Ground Zero Mosque: Confessions of an Islamophobe

Time to be politically incorrect.

Yesterday in a New York Times op-ed entitled "How Fox Betrayed Petraeus" (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/22/opinion/22rich.html?ref=frankrich), drama critic Frank Rich excoriated those who oppose the Ground Zero Mosque:

"The 'ground zero mosque,' as you may well know by now, is not at ground zero. It’s not a mosque but an Islamic cultural center containing a prayer room.

. . . .

So virulent is the Islamophobic hysteria of the neocon and Fox News right — abetted by the useful idiocy of the Anti-Defamation League, Harry Reid and other cowed Democrats — that it has also rendered Gen. David Petraeus’s last-ditch counterinsurgency strategy for fighting the war inoperative. How do you win Muslim hearts and minds in Kandahar when you are calling Muslims every filthy name in the book in New York?"

The Ground Zero Mosque is not a mosque? Peculiar. Rich would have us believe that within the $100 million, 13-story complex only one tiny room is intended for prayer, when in fact the "prayer space" is intended for up to 2,000 Muslims. Does Harvard educated Rich take us all for idiots? Perhaps.

Rich appears to divide those opposing the Ground Zero Mosque into two categories: the Islamophobic neocon Right and the "useful idiots", which has me asking, into which of these two categories do I personally fall?

I have consistently opposed U.S. ground involvement in Afghanistan and am pro-choice, so the totality of the first of these two possibilities appears inapplicable to me. So then, am I a "useful idiot"? Of course, I might be deemed a fool by Frank, but on the other hand, I have two university degrees, speak several languages, worked in the past for a leading M&A law firm, and my IQ exceeds that of Forrest Gump.

According to Rich, the only remaining possibility seems to be that although not a neocon, I am still an Islamophobe, but if this is indeed the case, I can't help wondering if my fear is irrational.

Charles Krauthammer, hardly a Neanderthal, but who would probably be placed by Rich in the neocon category, observed in a August 20 Washington Post op-ed entitled "Moral myopia at Ground Zero" (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/19/AR2010081904769.html):

"Radical Islam is not, by any means, a majority of Islam. But with its financiers, clerics, propagandists, trainers, leaders, operatives and sympathizers -- according to a conservative estimate, it commands the allegiance of 7 percent of Muslims, i.e., more than 80 million souls -- it is a very powerful strain within Islam. It has changed the course of nations and affected the lives of millions. It is the reason every airport in the West is an armed camp and every land is on constant alert."

Forgive me for asking whether that radical 7 percent of Muslims also includes those who condone "honor killings"? Throughout the entire Muslim Middle East, women are being murdered by male relatives for so-called affronts such as using a cell phone to call a man outside the family. Each year some 5,000 Muslim women fall victim to "honor killings", which are now also occurring in the U.S., Canada and Western Europe (http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/search/label/honor%20killings).

Do honor killings also just belong to Islam's radical fringe?

In addition, let's look at Libya, where Abdel Baset Al-Megrahi, convicted in connection with the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 above Lockerbie, is roaming free after being released from a Scottish prison on August 20 last year on compassionate grounds. Although we were told that Al-Megrahi, suffering from prostate cancer, had less than three months to live, he is still very much alive, and the U.K. recently warned Libya not to engage again in celebrations over his release (http://abcnews.go.com/International/wirestory?id=11442584&page=1).

Not frightening enough for you? Consider Qaddafi's plans for Europe, enunciated in a speech broadcast by Al Jazeera on April 10, 2006 (http://www.jihadwatch.org/2006/05/qaddafi-europe-and-the-us-should-agree-to-become-islamic-or-declare-war-on-the-muslims.html):

"Some people believe that Muhammad is the prophet of the Arabs or the Muslims alone. This is a mistake. Muhammad is the Prophet of all people. He superseded all previous religions. If Jesus were alive when Muhammad was sent, he would have followed him. All people must be Muslims. . . . We have 50 million Muslims in Europe. There are signs that Allah will grant Islam victory in Europe - without swords, without guns, without conquests. The 50 million Muslims of Europe will turn it into a Muslim continent within a few decades. . . Allah mobilizes the Muslim nation of Turkey and adds it to the European Union. That's another 50 million Muslims. There will be 100 million Muslims in Europe. Albania, which is a Muslim country, has already entered the EU. Fifty percent of its citizens are Muslims."

No reason for concern? Qaddafi is again just Islam's fringe?

No one will forget the pictures of President Obama bowing to King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. No, this act of obeisance doesn't have me worried, but I am extremely troubled when women who are gang raped are sentenced to lashings and prison (http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/search/label/Abdullah). Moreover, this week's report that a Saudi judge, pursuant to Islamic law, is seeking a hospital willing to paralyze a person convicted of paralyzing another person, does not leave me with a warm fuzzy feeling (http://www.haaretz.com/news/international/saudi-judge-considers-paralysis-punishment-1.309494).

Yeah, I know: only Islam's fringe.

Should the calls of Iran's Ahmadinejad to wipe Israel off the face of the map and his threats against the U.S. (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/7590529/Mahmoud-Ahmadinejad-threatens-US-over-Mid-East-peace-plans.html) just be ignored? Are Iran's stoning of female "adulterers", its savage persecution of its Baha'is, and, together with Syria and Turkey, its abuse of the region's 35 million Kurds of little consequence? Again, I know, I'm being paranoid: it's just the fringe, having nothing to do with mainstream Islam.

Then, also, there are the interminable wars involving almost all of the Muslim Middle East countries, the vast majority not involving Israel (http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2009/09/roger-cohen-again-demonizes-israel.html). In this regard, I would feel much better if occasionally I heard calls for brotherhood from the two mosques situated within earshot of my home, but it's just not the case.

Of course, I'm not saying that Christianity and Judaism didn't have their extremely violent pasts, and maybe in another century Islam will find the route to tolerance and coexistence, but that time has yet to come.

So before the Ground Zero Mosque is built, notwithstanding testimonials to Rauf's sterling character, forgive me if I ask from where the funds for the construction of this "Islamic cultural center with a prayer room" are coming.

Maybe a little honesty will do much to allay my irrational Islamophobic concerns.