Mosque Would Encourage Further Attacks
In his column on the Ground Zero mosque (“The Islamic Center,” Aug. 6), Rob Eshman leaves out one important point. The mosque is a triumphal monument to the 19 martyrs who gave up their lives while hijacking the aircraft on Sept. 11, 2001. That is the way it will be presented to Muslims world wide if we permit it to be constructed. It will be used as a recruiting tool to encourage more Muslim youth to join the religious war being waged against us. It will undo one of our accomplishments in Iraq, and that is the killing of [at a minimum] 35,000 jihadists who would otherwise be waging war against us and all other non-Muslims all over the world.
Susan Jordan
Hollywood
In your article about the proposed Cordoba Mosque in New York to be built a few hundred yards from Ground Zero you reported that Mr. Ben-Ami, the president and founder of J Street, had remarked: “The principle at stake goes to the heart of American democracy and the value we place on the freedom of religion.” Of course, nothing could be farther from the truth. There are already more than a hundred mosques in and around New York and literally thousands more throughout the United States. Building another one so close to Ground Zero is hardly necessary in order to reaffirm “American democracy” or to guarantee “freedom of religion.” These were long ago enshrined in the U.S. Constitution and have been well demonstrated in every aspect of the American experiment for over two centuries. This is about Islamic triumphalism. The original Cordoba Mosque was built as a symbol of Islamic dominance over conquered Spain. The one now proposed, and its groundbreaking ceremony to take place on the 10th anniversary of the deadly attack of 9/11, is nothing more than a celebration of that attack’s success.
It is also a good example of one-way multiculturalism, the sacred cow of “enlightened” progressives who worship before the altar of political correctness, which is more concerned with the prerogatives of the Islamists who wish to kill us than it is about the sensitivities of the 9/11 families, or the dagger plunged into the heart of our republic by the horrific crime of 9/11, or the relentless march of Islamic totalitarianism that now threatens to engulf us all. A good deal of the usual claptrap about “tolerance” has been served up to us by the intellectually fossilized members of the left wing and its fulsome liberal glitterati. A complete lack of reciprocity from the Muslim world is not something which animates them. No churches or synagogues can be built in Saudi Arabia where the mere possession of the Bible is a criminal offense. The idea that they are cozying up to a group of fascists whose religion encourages them to subjugate women, hang homosexuals, and persecute non-Muslim minorities is lost on them as is Thomas Mann’s warning that “Tolerance is a crime when applied to evil.”
You mentioned a letter published on the internet by Mr. Ben-Ami, and his supporters, which stated: “We agree with you that some victims of 9/11 are entitled to “irrational” feelings as a result of their loss,” but being less tolerant will not help us heal, and it is not wise for America to alienate millions of its own citizens, let alone the hundreds of millions of Muslims in countries that Americans visit around the world. Remember, there were Muslim victims on 9/11, too, Muslims that worked in the World Trade Center, or were part of the rescue crews that bravely entered the buildings that day.” This is an extraordinarily bizarre statement even for Mr. Ben-Ami to publish and one that would make Edgar Allan Poe tear up his “Tales of Mystery and Imagination” and start all over again. Why is he so concerned about America alienating hundreds of millions of Muslims when the 9/11 Commission Report clearly stated that the Islamic terrorists had been at war with us for decades but we had not been at war with them? Before George W. Bush was president, before 9/11, before the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq there were over 15 (count them) deadly attacks on American diplomatic and military installations throughout the world each one carried out by Muslim terrorists, not the Red Cross just incase it had escaped Mr. Ben-Ami’s attention, and where exactly were all the Muslims rushing to our aid on 9/11? I, for one, did not see any, but what I did see were videos of Muslims in various Middle Eastern countries dancing in the streets celebrating our misfortune. Who is alienating whom?
Even the president of the United States, Professor Obama, with his air of Harvard hauteur, lectured us about our First Amendment rights and how they must be rigorously applied to those seeking to build this insult to the victims of 9/11, their families and every faithful American. This lecture was his attempt to gain the moral high ground as the sands of decency shifted beneath his feet while he pandered to his Muslim pets. It was revealing to hear President Obama affirm the rights of a religious group to build on their private property although curiously he does not extend this right to Jews building in Jerusalem! There is no Constitutional issue here and the efforts of those to smear the opponents of the Cordoba Mosque as bigots and Islamaphobes are as tiresome as they are predictable. Quite simply, the reason this mosque should not be built is the same as why people should not walk down the street sporting their underwear on their heads; it lacks a sense of propriety and respect for the sensibilities of one’s neighbors and fellow citizens.
There are, however, more compelling reasons against the Cordoba Mosque’s construction. Imam Rauf is far from the “moderate” cleric that he is alleged to be by his followers. If he was a “moderate” he would never have considered proposing such an affront to our country in the first place. If he wants to build bridges instead of burning them, why will he not accept Gov. Patterson’s offer of an alternative site? Why is he unwilling to tell us which countries and organizations are supplying the finance for this temple of religious intolerance? In an interview shortly after 9/11, Imam Rauf said that while he did not condone the 9/11 attack, American foreign policy was an accessory to 9/11 and that Osama bin Laden was, in some ways, a creation of the United States. Translation: America had it coming. What excuse does he have for his “religion of peace” for the attacks by Islamic terrorists in 2002 in Bali which killed over 200 people and injured 240, or the attack in Madrid in 2004 that killed another 200 and injured over 1,800, or the one in 2005 in London that killed 52 and injured 700, or the attack in Mumbai in 2008 that killed over 180 people and injured 300? Why, when asked, did he not condemn Hamas? “I’m not a politician,” he responded, another shield behind which Islamic fascists hide as they reject Western values.
A good deal more attention ought to be paid to what clerics like Imam Rauf say to their Muslim brethren as opposed to what they say to America and the West. It would soon be discovered that they have turned duplicity into an art form while they rely on our general ignorance of Islam, and the vicious doctrines laced throughout the Quran, in order to induce the kind of narcotic serenity that makes some of us incapable of appreciating our mortal danger.
Imam Rauf and his wife Daisy Kahn have been mouthing the usual platitudes about “mutual understanding,” “building bridges” and “interfaith dialogue” along with accusations of bigotry and Islamaphobia. This is the default mode of a fascist ideology with a hair-trigger sensitivity which is always deployed to gain disproportionate concessions as it proceeds with its insinuation of. A phobia is an irrational fear of one thing or another, but there is nothing irrational about our fear and suspicion of Islam since so many of us are aware of its miserable track record and are actually able to connect the obvious dots between Islam, jihad, Sharia law, and the mosques which support and encourage what is not so much a religion as a totalitarian ideology that has spread its cancer to every corner of the globe. The Quran contains over 4,000 verses of hatred towards non-Muslims and over 60 percent of the Quran tells Muslims to hate the infidels and to avoid any association with them. Their holy book, their title deed, the Quran itself is dedicated to hatred towards non-believers. No other religion in the world has a document which shares this distinction but we are always asked to ignore it and to accept that this is not the true nature of Islam. Their protestation that theirs is a “religion of peace” is so nonsensical that it slanders nonsense.
Seventy percent of Americans do not want this grotesque monument to Islamic supremacism built where it would overshadow that hallowed ground, that stricken field, that graveyard of our murdered countrymen who were slaughtered one awful September morning. If build it they must then let them build it elsewhere and without trying to insult our intelligence by trying to fool us into thinking that it is an act of contrition symbolizing universal outreach and the brotherhood of man, two concepts which are as alien to them just as their undiminished ambition of a global caliphate, under the gruesome apparatus of Sharia law, is to the rest of us.
Paul Schnee
Executive Director,
Western Region, Zionist Organization of America
There Is No Equivalence
As a longtime reader (and often critic) of Rob Eshman’s columns, I saw that he fell back on an old habit this week — trying to disarm his critics before they can write in (“From Beirut to Manhattan,” Aug. 27). [Eshman writes,] “OK, let me pause here to write the first lines of all the e-mails …” He’s done this in various forms throughout his Journal career, almost as if he himself is not convinced of the validity of his views. However, comparing the Ground Zero mosque situation to a rebuilt synagogue in war-torn Lebanon is a shameful diatribe that he must be called out on even through his attempt to put his critics on the defensive.
He is way off base here and while yes, it is about the nature of Islam and the history of Cordoba, and about freedom versus totalitarianism and government smoke-screens, it’s also about a lot more. It’s horrible that he has once again fallen into the trap of equating a terrorist action (9/11) to Israeli retaliation and defensive strikes (the Magen Avraham restoration), a ploy that our enemies are so fond of perpetrating.
There’s no equating these two incidents and to do so hurts Israel’s ability to defend herself, in actions as well as in the theater of world opinion.
Allan Kandel
Los Angeles
Rob Eshman’s article “From Beirut to Manhattan” (Aug. 27), is comparing apples to oranges. The synagogue being restored in Beirut could be compared at best to the Greek Orthodox Church at Ground Zero which was destroyed during the 9/11 Twin Towers massacre, and that is still fighting bureaucracy to be restored. Were the Mosque in existence at Ground Zero prior to the 9/11 heartbreaking calamity, no one would have questioned its owner’s right to rebuild it.
The fact that the First Amendment guarantees the right to offend others doesn’t mean that one must do so, especially in lieu of the nature of the tragedy. The correct Jewish approach in this case should be to apply the sensitivity of “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you,” which in this case means to build the mosque at another location, one to which no one seems to object.
Danny Bental
Tarzana
Two cheers for Rob Eshman’s courage in standing up against hate-mongers. It’s about time someone in the Jewish community stood up for blacks like Shirley Sherrod.
Wait! Wasn’t the topic about the “Ground Zero” mosque (which isn’t just a mosque and is actually two blocks away from Ground Zero?) Well, yes, but this current public debate reminds me of the recent distortions applied to Sherrod’s supposed racism. No one had any problem with Sherrod until a known right-wing blogger circulated a selectively edited hit-piece claiming to show she was anti-white. President Obama’s Secretary of Agriculture, his White House press spokesman, and even the liberal NAACP predictably piled on her—until she stood her ground and there was some pushback.
Jews of every religious and political persuasion understand the importance of avoiding gossip and slander (lashon hara). Acceptance of the Cordoba Center was also going along smoothly—and accepted by local New York City residents—until right-wing blogger Pamela Geller seized on this issue.
It is important not to slander her name with a comparison to the Sherrod incident. But I think it is fair to ask more from the media and responsible political leaders to investigate her claims since many Muslims consider her to be biased.
Liberals have also failed us again. They have not sufficiently publicized the American Evangelical preacher who plans to burn the Quran on 9/11, or to educate the public about the fact that due to the way the calendar falls this year Muslims in some parts of the world will be celebrating the end of Ramadan on Sept. 11. This will give the appearance of celebrating the attack on the United States, and could provide more ammunition to the voices of intolerance.
Sadly, it is our American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan who will be in harm’s way to face the likely backlash from our society’s growing appetite for Muslim-bashing. And, ironically, their casualties would become the bitter fruits of the rare bipartisan liberal and conservative consensus for prioritizing investments in ill-conceived wars abroad instead of jobs at home.
Gene Rothman
Culver City
O’hev Shalom Rodef Shalom. Love peace, pursue peace. We don’t have the luxury of performing sloppy profiling in choosing who our friends are and who the enemy is. The people who want to build an Islamic center two blocks away from Ground Zero are the very people we should be forging alliances with in order to bring peace to the Middle East if for no other reason (and there are others), [rather] than the possible communication link they might be able to achieve with the “other side.”
Is it insensitive to build an Islamic center just two blocks away from Ground Zero short of 10 years after those horrible attacks? Of course it is. But it is far more insensitive to the pursuit of peace and to the freedoms we enjoy as Americans to shun one group who hasn’t committed any crime and who ironically, shares more of our core values if we just bothered to take the time to look.
Elliot Semmelman
Huntington Beach
Intolerance: A Perversion of Religion
Re “L.A.’s Religious Leaders Join Support for Islamic Center,” Aug. 20:
Al-Qaeda is to Islam what the KKK is to Christianity, or what Meir Kahane’s Kach was to Judaism — a perversion of religion to advocate racism, intolerance and violence. Islam did not attack the World Trade Center, any more than Judaism assassinated Yitzchak Rabin, an event I sadly experienced firsthand while living and working in Israel.
The acts of madmen should not be attributed to the causes they claim to represent. Evidently American Muslims have a great deal to accomplish in order to improve their public image with many Americans, but this challenge does not excuse the rampant intolerance and vitriol currently masquerading as “sensitivity” among most opponents of the so-called Ground Zero mosque. Such national anger and fear was wrongfully imputed to Japanese Americans during World War II and to Jews under the veil of the “Red Scare.” Let’s not do the same to American Muslims, and avoid adding another shameful chapter to America’s rich history.
Barry Stricke
Los Angeles
For Shame!
Shmuley Boteach got it exactly right — siz a shandah far di Yiddin (“Extravagant Weddings and Bar Mitzvahs Humiliate the Jewish Community,” Aug. 27). Perhaps the examples cited by the Los Angeles Times were isolated/extreme, but the general tenor of the article was one that made me cringe. The obsessive need to keep up with the Schwartzes flies in the face of every value espoused by Judaism; think how many hungry children could be fed with the cost of just one of these extravaganzas!
Keep ’em honest, Shmuley!
Beryl E. Arbit
Encino
Law Applied Unequally in West Jerusalem
One point should be added to David Suissa’s description of tension at Sheik Jarrah (“Showdown at Sheik Jarrah,” Aug. 27).
While Jews have successfully reclaimed property lost after 1948, Palestinians are prohibited from doing the same. Israel’s Absentee Property Act essentially voids any legal claim that thousands of Palestinians have to property they once owned in Qatamon, Talbiyah and other neighborhoods in West Jerusalem. This is a political, not a legal, battle in which some Israelis are using every means available to ensure that Jerusalem remains an undivided, Jewish city, even if it involves unequal, even hypocritical, application of the law.
Gary Gilbert
via e-mail
Obama’s Energy Policies Help Israel, U.S.
Henry Waxman’s list of the many ways in which President Obama has helped Israel is right on point (“Obama and Israel: The Truth,” Aug. 27). But Waxman omits the president’s most important and long-lasting contribution: his leadership and solid accomplishments in reducing America’s dependency on insecure and politically risky fossil fuel. Obama has promoted investment in renewable energy sources through legislation and reduced air pollution emissions via executive order, both of which are ways to financially undercut the extremist enemies of Israel, the United States, and moderate Muslims. Dramatically reversing Bush administration policy, this president has begun to move our country away from an oil-based economy, which is the only permanent way to protect Israel’s interests and disempower dictatorships in the Middle East.
Peter L. Reich
Professor of Law
Whittier Law School
The Real First Jew Elected Statewide
Bill Boyarsky (“New School to Honor Legacy of Jewish Justice Stanley Mosk,” Aug. 27) incorrectly stated, “[Stanley Mosk] was the first Jew elected to statewide office in California” and Heidi Naylor (“An Endowed Judaic Studies Chair … Where?” Aug. 6) incorrectly stated “Idaho was the first state to elect a Jewish governor — Moses Alexander, in 1915.” The Jewish Journal keeps overlooking Washington Bartlett, who holds both the distinction of being the first Jew elected to statewide office in 1887, and the first Jew in the country to be elected governor. Unfortunately, Bartlett died in office of Bright’s disease nine months into his term. So far, California hasn’t had another Jewish Governor or Attorney General.
Jeffrey P. Straus
via e-mail
Good Luck to the Hollywood Cantors
We recently attended a concert of the Hollywood Cantors at Fiesta Hall in Plummer Park.
It was a remarkable event for the entire audience. The hall was overcrowded and everyone felt the deep excitement of listening to authentic interpretations of Jewish religious and folk music. I’ve never heard such a performance in my life.
The little orchestra and chorus sounded professional, and the cantors were like opera stars. I’m so proud for them and for their devotion to our little, but great, Jewish nation that has talented and hard-working religious people who awaken our Jewish identities, especially among immigrants from Russia. Thank you and good luck in your great mission.
Sofia Gelman
West Hollywood
Christians and Jews
Dennis Prager has written a provocative and interesting article (“Why Has America Treated Jews So Well?” Aug. 27), but he oversimplifies and somewhat distorts his argument by dividing Christians into “Americans” and “Europeans,” instead of explaining the very important sectarian divisions among Christians which emerged in 16th century Europe and had enormous import for American, European, and Jewish history. As is well known, the New England colonies were founded by English Protestants, specifically the sects generally known as Puritans, They suffered discrimination from the establishment semi-Protestant Anglican Church, and therefore preached religious liberty, at first only for themselves, but by the later 17th century, they increased this vision to include more and more religions, including that of the Jews. It was a combination of the Puritan respect for the “First Israel” and ideas of religious toleration that led the famous Puritan Oliver Cromwell, who ruled England mid-17th century, to readmit Jews into England, from which they had been expelled in 1290. It may seem counter-intuitive, but in England and Scotland, it was the descendents of the Puritans, originally very strict in theology and practice, who helped develop the movement known as the Enlightenment, which argued for the idea of universal human rights, religious toleration, and the importance of reason and science in improving human society. These ideas have served Jews very well wherever they have prevailed and not only in the United States. The Dreyfus affair pitted Enlightenment values against those of irrational xenophobia, hyper-nationalism and racism. Unfortunately, that was just a prelude to the horrors of the Shoah, which was a war against all the values of the Enlightenment embodied in the attempt to destroy the Jewish people.
Deborah Bochner Kennel
Los Angeles
Correction
In the Aug. 27 issue, Nashuva was listed in the “Free Rosh Hashanah Services.” The organizers suggest a $250 donation for tickets to High Holy Days services.
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