New York City), which explains why more than 60% of New York City voters oppose the Ground Zero Mosque, but probably not the swimming pool if it will be open to the public, co-ed, with no restrictions on bathing attire. It may not occur to NR143296 that the strongest NYC opponents are Arab Christians and Muslims like the Ahmadi who are persecuted in Muslim-majority countries, because they know the relentless intolerance of Sunni orthodoxy that drove them to leave their homes and come to America. The House (Musallah) currently trying to attract a congregation at 45-51 Park Place appears to be a Sunni mosque, although no one really knows for sure, just that they advertise they are "only 2 blocks from World Trade Center". One would think they would advertise the nearest subway station instead. http://islamicfinder.org/getitWorld.php?id=102115&lang=english "Another Tack: From Brooklyn to Park Place" By SARAH HONIG 09/03/2010 16:53 The FBI is offering $5 million for information on my fellow high school alumna’s ex-neighbor – Adnan el-Shukrijumah, al-Qaida’s new head of global operations. Talkbacks (40) Acouple of weeks ago Kathy, my fellow alumna of New York’s High School of Music and Art (renamed the LaGuardia High School for the Arts), sent me an update on a column I devoted (some two years back) to our much-belated reunion. The next day roughly the same information appeared in The Jerusalem Post, datelined Miramar, Florida. A quick Google showed it was widely reported. The gist was that Adnan el-Shukrijumah has apparently become al-Qaida’s new head of global operations, in charge of plotting new attacks. This promotion puts him in direct contact with Osama bin Laden. This is the highest any American ever rose in al-Qaida ranks. How does this pertain to Kathy? Shukrijumah was her neighbor, but no one would heed her warnings in real time. Indeed, even after Shukrijumah went on the lam, she tried almost desperately to convince me that something bad was happening next door to the house which generations of Kathy’s Irish family had occupied since it was built in 1912. Eventually, it was passed down to her. She and her husband raised three kids in the same two-story, redbrick dwelling on a leafy, cozy and quiet Brooklyn residential street. Both Kathy and her father grew up there and neither knew any other home. Their story wasn’t unique among the house-proud Irish of that neighborhood, where property tended to stay in the family and where things never changed too radically. But no more. Not only are Kathy’s sons and daughter no longer nearby, but she describes them as having “escaped.” Kathy’s birthplace is now a mini-Pakistan/Bangladesh, replete with bearded men sporting all manner of Muslim headgear and long flowing tunics, as well as heavily swathed women, some even veiled. The corner of Kathy’s block is dominated by an oversized green sign, identifying the low-slung building beneath it as Masjid Nur al-Islam (the Light of Islam Mosque) and announcing that “only Allah is worthy of worship and Muhammad is his LAST prophet.” Christians are urged to “turn to the Koran” if they are “genuinely faithful to Jesus.” Like the few remaining non-Muslim homes on the street, Kathy’s is distinguished by a huge American flag that flutters demonstratively in the manicured front yard, accompanied by a large cross on the door and an assortment of patriotic/jingoistic banners. According to Kathy’s apologetics at the time, “making a statement is about all we can do. They aren’t delighted to see our flag wave. This is enemy territory.” She felt besieged and, to prove she wasn’t paranoid, Kathy began amassing a dossier on the masjid, the imam who ran it and his followers. She insisted they weren’t innocent practitioners of American religious freedom. She smelled something sinister, yet was painfully aware that she would be branded either unhinged or bigoted. Her research, however, seems to indicate otherwise. UNTIL THE mid-1990s, Masjid Nur al-Islam’s imam was the late Egyptian-educated Gulshair el-Shukrijumah, who later relocated to Florida. He was initially dispatched by the Saudis as a Wahhabi missionary in 1985 and financed by them thereafter. His disciple Clement Rodney Hampton- El, an explosives specialist, possibly helped assemble the bomb detonated in the 1993 World Trade Center attack. He was convicted of plotting to blow up the UN, FBI headquarters and the Holland and Lincoln tunnels. Gulshair acted as interpreter for Omar Abdel-Rahman, the “Blind Sheikh” now serving life for the first WTC bombing, conspiring to use explosives at other NYC landmarks and colluding to assassinate US politicians. Nabbed mastermind of the 9/11 plot, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, fingered Gulshair’s eldest son, Saudi-born Adnan, as having been designated by al-Qaida and personally vetted by Bin Laden to lead new terror assaults and serve as successor to 9/11 pilot Mohammed Atta, with whom Adnan was connected. The FBI now deduces that Adnan had taken over Mohammed’s position, designing and approving terror plots and recruits. After two other top confederates were killed, the terrorist who grew in Brooklyn became Mohammed’s sole de facto successor. Adnan received flight training and is dubbed “Jaffar the pilot.” He was likewise linked to “Dirty Bomber” Jose Padilla, Hamas and al-Qaida fund-raiser Adham Hassoun and terrorist Imran Mandhai (convicted of conspiring to bomb the National Guard armory, South Florida electrical substations, Jewish-owned businesses and community centers and Mount Rushmore). Criminal charges were filed against Adnan. He was named in a federal indictment as conspirator in the plot to bomb New York’s subways in 2009. In the framework of a worldwide manhunt, the FBI offers $5 million for information leading to the capture of Kathy’s ex-neighbor. Adnan’s brother Nabil, incidentally, uploaded to his Web page an image of Jerusalem ablaze with the caption: “Al Kuds, we are coming.” None of this serves to persuade our uniformly ultra-liberal chums from yesteryear’s M&A that Kathy’s misgivings were warranted. Former classmates and friends see her as irremediably politically incorrect, on the wrong side of the argument, if not altogether a reprehensible Islamophobe enemy of human rights and the hallowed ACLU way. THE FACT that she now vehemently opposes the construction of the Cordoba House mosque/Muslim center, a hop and a skip from Ground Zero, hasn’t added to her popularity. “It’s very déjà vu, except that the proportions and the gall are enormously more colossal. In our case there was no outcry. Nobody paid attention to a no account commercial property in a forgotten section of middle-class Brooklyn. The high-and-mighty didn’t care that it was overtaken by extreme Islamists. Our lives were turned upside down. The newcomers weren’t required to integrate and show sensitivity to the natives. Live-and-let-live didn’t apply to them. For years the mosque had been calling the faithful to prayers via rooftop loudspeakers five times daily – including predawn,” Kathy recounts. “When we complained, the authorities regarded us, not them, as the disruptive element.” Everything was couched in terms of freedom of worship. Kathy and her neighbors argued that “this isn’t about rights. Something was going on there, but no one listened until it was too late.” For Kathy the projected Muslim complex at 45-51 Park Place is “another installment in the same sad saga – again fraudulently couched in religious-freedom gobbledygook.” Kathy is leery of the imam behind the Cordoba House plans, Feisal Abdul Rauf, who speaks of a “Shari’a- compliant America.” After 9/11 Rauf opined that “the United States’ policies were an accessory to the crime that happened... In the most direct sense, Osama bin Laden is made in the USA.” Pointedly, Rauf refused to describe Hamas as a terrorist organization. “What message does using the name Cordoba send?” asks Kathy. “The first city conquered by Muslims in Spain conjures visions of Muslim expansionism, triumph and gloating. It’s like turning Constantinople’s Hagia Sophia into a mosque, like constructing mosques on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, like blowing up majestic Buddhist statues in Afghanistan. The issue isn’t our tolerance but their intolerance.” www.sarahhonig.com http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Article.aspx?id=186795

- K2K

September 4, 2010 at 9:07pm

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miceelf “Bull, willjames. The Dutch had an explicit policy of non-inclusion with regard to their Muslim guest workers. They approached the muslims, not as a group to be integrated, but as a separate and temporary group within their country.” This is ignorant nonsense. The Dutch for decades gave citizenship and special preferences to their former colonial subjects many of them Muslims. They were given very generous public assistance as well as employment. It’s the Muslims immigrants who chose to separate themselves and live and not integrate into a common culture.

- jdyer

September 4, 2010 at 10:27pm

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How many times can people keep posting the same thing about the proposed Mosque at ground zero? I don't think I saw more than a handful of posts, out of sixty seven so far, that directly addressed Wieseltier's article.

- jdyer

September 4, 2010 at 10:30pm

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“Nobody is proposing to establish a mosque at Ground Zero. Sacralization is an act of demarcation: its force is owed to its precision. Outside the line is outside the line. Park Place is outside the line, in the 'profane' realm. Or has the right finally found a penumbra in which it can believe?” is the Weiseltier quote highlighted by TNR.com, and the point that made me think this was fantasy fiction. Perhaps he should have waited to read "Who will define ground zero? 9 years after 9/11, tug of war over 'sacred ground' grows heated" By Samantha Gross (CanadaPress) – 09 04 2010 8:00 p.m. "...There's even a strip club three blocks from the construction site. At New York Dolls Gentlemen's Club, a woman in a red sequined G-string takes a break from platform dancing and leans over to rub her calves. In the background, Alicia Keys sings on a recording about New York's concrete jungle. Outside, where William Dean is handing out flyers promoting the dancers, he says he is used to people yelling at him about the unseemly proximity to ground zero. His answer: "We're making a buck like anyone else." ..." Samantha Gross writes a very insightful exploration of the concept of sacred and profane on and around Ground Zero, worth reading for those who think Ground Zero has been without meaning and controversy for nine years. I cite the above excerpt because so many use that strip club as a reason to deny 45 Park Place any consideration as part of Ground Zero. This is the first time anyone reports that people still protest, nine years later, "the unseemly proximity to ground zero" of New York Dolls Gentlemen's Club. Samantha Gross's article can be found by news.google 'Ground Zero Mosque' or at http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5hSbJembNtvmlV8ssvJCDwz2JRTBw

- K2K

September 5, 2010 at 12:07am

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Muslims in the Netherlands are concentrated in the very low income areas of the four major cities. I am sure they chose to segregate themselves, much the same way that African Americans experiencing generational poverty choose to segregate themselves in North Philadelphia and the south side of Chicago. They also choose to report widespread discrimination, and choose to experience more disrimination in the labor market than do Muslims in other European countries.

- miceelf

September 5, 2010 at 7:41am

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miceelf "Muslims in the Netherlands are concentrated in the very low income areas of the four major cities." This is bullshit. It doesn't even take into account that the Dutch government subsidises their stay in their country. Most of them live in their quarters by choice and pressure others to live there also. "I am sure they chose to segregate themselves, much the same way that African Americans experiencing generational poverty choose to segregate themselves in North Philadelphia and the south side of Chicago." The comparison is ignorant and false. When pro Mulsim advocates like miceelf start to advocate they very quickly resort to lies and false comparisons.

- jdyer

September 5, 2010 at 1:15pm

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Miceelf, Muslim flood into European countries to live and work because, miserable as the work or lack of it may be, it's still hugely better than the alternative that awaits them at home. If that isn't the case, they can always return home to societies that are more spiritually pure where equal opportunity employment surely awaits them. Nothing forces them to remain in the decadent prejudiced racist societies of the West which, unfortunately, are not guided by people like yucelf.

- willjames77

September 5, 2010 at 1:16pm

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I'd like to create more difficulties in this discussion: "For the writer Monika Maron in an interview in Die Welt, the public debate has missed the point: "Why can't we leave aside Sarrazin''s obviously potty ideas about genetic theory and start talking about something much more worrying: the growing confessionalisation of our society, the millions of euros we are shelling out in welfare cheques, the deficits in education and the criminality of Muslim youth? Government schemes and vast sums of money have done little or nothing to change a situation that has been well-known for many years. What has to happen?" In the Frankfurter Rundschau, Markus Tiedemann, a professor of educational philosophy, dismisses Thilo Sarrazin's nonsensical hereditary theories in two paragraphs before turning on some of Sarrazin's critics who, he says, are no better. "In 2007 Pascal Bruckner, a representative of the French nouvelle philosophie, tried to rock the self-satisfied boat of political correctness. His concept of the 'racism of the anti-racists' exposes the negative dialectic of multicultural tolerance. ... Anyone today who claims that it is too much to expect 'the Muslims' to embrace the achievements of the modern age such as emancipation and freedom of opinion, are no better that the voices who used to say that the blacks lacked the maturity to vote." http://www.signandsight.com/intodaysfeuilletons/2063.html

- noga1

September 5, 2010 at 1:19pm

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Jackson, sometimes I feel like we're beating a dead mule... (donkey, kine, ass?)

- willjames77

September 5, 2010 at 1:22pm

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Miceelf reminds me a little of the charachter of Bertha, from the 1951 Alec Guinness film "The man in the white suit". Here is the plot, according to wiki: "Sidney Stratton, a brilliant young research chemist and former Cambridge scholarship recipient, has been dismissed from jobs at several textile mills because of his demands for expensive facilities and his obsession to invent a long-lasting fibre. Whilst working as a labourer at the Birnley mill, he accidentally becomes an unpaid researcher and invents an incredibly strong fibre which repels dirt and never wears out. From this fabric, a suit is made - which is brilliant white because it cannot absorb dye, and slightly luminous because it includes radioactive elements. Stratton is lauded as a genius until both management and the trade union realise the consequence of his invention - once consumers have purchased enough cloth, demand will drop precipitously and put the textile industry out of business. The managers try to trick Stratton into signing away the rights to his invention but he refuses. Managers and workers each try to shut him away, but he escapes." Bertha, a fellow labourer who is convinced this is a class struggle, that management persecutes the inventor and the workers misunderstand him, defends Stratton from beginning to end, not realizing that in this case, both management and the workers share a vital interest in stopping the further development of this invention. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDeh2YhBWVc&feature=related (Around minute 7.5)

- noga1

September 5, 2010 at 1:45pm

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Nogs, Miceelf: I've been thinking about the smalll point as to whther Hirsi Ali can be considered a reformer of Islam. I thinked I lapsed into arguing for the sake of arguing. I think I conflated the effects of rejectionist criticism of Islam, which might be reformatory, with the efforts of someone like Manji, who is an intentional reformer. willjames77 Take a look at my comments on your comments on Kermode and then send me a smoke signal. After that, I promise you, you'll never have to talk to me about it again.

- basman

September 5, 2010 at 1:48pm

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"I think I conflated the effects of rejectionist criticism of Islam, which might be reformatory, with the efforts of someone like Manji, who is an intentional reformer." I think this is clarity indeed. Reform is the work of love, not of rejection. It's like women with "bad boys" :)

- noga1

September 5, 2010 at 2:04pm

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"...In 1966, when Ida Mae Gladney was fifty-three, Martin Luther King, Jr., came to Chicago. “Chicago has not turned out to be the New Jerusalem,” he told the crowd. (“They had him way up on something high,” Ida Mae recalled. “I never did get to see him good.”) The next year, Ida Mae and her family— James and Eleanor had married and had their own children—bought a house together, a three-family in South Shore, for thirty thousand dollars. Soon, every white family on the block had moved out. “Lord, they move quick,” Ida Mae said. ..." From Jill Lepore's elegant contextual review of “The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration” (Random House; $30) by Isabel Wilkerson in case anyone wants to rethink whether "African Americans experiencing generational poverty choose to segregate themselves in North Philadelphia and the south side of Chicago." http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2010/09/06/100906crbo_books_lepore?currentPage=all

- K2K

September 5, 2010 at 2:57pm

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the "dead mule... (donkey, kine, ass?)" just turned into a new, bigger scandal - perhaps "how to avoid capital gain and estate taxes, - who knows?": "Mosque building owners nixed $18M offer before taking $4.8M one" By ISABEL VINCENT and MELISSA KLEIN Last Updated: 11:15 AM, September 5, 2010 "The original owners of the Ground Zero mosque site mysteriously spurned dozens of higher bids before selling the prime downtown real estate at a bargain-basement price. The Pomerantz family, which had owned the building since the late 1960s and fielded offers after the patriarch died in 2006, rejected at least one bid that was nearly four times what prospective mosque builder Sharif El-Gamal eventually paid, The Post has learned. El-Gamal did offer what could be viewed as a sweetener to his $4.8 million bid in July 2009 -- a job as a property manager for a son of the family, Sethian Pomerantz. New York developer Kevin Glodek was livid when he found out the building sold for a fraction of what he offered in 2007 -- $18 million cash -- and wondered whether money changed hands under the table, according to sources close to the deal. Glodek and his partners wanted to build a 60-story condo tower with retail space on the Park Place site, had inked a purchase agreement and even had keys to the existing building, according to sources and documents obtained by The Post. But Kukiko Mitani -- whose late husband, Stephen Pomerantz, owned the property -- and her brother-in-law, Melvin Pomerantz, a trustee to the estate, went silent at the end of 2007 and Glodek's deal disappeared, sources said. Glodek, who owns the ChefsDiet food delivery service and several Manhattan properties, declined to comment. The property is now at the heart of one of the most divisive issues in the country -- whether it should be the location of a $100 million mosque and community center. The location two blocks from Ground Zero has been called insensitive, and questions have been raised about whether extremists will help fund the project. Recent polls show that 70 percent of New Yorkers want it moved. El-Gamal had his eye on the property for years before buying it in 2009. He was not alone in his interest, with some 30 offers showered on the Pomerantz family in what was an overheated downtown real-estate market in 2007, according to a source familiar with the negotiations. Yet Mitani previously told The Post the building, a former Burlington Coat Factory store that was damaged in the 9/11 attacks, was a tough sell. She said she was in debt and desperate to unload it after her husband's death and insisted she had no buyers other than El-Gamal. Some of the offers were a mere flash in the pan, but others were legitimate, including a $17 million cash deal from one developer, the source said. The attraction in this hot market was buying real estate that could be demolished, the source said. A second downtown mosque, not affiliated with El-Gamal, considered spending $18 million for 45-47 Park Place in early 2008. But the Pomerantz family -- for reasons that remain unclear -- rejected the offers. They took 70 percent less from El-Gamal than what Glodek offered. This was a considerable drop even given the 30 percent decline in market values at the time, said Michael Falsetta, executive vice president of Miller Cicero, a real-estate appraisal firm not involved in the deals. "That makes us suspicious," he said. According to Falsetta, property in the area hovered between $250 to $290 a square foot. El-Gamal purchased the 45-47 Park Place property for the rock-bottom price of just over $100 per square foot. In addition to selling the building to El-Gamal, Mitani sold him the long-term lease for the property next door -- a former Con Edison substation -- for $700,000. The buildings had once been joined to create a store. El-Gamal has told the utility he wants to buy the building, and appraisals to determine the sales price are under way. Glodek was also negotiating with Con Ed before his deal fell apart, the source said. He had offered $12 million to buy out the lease and the property itself. Neither Mitani nor El-Gamal responded to requests for comment. Glodek is so outraged about the sale to El-Gamal that he'd double the $4.8 million price to get the property, sources said." http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/mosque_was_steal_FpzwdRCdb5MdehzkDDWY3H

- K2K

September 5, 2010 at 3:02pm

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For the past several weeks I’ve been wondering when Leon Wieseltier was going to weigh in on the NY mosque controversy, and now at last we have this brilliantly contrarian essay, which provokes and occasionally delights, even while it irritates and perplexes. Contrarian to a fault: it’s as if, having skewered the notion of an Islam (or Judaism, or Christianity) that is peaceful at its core, Wieseltier must also deny satisfaction to those who have legitimate doubts about the appropriateness of building a mosque in proximity to (even if outside the sacral limits) of Ground Zero, particularly given the character of those pushing for its construction. The tone of the last three paragraphs of the essay is emotional and almost preeningly high-minded, in contrast to the spare but forceful argument of the opening paragraph. Wieseltier writes: “Certainly the diabolization of Rauf, an imam who has publicly recited the Shema as an act of solidarity and argued that the Declaration of Independence ‘embodies and restates the core values of the Abrahamic, and thus also the Islamic, ethic,’ must cease.” No, Rauf is probably not the Devil, yet the more we study the imam's ambiguous pronouncements on terror and learn about the shady financial operations of Faisal, Daisy & Co., the more the latter would appear to be the most recent in a line of rogues, rug merchants and double-dealers that includes Manucher Ghorbanifar, Ahmed Chalabi and Hamid Karzai. Could it be that we are again being had?

- lfeinber@email.unc.edu

September 5, 2010 at 4:18pm

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"No, Rauf is probably not the Devil, yet the more we study the imam's ambiguous pronouncements on terror and learn about the shady financial operations of Faisal, Daisy & Co., the more the latter would appear to be the most recent in a line of rogues, rug merchants and double-dealers that includes Manucher Ghorbanifar, Ahmed Chalabi and Hamid Karzai. Could it be that we are again being had?" Mr. Wieseltier prefers to give Imam Rauf the benefit of a doubt. If he is right about him that "he is an imam who has publicly recited the Shema as an act of solidarity and argued that the Declaration of Independence ‘embodies and restates the core values of the Abrahamic, and thus also the Islamic, ethic," then fine. If he is wrong, and the Imam turns out to be "the most recent in a line of rogues, rug merchants and double-dealers" then he can always claim that at worst he can be accused of being naive, or overly-generous in his assessment. And who can blame anyone for trusting maybe not wisely, but too well in his fellow-citizen? Mr. Wieseltier stands to lose nothing by standing shoulder to shoulder with Imam Rauf. Notice how he imputes his trust in the Imam only to a few ostensible manifestations of solidarity with Jews and Christians. He does not go any deeper. He does not touch upon those ambiguities and declarations coming from the Imam that may contradict the benign image Mr. W conjures up for us. Why is that? Maybe he is hoping that if enough praise is heaped upon Rauf, the venerable Imam will eventually have to grow into and become that image. These public accolades which may prove persuasive will impose a certain obligation upon its recipient to deliver. Who knows?

- noga1

September 5, 2010 at 5:46pm

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Right- I'm the one making false comparisons while you all are claiming that Muslims in America are on exactly the same trajectory as Muslims in the Netherlands, which even Peretz can't bring himself to endorse. LEaving aside that America's immigration policy is com;pletely different than that of the Netherlands, that we bring our immigrants here for different reasons and do a better job of integrating them into mainstream society. But, no, we'll be just as helpless as the hapless Dutch, in the face of a few folks wearing hijab and eating halal. Where's American exceptionalism when you need it?

- miceelf

September 5, 2010 at 6:30pm

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Good lord, if you can't see the irony in my statement that "African Americans choose to segregate themselves in South Chicago" then there's really no point in conversing. Of course they didn't segregate themselves and choose to have their neighborhoods be the victims of blight and decay. I am more aware of how racial segregation occurs than most people here. That was my frigging point. I will ;point out, however, that just as it's claimed that Muslims segregate themselves in the Netherlands, and never ever ever are the victims of discrimination, a whole passle of white conservatives here like to make the same arguments about African Americans.

- miceelf

September 5, 2010 at 6:36pm

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miceelf "Right- I'm the one making false comparisons while you all are claiming that Muslims in America are on exactly the same trajectory as Muslims in the Netherlands,...." This is not what you said above.

- jdyer

September 5, 2010 at 6:39pm

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Basman, I've read your comments but you are almost as challenging to read and track as Kermode! Give me another day or so to ponder and digest with a dictionary at hand--and I'll send you a smoke signal...

- willjames77

September 5, 2010 at 7:01pm

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ljach, you put your finger on an interesting aspect of Weiseltier's essay: "having skewered the notion of an Islam (or Judaism, or Christianity) that is peaceful at its core, Wieseltier must also deny satisfaction to those who have legitimate doubts about the appropriateness of building a mosque in proximity to (even if outside the sacral limits) of Ground Zero..." I'm still trying to get my mind around what it is in the essay that disturbs and confuses me. But this was a helpful clue.

- willjames77

September 5, 2010 at 7:13pm

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Noga, I found Yossi Klein Halevi's generous assessment of Imam Rauf to be more plausible that Weiseltier's, though not entirely reassuring. Halevi portrayed him in his recent essay as a man who embodies contradictory impulses and beliefs, some benign from a Western liberal perspective and some less so. He suggested that Rauf was someone whose sub-personalities are less than fully integrated, with different aspects of self dominating at different times. This rings true psychologically as a portrait of this enigmatic figure who seems to be able to do some admirably decent things that invite respect and friendship--while also making statements and claims that would disturb any sane or reasonable person.

- willjames77

September 5, 2010 at 7:26pm

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Those Muslims who are reassuring do not prevaricate. They do not say one thing here and another thing there. They do not commiserate, in America, with a grieving father who lost his son to Islamic extremists and then refuse to condemn another Islamic extremists who kill Jewish people's sons and daughters in Israel. "Every freedom we have in the world, every freedom we have in society, comes up against deference to prudence, deference to necessity, deference to the other persons opinion," said Fouad Ajami, a professor of Middle East Studies at John's Hopkins University and a Senior Fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. Ajami says Islamic tradition has its own parable of prudence. When the Muslims conquered Jerusalem in the 7th century, the Christian patriarch asked the Islamic Caliph, Umar ibn al-Khattab, if he wanted to come and pray as a Muslim in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. "Islamic law and Islamic history say that Umar ibn al-Khattab declined the invitation," Ajami said. "And he said, 'If I pray in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, my followers will come after me, and they will claim it as a shrine. So let me go and pray elsewhere." http://www.voanews.com/english/news/american-life/Mosque-Plan-Ignites-Debate-About-Religious-Freedom-Commemoration-of-911-101189739.html

- noga1

September 5, 2010 at 8:31pm

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What disturbs me about both Wieseltier, and, to a lesser extent, Halevi, is that both essays are in the next print edition of TNR. Wieseltier, as literary editor, implies all oppositon is wrong, all opposition is from the political right, the ignorant, the sentimental, the nationalistic patriots. Who decides what goes into the print edition? Is Chait using TNR to fight his proxy war with Commentary? Following in the fine tradition of TNR editor, Michael Straight, who in 1948, wrote that President Harry Truman had "a known difficulty difficulty with the printed word." (McCullough, Turman, p. 819)

- K2K

September 5, 2010 at 9:51pm

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I meant McCullough's "Truman". I never learned how to type. well stated noga: "Those Muslims who are reassuring do not prevaricate. They do not say one thing here and another thing there. They do not commiserate, in America, with a grieving father who lost his son to Islamic extremists and then refuse to condemn another Islamic extremists who kill Jewish people's sons and daughters in Israel." By the time this essay appears in print, I bet Rauf+Khan are living fulltime in Malaysia, assuming Malaysia has no extradition treaty with the U.S. in tax fraud cases :)

- K2K

September 5, 2010 at 9:58pm

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Apples and oranges argument by Leon Wieseltier. Ignoring history of course is necessary to make Leon Wieseltier’s argument. St. Sophia in Constantinople, the most important church for Orthodox Christians is today a mosque and graced with minarets. Al Aksa in Jerusalem is build on the remains of the temple. Digging and dumping everything in a dump not allowing any archeologist presence to ease the denial that this is the most sacred site to Jews. The church of the Annunciation in Nazareth had land dedicated to parking lot. Muslims out of the blue found a saint to build a mosque smack on the parking lot designated area. Ground Zero is sacred ground to Americans because 3,000 Americans lost their life when Islamic fanatic blew the place in a mass suicide with hijacked planes. Muslims could not build a mosque on Ground Zero so like in Nazareth they want to build as close as possible. That Americans are upset is putting it mildly. Freedom of religion has it’s limits in America. The government can’t establish or build what amounts to religion in national ground as with the cross on Mt. Soledad in San Diego. Local government often denies permission to build a synagogue or a church where traffic would cause problems to the area. A mosque near ground zero causes nightmares to good Americans and that is reason enough to build that mosque a little further from Ground Zero.

- Poupic

September 6, 2010 at 5:36am

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Just a lot of Jewish liberal narcissistic breast beating. Not everything starts and ends with us Jews. Baruch Goldstein was an aberration. Imam Rauf is a flim-flam artist subsidized by the US State Department. He concedes nothing essential. Although we must always heed the humanity of individual Muslims, The religion of Islam is an evil, totalitarian system at continuous, religiously-sanctioned war with the world. It is an affront to our liberal, humanist values. Wieseltier and friends are still determined to see no evil, hear no evil.

- amidut

September 6, 2010 at 7:39am

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Amidut - I remember my grandmother telling me how her father described Judiasm the same way you described Islam, verbatim actually. She eventually turned him in to the OSS (he was an scavenger of sorrow, an interpreter for a Nazi General and general loser, German of course). She eventually went on to work with Mel Mermelstein in Califorinia chasing down holocaust deniers. His daughter, a civil rights lawyer, is my best friend. Anyway - I do find your honesty bracing. I can't stand all of these people who pussyfoot around complaining about corrupt financing, the sensitivity of tourists (hilarious) and all the other window dressing for bigotry. I say: just say it out loud and proud and be done with it, stop trying to get brownie points for fairness. You're utterly transparent anyway. Be like amidut!

- WandreyCer

September 9, 2010 at 6:02am

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" I remember my grandmother telling me how her father described Judiasm the same way you described Islam, verbatim " I needed to see what it would sound like: The religion of Judaism is an evil, totalitarian system at continuous, religiously-sanctioned war with the world. It is an affront to our liberal, humanist values. Certainly, the parallel resonates. Judaism does indeed have a history of terrorism, oppression of minorities, war-mongering and violence. Every one of this allegations would have been true in the years that led up to WWII. Hence, the comparison just nails it. Christopher Hitchens wrote an article not long after 9/11 which I cannot find on line but I remember because it made such an impression on me, how no one notices that every libel, accusation, and slander leveled at Jews throughout history, culminating in the near extermination of Jews, is actually being enacted by Muslims in Europe, with the blessing of the "Left" in Europe. It is one the bitterest ironies in history that Europeans, and particularly Germans, try to expiate for the sins of their grandparents by protecting and advocating for Islam, whose basic teachings instruct them in meticulous detail how to persecute and kill Jews. At the same time they turn on the Jewish state as if IT were responsible for the past crimes of their nation. There is something very strange about the attempt to pass the Muslim minorities as vulnerable, powerless, totally innocent. I watched Imam Rauf yesterday explaining how he cannot withdraw the Cordova Mosque to another location because it will trigger a violent reaction among "exremists" in the Muslim world. To me it sounded like "an offer he cannot refuse". I've seen this morning the entire American administration beseeching a totally negligible religious crazy to not burn Islamic scriptures because the act will trigger wrath and violence in the Muslim world. One Imam was quoted as saying that even if one human being is killed somewhere as a result of the violence that will surely ensue, it's the book burners who are directly responsible. Not the putative Muslim murderers but the book burners. It would seem that, contrary to the impression of helpless vulnerability, Muslim minorities can tap into great numbers and resources of support whenever it only appears that their wishes are thwarted. So relocating a mosque will incite mass violence, according to Rauf. Burning Qurans will incite violence, according to that other Imam. How long before something else will incite violence? How many eruptions of violence were caused by Jews in history, wonderycer, that you dare make that slanderous analogy? How did Jews react when Muslims burned down an ancient synagogue in Jericho? Or a sacred place of worship near Nablus? Or used tombstones from Jewish cemeteries for paving their doorsteps, Or used the Western Wall as a garbage dump? Or burnt the Jewish quarter of Aleppo, including all its synagogues and Torah scrolls? Where is the record of Jewish violence in Europe, America or anywhere, that would support your analogy?

- noga1

September 9, 2010 at 9:58am

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