The worrying opposition to the 'Ground Zero Mosque'

Tarka the Rotter

there are no reformist movements in Islam - it is delusional to think otherwise... and the 9/11 mosque is the business of the Americans, not us..

Yam Yam

Sorry, James; but isn't this the kind of tosh that saddled us with unwinnable wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in the first place?

Rhoda Klapp

If I don't want someone to build a petrol station in my village, that's not a war on petrol and by association motoring. It's just an opinion that it isn't a good place.

Or are you putting this up because Massie is getting such good mileage out of missing the point over on his patch?

Catesby

But the Imam behind the Ground Zero Mosque, Faisal Abdul Rauf, has form. He's one of those who blamed terrorism on American foreign policy, demanded an 'America culpa' speech and seems somewhat in awe of Qaradawi.

Though he is personally good at denouncing terrorist violence, some of his views seem pretty extreme to me.

Though no one should be prevented by law from building a mosque in a country that is committed to religious freedom, that doesn't mean they should not be persuaded out of this offence against good taste by healthy, democratic dollops of public indignation.

dave, surrey

If mainstream Muslims were more vocal in their opposition to terrorist acts carried out in their name, as well as the barbaric justice imposed in Islamic countries (stoning women adulterers), then maybe the distinction between fascist Islam and mainstream Islam would be more obvious to the rest of us.

Glenn Haldane

Unfortunately, there is a great deal in mainstream Islam to object to: death for apostates and homosexuals; subordinate status for women and non-muslims; attitude to representational art (remember the Bamiyan Buddhas?);violent response to criticism and satire; hostility to science and rational thought in general; and so on. It is therefore quite appropriate to object to any expansion of the influence of Islam in western society.

Clear Memories

Typical western liberal bollocks - twisting himself in knots so as not to criticise a 'minority'.

Get yourself a Koran James and read it. Realise that there are no moderate Muslims, only those that believe in taking their good time, running down the western opposition a little at a time and basically outbreeding us and Radical Islam, which just says 'sod it, Mohammed said kill any that oppose (Islam)' so lets just get on with it.

In either case, their aim is world domination because they are certain they are right. (Just like that little man with the funny moustache and like him, they are determined to wipe out the Jews.) In fact, having read the Koran, you'll find it has much in common with the Third Reich in dealing with non-believers, questioners and critics, which is why Islamonazi is such an apt title for the followers.

This proposal is a calculated, determined effort to damage the US (and its allies) by forcing sections of society into one camp or another, creating social friction and (if they are really lucky) violent unrest.

There is no such thing as a tolerant Muslim, their 'religion' precludes it and forbids it. Their sole aim is the imposition of Sharia law across the globe. I have no truck with any religion, believing they are all corrupt and corrupting but this vile, medieval cult is not going to leave the world in peace without a lot of bloodshed.

DaveL

To Dave from Surry - Muslims are allowed to lie to unbelievers in order to defeat them. The two forms are:

Taqiyya - Saying something that isn't true.
Kitman - Lying by omission.

Derek Pasquill

Those who cannot see that the Ground Zero mosque is a revolting proposal of gargantuan dimensions are up to their necks and beyond in dhimmitude.

Platitudes about tolerance and clash of civilisations claptrap are not relevant here when it is a clear case of protesting the construction of a symbolic message of hatred and viciousness to equal the original crime.

Martin Amis was correct to experience species shame when he recorded his first thoughts about 9/11 - the feeling will no doubt persist among many if this "bridge-building" exercise is allowed to proceed.

Chuck Unsworth

"If the war on terror becomes a war on Islam"

It has, long ago. Indeed it was right from the outset. Until recent disturbances, those in the UK with fears of terrorist acts are/were no longer listening for Irish accents - they are looking out for Moslem appearance. See also Spain, the Basques, and its Muslim population.

And one has to ask why there was no American support for a 'War on Terror' in Northern Ireland. This is just another manifestation of American self-interest taking priority over everything and everyone.

Ed P

It is pointless trying to reason with fundamentalists

ganpatram

Kindly stop talking nonsense, James.

The GZ opposition means people in the West are tired of always making allowances for Islam without the SLIGHTEST reciprocity.

It sends a sound message: if Muslims want privileges in non-Muslim countrues, they must give the same rights to non-Muslims in Muslim countries.

Mosque at GZ, Hindu temple at Mecca.

Got it?

Jez

It's amazing how much you 'mainstream' people are willing to give away... you know, of other people's sacrifices.

Can't you lot just move to Greenland and have your Globalist group hug there?

Please?

cg

Not one of the people responding so far has addressed James's point that a war on Islam cannot be won. This is because they can't answer it as his assertion is so obviously correct. They are playing into the hands of Bin Laden and his kind. Their heated and often ill-informed rhetoric makes me squirm.

PayDirt

Sort of depends on what it looks like. I was very much taken aback the other weekend when I drove into a neighbouring town to see a minaret and dome slap bang in the middle of town. I thought for a moment that I’d been beamed back to some Middle Eastern township. But no, who on earth gave them permission to plonk a foreign religion in my country? This is not freedom of religious worship, it is imposing a foreign culture on the landscape. It is a statement of their difference to the host country. And it raises hackles.

Salopian

There are times, not often, when I despair at some of the comments made by my fellow coffee housers. This is one of those days.

"There are no reformist movements in Isalm" says Tarka the rotter. There has never been a religion, a faith, a body politic which has not had a reformist movement. So what makes Tarka think that Islam is different.

Perhaps "reformist" is not the word which James should have chosen. It's not that mainstream Islam needs reforming, it's more that it needs to be able to reassert itself against the the "Islamists"

Rhoda thinks it's just like not wanting a petrol station in her village. But she's not going to get very far in her objections if her protests consists of little more than an "opinion that it's not a good place" Opinions need substance.

Catesby sees the proposal against "good taste". But surely good taste requires some form of balance and might the construction of an Islamic Centre in the viciintiy (not on the site of) Ground Zero not contribute to that balance

Dave asks for a clearer distinction between the barbarity and terrorism carried out by fundamentalists. And of course he's right. But might one not argue that the proposal is an attempt to do just that

Oh - by the way, just in case you're wondering - I'm RC

denis cooper

I guess that if this mosque was built then it would have to be strongly guarded day and night for many years or even decades to come, otherwise it might end up being burnt to the ground.

Minnie Ovens

Well, you might not think it's a war but the Islamic fundamentalists think differently.
And in the Islamic world the fanatics have a way of winning over their more benign members (and not by words).

In2minds

Rhoda Klapp @ August 19th, 2010 11:35am - "If I don't want someone to build a petrol station in my village, that's not a war on petrol".

Correct, however, you'd never make it as a journalist. There's always talk of the gap between the public and the politicians, that the latter simply do not understand the former. But the journalists get it wrong too -

"Our aim should be to boost the reformist elements in Islam". Also correct, but first you have to find these movements and write about them. Can James Forsyth tell us tha last time the Spectator had an article that featured the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain? They have a website - http://www.ex-muslim.org.uk/

Mind you I seem to remember the Spectator went all coy about the Danish cartoons and got that badly wrong, so not much hope is there!

Jez

Do you liberal / Globalist / Neo Conner's actually get a warm feeling deep down when you know you're going to ride rough shod over the will of the majority all of the time..... because you've cornered the media?

Come on pal. Spill the beans.

Victor Southern

This is none of our business - none at all. Hardly anyone in the UK can be in a position to assess the matter or understand feelings in the New York area.

Why the Sepctator runs two threads about it simultaneously is hard to understand.

Massie, of course, from his Olympian throne of detachment can afford to pontificate on abtruse matters. I can't recall what his view was on the compassionate release of the Lockerbie bomber.

Austin Barry

"If the war on terror becomes a war on Islam, it is a war that we lose,"

We, the West, are losing.

Everywhere you look is evidence of the provocative, fuck-the-infidel, triumphalism of Islam.

But it is a war Islam started - centuries ago. It is the rough beast, its hour come at last, not slouching, but closing fast towards us, to be born as, what, the new Caliphate?

As the Turkish Prime Minister once implied, the construction of mosques and minarets is part of a strategy for the Islamization of the West: "The minarets are our bayonets, the domes our helmets, the mosques our barracks and the faithful our army."

We seem to be waving the white flag already, although the US Poll is encouraging, as is the Swiss proscription of minarets, as are the burqua bans etc. etc.

The people the West are beginning to mobilise against the neolithic tenets of Islam.

Good.

Victor Southern

I found it - Massie's headline:
Lockerbie Fallout: A (Fake) American Backlash

Minnie Ovens

By the way, Mr Forsyth, there are over 200 Mosques in Manhattan and how many churches in Saudi Arabia?
They really need one in a business district in which the Muslim presence is minimal, don't they?
Anything which is advocated by Nancy Pelosi should be looked at very closely.
You sound as if you have a picture of her on your desk.

Matt Pryor

James I agree with this article. I think building a Mosque at ground zero is questionable taste and a provocative move. But opposition to it does seem to carry a great deal of anti-Islamic rhetoric which is dangerous and wrong.

Our enemies are violent revolutionaries, not the vast majority of Muslims, most of whom just want to be left alone.

Nicholas

The war against the Nazis was not a war against Germany?

Unfortunately when movements harness a religion or country in their name it is sometimes difficult to separate the evil from those who just support it, condone it or stand idly by. In the case of 9/11 I remember the TV pictures of huge crowds of Islamic people in various Middle Eastern countries, presumably not all of them terrorists, jumping for joy.

When you are the object of hate and your countrymen and women, innocents all, are murdered in the name of a particular religion and prophet, it is not easy to be tolerant or charitable towards them. When the vast majority of Muslims denounce the terror, stop supporting it or condoning it - or standing idly by, when they stop rejoicing at its outrages, then maybe I'll be a bit more discriminating in differentiating the terrorists from the Muslims and vice-versa.

denis cooper

I watched this programme last night:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00tf1w8/This_World_20102011_Stolen_Brides/

"Reporter Lucy Ash travels to Chechnya to investigate the extraordinary practice of bride stealing. Young women are being kidnapped off the street and married to men they may never have met. Although officially disapproved of, this centuries-old tradition is flourishing.

From the moment a young woman is snatched, to her wedding one week later, Lucy follows the twists and turns as two families struggle to negotiate a compromise. She’s also with the mullah whose job it is to arbitrate between the two families and prevent the incident spilling into bloodshed. After a week of tense negotiations, she attends the colourful wedding celebrations where it seems there are as many guns as guests.

Chechnya’s President, Ramzan Kadyrov, is an ally of Moscow and governs the Republic with a firm hand. In an interview he explains he is promoting a particular Chechen interpretation of Islam. Lucy joins a state-sponsored patrol on the streets of Grozny. Its job is to persuade women to wear headscarves and dress appropriately. Lucy also meets human rights campaigners to learn how dangerous it can be to oppose the authorities.

Lucy Ash also visits the new Islamic Medical Centre. Many thousand troubled and disturbed women have been sent there for treatment. Lucy witnesses a harrowing and violent exorcism performed on a woman in an effort to cure her unhappy marriage.

What emerges is a picture of a country and its people struggling to balance the often contradictory forces of Russian Law, Islamic Sharia law and ancient Chechen tradition.

Six weeks later Lucy makes a further trip, this time to Kazakhstan, to meet up again with the newly-weds to find out how they are adapting to married life and how the bride is getting on with a husband she barely knew on her wedding day."

Now that's what I'd call "worrying", more so than the perfectly natural opposition to the building of this mosque.

The programme is 60 minutes long and will be available on BBC iPlayer until next Wednesday evening.

Matt Pryor

Nicholas: How many Muslims have you actually spoken to about these issues? Give it a try. You might be pleasantly surprised.

old fogey

Oh dear. Mr Forsyth, occasionally someone says something so stupid or so wet that for ages afterwards it colours attitudes to anything else they may say or write. I'm afraid your effort falls into this position. Perhaps you have been writing too much recently, or perhaps associating too freely with duplicitous, but achingly correct, politicians

Augustus

If Islam wasn't able to use and call upon the historical stroke of luck which befell an hallucinatory prophet, this ideology could and probably would be banned, just as neo-Nazi groups were banned in some of post-war Europe. If one studies Islam's aims in the worldwide scheme of things, it is clear that it's own ideological goal was to rule and control large portions of the world, and to suppress or drive out non-believers.
Prophets at one time had an easy ride in convincing naive populations who were illiterate and lived in fear, and lacked a modern understanding of the natural world.
Someone today, who under the moonlight somewhere in a desert, said that he had communicated with one or other archangel wouldn't get millions of followers, and would most likely be taken for an idiot.

In the twentieth century it was the masses,
blinded by the evil and disruptive influences of the extreme ideologies, who
provided the foot soldiers for the genocidal
slaughter. But such matters as democracy and free press first had to be given up in order for the masses to stay ignorant, as we see today in the Muslim dictatorships. It is quite conceivable that if the leaders
of Communism or Nazism had decided to worship a divine heavenly voice, and built
temples to their 'religion', then those ideologies with their concepts of untermensch and homophobia would have the same protection as the burqa and headscarf wearers enjoy today.

Abandon Ship!

I think the point is, James, that we in the West are pretty fed up with Islam in all its forms and trappings. The BBC endlessly peddle a friendly-smiley version of this religion whilst castigating anything Christian. We get fed up.

Of course people have the right to build a place of worship where they would like in a free country, but people of that free country will run out of patience when they are repeatedly told that a certain religion is wonderful, when it is clearly not.

Oh and by the way,in the expression "GWB may have had his faults but.." , could you please outline those faults and explain why the great and good of this land never say this about Obama, who is arguably much worse?

Bluebottle

Littlejohn writes about this in today's Mail. At the end he poses two questions: Why here? Why now?

Answers anyone?

andrew

Several blocks away? Ummm, one block away actually.

Tarka the Rotter

@salopian

sorry if my comments made you despair - being someone ready to learn, perhaps you could point me to a couple of reformist Islamic movements...

Rhoda Klapp

Oh, did I mention there is a clash of civilizations going on whether one likes it or not. Participation is not optional. Trick is to determine what events are part of it and what are not. If the mosque plan isn't part of it, why may it not be built elsewhere? No, I understand they MAY build it there, I just want to know why MUST they. What exclusive benefit is there in that area which will not pertain a bit further away?

I'm seeking a list of anti-muslim attacks at any of the other hundred-plus manhattan mosques. Anyone? Surely the forces of bigotry have expressed themselves in their inevitable hateful way?

Scary Biscuits

Salopean, you're splitting hairs. There will of course be reformist movements in Islam, as there have always been in Catholicism. The question is whether they are of any significance.

The real defeat of the reformists came in the 12th century when they lost out to the literalists. Ever since then mainstream discussion of a more liberal interpretation of the Koran has been virtually impossible.

More recent attempts at a more modern version of Islam were attempted by, for example, the Turks. The vast majority of Muslims, however, interpret this not as a modern version of Islam but as non-Islam. In a recent poll over 90% of Muslims, identified Sharia Law as inseparable for Islam (even though there is no mention of it in the Koran).

Attempts to appeal to the 'more moderate Islam' are therefore likely to fail. If it exists at all, it is too small to be of any use for us, except for the purposes of liberal wishful thinking.

CF, why do you assume that a war against Islam cannot be won? Are you saying that a society based on traditional western values of freedom of speech and thought and hard work and thrift cannot win against a civilisation that keeps harking back to how great it was a thousand years ago when they had streep lamps etc and were ahead of the west but in fact most of their inventions, such as 'Arabic' numerals, were in fact stolen from other places they had invaded and then failed to develop for hundreds of years until they were picked up by western Europe after the crusades? Like the poor in cities like Liverpool, the Muslim countries live off charity from the rest of us. If we withdrew that support there would be no question about who would win. Of course, if we continue to let them in over here and to outbreed us at our own expense, then before long we will have no civilisation to defend.

TrevorsDen

You are a neo conservative? You mean you were once a socialist?

Nicholas

Oh, come on Matt Pryor, you have no idea how many Muslims I have or haven't spoken to. You are just assuming I haven't to make a rather silly implication of bigotry. Even if I had spoken to several thousand Muslims would that illuminate the underlying issue one way or the other?

In any case I venture I've spent more time travelling and working in the Middle East than you. But so what?

My comment stands. Stop trying to personalise it. If you have a point to make about Muslims then make it. Don't do it by assuming or implying things about me you know nothing about.

David Preiser

Rhoda Klapp is correct. The families of the 30 people on my street who were murdered in the name of Islam also think Alex Massie is full of it.

Have any of you who are so quick to condemn people like myself stopped to think that the Mohammedans behind this project think there's a war going on? Has any one of you who are so quick to call my thoughts "worrying" openly discussed the thoughts of the Mohammedans behind this project? I wonder why you so readily accept the words of secretive people who refuse to engage in outreach dialogue (while at the same time claiming that it's what they're actually doing with this mosque and Islamic center) can dismiss the words of those who are being deliberately insulted by this?

Since nobody at the Spectator seems to grasp what's really going on here, I'll spell it out for you:

This is not just a mosque. If it were a humble mosque, full stop, I would accept it, stand by it, and personally explain to any opponents why we must allow it in the name of religious freedom, a founding principle of the United States.

However, that's not what's going on here, the dishonest musings of Massie and others notwithstanding. Why does no one here condemn the choice of the name "Cordoba" as being highly insensitive and inflammatory? You condemn me for being intolerant, but not those who are the original provocateurs. Massie and others have tried several different contortions to prove that it's really some cosmopolitan, multi-cultural symbol, or that since it's a church these days we ought not care. Why have none of you - who so easily condemn my thoughts - discussed the fact that Mohammedans have a very long historical memory? We're allowed to talk about it when other issues involving historical Muslim grievances are on the table, but now we must sweep that aside and pretend it doesn't exist? I don't accept these attempts to stifle debate.

This cultural center was never intended to be a multi-faith, dialogue-building enterprise. Hands up, all those who think there would be a series of klezmir music or feminist poetry or anything that is not fully acceptable under the most fundamental version of Islam? Let's see you then.

If there was more honesty and willingness to condemn the insensitivity of those who deliberately chose a provocative name and location for something that is much larger and complex than a humble mosque, I would be willing to engage in dialogue and would feel less insulted and inclined to rant like this.

Sadly, the majority - including the brains at the Spectator - have had the most base, emotional, knee-jerk reactions towards people like me. This, combined with the suppression and twisting of the facts, is what needs to be addressed before I and my neighbors will trust those of you on the other side.

The imam behind the mosque and Islamic center has written a book which some translate as an attempt to re-define Islam from the ashes of the World Trade Center. Others translate it as an attempt to use that location as a launching point to "spread" Islam.

If the true goal is the former, and not the latter, then I would suggest that the first move for those wishing to prove that this is not a Victory Mosque would be to say, "Hey, we understand, didn't mean to cause offense. We'll move a couple blocks away, no problem".

The controversy would end tomorrow if somebody said that. Have any of you - who are so quick to condemn my motivations and personal integrity - thought about that? If so, why haven't there been any statements to that effect?

ed hall

"he which hath no stomach to this fight, Let him depart"

Frank P

I wonder, James, if you should consider re-writing your article and entitling it:

"The very worrying support for the Obamosque"

- given the response (which I am sure you anticipated). As Rhoda says, you're jealous of the furore that wee Jocky Massie provoked with his twaddle, obviously.

If you do as I suggest, you would certainly be more in tune with your readers. After all your friend O'Barmy did a (sort of) U Turn when he found that he was out of tune with the electorate. Take a leaf from his book.

At least Anna supported you, but then she doesn't seem to realize that the reason that Germany is a much better country than it was and has given up all that holocaust malarkey 'n' that, is because we (in alliance with our friends and a couple of potential enemies) defeated it by bombing the shit out of it for three solid years and killed a vast proportion of its army; then occupied it for a long time afterwards, just in case they had any second thoughts about world domination. That is called victory! Not surrender, as she seems to be suggesting. Oh and by the way, we were quite civilised and magnanimous when they laid down their arms. Furthermore Anna also doesn't seem to realise that German politicians are now terrified that within 25 years Germany will a predominately Muslim country and are screaming blue murder about Islamic immigration and demographic creep.

As for the "Far Right" Anna, I guess anybody to the right of Chairman Mao would come under that category in your judgement? 'Far Right' may arse! If anybody with a minimum of two brain cells actually connected up and functioning cannot see that we are in a fight to the death as a civilisation and that triumphal flags of Islam are large mosques and that the Obamosque would be a major symbol of victory for the Jihad, we are dooooomed.

James ... I appreciate that your domestic political treatises on this blog, in this period of non-government, are not drawing much attention these days, but getting hits in this way is silly. FFS behave yourself!
Have the BB extended their interests to the Muzzie world or somethin'?

Verity

Clear Memories puts it articulately and succinctly, and he/she is absolutely right.

Verity

Shrieeeeek! Poor Matt Pryor writes: "How many Muslims have you actually spoken to about these issues? Give it a try. You might be pleasantly surprised."

The naiveté chills the blood.

This is taqyya and kitman ... lies and deceit in the service of allah and is one of their major weapons against the free, intellectual West.

(What's a muslim ever invented, by the way? Nothing. Why? Because inventing stuff would be going against allah's will. Allah had already invented everything that people would need in the 8th Century, see.)

Chris

"Obama, who is arguably much worse"

Shurely "inarguably"? - Ed.

old fogey

Another alarming aspect of this 'mosque for Manhattan' affair is that, according to my paper this morning, 27% of New Yorkers support the building of this wretched building on this controversial site . 27 per cent; ye gods what has happened to the people of New York to turn a sizeable minority of them into suicidal dhimmis? I have never really subscribed to the Mark Steyn "America Alone" thesis ( there is an excess of institutionalised political correctness in the US as in europe) and even London would have a smaller percentage in support of a mosque adjacent to one of the tube stations that was the site 0f July 7th.

Ali C

Actually the Arabs invented Algebra, contributed to astronomy, and gave us the English Thoroughbred horse (via the Arabian). So they (as Muslims) contributed... I'm sure there's much much more.

Verity

Thought Nazi Nancy Pelosi now wants all those Americans who object to the obscenity of the siting of this mosque to undergo an investigation.

Rhoda Klapp

OK, let's come at this from another angle. All I say is 'a reasonable sensible person would take notice of objections and build elsewhere'. That's all. Now that being an entirely reasonable position, what the Massies and Forsyths of the world have to respond with is, 'you are just saying that to cover your bigotry, you hate Islam unreasonably or you are afraid of it for no reason. You equate the terrorist Islam with the innocent millions who have no truck with terrorism and don't hate the west.' And you see, THAT is an unreasonable argument, as it imputes motive way beyond the stated position. Whether true or not. Now, never mind what you think (on no evidence) are my motives, just tell me why they can't take notice of objections and build it elsewhere. Well?

Beer Moth

"If the war on terror becomes a war on Islam, it is a war that we lose"

Really? What do you base this on? The war, right now in its preliminary stage, is one being fought in a defensive mode, by a West which has not yet woken - as this and Doc Massie's recent articles illustrate.

The Western media is filled to the brim now, with people of this same defeatist strain, such that any resistance to Islamic aggression is castigated and made to look as if it is itself the problem. It isn't.

The problem faced by the world today is that a very ancient arrogance which in fact pre-dates Islam, has been revived and has settled within the peoples who subscribe to that religion, such that they feel it their duty to inflict upon non-believers, their faith. They came before in overwhelming numbers and it was said at the time that to war with them was 'a war we cannot win'. They were faced, and they were turned back.

But none of this history is allowed to be recognised so that when some supposedly authoritative commentator says that our only hope is appeasement, we should have no answer and must follow that route.

Indy

But Rhoda it is not reasonable to compare the building of an Islamic Centre near to Ground Zero with Nazis putting up a sign next to the holocaust museum in Washington.

It is these kinds of statements - made by irresponsible publicity-hungry politicians -that have turned this from a local issue which could possibly have been resolved through discussions into a news story of international importance. It is the behaviour of the politicians and commentators denouncing the mosque which will surely mean that the plan goes ahead.

Because if it is blocked now, having gone through all the due process and been approved, what does that look like to the rest of the world?

It looks like the elected officials have been bounced into changing their position by a popular tide of opinion which equates Muslims with Nazis and which draws no distinction between terrorists and ordinary people. That cannot be allowed to happen because it would be an absolute gift to the extremists.

All in all, it would have been better if these loud mouthed politicians had thought through the likely consequences before turning this matter into a political football.

ben

some truly myopic responses to a not unreasonable post, and since when were the speccie and brits in general not allowed to comment on american issues!? that particularly got my goat

wasp

Victor Southern (1.07pm) states that 'this is none of our business..hardly anyone in the UK can be in a position fo assess the matter or understand feelings in New York'. I disagree: we can certainly understand feelings - there were a number of UK citizens killed in 9/11 (several from Essex where I live) and we must not forget our own dreadful 7/7. These murders were committed in the name of Islam: the perpetrators were not Sikhs, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists..... I cannot think of a greater insult and provocation to New Yorkers than to build this mosque

Kirsty Richards

James I don't get why you refer to this as 'worrying opposition to the ground zero mosque'. If a majority of Americans are opposed to it then surely their political leaders should reflect this. Just because politicians in Britain don't listen to the electorate, America is different and more democratic. Europe and specifically Britain has pandered to Muslims and their every whim. Which has resulted in ghettoisation, alienation and extremism. Political correctness means Muslims are given special treatment by the Liberal establishment, which includes the political class, the police, councils, BBC etc. Up in the north of England there is an epidemic of Pakistani Asian muslims targeting young white girls from 'vulnerable families' (think Shannon Matthews style), and turning them into prostitutes. There was a case last week were a gang were convicted yet only the Daily Mail has done a story on it. Could you suggest why this is? Because if it was the other way around there would be wall to wall coverage. We are in no position to lecture any other country about anything to do with this matter, in fact I wish we could be more like America. I think in the end it will have to become a war between religions/civilisations, it's inevitable because the terrorists are, they say, acting in the name of Islam, to kill the infidels and defeat 'the Great Satan'.

Kirsty Richards

And to think Howard Dean was only a few months ago calling France and Germany racist for their opposition to Turkey joining the EU. Total hypocrite!

KB

James,

I'm sure it's just a coincidence that you mention GWB.

http://dailycaller.com/2010/08/18/lefties-pine-for-george-w-bush/

Indy

Beer Moth asks why "If the war on terror becomes a war on Islam, it is a war that we lose"?

Do you drive a car? How easy would it be without petrol?

Face facts. America needs Middle Eastern oil.

It is not feasible for the US to invade and occupy every single Muslim oil-producing nation to secure its energy supply. Which means that starting a war with Islam is not a good idea.

That's what James Forsyth is actually talking about.

Indy

Kirsty says: “I think in the end it will have to become a war between religions/civilisations”

So you are quite OK with the idea of a war on Islam?

Good luck with that but since there are over one and a half billion Muslims in the world it may take some time to beat them all.

Frank P

Matt Pryor

"Our enemies are violent revolutionaries, not the vast majority of Muslims, most of whom just want to be left alone."

Really?

I think you failed to finish the sentence. Permit me to finish it for you:

".... just want to be left alone, so that they can impose their medieval customs; oppressive religion; barbaric oppression of women and instigate Sharia Law within our nation and other nations of the West. Furthermore they wish to change the demographics irreversibly by out-breeding us."

Well fuck 'em - and you too! You can appease and collaborate with the enemy all you like and swallow their deceptive bullshit, but as long as I have breath in my body I shall oppose their religion per se and any further incursion by the practitioners of it, in every possible way left to me. And if that's 'far right' - then 'far right' on! And faaar..k orft with your 'might be pleasantly surprised' crap! There have been enough very unpleasant surprises from this egregious 'religion' for the past twenty years or so to wake me up to the rapacious nature of historical Mohammedan ambitions - what will it take to rouse you from your idealistic delusions?

Augustus

Has anybody mentioned that Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf wants to turn the clock back to an era when Muslims ruled much of the known world, i.e. Sharia law worldwide? This man also apparently helped fund the Turkish flotilla through IHH, the terrorist group that has ties to al Qaida and Hamas. This man can hardly be called a 'moderate', because to him the average Muslim is not compliant enough. There is no doubt whatsoever that if 45 Park Place (not several blocks away, but only a block but one) is turned into this Islamic monstrosity it will intensify that climate of extreme prejudice, suspicion and fear against Muslims, which is not something that
New York or America needs. Any true and lasting reformist element will come from Muslims who write and talk (they do exist) of what Muslims have done wrong since about
the time the Shah of Persia was deposed and revolutionaries imposed their ideology on an unsuspecting world.

Frank P

Let's cut to the chase:

http://www.newsmax.com/Headline/Ground--Zero--Mosque--Ahmadinejad/2010/08/19/id/367908?s=al&promo_code=A894-1

Sam ARMSTRONG

cg @ 12.29:

You wouldn't need to fight a war at all if the boneheaded British would just understand that there is no such thing as a moderate Muslim. Because then, in fully understanding what is in our midst, we would not have been so willing nor would we continue to be so willing to change the nature of our country to suit them. Turning a blind eye to the fomentation of Islamic radicalism in Britain in the 1990s was a disastrously naive thing to do, and was rooted in the belief that they wouldn't hurt us if we didn't hurt them. Well, that turned out to be wrong didn't it? Because they played us for fools and prepared themselves for this conflict, this jihad, whilst we made ourselves feel all gooey and right-on. If we had had the correct and accurate information about them back then we would have been more vigilant and would be in a better position now. Once again, the people who make an effort to drill down to the truth of the issue and are brave enough to stand up for it and our history are dismissed as 'embarrassing' or whatever banal epithet it was you called us.

Rhoda Klapp

Indy, what is wrong with the forsyth argument is, nobody is declaring war on Islam. Nobody wants to (at least in the context of this mosque). Let the war on Islam be debated elsewhere, if you can find any proponents. On the mosque front, will anybody be telling me why they cannot build it elsewhere? And why even suggesting that they might find another site is tantamount to declaring war on a religion?

Anyone have that list of acts against mosques in NY?

Anyone find out where the reputed hundred million dollars is coming from? I think we are allowed to ask.

Kirsty Richards

Indy
August 19th, 2010 6:03pm

Personally no I am not happy with a clash of civilisations but in case you are forgetting THEY attacked us first on 9/11. If it comes to a choice between living according to western society values and Islamic values, I am a woman and I would choose Western society everytime. Men might not have much to lose under sharia law but women do!

Verity

Sam Armstrong, I enjoyed reading your post and largely agree with you ... but ... I quote: "Turning a blind eye to the fomentation of Islamic radicalism in Britain in the 1990s was a disastrously naive thing to do ...".

I don't think so.

I think that Jack Straws, ex-CNDers whose membership has been air-brushed out of that establishment's history Tony 'n' Cherie Blair, and a few other hard core Student Unionists in the Blair government whose names I cannot now recall, saw islam as a wonderful rod for beating the British, trashing our history and way of life, and promoting a sense of being demoted to second class citizens in their own ancient civilisation.

Islamic vile behaviour was given a free pass on all fronts. The police ... they don't move them on when they start praying on the public pavements; they don't move them on when the yell abuse at our armed forces, the great offices of state have muslim "prayer rooms" in them ... you know the drill.

They funded the obscene Muslim Council or whatever it's called, the one with mysterious dingbat Banglawangla as its press officer ...

Brown, all by himself, without a debate in Parliament, changed our ancient law of one husband and one wife to give muslims a free pass for "up to four wives, as long as bigamy was legal in the country in which the marriages were contracted". Along with other examples, which I can't be bothered to think of again, what kind of cockamamie governance is that ... unless it is deliberately and malignly destructive to Christian Western civilisation?

Minnie Ovens

"Victor Southern
August 19th, 2010 1:07pm Report this comment
This is none of our business."

I must admit that as I watched transfixed from the corner on Warren and Greenwich as the second jet went into the second tower, I might have said to myself "this is nothing to do with me".
But I didn't.It was very, very personal to all of us nearby and affected me deeply.
And it was personal to millions of British people who were watching an attack on Western ideals and practices by a fanatical religious body.
And, Mr Southern, I do not wish a lecture from a patronizing oaf on whether or not this is our business.
No doubt, in your book, we should have had no brook with what happened in the concentration camps in WW2.
Just turn your backs and ignore it.

Florence of Arabia

Kirsty RichardsÑ "Personally no I am not happy with a clash of civilisations ..."

The "clash" of what? The West is a great civilisation. What was the other one?

Nicholas

Frank P far be it from me to challenge your forthright views on the Islamic threat but:-

"There have been enough very unpleasant surprises from this egregious 'religion' for the past twenty years or so to wake me up to the rapacious nature of historical Mohammedan ambitions"

Twenty years? Surely Muslim fanatics (of one creed or another) have been at it for nigh on 50 years?

The thing that surprises me is not the growing backlash against Islam (about time) but the incredible forbearance of the West. They should have banned Muslims from setting foot near any airport decades ago.

Can't retaliate against 'em because it would radicalise them? They are already radicalised.

Rhoda Klapp

Another question. How many who support the mosque also support the war in Afghanistan? Obama for one. It seems to me that many of us bigoted racist islamophobic slavering warmongers wanted nothing to do with the war that is going on now, nor the Iraq invasion. I'f like to leave the middle east alone. Am I an exception, or is that the way it divides?

Beer Moth

Indy

Man cannot live by oil alone.

MaxSceptic

The West has been at war with Islam ever since it came into existence.

We've just ceased to acknowledge this fact.

Victor Southern

How very odd that I should have come under attack here, apparently as a patronising oaf who favours this mosque. I certainly do not. I suppose that Minnie Ovens is a woman but what do I call her for this intemperate attack - an oafess?

It should be perfectly clear that I was responding to the blog itself - you know, the one by James Forsyth that said it was worrying that Americans were opposing this mosque.
I thought that I was pointing that it is not our business to dictate to Americans what they should fell over this. Perhaps I should have said it is not James Forsyth's business.

wasp - you read this too. To attack me for holding out that we have no right to criticise the New Yorkers is absurd whilst you claim to understand them because people also died here in terrorist outrages. You cannot comprehend how new York felt, you cannot possibly and neither can James Forsyth or Alex Massie who approach this with liberal disdain. They are above such pettiness as outrage. they can feign to be god-like.

Malfleur

"Last December the New York Times reported that Ground Zero mosque Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf said, "New York is the capital of the world, and this location close to 9/11 is iconic" and was happy that the mosque would be on the site of a building "where a piece of the wreckage fell." Pamela Geller has recently noticed that the Times has now scrubbed Rauf's quote. It didn't fit the mosque leaders' new line, as reflected in El-Gamal's words above, and so down the Memory Hole it went." (Jihadwatch)

Dixon

Poor man is completely adrift without sail, oars or compass. a few facts might help:

The site of the proposed building is not "a few blocks from ground zero" but is PART OF the Ground Zero site...the undercarriage of one of the planes fell through the roof, writing the building off. Thats why its available. Thats why Daisy Khan, one of the campaigners FOR the project has said that "...the site came to us" out of divine intervention. In other words, its location is a direct reflection of the role of Allah on 9/11!

The building is less than 200 yards from the EPICENTRE of the site.

The project is called "Park 51" but was originally called the "Cordoba House". Cordoba was the site of a massive mosque built to celebrate the defeat there of Christian forces and the conquest of Spain. The proponents of the project say its name refers to a time when Muslims, Christians and Jews lived in harmony. Leaving aside that this is not how it seemed to Christians and Jews at the time, such that they fought for 500 years to repell the Muslim occupation, the new building will contain a mosque but neither a church nor a synagogue. So how does that square with inter-faith inter-communal harmony?

Muslim leaders and media people have spoken against the project. Including the head of the group representing Muslims in Canada. She has since received a death threat from a phone number at the offices of the projects developer. A man who recently said on a Tweet that "physically beating someone up is good for stress relief and exercise".

The building would be 13 storeys above ground and 2 below. Observers have added up the declared contents and found that almost half the volume of the building would therefore be available for uses other than those that are part of its declared purpose. Imam Rauf, the main proponent of the project, has previously declared (abroad, to Muslim audiences) that it is his purpose to establish Sharia as above all other systems of law in America.

Dixon

Chuck Unsworth, guess thats an American...cannot understand a thing you wrote. Care to try again?

Dixon

Was this comment censored or did it just not appear for technical reasons the first time round:

Who are these "mainstream Muslims"? What exactly do they want? Opinion polls consistently show that in this country two thirds of them at least want to see an end to Western ethical values and the introduction of Sharia. OK, so they dont want to do it violently. So what? They are on exactly the same side in this conflict as those that do. They only differ in their preferred tactics. So far, they are winning all hands down without any acts of violence being necessary.

The only hope that Western ethical values have of surviving is if Islam waned due to its rejection by the young as a result of clear assertion of Western values in education. Itll never happen. Instead, British schools now downplay evolution theory as a placation towards Muslim "sensibilities". Britain, as the rest of Western Europe, is inevitably going to have a population that is overwhelmingly of Muslim descent, well inside fifty years. On current trends, they will be more reactionary and zealous than their parents or grand-parents.

Personally, I think its hilarious. To watch people trying to deny the tide lapping at their ankles. It goes beyond King Canute into realms of sublime absurdity and wishful thinking. I wont be around to suffer the second class status that non-Muslims will in a few decades endure. Many of the willfully blind who stifled secular resistence to this Islamification of a continent will be as will their children. Their daughters half the value of their sons and all taught that they are inferior as "kuffar", a word as vile and loaded when spat out by a Muslim as the "N" word when uttered by a cracker-barrel red-neck. Of course, most of the descendents of anyone reading this or commenting here will be Muslim.

Dixon

Matt Pryor
August 19th, 2010 1:33pm

Report this comment

"Nicholas: How many Muslims have you actually spoken to about these issues? Give it a try. You might be pleasantly surprised."

Matt, have you ever actually shared a flat with Muslim, I did for nearly a year. Have you ever actually lived just around the corner from a mosque? I have for about ten years. Have you ever discussed these issues with non-Muslims from the Sub-Continent? I have Hindi friends who simply say of such matters "somethings got to be done about it".

Frank P

Nicholas @ 7.59pm

I take your point on the time scale. I am duly chastened. Moreover I agree that complacency of the West is despicable. Some of the comments here are simply mind boggling in their naiveté, but to be expected, I suppose, given the encouragement of this post from a staff journalist of a magazine that was once regarded as an organ of conservatism. The posts from Massie are unsurprising – though why he has been provided with a platform here is another matter, but it is the yellow streak that runs through the appeasers that I most despise, not so much the red affiliations.

If I might be permitted to explain my own tardy awakening to the threat from Islam (note I don’t qualify it with an ‘ism’): when I was still in harness the distractions of the Cold War; Agitprop; International Communism and the moles in our own back garden; not to mention the full gamut of malefaction from street pickpockets to International Organized Crime kept me quite busy. Not much time left to study the Crusades and subsequent ramifications, I’m sad to admit. :-)

My apologies for missing the phenomenon of Islamic creep until I changed carts, so to speak. It was the first crack at the WTC in 1993, then the SS Cole in the first fall of this Century that drew my attention to a greater threat to Western Civilisation than all the other divers -er– peccadilloes of our species put together. Since then there have been all the other ‘unpleasant surprises’ to which I alluded in the post you addressed.

I’m not as surprised as you are about the ‘forbearance of the West’. In my later years I studied the form of Adnan Khashoggi: very interesting. I was not encouraged to follow through on those preliminary meanderings in the murky depths of arms dealing, in fact I was actively discouraged. I suggest that some of the ‘forbearance’ on the part of officials of many stripes has a great deal to do with the grease on their palms from the handshakes of many decades. It’s not all about oil, but some of it is definitely about grease. Or - as they say in Obamatown: juice! Yes it really is about the juice (and please be careful with the phonetics if you quote me on that assertion).

Florence of Arabia

Dixon - First rate post!

I have been surprised that so few commented on the fact that this was to have been called Cordova House. Such a tremendous punch in the face to the Americans, yet no one seems to have noticed it.

We need an alternate energy source and/or energy from our own countries in the West. Sarah Palin seems to be the only prominent politician in the West who is aware of the urgency of this. She nailed down the pipeline deal with Alberta, but even Alaska and Alberta, offshore CA and the Gulf of Mexico can't pump out forever. This should have been addressed long before 9/11.

(I recognise that the Americans in particular, and probably the Japanese, have long been working on this.)

The Wahabi tendency has long been exported to young morons looking for glory points with allah, recycled virgins and rivers of wine.

The West needs to annex the oilfields of Saudi and Libya and pay them a generous price for the oil we pump. And not allow any of them into Britain (meaning close the embassies). Nothing will change.

Florence of Arabia

Malfleur, above, quoted Jidhadwatch, and I cannot recommend this site highly enough. It is fizzing with information. Jihadwatch.com

porkbelly

One can picture James reading these responses, rolling his eyes and groaning at the pack of Neanderthals infesting his site. Oh the indignity of it all - that he casts his pearls before swine (er, can one still say "swine"?)!

yank

Indy: "Face facts. America needs Middle Eastern oil."

.

.

Actually, no, Mr. Indy, America does not need Middle Eastern oil.

We import roughly 12M bpd of our roughly 20M bpd usage daily, most of this from Canada and Mexico. And we could quite readily cut out even our imports from those nations, and produce 100% of our consumption domestically, if we chose to do so. Not that we should, and I rather feel good that my Canadian brothers in particular do well in this regard. Why shouldn't they?

The small % of crude we import from the Mideast is to cement the economic and financial ties and relations with the nations which have stabilized you Euros' oil flows this last 1/2 century and more. Remember, there was no North Sea oil back then, and you all were bombed out, warred out and impoverished, when we became the guarantor of your security, economy AND energy flows... and overall babysitter for you all.

Today? You all still need that Mideast crude. You also need the nat gas. Now, I wouldn't mind cutting you lot loose, and pulling out of the Mideast, if it came right down to it, but that'd also mean cutting loose the Japanese, the Oz, NZers, Taiwan, South Korea and many other friends, some of them not as historically foolish as you Euros, and deserving of forbearance in this regard.

So we stay. But it ain't for us, you may depend, your foolish notions notwithstanding. Left to our own devices, selfishness and isolationist impulse, we'd first carpet bomb our exit routes, and then pull out... lock, stock and no-barrel.

Oh, and no mosque at Ground Zero. Our civic catechism will not allow this. Not right now for sure. Best if the mosque builders recognize this, and do the right thing here.

Frank P

yank (2.57am)

Great post - particularly the carpet bombing bit! But you'll have to wait for a change of POTUS before that option arrives back on the table. In the meantime - it's not so much the Steynian concept of 'America Alone', but Melanie P's 'Israel Alone' that will decide the fate of the West.

As for our own patch - well ... Great Britain went down sometime ago; the 'United Kingdom' is now an ironic phrase and 'England' is a rather murky concept of the bucolic bliss of the status quo ante: but is really a Ruritanian style tourist centre, with furious old farts like me looking with increasing bewilderment at the generations we spawned as they piss their heritage down the drain, bending over backwards to accommodate their own enemies, apparently oblivious to the fact that they will, ere long, be bending over in the opposite direction to display their complete submission to Dhimmitude and defeat.

Of course the generation that saved us between '39 - '45, God Bless 'em, also in hopey-changey mood in their weariness after the 'show' (as they euphemistically and self-effacingly referred contemporaneously to their contribution to World History), also sowed the seeds of our current predicament by voting in a socialist government in '45. They changed their minds, of course, next time round, but by then it was too late, as the socialist State's roots were already far too deep to eradicate.

One would have hoped that you lot would have learned from the historical paradigm and avoided the same mistakes. But it seems that every generation has to learn from their own mistakes, hence the eternal cycle of stupidity that IS the human race.

Such is life.

Kennybhoy

Frank P and Nicholas,

Regarding the time scale of the present conflict. I would argue that the present phase dates from the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran. I was made aware of it by the late John Laffin's "Dagger of Islam" which was published a matter of months after said revolution. An insightful, indeed prescient work. It was part of the reading material at Sandhurst back in the day. If you have not read it you should get hold of a copy from amazon. I was already an admirer of Laffin's work, having previously read his "The Arab Mind" and "The Israeli Mind" while at school. I would like to say that I was immediately converted to the cause but alas, as for Frank, the distractions of the Cold War and other lesser conflicts beckoned.

Cheers lads.

Regards,

Kenny (Coldwar Relic, Reluctant Latterday Crusader and Unrepentant Neocon LOL!)

Frank P

Verity/Flo

Yes Jihad Watch is having fun with this; including Pat Condell's articulation of what 'we' have all been saying since the story broke.

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/06/pat-condell-on-ground-zero-mosque-is-it-possible-to-be-astonished-but-not-surprised.html

I wonder whether James has had a butcher's at Condell's work? Think it would change his stance? Bwaahahahahahaha .....

Peace!

Kennybhoy

Hi Again!

Further to my last post above but in a lighter vein, or maybe not, another apposite book recommendation from 1979.

"The Drawing of the Dark" by Tim Powers.

Minnie Ovens

Victor Southern
August 19th, 2010 10:18pm

My comments stand Mr Southern and yes, we oafesses become somewhat upset when patronized by a person who seems to have a didactic approach in his language.
It seems you do believe yourself to be, shall we say, a more correct God than others posting here.
But if you weren't there and didn't lose friends in this attack, I would find you on shallow ground adopting such a self righteous tone.

Dixon

Hi
Me yet again.
But I see other people are recommending web-sites and that URLS are allowed. Whilst also endorsing jihadwatch.org, I would recommend that James or anyone else needing to take an "outside view" of the issues (one outside of the stereotypical them-us and white/non-white framing of the debate)should watch a short video of Wafa Sultan, an ex-Muslim, talking about her Syrian viewpoint on these issues:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7on_AcWPDcM&feature=player_embedded#

Verity

Kennybhoy in particular and Frank P in a more tangential sense, have a prophetic read of V S Naipaul's "Among The Believers", published in 1979, I believe.

He was at the height of his powers as a writer, and this is a compelling book.

Frank P

Kennyboy and Verity.

Right I'm off to the library; can't afford any more books from the Internet. The memsahib has threatened to rip out my hard disc next time the Home Delivery fellah hands her another Amazon package. Can't say I blame her; we're running out of shelving - and walls to accommodate them. I suppose Kindle is the solution, but it's harder to assimilate the info that way I find. Old habits die hard!

Frank P

Dixon

I hadn't seen that short, compelling clip of Wafa Sultan before. Thank you. It validates most of what has been said here countering James Forsyth's essay and the Massie mush. It also led me on to other clips - as you do with You Tube - equally as chilling. Why do you think it is, that otherwise intelligent people, suffer from the delusions of denial in face of such testimony?

Ecrasez l'infame!

Archie

In my not so humble opinion, there are far too many mosques now, thank you.

Verity

Dixon - Wafa Sultan is beyond superb. I saw that video around three years ago and pressed Return and watched it all over again ... twice.

But Wafa Sultan, although born a muslim, is not a muslim now. She is an apostate. That is why that stupid imam - not a man who could think rapidly on his feet - kept saying, "Are you an apostate?"

She certainly unnerved him.

What you may not know, Dixon (or you may know; I don't mean to sound presumptuous) is she comes from a very good family and speaks a very 'high' (posh) Arabic and I think her fluency and accent also served to unnerve this ignorant git.

I loved it that in the end, he just sat quietly, in a sad little heap. By the time she was finished with him, he was too frightened to move.

Dixon

Verity, I didnt know that about Wafas speaking style. Thanks for that. But I think you must be referring to a different video. The one I linked to was just her in close up with nobody else at all. There are a variety of videos of her on the page so you may wish to go back to it. I cannot imagine any other video being as succinct, to the point and potent.

Baron

am beginning to think the license fee should go to Al-Jazeera. Just have a peep at this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TS4v_kj9rw4

Jaysonrex

The "mosque" forthcoming incident (presently, the affair is only at a very preliminary stage pending the final OK from the 'powers to be' in order to start the real war) is typical of neo-humans. Yes, in previous incarnation they were something else entirely - and it shows.

Regardless of what many comments insinuate, the New York Islamic community checked first, probably with the Obama's administration, if the idea itself is viable. After receiving the confidential OK, it applied to Saudi Arabia for the preliminary funding - about 100 million dollars to start with. And then, and only then, they dropped the bombshell.

To accuse the Islamic community of insensibility is patently unfair. They are doing what they know best and the American Constitution supports them 100%. The fact that their political ideology is well hidden behind a religious creed shows their unmatched talent for masking the truth whenever convenient. In this respect, they are following the Koran to the letter and therefore, in their eyes, they are right.

Since appeasement went out of fashion, but not out of use, with we know who, in the thirties, the question is what, if anything, can the Americans do about the Cordoba mosque?

Nils Montan

First of all gentle readers:

It is not a Mosque, it is a community center with a prayer facility in it.

It is not at "Ground Zero" but two blocks away in an area filled with empty buildings, off track betting outlets and strip clubs.

Ground Zero itself will have a 55,000 square mall in it when it is rebuilt - a fitting memorial for those who were killed?

The vast majority - and I mean the vast majority of American Muslims are not the evil plotters that your comments imply. They are middle class and law abiding.

We have a little thing in the United States called the First Amendment which, among other things, says that a private party should be able to practice his religion as he sees fit.

Stuart Seacole Smith

Dixon: thanks for the Wafa Sultan clip. Powerful stuff, that well and truly gives the lie to the nonsense we are subjected to by the likes of Massie, Forsyth, and so many others.

I don't know what the most effective strategy for countering the threats posed by islam are, but I do know that the mixture of lies and deception we get from much of the media and many politicians, together with blatant denials that any threat exists, is not the right place to start.

Another thought: when all our liberal amateur islam sleuths talk of "moderate islam", I can't help thinking that perhaps what they inadvertantly have in mind is lapsed muslims. The ones who're happy to go for a beer, marry a foreigner, and basically just get on with their lives in whatever country they've emigrated to.

And I for one would always be pleased to raise a glass with them.

Dixon

Nils Montan, first of all, it would contain a mosque and other facilities devoted to Islam but no church or synagogue. Some othr facts should even up your patronisingly intoned condescending "contribution" to the discussion, straight from the latest AP "approved talking points" list by the look of it:

Poor man is completely adrift without sail, oars or compass. a few facts might help:

The site of the proposed building is not "a few blocks from ground zero" but is PART OF the Ground Zero site...the undercarriage of one of the planes fell through the roof, writing the building off. Thats why its available. Thats why Daisy Khan, one of the campaigners FOR the project has said that "...the site came to us" out of divine intervention. In other words, its location is a direct reflection of the role of Allah on 9/11!

The building is less than 200 yards from the EPICENTRE of the site.

The project is called "Park 51" but was originally called the "Cordoba House". Cordoba was the site of a massive mosque built to celebrate the defeat there of Christian forces and the conquest of Spain. The proponents of the project say its name refers to a time when Muslims, Christians and Jews lived in harmony. Leaving aside that this is not how it seemed to Christians and Jews at the time, such that they fought for 500 years to repell the Muslim occupation, the new building will contain a mosque but neither a church nor a synagogue. So how does that square with inter-faith inter-communal harmony?

Muslim leaders and media people have spoken against the project. Including the head of the group representing Muslims in Canada. She has since received a death threat from a phone number at the offices of the projects developer. A man who recently said on a Tweet that "physically beating someone up is good for stress relief and exercise".

The building would be 13 storeys above ground and 2 below. Observers have added up the declared contents and found that almost half the volume of the building would therefore be available for uses other than those that are part of its declared purpose. Imam Rauf, the main proponent of the project, has previously declared (abroad, to Muslim audiences) that it is his purpose to establish Sharia as above all other systems of law in America.

Meanwhile, as far as your constitutional seperation of church and state goes, that was busted completely and trampled all over with utter contempt like Hizballa members trampling an Israeli flag by your lovely Mr Obama holding an Iftar dinner to celebrate Ramadan at the White House.

Got anything else? The propoganda you fielded this time was obviously as able to float as a sieve on high seas.

Dixon

Jaysonrex
August 21st, 2010 5:26pm

Report this comment

"The "mosque" forthcoming incident (presently, the affair is only at a very preliminary stage pending the final OK from the 'powers to be' in order to start the real war) is typical of neo-humans. Yes, in previous incarnation they were something else entirely - and it shows. "

Presumably this fellow is alluding to the Koranic assertion that Jews are reincarnated pigs. And the first part implies a "forthcoming" "zionist" generated "incident". Like the "zionist" conspiracy that cranks think took place on 9/11. I guess, therefore, in conjunction with the rest of his comments
that he takes the viewpoint of the militia-fond neo-fascists of America.

If anyone complains about his anti-semitism, please dont delete his comment, we need to be reminded

yank

Nils Montan: "We have a little thing in the United States called the First Amendment which, among other things, says that a private party should be able to practice his religion as he sees fit.

.

.

Well, no, Mr. Montan, the First Amendment says no such thing. You should read it some time, as clearly you haven't. The First Amendment binds Congress from making law establishing religion, or prohibiting exercise of it. It does not permit people to do whatever they themselves "see fit".

In fact, we place strictures upon religious practice all the time over here: time, place, content, etc. These are often evident in matters where religious practices interface with the general public, as in the case of the Ground Zero mosque.

One can always practice their religion here, but it's the timing, the how and the where that comes under review. It's always been so, and I'm surprised you're unaware of this.

Most religions seek to fit themselves within those confines of how, when and where... as they're seeking to be a part of those communities, afterall. We'll see whether this particular groups seeks such.

Verity

Nils Montan - first of all, Nils, it's not a "community centre". That's what they're terming it to slip it in the back door.

As you know, this technique is known in the gruesome world of islam as "taqyya and kitman" - lies and deceit in the promotion of islam, allah, whatever. It's a universally accepted muslim technique, although why they would need lies and deceit to forward legitimate points is a different discussion.

Suffice it to say, they're practising taqyya and kitman.

A question occurs ... a "community centre" is needed in the financial sector of New York which empties out when the offices and the bars close? Hello?

No, it's a mosque, first called Cordoba, after the triumphalism of their conquest of Spain. I guess the Spaniards didn't see their Cordoba mosque as a community centre either, as they fought for 500 years to get rid of the muslims.

This current mosque is intended as a triumphalist statement. First Ground Zero in New York's financial district, then a muslim "community centre" - which is actually a mosque with make-up on - in the financial district. Who do they think they're taking in? For all their cringing wiles, muslims always fail to convince.

Verity

Dixon - You are right! That certainly wasn't the clip of Wafa that I had seen. This one is equally strong medicine, though!

She's a psychologist in LA, I believe, although I suspect she has taken up the sword to defeat islam full time these days.

I will try to find the clip in which she sliced 'n' diced that uppity imam. Watching him slowly deflate and then get nervous and then sink into intimidated silence is hysterical. It's in Arabic with subtitles. It was on Al-Jazeera TV.

Thanks for that clip, Dixon.

Dixon

The clncher in this debate (about the GZM being something more than a matter of letting any religion do anything) is the fact that the operators of the Greek Orthodox church which stood at Ground Zero BEFORE and throughout the time that it had the WTC as neighbour and was crushed by its collapse have been REFUSED PERMISSION TO REBUILD IT!

So, its a fact, the permission extended for the GMZ is an EXCEPTION granted in special deference to Islam.

No other interpretation fits the facts.

daustins

This is a deliberate provocation and must be treated as such. If we brook this mosque at Ground Zero, they'll just turn up the volume until the Speaker of the House is replaced by a muezzin.

You think I'm kidding? I promise you that Bonnie Fwank would vote for that in a second.

Every boy who survives grammar school knows that a bully's bluff must be called, or the predation will never cease.

Grow some stones, New York.

Lily White

It's portentous to read the vast majority of these jingoistic blogs, including phrases such as "fight to the death", suggestions such as razing the mosque to the ground in the event of its construction, and the implication that you bastions of civilisation cannot rest until 2bn muslims have been wiped off the face of the earth. Who are you all, you ranting and violent reactionaries, safe in your anonymity to let off some steam from the safety and comfort of your Middle England armchairs? I can detect a sense of narcissistic glee in some of your "knowedgeable" and "erudite" posts, most of which seem to me have seized upon a morsel - a "fact" - and then used blinkered and prejudiced extrapolation to arrive at extremist conclusions.

Such is life, you conclude. Thank you all of you for your input, it has been entirely unenlightening.

Baron

Lily @ 2.11:

darling, to cheer yourself up click on this, you’ll feel more at home

http://www.guardian.co.uk/

Dixon

Nice to know this column was discussed at Gates of Vienna (www.gatesofvienna.blogspot.com) and particularly that they chose to quote me in full.

Baron

James, have you seen this?

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=38764

Chris

Really saddened by most of the comments on here..........surely IF we are a democratic society we should lead and set the example to others......tolerance encourages tolerance...that is real strength of leadership!