[O]ne of the financial backers of the Islamic mosque and cultural center project in Lower Manhattan once contributed to a terror group, although the investor says the contribution was made because he thought he was giving money to a harmless charity. One of the key players in Sharif El-Gamal’s Mosque near Ground Zero is Egyptian born businessman, Hisham Elzanaty. Fox 5 News has learned exclusively and confirmed with Mr. Elzanaty’s attorney that Elzanaty made a “significant investment” in the development of the mosque near Ground Zero. …
Mr. Elzanaty’s attorney tells Fox 5 News exclusively his client believed he was making contributions to an orphanage.
But IPT’s Ray Locker claims even back then TV and newspapers were reporting suspicions of the group’s ties to terror. “If you gave money (to HLF) in 1999 you probably had some inkling that HLF was giving money to Hamas and therefore to terrorist operations,” Locker says.
* Un-indicted co-conspirator (in the successful federal Holy Land Foundation trial for funding Hamas with $12 mil), aka CAIR, to Launch PSAs Featuring Muslim 9/11 First Responders
* Exclusive: Developer of ‘Ground Zero Mosque’ Cuts Short Mideast Tour to Deal With Controversy — ABC News
In the National Review Online, Deroy Murdock gets it right:
“Does Imam Rauf embrace such brutality? Who knows? But the fact that he wants the U.S. to be “sharia compliant” rather than sharia-free should worry every liberty-loving American.”
We’d only add that any liberty-loving Muslim who came here to escape sharia would have never disrespected America by attempting to build a mosque there.
Though the Muslims behind this mosque do not separate politics from religion, America does, and we are not required to dissolve the dividing line we have always recognized. The imam of the proposed mosque, Feisal Abdul Rauf, absolves Islam of all responsibility for Sept. 11 — and terrorism in general. According to him, if an act of terrorism is committed by somebody who yells “Allah Akbar,” that person is not a “true Muslim” and Islam is exonerated. In contrast, Mr. Rauf tells us, ultimately the people who jumped out of the Twin Towers are responsible for their own deaths because, as he has said, “Osama bin Laden was made in the USA.”
So, when he speaks of his Islamic center providing reconciliation and understanding, this is what he means: America must reconcile itself to its own culpability in Sept. 11, and it must understand that the sin and crime of terrorism is its own. There is no better place than Ground Zero, he believes, for Americans to come to this reconciliation and understanding.
Debra Burlingame confirmed to us that Politico.com accurately reprinted her comments (below) in response to Mayor Bloomberg’s ridiculous assertions: It is bad enough that Mr. Bloomberg covers himself in the memory of the heroes who died on 9/11 in order to silence legitimate criticism of the mosque project, it is even more shameless of him [...]
* ‘Seven in 10 NYers want mosque moved‘ – NY Post (71% also said NY AG Cuomo should investigate mosque financing) * ‘Brother load of trouble for mosque siblings‘ – NY Post (other El-Gamal brother: “petit theft”, “larceny”, and taxes) * ‘The New Moral Equivalence; Prominent media hosts equate Christian and Muslim violence’ — Dennis [...]
Writing in Malaysia’s The Star Online earlier this year, Ground Zero mosque Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf scolded Christians for provoking Islamists into burning eleven of their churches to the ground: “Most recently that anger has surfaced in Malaysia, where 60% of the people are Malays. The High Court’s ruling that Allah is not exclusive to [...]
* ‘Daisy Khan and the Beautiful City‘ * ‘Friend of the Brotherhood?‘ * ‘Rats, Bedbugs Infest Buildings Owned by Ground Zero Mosque Developer’ — ABC News * ‘Rift Imperils Ground Zero Mosque‘ * ‘Islamophobia’ and Islamo-reality‘ * ‘Mosque ‘slumlord’; NJ tenants rage at G. Zero imam‘ — New York Post * ‘ Tenants don’t see [...]
* ‘ABC News ‘Reprimanded’ Cameraman Who Tried to Provoke Ground Zero Mosque Protesters, but They Haven’t Gone Far Enough‘ — by Andrea Lafferty * ‘Saudis and mosque‘ — letters to the New York Post editor * ‘Mosque big owes 224G tax‘ — New York Post * ‘It took a Manhattan taxi driver called Ahmed Sharif [...]
The full title of commentary this morning by Andrew C. McCarthy at the National Review Online is: ‘Why They Can’t Condemn Hamas; Rauf and his friends employ different methods, but they are on the same team.’ Imam Rauf heads the Cordoba Initiative that plans to demolish an 152-year old factory (which had a strut from [...]
Uniformed Firefighters Assoc. President Steve Cassidy says he hasn't met a FDNY firefighter or chief for the Ground Zero mosque and 9/11 families members are overwhelmingly against it, today on the Steve Malzberg Show
Say what? Proselytizing for Islam from the "
