Kuwait Times

Published Date: August 01, 2010

NEW YORK/MIAMI: The leading Jewish civil rights group in the US has come out against the planned mosque and Islamic community center near the World Trade Center's Ground Zero terror attack site, saying the location is "counterproductive to the healing process". The Anti-Defamation League said it rejects any opposition to the center based on bigotry and acknowledged that the group behind the plan, the Cordoba Initiative, has the legal right to build at the site.

But the ADL said "some legitimate questions have been raised" about funding and possible ties with "groups whose ideologies stand in contradiction to our shared values". "Ultimately this is not a question of rights, but a question of what is right," the ADL said in a statement. "In our judgment, building an Islamic center in the shadow of the World Trade Center will cause some victims more pain - unnecessarily - and that is not right.

The mosque and community center would be located two blocks from the lower Manhattan site of the Sept 11, 2001, attacks. SoHo Properties, a partner in the effort, purchased the property for nearly $5 million. Early plans call for a 13-storey, $100 million Islamic center, of which the mosque would be a part. The director of the Cordoba Initiative, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, was in Malaysia, where the group has offices, on Friday and could not be reached. His wife, Daisy Khan, who is a partner in the project, s
aid the center will be a space for moderate Muslim voices. She noted Cordoba had previously worked with the ADL to fight prejudice against Jews and Muslims. "We believe it will be a place where the counter-momentum against extremism will begin," Khan said Friday. "We are committed to peace.

Based in New York, Cordoba aims to improve relations between Islam and the West by hosting leadership conferences for young American Muslims, and organizing programs on Arab-Jewish relations, building civil society in the Muslim world and empowering Muslim women. Sharif El-Gamal, the CEO of SoHo Properties, has said the project's backers were committed to transparency and would work with the attorney general's watchdog Charities Bureau. The planned center has been renamed Park51 to reflect the broad scope
of its programs, modeled on the YMCA or Jewish Community Center of Manhattan.

A city community board voted overwhelmingly last spring to back the project even as it sparked emotional protest from some local residents and relatives of victims of the Sept 11 attacks. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg supports the mosque's construction. Disagreement over the project has become a national issue, drawing opposition from former US House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Alaskan Gov Sarah Palin, among others.

The ADL, one of the most prominent groups in American Jewish life, is known for its advocacy of religious freedom and interfaith harmony. Its position on the mosque was met with shock and condemnation by several groups. Jeremy Ben-Ami, head of J Street, the dovish, pro-Israel group, said he would hope ADL would be at the forefront in defending the freedom of a religious minority, "rather than casting aspersions on its funders and giving in to the fearmongerers".

The Rev Welton Gaddy, head of the Interfaith Alliance, a Washington advocacy group, said he read the ADL statement "with a great deal of sorrow". "As an organization that for nearly 100 years has helped set the standard for fighting defamation and securing justice and fair treatment for all, it is disappointing to see the ADL arrived at this conclusion," Gaddy said.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations urged ADL to retract its statement. Abraham Foxman, national director of the ADL, defended his position. In a phone interview, he compared the idea of a mosque near ground zero to the Roman Catholic Carmelite nuns who had a convent at the Auschwitz death camp. In 1993, Pope John Paul II responded to Jewish protests by ordering the nuns to move. "We're saying if your purpose is to heal differences, it's the wrong place," Foxman said of the mosque. "Don't do it. The
symbolism is wrong.

Separately, a Florida church said it plans to publicly burn copies of the Holy Quran on the ninth anniversary of the Sept 11 terrorist attacks, prompting threats from Islamic groups and warnings the move will trigger a rise in hate crimes. The Dove World Outreach Center of Gainesville, Florida said on its Facebook page it will hold an "International Burn a Koran Day" on Sept 11, asking other religious groups to join in standing "against the evil of Islam. Islam is of the devil!

Islam and sharia law was responsible for 9/11," pastor Terry Jones told AFP. "We will burn Qurans because we think it's time for Christians, for churches, for politicians to stand up and say no; Islam and sharia law is not welcome in the US," the organizer of the burning action added. "We've got many death threats from jihad groups, but we cannot react by fear and we cannot compromise our beliefs. Somebody must stand up," Jones added.

Reactions to the Quran burning announcement were swift. Members of the Al-Falluja jihadist forum have threatened to "spill rivers of your (American) blood" and "a war the likes of which you have never seen before". Mainstream Muslim groups also denounced the move and lamented the sentiments promoted by the Gainesville church. "Unfortunately in (Florida) and nationwide, Islamophobia are actually on the rise," Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) spokesman Ramsey Kilic told AFP. "I'm more afraid of t
hose who have anti-Muslim sentiments and may think this is a legitimate action and may want to attack a mosque or attack a Muslim on the street," he added. However, Kilic said, "we are not taking any action to avoid this... we don't want to give attention to this, because that's what they want.

The Dove church's Facebook site, since the announcement, is rife with threatening messages and corresponding anti-Islam rants. Besides the Quran burning ceremony, the Dove World Outreach Center also plans an anti-homosexual event Aug 2 outside Gainesville's City Hall. The "No Homo Mayor Protest" targets the city's first openly gay mayor, Craig Lowe. The website also has for sale "Islam is of The Devil" T-shirts and books by pastor Jones. - Agencies