Are the mosque sponsors about to back down?
I have no idea whether this report in Haaretz is true; only time will tell. But it’s certainly interesting:
Sources in New York said on Monday that Muslim religious and business leaders will announce plans to abandon the [9/11 mosque] project in the next few days.
…[S]everal people familiar with the debate among New York’s Islamic activists now claim that the leaders are convinced abandoning the site is preferable to unleashing a wave of bitterness towards Muslims.
They also hope the move will be seen as a show of sensitivity to families of the victims of the 9/11 attacks, and to the American public generally.
A show, indeed—because they have already amply demonstrated their lack of true sensitivity.
But it still would be a good thing, and an example of how peaceful public pressure can sometimes work. The move—if it occurs—could also have some financial advantages for the mosque-builders:
Another factor in the apparent climbdown is a lack of funds to pay for construction of the center, estimated to cost a hundred million dollars. Backers hope moving it will lead to a wave of support, accompanied by cash donations.
I think not. But stranger things have happened.
Whatever happens, The Won will spin it to show that he was right.
I see that Dirty Harry Reid has come out against the mosque. That’s good news. Not because Harry’s opinion is hear-felt but it reflects his desperation about reelection. Sounds to me like his days are numbered.
I hear this is bogus.
If true, it means Obama and Bloomberg missed that train.
Terrye: It seems most likely bogus to me, too. That’s why I presented it with such skepticism.
Maybe just wishful thinking.
There is no support for this story coming from anywhere. It appears bogus.
I doubt if the Mosque backers will relent. They know that this is engendering bad will and they are apparently indifferent.
I also tend to think that it’s unlikely that they will back down at this point.
However, surely this project will be a nightmare for everyone involved if it moves forward. Any contractor who signs on will be the focus of general ire, boycotts, or worse. I can’t imagine why they would want to tolerate all of the roadblocks that will inevitably be part of the building process.
Unless they are zealous and single-minded idealogues, of course.
Oh wait…
CV: “Unless they are zealous and single-minded idealogues [sic]”? Not necessarily.
Maybe they want to stand on principle?
Recall that during the Civil Rights movement some people (like MLK and his followers) endured a lot of terrible things: hoses, dogs, people spitting at them. But they persisted. Would you call them “zealous and single-minded ideologues”?
MT – courage is something of a neutral virtue, as it can be used in the service of ill aims as well as good. Still, I suppose it’s better than cowardice.
“Ideologue” wouldn’t be quite the right word for civil rights protesters. Their opponents were the ideologues. I admit the distinction is subtle, but I think it is important. It would seem a natural idea that one man should be treated like another, and rather an ideological imposition to come up with reasons that he shouldn’t. I know that the history of mankind doesn’t look this way at first, but I think there are signs of it. Within our own tribes we treat with some equality. Even when there are hierarchies, it is usually a very limited number of highly-ranked people who get to suspend the rules and do as they please to others. A 1% increase in status does not grant one the right to march in and take his neighbor’s house or harpoons. The house is your house; the harpoons are your harpoons.
When we move to the intertribal level, our perception of interaction is that it is sadly one of inequality and exploitation. But this stems directly from our idea that warfare and conquest are more interesting to read about than trade. Trade – which depends on some essential regard of the other fellow as an equal for purpose of exchange, however inferior we might think him – is by far the more common activity of mankind. Wars and conquest, in fact, are often the result of policing trade. That we selfishly interpret what needs policing in a manner that is heavily biased toward our own needs does not remove the fact that we have a core idea of rules for trade in which everyone has an equal standing.
So coming up with ideas that allow us to suspend rules and treat persons as non-persons may be derivative: poisoned or degraded versions of the doctrine of equality which we dream up to rationalise our selfish intent.
I tend to agree with Bill O’Reilly that it will never be built. Not often I think he sees things very clearly, but I do here.
His opinion is that the Cordoba group may very well get the money together and get permission. However, getting tradesmen to work on it, building inspections signed off, etc. will result in a project that goes way over schedule, way over budget, and may be full of purposely bad wiring, plumbing etc. O’Reilly is a New Yorker who knows the blue collar workers there. I think he is correct about this.
I don’t, however, think that we should quit expressing our disapproval. It is not illegal, but it is inappropriate. There is a world of difference.
Of course.
Were the NSDAP zealous and single-minded? Were the Bolsheviks? Were the Founding Fathers? Was Gandhi? Was Tojo? Was Churchill (Winston, not that skidmark on the underpants of society with the same surname)?
Anyone who habitually says, “On one hand…on the other hand” and carefully considers all aspects of an issue never accomplishes anything.
I should know.
The point is: what is the principle? Principles come in two flavors.
Who was it who said that just because a man is willing to die for something does not make it true.
On the principle that the gods make mad whom they want to destroy, I hope they don’t back down.
Recently we here discussed a letter to the WaPo by disillusioned blue collar worker, and went back on forth as to whether we should reach out to the union rank and file or not. We have a great deal to say to them, starting with why they should not build this obscenity. If such conversations develop and are fruitful, I might even write a brief thank you note to Iman What’shisface and his sidekick Daisy.
Well, well. Now Roger Simon is saying it’s possible Obama may resign before his first term is over.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0810/41134.html
In Peter Ferrara’s column on the same subject, he said Obama would be forced to resign because Democrats, not Republicans and Independents, turn on him and effectively force him out. While one can dismiss Ferrara’s prediction as Republican rabble rousing, nobody is going to accuse Roger Simon of being Republican.
Bobby Gibbs scolding the “Professional Left” because they are too critical of Obama suggests the White House is feeling the pressure. Ruth Marcus called the left bloggers deranged. Pat Cadell said while commenting on the GZ mosque fiasco that the Democratic Party is on the verge of blowing up.
It’s getting interesting.
News of the “backdown” appeared first in Haaretz, not exactly a paragon of reliability or good sense. Just saying.
Could be so, but I’m waiting to bet the farm on it. As far as it goes, there seems no downside to the jihadis and their friends in doubling down and demanding that the filthy infidels let them do their little victory dance. Heads, they get their victory marker on Ground Zero; tails, they get to squeal like little piggies about how intolerant and nasty we are. Win-win for them.
Indeed, Walter in Texas, I once sent a Haaretz link to two friends who spent time in Israel and continue to follow developments there. They responded that it’s a dubious source which they don’t take very seriously.
Actually, I just hope that Muslims keep trying to build their “Triumphal Mosque of the Nineteen Martyrs” and keep the controversy boiling, because the controversy about this Mosque is an enormous “teaching moment”–(hate that phrase, but it is true) in which lots of clueless “unbelievers” here in America get to be exposed (perhaps for the first time) to all sorts of historical information, quotations, various arguments, and other information about Islam and Muslims that they might not otherwise see, and because the argument here is intuitively understood and pretty clear to all, and it is very hard to effectively spin it, because it is simply not about “can they” build but about “should they” build, very close to what even President Obama conceded in his White House Iftar speech, was the “hallowed ground” of the main 9/11 site.
P.S.–I would suspect that after this fiasco, the percentage of those Americans who think Obama is a Muslim, recently pegged in a March 2010 Harris poll at somewhere around 30% of the 2,300 or so polled, is going to dramatically increase, and justifiably and rightly so.
In my view, given the evidence, he is, indeed, a crypto=Muslim, and becoming less “crypto” by the day.
Muslims build mosques at important battle sites. The landing gear of one plane went thru the roof there. We could sell that landing gear to them for 100 million $. The oil rich Saudis will afford whatever this mosque costs. With the liberal politicians of NY, it’s a done deal.
Also Giulliani refused a bunch of millions from the Saudi oil rich back in 2001. What a difference NYC got between Giulliani and Bloomberg.