New York, July 19: Controversial plans to build a mosque near the site of the 9/11 terror attack on the World Trade Center in New York City have many speaking out, including Sarah Palin, who tweeted the following Sunday morning…
“Peace-seeking Muslims, pls understand, Ground Zero mosque is UNNECESSARY provocation; it stabs hearts. Pls reject it in interest of healing.”
Palin also wrote, “Peaceful New Yorkers, pls refute the Ground Zero mosque plan if you believe catastrophic pain caused @ Twin Towers site is too raw, too real.”
The mosque has the support of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, the Democratic gubernatorial candidate, but, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today, New York City voters are with Palin and oppose the proposal 52 – 31 percent. Another 17 percent are undecided.
Many are stating that Americans must take the feelings of Muslims into account, but Ali al-Ahmed, a Saudi native who founded the Institute for Gulf Affairs and is an advocate for civil rights and religious freedom in the Middle East, says, “Muslims must take the feelings of Americans into account” in this article at Boston.com.
Muslims should take the feelings of Americans into account because:
1. Protestors say the man behind the mosque – Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf is not the man of peace he claims to be.
“He says he advocates for tolerance, but in his book he advocates for Sharia law which is radically intolerant,” said Pamela Gellar, who leads the organization Stop Islamization of America.
2. Where is the funding coming from for this project?
Gellar added, “We have no idea where the funding is coming from. We know his father built an Islamic Center on 96th street and was funded by 49 Muslim countries. Who’s funding this $50 million monster? We want to know.”
3. As Palin states, the pain is still real.
The reasons against the mosque don’t reflect a basic lack of understanding about Islam and the connection between American Muslims and terrorism. People need to understand that families lost loved ones in the World Trade Center attacks on September 11, 2001, and that pain doesn’t go away. Building a tribute to Islam so close to the World Trade Center would be insensitive.
-Agencies