Mayor Mike: Helping to Construct the Islamic Trojan Horse

Last week on the Daily Show, Mike Bloomberg confirmed just how out of touch on the GZM he really is: "New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg might consider checking out the polls. He's under the impression 100 percent of 9/11 families support building the Ground Zero Mosque at the current planned location."

Now the truth is that with all large diverse groups of people, there are differences of opinion on the mosque location; but considering that-at least according to the latest CBS poll-71% of Americans oppose the site, we think that the mayor is talking right out of his derriere. Bloomberg does, however, manage to point the accusatory finger unwittingly at himself: "

As Newsbusters points out: "A recent CBS News poll found that 71 percent of respondents believe it is "not appropriate" to build the mosque a few blocks from Ground Zero, including a majority (57 percent) of Democrats. A Time poll found that 68 percent are following the issue "somewhat closely" or "very closely."

"The family members, they do care," Bloomberg told "The Daily Show" host Jon Stewart Aug. 26. "And the family members that I've talked to - and I'm chairman of the board of the World Trade Center Memorial - 100 percent in favor of saying, ‘These people, if they want to build a mosque, can build a mosque. The lives of our loved ones were taken because the right to build a mosque or say what you want to say was so threatening to people.'"

So, Mr. Mayor, as chairman of the WTC Memorial, when will we get to actually visit the site? While you have lately found your emotional mojo vociferously defending the mosquivites, where was your passionate promotion of the entire rebuilding effort? And,  by the way, we don't think that the Islamic terrorists bombed the Towers because the right to build a mosque in the US was so threatening to them-but we get his point about how the terrorists' motivation was precisely because of our freedom.

Since he understands this, it might help if he expanded his limited body of knowledge about Imam Rauf-and the entire corpus of contemporary Islam for that matter. In particular, the Islamic Society of North America funds around 80% of all the mosques in the US-and the ISNA is a direct offshoot of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood: "ISNA completed a $21 million ($45,856,568 in current dollar terms) headquarters complex in suburban Indianapolis using funds raised in part from Muslim Brotherhood leader Youssef Nada and the Emir of Qatar."

Nothing to see here. As Wikepedia goes on to point out: "In the 2007 Holy Land Foundation terrorist financing case, the United States Department of Justice named ISNA, along with Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the North American Islamic Trust, as an unindicted co-conspirator and one of a number of "entities who are and/or were members of the US Muslim Brotherhood." Court documents at the trial indicated that ISNA is "an integral part of the [Muslim] Brotherhood's efforts to wage jihad against America through non-violent means," wrote conservative Dallas Morning News columnist Rod Dreher. The case ended in a November 2008 conviction of five Holy Land Foundation executives on 108 counts of supporting terrorism."

The Muslim Brotherhood, unlike its activist wing of terrorists, is in for the long all-and is looking for the gradual acceptance of sharia law in this country. It's mosques reflect this-and there is absolutely no compatibility between sharia and the freedoms Mike Bloomberg lectures us about. There is someone on the left who does understand this quite well-and that is the legendary civil libertarian Nat Hentoff-and, as an aside, isn't it droll how Islam generates such religiosity among those on the left?

Here's Hentoff's take on the mosque: "The angry national debate over Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf's intention to build a mosque two blocks north of the horror of 9/11 at Ground Zero has been further fueled by supporter Nancy Pelosi declaring, "I join those who have called for looking into how ... this opposition to the mosque is being funded."

What are Hentoff's concerns? Surely, no one would attack this first amendment purist for bigotry? "Imam Rauf said was interviewed on CBS' 60 Minutes (Sept. 30, 2001) by Ed Bradley. (I have the transcript.) Asked how he felt as a Muslim "knowing that people of your faith committed this act," Imam Rauf spoke about Muslim reaction throughout the world "against the policies of the U.S. government, politically, where we espouse principles of democracy and human rights and where we ally ourselves with oppressive regimes in many of these countries."

Why, that's as American as Noam Chomsky. Why is anyone upset with that? But Rauf has many more things to lecture us about: "I wouldn't say that the United States deserved what happened," Rauf answered, "but the United States' policies were an accessory to the crime that happened. ... Because (the United States has) been an accessory to a lot of - of innocent lives dying in the world. In fact, it - in the most direct sense, Osama bin Laden is made in the U.S.A."

To which Hentoff responds: "Were the heads of government in Iran, Hamas and Sudan also "made in the USA?" To the Hezbollah wing of the Democratic Party, the answer would be, yes-and this instructs us why the media-resonating comfortably with that mindset-can't get worked up over the Imam's statements.

But Rauf isn't done-not by along shot-and his defense of sharia law is what should get any genuine lover of Western freedom suspicious of what this mosque project might mean: "This imam - widely lauded in much of the press as "a moderate" Muslim - is not reticent, however, in his firm commitment to Sharia (Islamic law), which regards women as far less than fully human. In the Dec. 9, 2007 Arabic newspaper Hadi el-Islam, Rauf insisted:

Throughout my discussions with contemporary Muslim theologians, it is clear an Islamic state can be established in more than just a single form or mold. It can be established through a kingdom or a democracy. The important issue is to establish the general fundamentals of Sharia that are required to govern."

Here's Rauf's response to President Obama's Cairo speech to the Muslim world: "President Obama’s June 2009 speech in Cairo challenged Muslims, as Rauf wrote in a June 5, 2009 Washington Post column: “Live up to the tenets of our religion, embrace Shariah law as conceived by the Prophet, and see what happens.” But sharia inhibits all kinds of freedoms, especially those of women and non-Muslims. Islamic law protects only the lives, minds, religion, property, and families of Muslims — not all peoples of all faiths, as Rauf would have us believe."

And as far as Rauf is concerned, like father like son-and the elder Rauf's spiritual record over at the 96th Street mosque he founded speaks for itself:
 
"In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, the “96th Street mosque,” as ICCNY is typically known, became notorious for a more outspoken participant in its work. Its imam was another Egyptian, Muhammad Gamei’a. Shortly after 9/11, Gamei'a disappeared, resurfacing in Egypt on October 4, 2001, where he told an Egyptian website, regarding 9/11, “The Jews were behind these ugly acts, while we, the Arabs, were innocent. . . . If it became known to the American people, they would have done to the Jews what Hitler did!”

Gamei'a's successor at the 96th St. mosque, Imam Abu-Namous, told the October 26, 2001 issue of the Forward that "Imam Al-Gamei'a had not been speaking on behalf of the Islamic Cultural Center, which 'will continue to participate' in interfaith dialogue.” But he added that "he considered the evidence against Osama bin Laden insufficient, and said he could 'not rule out' any possible perpetrators, whether Muslim, Christian or Jewish."

Moderation is obviously in the eye of the beholder-and to us, the location of this mosque is no accident; it is part of the da'wa nature of the sharia project: "In Islam, da'wa means a "call" or "invitation," and has been used to refer to a person being "called" to follow Islam. However, it has developed into the idea of a "mission" or "propaganda," either in a political or religious sense."

Hentoff captures this in his discussion of Rauf's last book: "I would greatly appreciate it if Imam Rauf explained, maybe Pelosi will ask him, more fully what he meant in his 2004 book, "What's Right With Islam is What's Right With America." In it he declares: "American Constitution and system of governance uphold the core principles of Islamic law." Rauf says Sharia law is a core principle of Islamic law. Does that also include a core principle of our Constitution?"

And then there's the book actual title: "This 2004 book's title in the English-language edition yields to a different title for non-English-speaking readers in Malaysia, reports Andrew McCarthy ("Rauf's Dawa from the World Trade Center Rubble," nationalreview.com).
This alternate title in Malaysia brings us right back into the civil war here about the imam's mosque near Ground Zero: "A Call to Prayer from the World Trade Center Rubble: Islamic Dawa in the Heart of America Post-9/11." What does "dawa" mean? McCarthy explains: "Dawa, whether done from the rubble of the World Trade Center or elsewhere, is the missionary work by which Islam is spread. ... The purpose of dawa, like the purpose of jihad, is to implement, spread, and defend Sharia. ... through means other than violence and agents other than terrorists."

So, while Mike Bloomberg prattles on about America's, "core values," a slick Fifth Columnist is at work constructing his Islamic Trojan Horse. So, when it comes to the building of this mosque in full view of Ground Zero, we'll join with the notorious bigot Nat Hentoff-who deservedly gets the last word:

"New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg charges that opponents of Imam Rauf's mosque "should be ashamed of themselves" and are bigots.

Me, too, Mr. Mayor?

If you want to join Speaker Pelosi in investigating me, your honor, I'd be glad to oblige. I'm just doing my job as a reporter. I wish more reporters had gone beneath the shouting on both sides. There's another part of the First Amendment in addition to the free exercise of religion: The press is free to investigate the reasons for Imam Rauf's fixation on the 9/11 location of his mosque.

And why does this location make Hamas glow?