Leo McKinstry

Leo McKinstry is a British author and journalist, noted for his extensive coverage of British and Irish history and best-selling sporting biographies. Since 2005 he has been a columnist for the Daily Express.

Putting a Mosque at Ground Zero insults victims

IF YOU had told anyone on the day after 9/11 that a vast mosque would be built at the devastated site within a decade, you would have been greeted with incredulity. It would have seemed like a sick joke, an insult to all those killed by the jihadists acting in the name of Islam.

Ground Zero near the proposed site for the mosque Ground Zero, near the proposed site for the mosque

Yet this unthinkable idea is fast becoming a reality. Leading Kuwaiti-American Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf has won the

backing of New York’s authorities to put up a £50million,  13-storey mosque and Islamiccommunity centre just 200ft from the scene of the world’s worst terrorist attack. Indeed, an undercarriage from one of the hijacked planes actually fell on the very spot of the proposed new Muslim edifice.

Given the sensitivity of the location, the plan has inevitably sparked ferocious opposition,particularly from relatives

of 9/11 victims. Opinion polls show that almost 70 per cent of New Yorkers are opposed to the proposal. With equal inevitability US President Barack Obama has chosen to ignore public opinion by lending his support to this project.

Obama and other backers of the Ground Zero mosque have claimed that the central issue is one of religious freedom, claiming that such a basic liberty is enshrined in the American constitution. But this is just a pathetic smokescreen to hide their craven eagerness to appease militant Islam. No one is denying the right of Muslims to

The proposal is a deliberate act of provocation

Leo McKinstry

worship in New York or anywhere else in America. In fact there are already about 30 mosques in Manhattan alone, hardly an indicator that Islam is suffering from repression – unlike Christianity in the Muslim world.

The crucial issue is why Rauf and his cheerleaders in the White House want to see a mosque erected at this site. After all, there are numerous other plots of land available in New York. The proposal is a  deliberate act of provocation against America and Judaeo-Christian civilisation.

The reason that the hijackers were determined to destroy theTwin Towers was because they were seen as a graphic symbol of American enterprise. Once the mosque is erected, it will become a symbol of Islamic triumphalism,

an assertion of Muslim power over the West.

The Ground Zero mosque has nothing to do with freedom. If Imam Rauf was as moderate as he pretends, he would not dream of proceeding with this offensive scheme. But Rauf is not as pro-West as White House propaganda claims. This is a man who has not only refused to condemn Hamas, the notorious Palestinian terror outfit,but also equivocated over 9/11,  shamefully describing the US as “an accessory in the crimes

that happened.”

In any case, the experience of Britain suggests that the label of moderate may be an irrelevance. After all, the notorious Finsbury Park mosque in North London was opened in 1990 as a mainstream institution. It

even had the backing of the Prince of Wales and the Saudi Royal Family, who contributed £1.3 million to its £8million cost.

Yet within just seven years it had been taken over by a bunch of vicious hardliners, led by the one-eyed radical Abu Hamza. The place was turned into a haven for murderous zealots, like the infamous shoe bomber Richard Reid, while the police, the government and moderate Muslims did nothing.

Exactly the same could easily happen with the Ground Zero mosque, especially because its location is likely to act as a honeypot for extremists. Tolerance is a one-way street when it comes to Islam. Muslims constantly demand that our society respects their sensitivities; only last week it was revealed that all meat served in Harrow secondary schools now has to be halal. Yet, as the Ground Zero controversy shows, there is no reciprocal concern shown by Muslims for indigenous cultures.

For all President Obama’s blather about bridge-building, the fact is Islam is an ideology that spells misery, oppression and misogyny wherever it gains power. We hear a lot about the importance of “moderates” likeRauf but it is the Islamists who set the agenda. Over the past  10 years, so-called “moderates” have either colluded or been quiescent. After 9/11, there was not a single demonstration by Muslims anywhere in Britain to protest at the atrocities committed in name of Islam. Yet when a small Danish magazine published a satirical picture of

Mohammed, the centre of London was brought to a standstill three weekends in a row by Muslims angry at the

“offence” they had suffered.

The Ground Zero mosque is indicative of a climate of appeasement and self-loathingthat has gripped the political

class in the West. It is grotesque that, in the name of freedom, our leaders refuse to challenge a doctrine that would destroy our freedoms. Here in Britain,  the supine state has allowed domestic terrorism, forced marriages, child sex trafficking, immigration abuses and honour killings to flourish for fear of being labelled “racist”.

In America, the results have been just as deadly, as shown by the case of Major Nidal Malik Hasan. Despite his declared support for Islamic terrorism, US army top brass refused to act against him. Then, in November last year, he shot dead 13 of colleagues.

None of those men would have died if the destructive creed of multi-culturalism had not been so strong. Tolerance

in the face of extremism is killing our society. The  9/11 attacks should have galvanised the west. Instead, 10 years later, it is looking like our death knell.

 

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