Plan for Mosque near Ground Zero

[Tyrones own]

Tyrone's Own:

Were did you get that figure of 77% of the American people are against the mosque being built in NYC? I'm just curious as I live in Chicago and I know that most people don't give a damn about what happens in NYC. I personally don't get what the big deal is. I live pretty close to a mosque here and besides the traffic on Fridays, nobody complains about it.

Mrs redandblack4ever.

Fox news where he gets all his opinions.

*yawn* Change the fecking record lads will ye FFS... ;
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics/august_2010/many_more_now_following_mosque_controversy_and_don_t_like_it

[give her dixie]

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/mark-steel/mark-steel-if-anyone-is-fanatic-its-sarah-palin-2061019.html


Mark Steel: If anyone is fanatic it's Sarah Palin

How far away is it permissible to be a Muslim? Maybe there should be special guidelines - for example, three blocks before you can whistle anything by Cat Stevens


Wednesday, 25 August 2010


To give yourself a stressful and futile day, try telling people there are no plans to build a mosque at Ground Zero. You'll get nowhere, although the truth is there are plans to build an Islamic centre, with a swimming pool open to everyone, two blocks away from Ground Zero. So if this is a continuation of the terrorist agenda as claimed, it's been a peculiar plan, and Bin Laden must have started by telling his followers "First we will destroy their buildings – and then, oo it's so deliciously evil, we will get people to swim near to where the buildings were... mwaHAHAHAHAHA."


The centre will include a memorial to victims of the attack on the towers, but even so Sarah Palin has called upon "peaceful Muslims" to reject the building. So, as she's asking Muslims to oppose a centre open to everyone, and that commemorates the victims of 9/11, it seems likely she's a militant Jihadist who thinks the building will be a betrayal of true radical Islam. She's certainly got experience of being filmed with rifles so she's probably sat by one while making a video up a mountain right now, leaning into the camera and booming "The front crawl is the agenda of the infidel, my friends."

The centre will also include a basketball court, but that doesn't convince these people because it won't be proper basketball, it will be Muslim basketball, and there's bound to have been some senator on Fox News howling "We've got to ask ourselves why these guys want to learn an American sport like this. Now, you imagine you've got the tallest Muslims learning to jump up high, next time you want to bring down a tower you don't have to fly planes to do it, you just get these guys to jump up with whatever bomb they've smuggled in through Mexico and whack, you've got five million dead."

And it's two blocks away, which in Manhattan is another district. So how far away is it permissible to be Muslim? Maybe there needs to be specific guidelines, for example three blocks before you can whistle anything by Cat Stevens, five blocks away before you can stop eating during Ramadan and so on, so as not to offend the families of the victims.

One persistent argument of those who oppose the mosque that isn't a mosque on Ground Zero that won't be on Ground Zero is that Ground Zero should remain a special place of sombre tranquillity.

So instead of this centre there should be more buildings such as The Pussycat Club, which is next door to where the towers were, and boasts of being the area's premier strip joint. But that must be in keeping with the sombreness, presumably because the girls start their slide down the pole in a fireman's uniform in honour of the heroic firefighters of that fateful day.

Then there are the salesmen who hover round Ground Zero. As you contemplate the poignancy of the site, someone from this franchise stands soulfully by you, taps your shoulder and opens a leather-bound collection of photos of the Twin Towers on fire.

"Hi, I'm offering souvenirs of 9/11," I was told when I was there. What are you supposed to say to that? Are you meant to go "Oo yes, you've caught the contrast between the fire and the clouds on that one, what a delightful shade of crimson?" So wait until Fox News and the Tea Party hear about that level of dishonouring the victims. Oo they'll be cross.

A philosophical argument against the new building came from Mark Williams, chairman and spokesman for the Tea Party, who said "The mosque would be for the worship of the terrorists' monkey god." To start with he appears to have mixed up Islam with Hinduism, so it may be when he finds that out he'll change his mind, and say "Oh it's Hindus with the monkey god. Silly me, well in that case go ahead with the mosque, it's Hindus I have a problem with, it's all to do with being squeamish about monkeys."

Similarly, Newt Gingrich, who hopes to be Republican candidate for President, said "The folks who want to build this mosque are radical Islamists."

And this is where they're more honest, because they seem to believe all Muslims are terrorists. In which case they don't really care where a mosque or Islamic centre is built, just as if the Continuity IRA applied for planning permission to build an explosives-testing plant, you wouldn't say "Well alright but not if it's less than half a mile from Canterbury Cathedral as that would be insensitive."

So there have been protests across America against mosques, in places such as Tennessee and Wisconsin. Presumably the argument there is "Imagine if someone who was in the Twin Towers on 9/11 was still so traumatised that they sleepwalked, and by chance one night they dreamily ambled into Grand Central station and got a train to Wisconsin and got out and wandered through the state and woke up just as they were by the new mosque, well it could be quite a shock."

More likely is there's a section of America that hates Muslims, and those like Palin and Gingrich are delighted to lead them. According to the latest survey, 24 per cent of America believes that Barack Obama is Muslim, and the Tea Party politicians promote that nonsense.

Obama seems willing to try and placate characters such as Palin, but he might be better off saying "Alright then – nothing Islamic near Ground Zero, but that principle applies to everything. So every Catholic Church within two blocks of a school is being shut down, as it would be grossly insensitive to allow an institution with such a record of child abuse to worship near its victims.

"We're withdrawing every branch of Macdonalds and Starbucks from Vietnam, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama or anywhere else we've ever bombed, and we're telling Wall Street that it has to move to New Jersey, as the Twin Towers were called the World Trade Center and the bankers were the ones that stopped the global economy in it's tracks."

[redandblack4ever]

Again Tyrone Own's, will you please answer my question. Where did you get that figure of 77% of Americans are against the building of the mosque/Isalmic Center in NYC? As I said most people outside of NYC are more worried about the economy and finding/keeping a job than what's happening in NYC..

[Carmen Stateside]

Think that % is very high.  Dont see the problem with the Mosque myself, would doubt if there is even 77% of NYers against it.  And what of the Mosques close  by that is only four blocks from GZ, not a word of them?
Republicans have jumped all over this with November elections in mind, nothing else.

[muppet]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gary-arndt/20-thing-ive-learned-from_b_673264.html?ref=fb&src=sp

Well worth 3 minutes.

The world from a (well-travelled) American perspective.

[Tyrones own]

Again Tyrone Own's, will you please answer my question. Where did you get that figure of 77% of Americans are against the building of the mosque/Isalmic Center in NYC? As I said most people outside of NYC are more worried about the economy and finding/keeping a job than what's happening in NYC..

What part of the link above didn't work for ye there Mrs.. should I post it again ?

[Tyrones own]

Obama seems willing to try and placate characters such as Palin, but he might be better off saying "Alright then – nothing Islamic near Ground Zero, but that principle applies to everything. So every Catholic Church within two blocks of a school is being shut down, as it would be grossly insensitive to allow an institution with such a record of child abuse to worship near its victims.

So you and J are obviously singing from the same liberal hymn book I see.... It was idiotic when he pedaled it (admittedly)
and hasn't improved much with your delivery of it

[PadraicHenryPearse]

I am not sure what you think word for word is but you are wrong about that also. No doubt i have similar opinion and closer than those pedelled on fox about the "grond zero mosque" but i did not quote him or is it close to word for word.

Your assumption that i know more of Keith Olbermann is wrong, this is the first i have ever heard or seen him. I live in Thailand. Fox, BBC World, Al Jazeera and France24 are the only news channels i get. I was sent a link from a friend of mine in the US as i was asking him what has he heard from his mates about it, as its all over Fox, was it "fox news" or actual news in the US. I don't use political forums but enjoy keeping up with current affairs around the world (isolated in my small tropical paradise).

You again ended with a snipe remark and yes some made a snipe remark to you after that. Anyway you are still knocking other peoples opinion without giving your own, although they are becoming clearer (i wouldn't like to assume anything)

[heganboy]

the article about this was first printed in the NY Times last december
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/09/nyregion/09mosque.html

strange that there was no reaction then, oh, hang on, wait a minute...

this non issue cracks me up what a storm in a feckin' tea cup.
first amendment :

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof

that bit comes before free speech and freedom of the press in case anyone actually cared.

this is the political bandwagon? not the middle east crisis, troops in Afghanistan or Iraq, national debt, bankers raping main street, percentage of americans below the poverty line, discrimination, no coherent immigration policy, oil dependence or spillage, pensions or the education deficit in the US?
not this- the key issue in America today is whether a muslim community centre (or center) for some of the city's 800,000 Muslims has pissed off someone that disagrees with the first amendment.

wake up, if you're going to be political find a proper issue. nobody who lives or works there gives a crap about this issue, its more of the pc brigade and moral indignation about "Oh I think I should be offended by this- shouldn't I be?" Down with this sort of thing - nonsense.

[give her dixie]

The Ground Zero Synagogue—Lebanon Becoming More American than America


"There should be no mosque near Ground Zero in New York so long as there are no churches or synagogues in Saudi Arabia. The time for double standards that allow Islamists to behave aggressively toward us while they demand our weakness and submission is over."— Newt Gingrich

Has Lebanon officially become more tolerant and progressive than the United States?

Let's talk about Lebanon's Ground Zero and you can decide for yourself.

One must first understand what "Ground Zero" means to most Lebanese.

In a country with about the same land mass as Los Angeles County which has been at war off and on for nearly four decades, "Ground Zero" for the Lebanese is arguably their entire country—and at the center of their Ground Zero is downtown Beirut, captured and occupied by the Israeli Defense Force in 1982 and which was almost entirely reduced to rubble from Muslim West Beirut to Christian East Beirut, and all points in between.

Once upon a time not too long ago, there was scarcely a building left standing or unscarred by shrapnel in all of Beirut.  I know, because I was in Beirut in 1991, and witnessed first hand a city once described as "the Paris of  the Middle East" reduced to ruins, pot marked with unexploded munitions and a haphazzard "network" of open sewers. 

Miraculously,  Beirut was rebuilt and reclaimed its prominence.  It once again became the jewel of the Arab world, remarkably able to bridge the ancient mystique of the east with the modern allure of the west. 

Upon the first completion of its "rebuilding" process however--after 15 years and tens of billions of dollars spent on reconstructing Lebanon and its Ground Zero from rubble to splendor, Israel did what Israel does...

In July and August of 2006, Israel again followed through on its promise to "bomb Lebanon back into the Stone Age," and in so doing displaced 1,000,000 Lebanese civilians (nearly a quarter of the country's population), completely destroyed the country's infrastructure (again), its only airport, at least 64 bridges, leveled entire buildings and neighborhoods to rubble (again), including the country's largest milk factory, a food factory, two pharmaceutical plants, water treatment centers, power plants, grain silos, a Greek Orthodox Church, several mosques, and a handful of hospitals (in a country which only had a handful of hospitals to begin with).

Over 1,200 hundred Lebanese civilians were killed and over 5,000 wounded.

Israel routinely talks about "proportionality" when comparing their "terrorism deaths" to American 9/11 deaths. In order to shock the sensibilities of a gullible American public, they portray a figure "in American terms," by multiplying their dead by a number which reflects their population in comparison to the American population.

Well, what's good for the Israeli goose is good for the Lebanese gander. I will play their game: 1,200 dead Lebanese civilians are the "proportional equivalent" to 90,000 American dead when accounting for the two countries' population differences. Therefore, according to Israeli goose math, that's the equivalent of roughly thirty 9/11's Israel exacted on Lebanon in July and August 2006 over the course of 34 days—nearly one 9/11 a day for an entire month without relent.

Incidentally, July and August of 2006 only tell a small part of the story when it comes to Israeli aggression against Lebanon. There have been decades of invasion, devastation, and occupation which predated 2006. Several thousands of Lebanese have been killed at the hands of the Israeli Defense Force. Tens of billions of dollars of damage have been levied on the Lebanese infrastructure and private and public property courtesy of the IDF over the course of decades.

"Ground Zero" for Lebanon is an ever expanding, never ending, open wound that never heals.

So what now Newt?

Should you expect the Lebanese to allow a synagogue to be built on their Ground Zero, in the aftermath of a 9/11 that occurred 5 years after ours and which, "proportionately" speaking, was 30 times the size of ours?

Well guess what you hateful, misguided, twit? 

THEY DID.

In the process of re-building Beirut yet again, in 2008, renovations began and have now been completed on the Maghden Abraham Synagogue located in the middle of newly renovated downtown Beirut in an area known as the "Solidere" which has become the focal point and showcase of Lebanon's rebirth.

This isn't some hole in the wall, nondescript, "excuse me" synagogue hidden out of view so as to not "offend" Lebanese non-Jews—this is an elaborate, ornate, beautifully designed, cathedral-style house of worship built for a Lebanese Jewish population that totals less than 500 in a country of more than 4,000,000 (in stark contrast to the eight million American Muslims living in the United States).

And wait until you hear Hezbollah's response to the building of this Ground Zero Synagogue.

(To those expecting a Newt Gingrich equivalent response, prepare to be woefully disappointed).

Courtesy of Hassan Nasrallah himself: "We respect Judaism, just as we respect Christianity. Our only problem is with Israel."

Did you hear that Newt (and the rest of you idiots)?

An Arab democracy, with a Muslim Prime Minister and a Christian President, allowed the building of a synagogue, squarely in the center of their "Ground Zero" in the heart and pride of downtown Beirut which used to be a dumping ground for Israeli military ordinances.

An Arab democracy allowed this, without so much as a protest being made by its citizens, or allegations by politicians that this was sacrilege, or hateful commentary by the media that the Jewish faith was barbaric, or any of the other stupidity I have seen and heard plastered all over American television, talk radio, and internet-blogs regarding a certain "Ground Zero Mosque" and the Islamic faith.

Regardless of whether you perceive Israel to be justified in perpetrating the devastation it did on Lebanon is irrelevant. The purpose of this article is not to debate that.  What cannot be debated, is that Israel (a Jewish State, flying a Jewish flag) unleashed hell on Lebanon for 34 straight days in July and August of 2006 (and for decades prior in its wars against Lebanon). Regardless of whether or not you feel Israel had a right to do that, you cannot deny that Lebanese civilians harbored, and continue to harbor, a very real resentment against the government of Israel—this Jewish state—for those actions and the devestation those actions caused.

Yet these very Lebanese, who are so quickly labeled as "blood thirsty terrorists" by Newt Gingrich and his army of xenophobic morons, were able to draw a distinction between the Jews "flying those planes" in July and August of 2006 working at the behest of the Israeli government, and the Jews whom are citizens of Lebanon who had no connection with those attacks.

Lebanon rebuilt that Ground Zero Synagogue for its Jews.

Not for Israel. Not for the world's Jewry. Not as a monument to mark a "Jewish victory" over Lebanon.

Lebanon rebuilt that Ground Zero Synagogue because its Jews lived in that neighborhood and they had every right to build a house of worship in a place they called home.

For crying out loud, Hassan Nassrallah and Hezbollah can even draw the distinction between a Lebanese Jew and an Israeli soldier who happens to be a Jew. So how is it that Americans can't distinguish between American Muslims who were victims of 9/11 and Saudi Muslims who were the perpetrators of 9/11?

Thank you Mr. Gingrich for allowing Hassan Nasrallah and Hezbollah to outclass you and the Republican Party (and you Democrats aren't too far behind--yes Harry Reid, I'm talking to you). When the former Republican Speaker of the House and the current Democratic Senate Majority Leader start sounding less tolerant and less reasonable than a "terrorist," we need to start sounding the alarm bells.

What a sad state of affairs for America

[seafoid]

The title of the thread is wrong. It's a cultural centre 2 blocks away from Ground Zero.

[give her dixie]

9/11 Families Join In Support of Mosque Near Ground Zero


NEW YORK--As tensions build over the proposed construction of an Islamic community center near ground zero, new coalitions have organized to protect the structure from the growing opposition to its completion.

On Wednesday, representatives from several of the over 40 organizations that joined the New York Neighbors for American Values spoke at a rally near City Hall to announce the establishment of their new coalition, which supports the building of Park51 under the "core American values of religious freedom, diversity, and equality," said Susan Lerner, director of Common Cause New York. Common Cause is a government watchdog group.

Donna O'Conner, who lost her pregnant daughter in the 9/11 attacks and is the spokeswoman for September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, said in a press statement, "We cannot bring back the family members we lost on 9/11 but we can try to recoup what is best about America. We are firm in our commitment to civil liberties and religious freedom."

At the rally, she reaffirmed her support for Park51: "We [9/11 families] 100 percent fully support the Islamic cultural center in New York City."

Donna Lieberman, director of the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU), a civil rights advocacy group, emphasized that religious freedom in America should not exclude any group from enjoying those rights. "We reject the refrain of freedom of religion, but not in my backyard...preventing Muslims or any group...from practicing their faith is unconstitutional and goes against the very core of America."

She disagreed with the assumption that Muslims in America are the same as the Islam extremists who conducted the 9/11 attacks. "We unequivocally reject...the fear-mongering, the crude stereotypes meant to frighten and divide us."

Lieberman noted that given the proximity of the NYCLU office to the World Trade Center towers, many NYCLU workers have felt the impact of the attacks first-hand, but it does not change their belief in defending "the rights of all religious denominations."

She continued, "In conversations about terrible tragedies, 9/11...we know that those who lost loved ones have a special place in the conversation, and when they stand up for American values, even though it may hurt, it's really important that all of America hears that." When one religious group is threatened of its livelihood, all of us suffer, she argued.

Rabbi Arthur Waskow, director of the Shalom Center, expressed that blocking the building of Park51 indicates discrimination and prejudice, which he described as intolerable in America. Furthermore, he believed building Park51 would demonstrate the nation's commitment to its founding principles. "It is right, it is wise for them to do that [construct Park51] because by doing that, they are the beacon to New York City, to America, to the world, a beacon of the best." Park51, which will house a swimming pool, office space, an auditorium, and other facilities, will reveal "an Islam that seeks peace, that practices dialogue," Waskow said.

Abdul Baqi, director of the Muslim Leadership Council, believes that Park51 can boost much-needed economic growth in the community. He also expressed that Muslims were victims of the 9/11 attack too. "We have lost people, loved ones, friends and family, and now we are being doubly victimized by people trying to depict us in one broad stroke of the brush, as something evil." For years, Muslims have practiced their faith in New York. In fact, there was a praying center in the second World Trade Center Tower, Baqi noted

[heganboy]

Building a Nation of Know-Nothings
By TIMOTHY EGAN

Timothy Egan on American politics and life, as seen from the West.



Having shed much of his dignity, core convictions and reputation for straight talk, Senator John McCain won his primary on Tuesday against the flat-earth wing of his party. Now McCain can go search for his lost character, which was last on display late in his 2008 campaign for president.

Remember the moment: a woman with matted hair and a shaky voice rose to express her doubts about Barack Obama. "I have read about him," she said, "and he's not — he's an Arab."

McCain was quick to knock down the lie. "No, ma'am," he said, "he's a decent family man, a citizen."

That ill-informed woman — her head stuffed with fabrications that could be disproved by a pre-schooler — now makes up a representative third or more of the Republican party. It's not just that 47 percent of Republicans believe the lie that Obama is a Muslim, or that 27 percent in the party doubt that the president of the United States is a citizen. But fully half of them believe falsely that the big bailout of banks and insurance companies under TARP was enacted by Obama, and not by President Bush.

Take a look at Tuesday night's box score in the baseball game between New York and Toronto. The Yankees won, 11-5. Now look at the weather summary, showing a high of 71 for New York. The score and temperature are not subject to debate.

Yet a president's birthday or whether he was even in the White House on the day TARP was passed are apparently open questions. A growing segment of the party poised to take control of Congress has bought into denial of the basic truths of Barack Obama's life. What's more, this astonishing level of willful ignorance has come about largely by design, and has been aided by a press afraid to call out the primary architects of the lies.

The Democrats may deserve to lose in November. They have been terrible at trying to explain who they stand for and the larger goal of their governance. But if they lose, it should be because their policies are unpopular or ill-conceived — not because millions of people believe a lie.

In the much-discussed Pew poll reporting the spike in ignorance, those who believe Obama to be Muslim say they got their information from the media. But no reputable news agency — that is, fact-based, one that corrects its errors quickly — has spread such inaccuracies.

  So where is this "media?" Two sources, and they are — no surprise here — the usual suspects. The first, of course, is Rush Limbaugh, who claims the largest radio audience in the land among the microphone demagogues, and his word is Biblical among Republicans. A few quick examples of the Limbaugh method:

"Tomorrow is Obama's birthday — not that we've seen any proof of that," he said on Aug. 3. "They tell us Aug. 4 is the birthday; we haven't seen any proof of that."

Of course, there is proof as clear as that baseball box score. Look here, www.factcheck.org, for starters, one of many places posting Obama's Hawaiian birth certificate.

On the Muslim deception, Limbaugh has sprinkled lie dust all over the place. "Obama says he's a Christian, but where's the evidence?" he said on Aug. 19. He has repeatedly called the president "imam Obama," and said, "I'm just throwing things out there, folks, because people are questioning his Christianity."

You see how he works. He drops in suggestions, hints, notes that "people are questioning" things. The design is to make Obama un-American. Then he says it's a tweak, a provocation. He says this as a preemptive way to keep the press from calling him out. And it works; long profiles of Limbaugh have largely gone easy on him.

Once Limbaugh has planted a lie, a prominent politician can pick it up, with little nuance. So, over the weekend, Kim Lehman, one of Iowa's two Republican National Committee members, went public with doubts on Obama's Christianity. Of course, she was not condemned by party leaders.

It's curious, also, that any felon, drug addict, or recovering hedonist can loudly proclaim a sudden embrace of Jesus and be welcomed without doubt by leaders of the religious right. But a thoughtful Christian like Obama is still distrusted.

"I am a devout Christian," Obama told Christianity Today in 2008. "I believe in the redemptive death and resurrection of Jesus Christ." That's not enough, apparently, for Rev. Franklin Graham, the partisan son of the great evangelical leader, who said last week that Obama was "born a Muslim because of the religious seed passed on from his father."

Actually, he was born from two non-practicing parents, and his Kenyan father was absent for all of his upbringing. Obama came to his Christianity like millions of people, through searching and questioning.

Finally, there is Fox News, whose parent company has given $1 million to Republican causes this year but still masquerades as a legitimate source of news. Their chat and opinion programs spread innuendo daily. The founder of Politifact, another nonpartisan referee to the daily rumble, said two of the site's five most popular items on its Truth-o-meter are corrections of Glenn Beck.

Beck tosses off enough half-truths in a month to keep Politifact working overtime. Of late, he has gone after Michelle Obama, whose vacation in Spain was "just for her and approximately 40 of her friends." Limbaugh had a similar line, saying the First Lady "is taking 40 of her best friends and leasing 60 rooms at a five-star hotel — paid for by you."

The White House said Michelle Obama and her daughter Sasha were accompanied by just a few friends — and they paid their own costs. But, wink, wink, the damage is done. He's Muslim and foreign. She's living the luxe life on your dime. They don't even have to mention race. The code words do it for them.

Climate-change denial is a special category all its own. Once on the fringe, dismissal of scientific consensus is now an article of faith among leading Republicans, again taking their cue from Limbaugh and Fox.

It would be nice to dismiss the stupid things that Americans believe as harmless, the price of having such a large, messy democracy. Plenty of hate-filled partisans swore that Abraham Lincoln was a Catholic and Franklin Roosevelt was a Jew. So what if one-in-five believe the sun revolves around the earth, or aren't sure from which country the United States gained its independence?

But false belief in weapons of mass-destruction led the United States to a trillion-dollar war. And trust in rising home value as a truism as reliable as a sunrise was a major contributor to the catastrophic collapse of the economy. At its worst extreme, a culture of misinformation can produce something like Iran, which is run by a Holocaust denier.

It's one thing to forget the past, with predictable consequences, as the favorite aphorism goes. But what about those who refuse to comprehend the present?



by timothy Egan, in the New York times
opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/25/building-a-nation-of-know-nothings

[Tyrones own]

The Ground Zero Synagogue—Lebanon Becoming More American than America


"There should be no mosque near Ground Zero in New York so long as there are no churches or synagogues in Saudi Arabia. The time for double standards that allow Islamists to behave aggressively toward us while they demand our weakness and submission is over."— Newt Gingrich

Has Lebanon officially become more tolerant and progressive than the United States?

Let's talk about Lebanon's Ground Zero and you can decide for yourself.

One must first understand what "Ground Zero" means to most Lebanese.

In a country with about the same land mass as Los Angeles County which has been at war off and on for nearly four decades, "Ground Zero" for the Lebanese is arguably their entire country—and at the center of their Ground Zero is downtown Beirut, captured and occupied by the Israeli Defense Force in 1982 and which was almost entirely reduced to rubble from Muslim West Beirut to Christian East Beirut, and all points in between.

Once upon a time not too long ago, there was scarcely a building left standing or unscarred by shrapnel in all of Beirut.  I know, because I was in Beirut in 1991, and witnessed first hand a city once described as "the Paris of  the Middle East" reduced to ruins, pot marked with unexploded munitions and a haphazzard "network" of open sewers. 

Miraculously,  Beirut was rebuilt and reclaimed its prominence.  It once again became the jewel of the Arab world, remarkably able to bridge the ancient mystique of the east with the modern allure of the west. 

Upon the first completion of its "rebuilding" process however--after 15 years and tens of billions of dollars spent on reconstructing Lebanon and its Ground Zero from rubble to splendor, Israel did what Israel does...

In July and August of 2006, Israel again followed through on its promise to "bomb Lebanon back into the Stone Age," and in so doing displaced 1,000,000 Lebanese civilians (nearly a quarter of the country's population), completely destroyed the country's infrastructure (again), its only airport, at least 64 bridges, leveled entire buildings and neighborhoods to rubble (again), including the country's largest milk factory, a food factory, two pharmaceutical plants, water treatment centers, power plants, grain silos, a Greek Orthodox Church, several mosques, and a handful of hospitals (in a country which only had a handful of hospitals to begin with).

Over 1,200 hundred Lebanese civilians were killed and over 5,000 wounded.

Israel routinely talks about "proportionality" when comparing their "terrorism deaths" to American 9/11 deaths. In order to shock the sensibilities of a gullible American public, they portray a figure "in American terms," by multiplying their dead by a number which reflects their population in comparison to the American population.

Well, what's good for the Israeli goose is good for the Lebanese gander. I will play their game: 1,200 dead Lebanese civilians are the "proportional equivalent" to 90,000 American dead when accounting for the two countries' population differences. Therefore, according to Israeli goose math, that's the equivalent of roughly thirty 9/11's Israel exacted on Lebanon in July and August 2006 over the course of 34 days—nearly one 9/11 a day for an entire month without relent.

Incidentally, July and August of 2006 only tell a small part of the story when it comes to Israeli aggression against Lebanon. There have been decades of invasion, devastation, and occupation which predated 2006. Several thousands of Lebanese have been killed at the hands of the Israeli Defense Force. Tens of billions of dollars of damage have been levied on the Lebanese infrastructure and private and public property courtesy of the IDF over the course of decades.

"Ground Zero" for Lebanon is an ever expanding, never ending, open wound that never heals.

So what now Newt?

Should you expect the Lebanese to allow a synagogue to be built on their Ground Zero, in the aftermath of a 9/11 that occurred 5 years after ours and which, "proportionately" speaking, was 30 times the size of ours?

Well guess what you hateful, misguided, twit? 

THEY DID.

In the process of re-building Beirut yet again, in 2008, renovations began and have now been completed on the Maghden Abraham Synagogue located in the middle of newly renovated downtown Beirut in an area known as the "Solidere" which has become the focal point and showcase of Lebanon's rebirth.

This isn't some hole in the wall, nondescript, "excuse me" synagogue hidden out of view so as to not "offend" Lebanese non-Jews—this is an elaborate, ornate, beautifully designed, cathedral-style house of worship built for a Lebanese Jewish population that totals less than 500 in a country of more than 4,000,000 (in stark contrast to the eight million American Muslims living in the United States).

And wait until you hear Hezbollah's response to the building of this Ground Zero Synagogue.

(To those expecting a Newt Gingrich equivalent response, prepare to be woefully disappointed).

Courtesy of Hassan Nasrallah himself: "We respect Judaism, just as we respect Christianity. Our only problem is with Israel."

Did you hear that Newt (and the rest of you idiots)?

An Arab democracy, with a Muslim Prime Minister and a Christian President, allowed the building of a synagogue, squarely in the center of their "Ground Zero" in the heart and pride of downtown Beirut which used to be a dumping ground for Israeli military ordinances.

An Arab democracy allowed this, without so much as a protest being made by its citizens, or allegations by politicians that this was sacrilege, or hateful commentary by the media that the Jewish faith was barbaric, or any of the other stupidity I have seen and heard plastered all over American television, talk radio, and internet-blogs regarding a certain "Ground Zero Mosque" and the Islamic faith.

Regardless of whether you perceive Israel to be justified in perpetrating the devastation it did on Lebanon is irrelevant. The purpose of this article is not to debate that.  What cannot be debated, is that Israel (a Jewish State, flying a Jewish flag) unleashed hell on Lebanon for 34 straight days in July and August of 2006 (and for decades prior in its wars against Lebanon). Regardless of whether or not you feel Israel had a right to do that, you cannot deny that Lebanese civilians harbored, and continue to harbor, a very real resentment against the government of Israel—this Jewish state—for those actions and the devestation those actions caused.

Yet these very Lebanese, who are so quickly labeled as "blood thirsty terrorists" by Newt Gingrich and his army of xenophobic morons, were able to draw a distinction between the Jews "flying those planes" in July and August of 2006 working at the behest of the Israeli government, and the Jews whom are citizens of Lebanon who had no connection with those attacks.

Lebanon rebuilt that Ground Zero Synagogue for its Jews.

Not for Israel. Not for the world's Jewry. Not as a monument to mark a "Jewish victory" over Lebanon.

Lebanon rebuilt that Ground Zero Synagogue because its Jews lived in that neighborhood and they had every right to build a house of worship in a place they called home.

For crying out loud, Hassan Nassrallah and Hezbollah can even draw the distinction between a Lebanese Jew and an Israeli soldier who happens to be a Jew. So how is it that Americans can't distinguish between American Muslims who were victims of 9/11 and Saudi Muslims who were the perpetrators of 9/11?

Thank you Mr. Gingrich for allowing Hassan Nasrallah and Hezbollah to outclass you and the Republican Party (and you Democrats aren't too far behind--yes Harry Reid, I'm talking to you). When the former Republican Speaker of the House and the current Democratic Senate Majority Leader start sounding less tolerant and less reasonable than a "terrorist," we need to start sounding the alarm bells.

What a sad state of affairs for America

Congratulations...you only mentioned Israel 18 times in this particular piece on
a thread about the Mosque Cultural center in NY City! 

[redandblack4ever]

Tyorne's Own:

I went to the Rasmussen site and I couldn't find the particular poll you're quoting. Also you don't have to be so snarky in replying. But I guess that comes from listening to the right-wing media commentators in this country. I'm surprised that you can't figure out why Liimbaugh, Beck, Hannity and O'Rielly spew what the they do. It's all about the "almighty dollar". If you think one of them really cares about what happens to this country, hey buddy, I gotta bridge in Brooklyn to sell ya.!!!