Look what's crawling out from under the Rauf. Without his Albright résumé and subdued dhimmedia running interference, it is plain as day that this hustler, the renowned "moderate" Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf of the Park 51 Ground Zero mega-mosque initiative, is a lowlife. He has been exposed as a rat and vermin slumlord whose tenants live without basic services like hot water. He scammed New Jersey politicians and got taxpayer dollars for rehabilitation of his infested, dilapidated buildings in Union City and Palisades Park, but still his victimized tenants live in squalor. So where's the money?
The New Jersey Record reported that Rauf was sued for mortgage fraud in 2008 and settled the suit in June of that year. The suit reveals that Rauf owns two apartment buildings, one of which has been vacant since a fire broke out there -- a year after Rauf ignored citations for twelve different fire code violations.
That's not all. It has also recently come to light that Rauf and his wife, Daisy "the Con" Khan, listed their apartment as a mosque in order to conduct what amounts to tax fraud. Rauf was able to obtain tax-exempt status for his Muslim organization by deceiving the Internal Revenue Service: he told them that five hundred Muslims met regularly for worship at a "mosque" that was actually a tiny one-bedroom apartment (also listed as Daisy's residence). Rauf sought "church status" -- an official IRS term for a house of worship of any religion (though stealth Rauf, I am sure, is working the feds to change that term) -- for his organization, the American Society for Muslim Advancement (ASMA), and the clueless feds granted the request.
Gaining "church status" means much more than just that your organization doesn't have to pay taxes. It also means that you have very little accountability about how you spend your money.
Is New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg still kissing the backside of this "bridge-builder"?
And that's not all that's unsavory about the money that's pouring into the building of the mega-mosque and the people connected with this scheme. Rauf's thug developer in the project to build an Islamic supremacist mega-mosque on Ground Zero, Sharif El-Gamal, has a rap sheet a mile long. He recently wrote that "when you beat up someone physically you get exercise & stress relief," and it seems clear that he spoke from experience. And his financier, Hisham Elzanaty, was a large funder of Hamas (exposed in the Holy Land Foundation jihad terror funding trial) while defrauding Medicare out of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Tell me again: where is this thug getting 125 million dollars? El-Gamal is now being evicted for non-payment of rent for his SoHo office.
Showing posts with label Ground Zero mosque. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ground Zero mosque. Show all posts
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Obama introduces new style of governance - Bizarre
Barack Obama is the most antibusiness president in a generation, perhaps in American history. Thanks to him the era of big government is back. Obama runs up taxpayer debt not in the billions but in the trillions. He has expanded the federal government's control over home mortgages, investment banking, health care, autos and energy. The Weekly Standard summarizes Obama's approach as omnipotence at home, impotence abroad.
The President's actions are so bizarre that they mystify his critics and supporters alike. Consider this headline from the Aug. 18, 2009 issue of the Wall Street Journal: "Obama Underwrites Offshore Drilling." Did you read that correctly? You did. The Administration supports offshore drilling--but drilling off the shores of Brazil. With Obama's backing, the U.S. Export-Import Bank offered $2 billion in loans and guarantees to Brazil's state-owned oil company Petrobras to finance exploration in the Santos Basin near Rio de Janeiro--not so the oil ends up in the U.S. He is funding Brazilian exploration so that the oil can stay in Brazil.
More strange behavior: Obama's June 15, 2010 speech in response to the Gulf oil spill focused not on cleanup strategies but rather on the fact that Americans "consume more than 20% of the world's oil but have less than 2% of the world's resources." Obama railed on about "America's century-long addiction to fossil fuels." What does any of this have to do with the oil spill? Would the calamity have been less of a problem if America consumed a mere 10% of the world's resources?
The oddities go on and on. Obama's Administration has declared that even banks that want to repay their bailout money may be refused permission to do so. Only after the Obama team cleared a bank through the Fed's "stress test" was it eligible to give taxpayers their money back. Even then, declared Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, the Administration might force banks to keep the money.
The President continues to push for stimulus even though hundreds of billions of dollars in such funds seem to have done little. The unemployment rate when Obama took office in January 2009 was 7.7%; now it is 9.5%. Yet he wants to spend even more and is determined to foist the entire bill on Americans making $250,000 a year or more. The rich, Obama insists, aren't paying their "fair share." This by itself seems odd given that the top 1% of Americans pay 40% of all federal income taxes; the next 9% of income earners pay another 30%. So the top 10% pays 70% of the taxes; the bottom 40% pays close to nothing. This does indeed seem unfair--to the rich.
Obama's foreign policy is no less strange. He supports a $100 million mosque scheduled to be built near the site where terrorists in the name of Islam brought down the World Trade Center. Obama's rationale, that "our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakable," seems utterly irrelevant to the issue of why the proposed Cordoba House should be constructed at Ground Zero.
Recently the London Times reported that the Obama Administration supported the conditional release of Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber convicted in connection with the deaths of 270 people, mostly Americans. This was an eye-opener because when Scotland released Megrahi from prison and sent him home to Libya in August 2009, the Obama Administration publicly and appropriately complained. The Times, however, obtained a letter the Obama Administration sent to Scotland a week before the event in which it said that releasing Megrahi on "compassionate grounds" was acceptable as long as he was kept in Scotland and would be "far preferable" to sending him back to Libya. Scottish officials interpreted this to mean that U.S. objections to Megrahi's release were "half-hearted." They released him to his home country, where he lives today as a free man.
One more anomaly: A few months ago nasa Chief Charles Bolden announced that from now on the primary mission of America's space agency would be to improve relations with the Muslim world. Come again? Bolden said he got the word directly from the President. "He wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science and math and engineering." Bolden added that the International Space Station was a model for nasa's future, since it was not just a U.S. operation but included the Russians and the Chinese. Obama's redirection of the agency caused consternation among former astronauts like Neil Armstrong and John Glenn, and even among the President's supporters: Most people think of nasa's job as one of landing on the moon and Mars and exploring other faraway destinations. Sure, we are for Islamic self-esteem, but what on earth was Obama up to here?
Theories abound to explain the President's goals and actions. Critics in the business community--including some Obama voters who now have buyer's remorse--tend to focus on two main themes. The first is that Obama is clueless about business. The second is that Obama is a socialist--not an out-and-out Marxist, but something of a European-style socialist, with a penchant for leveling and government redistribution.
The President's actions are so bizarre that they mystify his critics and supporters alike. Consider this headline from the Aug. 18, 2009 issue of the Wall Street Journal: "Obama Underwrites Offshore Drilling." Did you read that correctly? You did. The Administration supports offshore drilling--but drilling off the shores of Brazil. With Obama's backing, the U.S. Export-Import Bank offered $2 billion in loans and guarantees to Brazil's state-owned oil company Petrobras to finance exploration in the Santos Basin near Rio de Janeiro--not so the oil ends up in the U.S. He is funding Brazilian exploration so that the oil can stay in Brazil.
More strange behavior: Obama's June 15, 2010 speech in response to the Gulf oil spill focused not on cleanup strategies but rather on the fact that Americans "consume more than 20% of the world's oil but have less than 2% of the world's resources." Obama railed on about "America's century-long addiction to fossil fuels." What does any of this have to do with the oil spill? Would the calamity have been less of a problem if America consumed a mere 10% of the world's resources?
The oddities go on and on. Obama's Administration has declared that even banks that want to repay their bailout money may be refused permission to do so. Only after the Obama team cleared a bank through the Fed's "stress test" was it eligible to give taxpayers their money back. Even then, declared Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, the Administration might force banks to keep the money.
The President continues to push for stimulus even though hundreds of billions of dollars in such funds seem to have done little. The unemployment rate when Obama took office in January 2009 was 7.7%; now it is 9.5%. Yet he wants to spend even more and is determined to foist the entire bill on Americans making $250,000 a year or more. The rich, Obama insists, aren't paying their "fair share." This by itself seems odd given that the top 1% of Americans pay 40% of all federal income taxes; the next 9% of income earners pay another 30%. So the top 10% pays 70% of the taxes; the bottom 40% pays close to nothing. This does indeed seem unfair--to the rich.
Obama's foreign policy is no less strange. He supports a $100 million mosque scheduled to be built near the site where terrorists in the name of Islam brought down the World Trade Center. Obama's rationale, that "our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakable," seems utterly irrelevant to the issue of why the proposed Cordoba House should be constructed at Ground Zero.
Recently the London Times reported that the Obama Administration supported the conditional release of Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber convicted in connection with the deaths of 270 people, mostly Americans. This was an eye-opener because when Scotland released Megrahi from prison and sent him home to Libya in August 2009, the Obama Administration publicly and appropriately complained. The Times, however, obtained a letter the Obama Administration sent to Scotland a week before the event in which it said that releasing Megrahi on "compassionate grounds" was acceptable as long as he was kept in Scotland and would be "far preferable" to sending him back to Libya. Scottish officials interpreted this to mean that U.S. objections to Megrahi's release were "half-hearted." They released him to his home country, where he lives today as a free man.
One more anomaly: A few months ago nasa Chief Charles Bolden announced that from now on the primary mission of America's space agency would be to improve relations with the Muslim world. Come again? Bolden said he got the word directly from the President. "He wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science and math and engineering." Bolden added that the International Space Station was a model for nasa's future, since it was not just a U.S. operation but included the Russians and the Chinese. Obama's redirection of the agency caused consternation among former astronauts like Neil Armstrong and John Glenn, and even among the President's supporters: Most people think of nasa's job as one of landing on the moon and Mars and exploring other faraway destinations. Sure, we are for Islamic self-esteem, but what on earth was Obama up to here?
Theories abound to explain the President's goals and actions. Critics in the business community--including some Obama voters who now have buyer's remorse--tend to focus on two main themes. The first is that Obama is clueless about business. The second is that Obama is a socialist--not an out-and-out Marxist, but something of a European-style socialist, with a penchant for leveling and government redistribution.
Sunday, September 5, 2010
Why did owner of Ground Zero mosque site reject higher offers?
The original owners of the Ground Zero mosque site mysteriously spurned dozens of higher bids before selling the prime downtown real estate at a bargain-basement price.
The Pomerantz family, which had owned the building since the late 1960s and fielded offers after the patriarch died in 2006, rejected at least one bid that was nearly four times what prospective mosque builder Sharif El-Gamal eventually paid, The Post has learned.
El-Gamal did offer what could be viewed as a sweetener to his $4.8 million bid in July 2009 -- a job as a property manager for a son of the family, Sethian Pomerantz.
New York developer Kevin Glodek was livid when he found out the building sold for a fraction of what he offered in 2007 -- $18 million cash -- and wondered whether money changed hands under the table, according to sources close to the deal.
Glodek and his partners wanted to build a 60-story condo tower with retail space on the Park Place site, had inked a purchase agreement and even had keys to the existing building, according to sources and documents obtained by The Post.
But Kukiko Mitani -- whose late husband, Stephen Pomerantz, owned the property -- and her brother-in-law, Melvin Pomerantz, a trustee to the estate, went silent at the end of 2007 and Glodek's deal disappeared, sources said.
Glodek, who owns the ChefsDiet food delivery service and several Manhattan properties, declined to comment.
The property is now at the heart of one of the most divisive issues in the country -- whether it should be the location of a $100 million mosque and community center. The location two blocks from Ground Zero has been called insensitive, and questions have been raised about whether extremists will help fund the project. Recent polls show that 70 percent of New Yorkers want it moved.
El-Gamal had his eye on the property for years before buying it in 2009.
He was not alone in his interest, with some 30 offers showered on the Pomerantz family in what was an overheated downtown real-estate market in 2007, according to a source familiar with the negotiations.
Yet Mitani previously told The Post the building, a former Burlington Coat Factory store that was damaged in the 9/11 attacks, was a tough sell. She said she was in debt and desperate to unload it after her husband's death and insisted she had no buyers other than El-Gamal.
Some of the offers were a mere flash in the pan, but others were legitimate, including a $17 million cash deal from one developer, the source said.
The attraction in this hot market was buying real estate that could be demolished, the source said. A second downtown mosque, not affiliated with El-Gamal, considered spending $18 million for 45-47 Park Place in early 2008.
But the Pomerantz family -- for reasons that remain unclear -- rejected the offers.
They took 70 percent less from El-Gamal than what Glodek offered.
This was a considerable drop even given the 30 percent decline in market values at the time, said Michael Falsetta, executive vice president of Miller Cicero, a real-estate appraisal firm not involved in the deals.
"That makes us suspicious," he said.
The Pomerantz family, which had owned the building since the late 1960s and fielded offers after the patriarch died in 2006, rejected at least one bid that was nearly four times what prospective mosque builder Sharif El-Gamal eventually paid, The Post has learned.
El-Gamal did offer what could be viewed as a sweetener to his $4.8 million bid in July 2009 -- a job as a property manager for a son of the family, Sethian Pomerantz.
New York developer Kevin Glodek was livid when he found out the building sold for a fraction of what he offered in 2007 -- $18 million cash -- and wondered whether money changed hands under the table, according to sources close to the deal.
Glodek and his partners wanted to build a 60-story condo tower with retail space on the Park Place site, had inked a purchase agreement and even had keys to the existing building, according to sources and documents obtained by The Post.
But Kukiko Mitani -- whose late husband, Stephen Pomerantz, owned the property -- and her brother-in-law, Melvin Pomerantz, a trustee to the estate, went silent at the end of 2007 and Glodek's deal disappeared, sources said.
Glodek, who owns the ChefsDiet food delivery service and several Manhattan properties, declined to comment.
The property is now at the heart of one of the most divisive issues in the country -- whether it should be the location of a $100 million mosque and community center. The location two blocks from Ground Zero has been called insensitive, and questions have been raised about whether extremists will help fund the project. Recent polls show that 70 percent of New Yorkers want it moved.
El-Gamal had his eye on the property for years before buying it in 2009.
He was not alone in his interest, with some 30 offers showered on the Pomerantz family in what was an overheated downtown real-estate market in 2007, according to a source familiar with the negotiations.
Yet Mitani previously told The Post the building, a former Burlington Coat Factory store that was damaged in the 9/11 attacks, was a tough sell. She said she was in debt and desperate to unload it after her husband's death and insisted she had no buyers other than El-Gamal.
Some of the offers were a mere flash in the pan, but others were legitimate, including a $17 million cash deal from one developer, the source said.
The attraction in this hot market was buying real estate that could be demolished, the source said. A second downtown mosque, not affiliated with El-Gamal, considered spending $18 million for 45-47 Park Place in early 2008.
But the Pomerantz family -- for reasons that remain unclear -- rejected the offers.
They took 70 percent less from El-Gamal than what Glodek offered.
This was a considerable drop even given the 30 percent decline in market values at the time, said Michael Falsetta, executive vice president of Miller Cicero, a real-estate appraisal firm not involved in the deals.
"That makes us suspicious," he said.
Saturday, September 4, 2010
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, staunch backer of the Ground Zero mosque, has big plans for his business in Dubai
Call us cynical but we wonder whether Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s passionate backing of the building of a controversial mosque near Ground Zero stems as much from Bloomberg’s belief in America’s “freedom of faith” as it might from the Mayor’s belief in the “virtues of Islamic finance?”
Does the Mayor’s unshakable support have anything to do with The Bloomberg (company) becoming a ‘single provider of information that caters to the Islamic business market’? A Bloomberg five-year business plan for an Islamic finance portal via a Bloomberg hub at the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) is already a reality.
Michael Bloomberg, has become a staunch supporter of the Cordoba House (Park51) Ground Zero Mosque. In the process, the Mayor has lectured opponents on “religious liberty” and, by extension, implied that opposition to the mosque is largely based on bigotry.
Lately, Bloomberg has become so insistent on the mosque’s being built at its planned location that The New York Post has labeled him Pro-Mosque Mike.”
A defiant Mayor Bloomberg, saying there should be no compromise, insisted last night that a mosque be built near Ground Zero, declaring, “We must do what is right, not what is easy.
While Bloomberg hasn’t been shy about questioning the motives of those opposed to the mosque’s location, the media has shied away from the Mayor‘s motivations. But what of the Mayor’s motives? What might they be? Does a strong passion for religious liberty explain all?
Some of Bloomberg LP’s officials may hold some clues.
On October 2, 2009, The Dubai Chronicle reported Chairman and President of Bloomberg LP Peter T. Grauer met with UAE Vice President, Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum at Maktoum’s Emirate office. According to the Dubai Chronicle, Grauer gave a presentation of Bloomberg future expansion plans in the ‘area of business information’ in the United Emirates, North Africa, and India. Grauer stated the UAE was a great place to expand, the UAE’s “logistic facilities” the ‘biggest incentive for investors and companies to expand their businesses in the country and the region beyond’.
“Particularly since the meltdown of the western capitalist system, there has been an increasingly large focus on the virtues of Islamic finance. Today, there is no one single provider of information that caters to the Islamic finance market. So by Bloomberg being here, we are in the process of building out an Islamic finance product. We are very confident that we can build a product that meets the needs of the market right now.”
–Max Linnington, Regional Head of Bloomberg Middle East and South Asia on the company’s plan to build a Bloomberg hub in Dubai at the Dubai International Financial Centre(DIFC), October 29, 2009
Some details about the DIFC:
The DIFC is the world’s fastest growing international financial centre. It aims to develop the same stature as New York, London and Hong Kong.
It primarily serves the vast region between Western Europe and East Asia.
Could the plans of Bloomberg LP have an influence on Bloomberg the Mayor?
Recently he claimed, “We would send a signal around the world that Muslim-Americans may be equal in the eyes of the law, but separate in the eyes of their countrymen.”
Might the Mayor be more interested–even just the tiniest bit–in some parts of the world than in others?
Might Bloomberg’s speech have sent a signal to the Middle East – which by a great coincidence, is the site of the Dubai International Financial Centre, the location of one of Bloomberg LP’s ten worldwide hubs?
On March 10, 2010, the Khaleej Times reported Bloomberg Set for Dubai expansion in bid to double revenues by 2014.
“Bloomberg, a leading global provider for financial data and news services, plans to “significantly boost regional operations from its Dubai hub as it is bullish about growth prospects of the emirate as a global financial center, a top executive said.”
The coincidences continue: the Mayor’s company is banking on “doubling revenues by 2014″ in a region that just happens to be largely populated by Muslims.
The Mayor, when he isn’t busy rallying support for a mosque opposed by a large majority in NYC and 70% of Americans at large, is in the newsgathering business. Bloomberg makes a lot of money providing financial news in a timely manner.
One more coincidence: if you do a search for financial news from Dubai and the Middle East, chances are, your only sources–outside the Mayor’s own Bloomberg.com — are The National, the Dubai Chronicle or the Khaleej News.
While we were able to easily access articles from the National, Dubai Chronicle or the Khaleej News about the Bloomberg Dubai hub, a search of Bloomberg.com came up empty. Ten pages of results: nothing.
Does it concern the Mayor that Bloomberg.com is getting scooped on news about Bloomberg LP?
Michael Bloomberg has made billions of dollars being a savvy businessman. Might a savvy businessman consider it prudent to maintain good relations in the Muslim world–a part of the world where the Mayor’s company hopes to “double revenues by 2014?”
How does Mayor Bloomberg’s support for the Ground Zero mosque — based, he says, on the issue of freedom of faith – square with the “virtues of Islamic finance” and an Islamic finance portal in Dubai with Bloomberg LP‘s aim of becoming “the world’s single provider of information that caters to the Islamic finance market?”
One more important question: will the NYC media ask Hizzoner if he has any potential conflicts to act as an impartial broker on Park51? Doesn’t it seem just that the survivors and families whose loved ones lost their lives on 911 receive some answers — before receiving any more lectures from the tiny, Boston-born Democrat turned Republican turned Independent turned Republican turned Whatever Mayor of the City of New York?
It’s easy to imagine the Mayor becoming enthusiastic over opportunities when billions of dollars are to be made. Enthusiasm is a hard emotion to contain.
Even when a majority of his constituents remain opposed to the latest object of Bloomberg’s enthusiasm.
Does the Mayor’s unshakable support have anything to do with The Bloomberg (company) becoming a ‘single provider of information that caters to the Islamic business market’? A Bloomberg five-year business plan for an Islamic finance portal via a Bloomberg hub at the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) is already a reality.
Michael Bloomberg, has become a staunch supporter of the Cordoba House (Park51) Ground Zero Mosque. In the process, the Mayor has lectured opponents on “religious liberty” and, by extension, implied that opposition to the mosque is largely based on bigotry.
Lately, Bloomberg has become so insistent on the mosque’s being built at its planned location that The New York Post has labeled him Pro-Mosque Mike.”
A defiant Mayor Bloomberg, saying there should be no compromise, insisted last night that a mosque be built near Ground Zero, declaring, “We must do what is right, not what is easy.
While Bloomberg hasn’t been shy about questioning the motives of those opposed to the mosque’s location, the media has shied away from the Mayor‘s motivations. But what of the Mayor’s motives? What might they be? Does a strong passion for religious liberty explain all?
Some of Bloomberg LP’s officials may hold some clues.
On October 2, 2009, The Dubai Chronicle reported Chairman and President of Bloomberg LP Peter T. Grauer met with UAE Vice President, Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum at Maktoum’s Emirate office. According to the Dubai Chronicle, Grauer gave a presentation of Bloomberg future expansion plans in the ‘area of business information’ in the United Emirates, North Africa, and India. Grauer stated the UAE was a great place to expand, the UAE’s “logistic facilities” the ‘biggest incentive for investors and companies to expand their businesses in the country and the region beyond’.
“Particularly since the meltdown of the western capitalist system, there has been an increasingly large focus on the virtues of Islamic finance. Today, there is no one single provider of information that caters to the Islamic finance market. So by Bloomberg being here, we are in the process of building out an Islamic finance product. We are very confident that we can build a product that meets the needs of the market right now.”
–Max Linnington, Regional Head of Bloomberg Middle East and South Asia on the company’s plan to build a Bloomberg hub in Dubai at the Dubai International Financial Centre(DIFC), October 29, 2009
Some details about the DIFC:
The DIFC is the world’s fastest growing international financial centre. It aims to develop the same stature as New York, London and Hong Kong.
It primarily serves the vast region between Western Europe and East Asia.
Could the plans of Bloomberg LP have an influence on Bloomberg the Mayor?
Recently he claimed, “We would send a signal around the world that Muslim-Americans may be equal in the eyes of the law, but separate in the eyes of their countrymen.”
Might the Mayor be more interested–even just the tiniest bit–in some parts of the world than in others?
Might Bloomberg’s speech have sent a signal to the Middle East – which by a great coincidence, is the site of the Dubai International Financial Centre, the location of one of Bloomberg LP’s ten worldwide hubs?
On March 10, 2010, the Khaleej Times reported Bloomberg Set for Dubai expansion in bid to double revenues by 2014.
“Bloomberg, a leading global provider for financial data and news services, plans to “significantly boost regional operations from its Dubai hub as it is bullish about growth prospects of the emirate as a global financial center, a top executive said.”
The coincidences continue: the Mayor’s company is banking on “doubling revenues by 2014″ in a region that just happens to be largely populated by Muslims.
The Mayor, when he isn’t busy rallying support for a mosque opposed by a large majority in NYC and 70% of Americans at large, is in the newsgathering business. Bloomberg makes a lot of money providing financial news in a timely manner.
One more coincidence: if you do a search for financial news from Dubai and the Middle East, chances are, your only sources–outside the Mayor’s own Bloomberg.com — are The National, the Dubai Chronicle or the Khaleej News.
While we were able to easily access articles from the National, Dubai Chronicle or the Khaleej News about the Bloomberg Dubai hub, a search of Bloomberg.com came up empty. Ten pages of results: nothing.
Does it concern the Mayor that Bloomberg.com is getting scooped on news about Bloomberg LP?
Michael Bloomberg has made billions of dollars being a savvy businessman. Might a savvy businessman consider it prudent to maintain good relations in the Muslim world–a part of the world where the Mayor’s company hopes to “double revenues by 2014?”
How does Mayor Bloomberg’s support for the Ground Zero mosque — based, he says, on the issue of freedom of faith – square with the “virtues of Islamic finance” and an Islamic finance portal in Dubai with Bloomberg LP‘s aim of becoming “the world’s single provider of information that caters to the Islamic finance market?”
One more important question: will the NYC media ask Hizzoner if he has any potential conflicts to act as an impartial broker on Park51? Doesn’t it seem just that the survivors and families whose loved ones lost their lives on 911 receive some answers — before receiving any more lectures from the tiny, Boston-born Democrat turned Republican turned Independent turned Republican turned Whatever Mayor of the City of New York?
It’s easy to imagine the Mayor becoming enthusiastic over opportunities when billions of dollars are to be made. Enthusiasm is a hard emotion to contain.
Even when a majority of his constituents remain opposed to the latest object of Bloomberg’s enthusiasm.
Friday, September 3, 2010
Financier of Ground Zero mosque supported a Hamas front
So now it transpires that a key money- man behind the proposed Ground Zero mosque is a one-time supporter of a group shut down by the feds because it was a front for Hamas.
No wonder the mosque's principal imam, Feisal Abdul Rauf, refuses to discuss the project's finances.
Or, for that matter, refuses to speak harshly of Hamas -- an Iranian cat's-paw that's long been one of the deadliest Islamist terrorist organizations operating in the Mideast.
It was reported last night that Hisham Elzanaty -- an Egyptian-born businessman from Long Island -- provided a big chunk of the $4.8 million needed to buy the building that will be demolished to make way for the mosque.
Among other things, Elzanaty runs a Bronx-based medicial supply company that had to refund more than $300,000 in Medicaid payments in 2004-2005.
In 1999, he donated thousands to the Holy Land Foundation, later shuttered by the feds because of its Hamas ties.
All of this is, as they say, enough to give one pause.
But we doubt it will truly surprise any among the 71 percent of New Yorkers found this week by Quinnipiac University pollsters to oppose the mosque.
Mayor Mike and others think they are bigots, but most seem to have asked -- and answered to their own satisfaction -- a fair question:
How close to the scene of that deadly Islamist attack on America is too close to build a mosque?
Answer: The proposed site was close enough to have been hit by a landing-gear assembly from one of the crashed airliners on 9/11 -- and that's way too close.
They're also nervous about the project's backers -- even before Elzanaty popped up -- deciding that, with those folks involved, anywhere might be too close.
As The Post reported yesterday, Rauf has been catching iffy tax breaks since 1998 for an organization run from his wife's Upper West Side apartment.
How'd he do it? By telling the IRS the one-bedroom digs were actually a mosque where 500 people prayed daily.
These are only the latest revelations about the mosque's backers, who've run up a cumulative record of petty crime, slumlording and tax-scamming.
And that's being generous.
Rauf, who's due back in New York this weekend after a long trip abroad, has plenty of explaining to do to the people he's been thumbing in the eye for weeks.
No wonder the mosque's principal imam, Feisal Abdul Rauf, refuses to discuss the project's finances.
Or, for that matter, refuses to speak harshly of Hamas -- an Iranian cat's-paw that's long been one of the deadliest Islamist terrorist organizations operating in the Mideast.
It was reported last night that Hisham Elzanaty -- an Egyptian-born businessman from Long Island -- provided a big chunk of the $4.8 million needed to buy the building that will be demolished to make way for the mosque.
Among other things, Elzanaty runs a Bronx-based medicial supply company that had to refund more than $300,000 in Medicaid payments in 2004-2005.
In 1999, he donated thousands to the Holy Land Foundation, later shuttered by the feds because of its Hamas ties.
All of this is, as they say, enough to give one pause.
But we doubt it will truly surprise any among the 71 percent of New Yorkers found this week by Quinnipiac University pollsters to oppose the mosque.
Mayor Mike and others think they are bigots, but most seem to have asked -- and answered to their own satisfaction -- a fair question:
How close to the scene of that deadly Islamist attack on America is too close to build a mosque?
Answer: The proposed site was close enough to have been hit by a landing-gear assembly from one of the crashed airliners on 9/11 -- and that's way too close.
They're also nervous about the project's backers -- even before Elzanaty popped up -- deciding that, with those folks involved, anywhere might be too close.
As The Post reported yesterday, Rauf has been catching iffy tax breaks since 1998 for an organization run from his wife's Upper West Side apartment.
How'd he do it? By telling the IRS the one-bedroom digs were actually a mosque where 500 people prayed daily.
These are only the latest revelations about the mosque's backers, who've run up a cumulative record of petty crime, slumlording and tax-scamming.
And that's being generous.
Rauf, who's due back in New York this weekend after a long trip abroad, has plenty of explaining to do to the people he's been thumbing in the eye for weeks.
New York "mosque" owned by GZ mosque imam has tax exempt status but apparently no mosque or mosque-suitable space
Feisal Abdul Rauf, the New York imam and State Department envoy who wants to build a controversial new mosque at Ground Zero, applied for – and received – tax-exempt status from the IRS in 1998 for another mosque about 10 blocks from the Ground Zero site, stating that he was already holding prayer services there for up to 500 daily worshippers.
But when the Investigative Project on Terrorism checked out the information Rauf provided to the government on his IRS 1023 form, they discovered that 201 W. 85th Street was a 17-story Manhattan apartment building with no public spaces large enough to accommodate 500 daily worshippers. And Apartment 10 E was a one-bedroom, 800-square-foot unit that would have trouble holding even 50.
In their 1998 tax filing, Rauf and his wife, Daisy Khan, former director of the American Sufi Muslim Association, said that they wanted to build “a large scale prayer center in New York City…The center will include a mosque (prayer place) where every Friday and daily large congregation prayers and meditation centers will be held.” However, IPT says, “ASMA records don’t indicate that the center was ever built.”
Rauf and Khan also run the non-profit Cordoba Institute, which along with ASMA, owns the Ground Zero site, according to IPT investigators. The couple set up a “labyrinthine financial network surrounding the [Ground Zero mosque] project,” leading to major concerns about who exactly is funding it.
A recent financial statement by ASMA reported donations from the United Nations Population Fund, the Dutch government, MDG3 Fund, the Hunt Alternatives Fund, Carnegie Corp., the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and the Qatar government.
But when the Investigative Project on Terrorism checked out the information Rauf provided to the government on his IRS 1023 form, they discovered that 201 W. 85th Street was a 17-story Manhattan apartment building with no public spaces large enough to accommodate 500 daily worshippers. And Apartment 10 E was a one-bedroom, 800-square-foot unit that would have trouble holding even 50.
In their 1998 tax filing, Rauf and his wife, Daisy Khan, former director of the American Sufi Muslim Association, said that they wanted to build “a large scale prayer center in New York City…The center will include a mosque (prayer place) where every Friday and daily large congregation prayers and meditation centers will be held.” However, IPT says, “ASMA records don’t indicate that the center was ever built.”
Rauf and Khan also run the non-profit Cordoba Institute, which along with ASMA, owns the Ground Zero site, according to IPT investigators. The couple set up a “labyrinthine financial network surrounding the [Ground Zero mosque] project,” leading to major concerns about who exactly is funding it.
A recent financial statement by ASMA reported donations from the United Nations Population Fund, the Dutch government, MDG3 Fund, the Hunt Alternatives Fund, Carnegie Corp., the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and the Qatar government.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
71 % oppose Ground Zero mosque, seek financing inquiry
Public opposition to the proposed mosque and community center near Ground Zero is growing dramatically, a new Quinnipiac University poll of New York voters found.
Now more than two-thirds of local voters want developers to move the project, up significantly from the narrow majority who wanted to the mosque relocated last month.
The same number of voters - 71% - want Attorney General Andrew Cuomo to probe the funding of the project.
A July 1 Quinnipiac poll suggested 52% of New York City voters opposed building the proposed 13-floor center two blocks north of Ground Zero.
The new numbers show the lowest public support for the project since polling on the issue began earlier this year.
The Park51 project has sparked a heated debate across the country since President Obama came out in favor of the center.
Republicans have used it as a campaign wedge issue.
Cuomo has said little about the project despite calls from Republicans to investigate developer's fund-raising - which has yet to start in earnest.
Now more than two-thirds of local voters want developers to move the project, up significantly from the narrow majority who wanted to the mosque relocated last month.
The same number of voters - 71% - want Attorney General Andrew Cuomo to probe the funding of the project.
A July 1 Quinnipiac poll suggested 52% of New York City voters opposed building the proposed 13-floor center two blocks north of Ground Zero.
The new numbers show the lowest public support for the project since polling on the issue began earlier this year.
The Park51 project has sparked a heated debate across the country since President Obama came out in favor of the center.
Republicans have used it as a campaign wedge issue.
Cuomo has said little about the project despite calls from Republicans to investigate developer's fund-raising - which has yet to start in earnest.
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Saudi prince snubbed by Rudy Giuliani has stake in GZ mosque
The Saudi prince whose post-9/11 relief check was rejected by former New York Mayor Rudy Guiliani has found a more willing recipient in the city for his millions: the head of the Ground Zero mosque project.
The same Saudi potentate, Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, owns the biggest chunk of the parent company of the Fox News Channel outside of the Murdoch family.
Former Bush advisers have similar ties to the prince and the proposed mega-mosque in Manhattan, which may explain why they've asked Republicans to soften their opposition to it.
WND has learned that one of the original board members of the nonprofit group promoting the 13-story mosque and "cultural center" took the job as a favor to James A. Baker III, the former President George H.W. Bush official and lawyer who defended Saudi government officials against a lawsuit filed by families of 9/11 victims. Baker has counted bin Talal as a client.
Bin Talal has pumped more than $300,000 into the project headed by New York imam Feisal Abdul Rauf as part of the prince's campaign to "improve the image of Islam in the American public." The prince's charitable foundation in 2008 gave $125,000 to Rauf, which came on the heels of an earlier $180,000 gift, according to the Arab press.
The foundation is run by Muna AbuSulayman, a Saudi woman who appears on Rauf's website as one of its "Muslim Leaders of Tomorrow."
Additionally, the prince funded "through a generous grant" the reprinting of Rauf's 2004 book, originally titled "A Call to Prayer from the World Trade Center Rubble: Islamic Dawa in the Heart of America Post-9/11."
The amount of the grant is undisclosed. Attempts to reach bin Talal's Saudi-based foundation were unsuccessful.
Guiliani refused to accept bin Talal's $10 million donation after bin Talal blamed U.S. policy in the Middle East for the 9/11 attacks and suggested the U.S. take a position more favorable to the "Palestinian cause."
Critics called his offer "blood money" and praised Guiliani for rebuffing it.
After Giuliani's snub, bin Talal took a more indirect strategy to influence American policy.
The same Saudi potentate, Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, owns the biggest chunk of the parent company of the Fox News Channel outside of the Murdoch family.
Former Bush advisers have similar ties to the prince and the proposed mega-mosque in Manhattan, which may explain why they've asked Republicans to soften their opposition to it.
WND has learned that one of the original board members of the nonprofit group promoting the 13-story mosque and "cultural center" took the job as a favor to James A. Baker III, the former President George H.W. Bush official and lawyer who defended Saudi government officials against a lawsuit filed by families of 9/11 victims. Baker has counted bin Talal as a client.
Bin Talal has pumped more than $300,000 into the project headed by New York imam Feisal Abdul Rauf as part of the prince's campaign to "improve the image of Islam in the American public." The prince's charitable foundation in 2008 gave $125,000 to Rauf, which came on the heels of an earlier $180,000 gift, according to the Arab press.
The foundation is run by Muna AbuSulayman, a Saudi woman who appears on Rauf's website as one of its "Muslim Leaders of Tomorrow."
Additionally, the prince funded "through a generous grant" the reprinting of Rauf's 2004 book, originally titled "A Call to Prayer from the World Trade Center Rubble: Islamic Dawa in the Heart of America Post-9/11."
The amount of the grant is undisclosed. Attempts to reach bin Talal's Saudi-based foundation were unsuccessful.
Guiliani refused to accept bin Talal's $10 million donation after bin Talal blamed U.S. policy in the Middle East for the 9/11 attacks and suggested the U.S. take a position more favorable to the "Palestinian cause."
Critics called his offer "blood money" and praised Guiliani for rebuffing it.
After Giuliani's snub, bin Talal took a more indirect strategy to influence American policy.
Sowell: Ground Zero mosque would be "a 15-story middle finger"
The proposed mosque near where the World Trade Center was attacked and destroyed, along with thousands of American lives, would be a 15-story middle finger to America.
It takes a high IQ to evade the obvious, so it is not surprising that the intelligentsia are out in force, decrying those who criticize this calculated insult.
What may surprise some people is that the American taxpayer is currently financing a trip to the Middle East by the imam who is pushing this project, so that he can raise the money to build it.
The State Department is subsidizing his travel.
The big talking point is that this is an issue about "religious freedom" and that Muslims have a "right" to build a mosque where they choose. But those who oppose this project are not claiming that there is no legal right to build a mosque near the site of the World Trade Center.
If anybody did, it would be a matter for the courts to decide -- and they would undoubtedly say that it is not illegal to build a mosque near the site of the World Trade Center attack.
The intelligentsia and others who are wrapping themselves in the Constitution are fighting a phony war against a straw man. Why create a false issue, except to evade the real issue?
Our betters are telling us that we need to be more "tolerant" and more "sensitive" to the feelings of Muslims. But if we are supposed to be sensitive to Muslims, why are Muslims not supposed to be sensitive to the feelings of millions of Americans, for whom 9/11 was the biggest national trauma since Pearl Harbor?
It would not be illegal for Japanese Americans to build a massive shinto shrine next to Pearl Harbor. But, in all these years, they have never sought to do it.
When Catholic authorities in Poland were planning to build an institution for nuns, years ago, and someone pointed out that it would be near the site of a concentration camp that carried out genocide, the Pope intervened to stop it.
He didn't say that the Catholic Church had a legal right to build there, as it undoubtedly did. Instead, he respected the painful feelings of other people. And he certainly did not denounce those who called attention to the concentration camp.
There is no question that Muslims have a right to build a mosque where they chose to. The real question is why they chose that particular location, in a country that covers more than 3 million square miles.
If we all did everything that we have a legal right to do, we could not even survive as individuals, much less as a society. So the question is whether those who are planning a Ground Zero mosque want to be part of American society or just to see how much they can get away with in American society?
Can anyone in his right mind believe that this was intended to show solidarity with Americans, rather than solidarity with those who attacked America? Does anyone imagine that the Middle East nations, including Iran, from whom financial contributions will be solicited, want to promote reconciliation between Americans and Muslims?
That the President of the United States has joined the chorus of those calling the Ground Zero mosque a religious freedom issue tells us a lot about the moral dry rot that is undermining this country from within.
In this, as in other things, Barack Obama is not so much the cause of our decline but the culmination of it. He had many predecessors and many contemporaries who represent the same mindset and the same malaise.
There are people for whom moral preening has become a way of life. They are out in force denouncing critics of the Ground Zero mosque.
There are others for whom a citizen of the world affectation puts them one-up on those of us who are grateful to be Americans, and to enjoy a freedom that is all too rare in other countries around the world, even at this late date in human history. They think the United States is somehow on trial, and needs to prove itself to others by bending over backwards. But bending over backwards does not win friends. It loses respect, including self-respect.
It takes a high IQ to evade the obvious, so it is not surprising that the intelligentsia are out in force, decrying those who criticize this calculated insult.
What may surprise some people is that the American taxpayer is currently financing a trip to the Middle East by the imam who is pushing this project, so that he can raise the money to build it.
The State Department is subsidizing his travel.
The big talking point is that this is an issue about "religious freedom" and that Muslims have a "right" to build a mosque where they choose. But those who oppose this project are not claiming that there is no legal right to build a mosque near the site of the World Trade Center.
If anybody did, it would be a matter for the courts to decide -- and they would undoubtedly say that it is not illegal to build a mosque near the site of the World Trade Center attack.
The intelligentsia and others who are wrapping themselves in the Constitution are fighting a phony war against a straw man. Why create a false issue, except to evade the real issue?
Our betters are telling us that we need to be more "tolerant" and more "sensitive" to the feelings of Muslims. But if we are supposed to be sensitive to Muslims, why are Muslims not supposed to be sensitive to the feelings of millions of Americans, for whom 9/11 was the biggest national trauma since Pearl Harbor?
It would not be illegal for Japanese Americans to build a massive shinto shrine next to Pearl Harbor. But, in all these years, they have never sought to do it.
When Catholic authorities in Poland were planning to build an institution for nuns, years ago, and someone pointed out that it would be near the site of a concentration camp that carried out genocide, the Pope intervened to stop it.
He didn't say that the Catholic Church had a legal right to build there, as it undoubtedly did. Instead, he respected the painful feelings of other people. And he certainly did not denounce those who called attention to the concentration camp.
There is no question that Muslims have a right to build a mosque where they chose to. The real question is why they chose that particular location, in a country that covers more than 3 million square miles.
If we all did everything that we have a legal right to do, we could not even survive as individuals, much less as a society. So the question is whether those who are planning a Ground Zero mosque want to be part of American society or just to see how much they can get away with in American society?
Can anyone in his right mind believe that this was intended to show solidarity with Americans, rather than solidarity with those who attacked America? Does anyone imagine that the Middle East nations, including Iran, from whom financial contributions will be solicited, want to promote reconciliation between Americans and Muslims?
That the President of the United States has joined the chorus of those calling the Ground Zero mosque a religious freedom issue tells us a lot about the moral dry rot that is undermining this country from within.
In this, as in other things, Barack Obama is not so much the cause of our decline but the culmination of it. He had many predecessors and many contemporaries who represent the same mindset and the same malaise.
There are people for whom moral preening has become a way of life. They are out in force denouncing critics of the Ground Zero mosque.
There are others for whom a citizen of the world affectation puts them one-up on those of us who are grateful to be Americans, and to enjoy a freedom that is all too rare in other countries around the world, even at this late date in human history. They think the United States is somehow on trial, and needs to prove itself to others by bending over backwards. But bending over backwards does not win friends. It loses respect, including self-respect.
Ground Zero mosque developer has record of assaults and lies
NEW YORK (CBS 2) — As the Ground Zero mosque controversy continues to simmer, questions continue about the background of the man who wants to build the $100 million Islamic cultural and religious center.
Mosque developer Sharif El-Gamal has often been reluctant to answer questions.
After he won the right to tear down the 152-year-old building blocks from the site of the 9/11 attacks, El-Gamal got defensive when asked about the mosque by CBS 2′s Marcia Kramer.
“It’s a community center, if you call it a community center, we would talk,” El-Gamal said.
Kramer reports the developer’s reluctance to talk may have been related to his prior run-ins with the law.
His most recent arrest was in 2005 for assault on a man he met while working as a waiter at Serafina Restaurant, who sublet an apartment from his brother. He reportedly punched the man, breaking his nose and cheekbone and spit on him.
El-Gamal first said he didn’t hit the man, but arrest documents obtained by CBS 2 showed he later conceded “his face could have run into my hand.”
Records showed El-Gamal also had trouble coming up with the $15,000 settlement reached in 2008, and had to pay interest . El-Gamal also has a number of other arrests on his record:
-In 1990, he was arrested in Nassau County and pled guilty to disorderly conduct.
-In 1992, he pled guilty in Nassau to DWI and paid a $350 fine.
-In 1993, he pled guilty in Nassau to attempted petit larceny and paid a $100 fine.
-In 1994, arrested for disorderly conduct in Manhattan.
-In 1998, there was another Manhattan disorderly conduct arrest.
-In 1999, yet another Manhattan disorderly conduct arrest.
A potential problem for the mosque developer is a deposition he gave in the assault case in October 2007. When asked if he was ever convicted or pled guilty to a crime, El-Gamal replied “no.”
Lately, he has been trying to resurrect his image, sitting down for a lengthy 60 Minutes interview with Scott Pelley.
When Pelley asked if it occurred to him that putting a project so close to Ground Zero would heighten tensions, El-Gamal replied “not at all.”
“I did not hold myself or my faith accountable for the tragedy,” El-Gamal said.
El-Gamal also owes over $227,000 in unpaid real estate taxes and a spokesman for the Department of Finance said interest will be added for each and every day its unpaid.
Another question surrounding the debate is whether the Muslim cleric of the mosque — Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf — knew about El-Gamal’s criminal background and unpaid taxes before partnering with him.
El-Gamal refused repeated requests from CBS 2 Monday to comment on the story
Mosque developer Sharif El-Gamal has often been reluctant to answer questions.
After he won the right to tear down the 152-year-old building blocks from the site of the 9/11 attacks, El-Gamal got defensive when asked about the mosque by CBS 2′s Marcia Kramer.
“It’s a community center, if you call it a community center, we would talk,” El-Gamal said.
Kramer reports the developer’s reluctance to talk may have been related to his prior run-ins with the law.
His most recent arrest was in 2005 for assault on a man he met while working as a waiter at Serafina Restaurant, who sublet an apartment from his brother. He reportedly punched the man, breaking his nose and cheekbone and spit on him.
El-Gamal first said he didn’t hit the man, but arrest documents obtained by CBS 2 showed he later conceded “his face could have run into my hand.”
Records showed El-Gamal also had trouble coming up with the $15,000 settlement reached in 2008, and had to pay interest . El-Gamal also has a number of other arrests on his record:
-In 1990, he was arrested in Nassau County and pled guilty to disorderly conduct.
-In 1992, he pled guilty in Nassau to DWI and paid a $350 fine.
-In 1993, he pled guilty in Nassau to attempted petit larceny and paid a $100 fine.
-In 1994, arrested for disorderly conduct in Manhattan.
-In 1998, there was another Manhattan disorderly conduct arrest.
-In 1999, yet another Manhattan disorderly conduct arrest.
A potential problem for the mosque developer is a deposition he gave in the assault case in October 2007. When asked if he was ever convicted or pled guilty to a crime, El-Gamal replied “no.”
Lately, he has been trying to resurrect his image, sitting down for a lengthy 60 Minutes interview with Scott Pelley.
When Pelley asked if it occurred to him that putting a project so close to Ground Zero would heighten tensions, El-Gamal replied “not at all.”
“I did not hold myself or my faith accountable for the tragedy,” El-Gamal said.
El-Gamal also owes over $227,000 in unpaid real estate taxes and a spokesman for the Department of Finance said interest will be added for each and every day its unpaid.
Another question surrounding the debate is whether the Muslim cleric of the mosque — Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf — knew about El-Gamal’s criminal background and unpaid taxes before partnering with him.
El-Gamal refused repeated requests from CBS 2 Monday to comment on the story
Monday, August 30, 2010
Imam promoter of Ground Zero mosque is publicly subsidized landlord with a record of rats, leaks, no heat and bedbugs
The Muslim cleric at the center of the proposed mosque and community center near Ground Zero is also a New Jersey landlord who got more than $2 million in public financing to renovate low-income apartments and has been beset for years by tenant complaints and financial problems.
Imam Feisal A. Rauf won support for his Hudson County projects from powerful politicians, among them Robert C. Janiszewski, the disgraced former county executive. He also was awarded grants from Union City when U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez was mayor.
The proposed $100 million development two blocks north of Ground Zero has sparked a firestorm of emotions. Menendez recently added his name to the list of prominent supporters, which includes New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
Rauf forged ties with Fred Daibes, the prominent waterfront developer and bank chairman. Additionally, Rauf is a onetime business ally of a Daibes associate who sued the imam for alleged mortgage fraud. The 2008 suit was quietly settled in June.
The revelations about Rauf, who lives in North Bergen, add another dimension to the public profile of a man both lauded as a builder of bridges between diverse religions and cultures and vilified as being insensitive to the survivors of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack by proposing a mosque near the World Trade Center site.
Best known as the religious face of the controversial proposal, called Park51, Rauf, the revelations show, has had some success navigating the realm of secular power — in this case the rough-and-tumble world of Hudson County government.
In conjunction with others, Rauf is now taking on the largest project of his life with a track record showing that, despite government subsidies, he has had trouble maintaining small apartment buildings in North Bergen, Palisades Park and Union City.
Page after page of municipal health records examined by The Record show repeated complaints ranging from failure to pick up garbage, to rat and bedbug infestations and no heat and hot water.
Cynthia Balko, 48, of Union City — a longtime tenant of Rauf’s — said she’s had to live with rats, leaks and no heat: “I don’t have anything nice to say about the man.”
She finds it hard to believe Rauf’s going to build a world-class Islamic community center, with fitness facilities, auditorium, restaurant, library, culinary school and art studios, as well as a Sept. 11 memorial and space for Muslim prayer services.
“He can’t even repair the bells in the hallway. He doesn’t take care of his properties. But he’s going to take care of a mosque?”
Rauf is traveling in the Middle East on a tour funded by the State Department and could not be reached for comment; he was in Bahrain last week.
Imam Feisal A. Rauf won support for his Hudson County projects from powerful politicians, among them Robert C. Janiszewski, the disgraced former county executive. He also was awarded grants from Union City when U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez was mayor.
The proposed $100 million development two blocks north of Ground Zero has sparked a firestorm of emotions. Menendez recently added his name to the list of prominent supporters, which includes New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
Rauf forged ties with Fred Daibes, the prominent waterfront developer and bank chairman. Additionally, Rauf is a onetime business ally of a Daibes associate who sued the imam for alleged mortgage fraud. The 2008 suit was quietly settled in June.
The revelations about Rauf, who lives in North Bergen, add another dimension to the public profile of a man both lauded as a builder of bridges between diverse religions and cultures and vilified as being insensitive to the survivors of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack by proposing a mosque near the World Trade Center site.
Best known as the religious face of the controversial proposal, called Park51, Rauf, the revelations show, has had some success navigating the realm of secular power — in this case the rough-and-tumble world of Hudson County government.
In conjunction with others, Rauf is now taking on the largest project of his life with a track record showing that, despite government subsidies, he has had trouble maintaining small apartment buildings in North Bergen, Palisades Park and Union City.
Page after page of municipal health records examined by The Record show repeated complaints ranging from failure to pick up garbage, to rat and bedbug infestations and no heat and hot water.
Cynthia Balko, 48, of Union City — a longtime tenant of Rauf’s — said she’s had to live with rats, leaks and no heat: “I don’t have anything nice to say about the man.”
She finds it hard to believe Rauf’s going to build a world-class Islamic community center, with fitness facilities, auditorium, restaurant, library, culinary school and art studios, as well as a Sept. 11 memorial and space for Muslim prayer services.
“He can’t even repair the bells in the hallway. He doesn’t take care of his properties. But he’s going to take care of a mosque?”
Rauf is traveling in the Middle East on a tour funded by the State Department and could not be reached for comment; he was in Bahrain last week.
Saturday, August 28, 2010
If you're outspokenly critical of America, the White House may send you as an ambassador on a tour of the Middle East
Among the prime planners of a $100 million Islamic center and mosque near Ground Zero, it's not just Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf who is visiting the Middle East this summer at U.S. taxpayer expense. The State Department is also about to send Rauf's wife and Cordoba Initiative fellow director, Daisy Khan, on her own taxpayer-funded "public diplomacy" trip to the United Arab Emirates. Khan is scheduled to visit the UAE from Aug. 29 to Sept. 2, overlapping there with Rauf, for whom it will be the final leg of a three-country trip including Bahrain and Qatar.
The U.S. Embassy in the UAE capital of Abu Dhabi has posted on its website an announcement of the impending visit by this husband-wife team. Rauf and Khan will be there, the announcement says, "to engage foreign audiences and build people-to-people ties" and to "discuss their experiences as Muslims living and working in the United States."
What might their discussions entail? Rauf, since his Cordoba Initiative's Ground Zero mosque project triggered a national uproar, has spent the summer as an enigma. Before embarking on his State-sponsored tour, he walled himself off for weeks in Malaysia, where he has longstanding ties and keeps an office. His Cordoba website now features a note that Rauf could not be available (apparently not even by phone) to explain himself to the people of New York because "he travels the world in his life-long endeavor to bring the message of moderation, peace and understanding to both Western and Islamic countries."
In Rauf's absence, Daisy Khan has been speaking prolifically from New York about the Cordoba House mega-mosque project (which the developer recently re-dubbed Park 51, and the Cordoba House is now describing as a "community center"). Her message, like the name of the project, has been morphing at speed. When Rauf and Khan won approval for their 15-story mosque-topped Cordoba House from a Manhattan community board this spring, they advertised their project as all about doing their part for harmony and healing near the site of the Sept. 11 attacks.
When it turned out that a majority of New Yorkers, and Americans generally, think this project is more like rubbing salt in a wound, Khan shifted focus. She's now talking about the Cordoba project as a test of American religious tolerance. If a majority of Americans--cognizant that the Sept. 11 attacks were carried out by Muslims, in the name of Islam--think it's inappropriate to stage that test near the edge of Ground Zero, Khan's retort is that they must be bigots. In an interview last week with the Washington Post's Sally Quinn, she lamented: "When will Muslims be accepted as plain old Americans?"
On Sunday, interviewed on ABC TV's This Week by Christiane Amanpour, Khan ratcheted up her complaints. Amanpour asked, "Is America Islamophobic?"
Khan replied, "It's not even Islamophobia, it's beyond Islamophobia. It's hate of Muslims."
The U.S. Embassy in the UAE capital of Abu Dhabi has posted on its website an announcement of the impending visit by this husband-wife team. Rauf and Khan will be there, the announcement says, "to engage foreign audiences and build people-to-people ties" and to "discuss their experiences as Muslims living and working in the United States."
What might their discussions entail? Rauf, since his Cordoba Initiative's Ground Zero mosque project triggered a national uproar, has spent the summer as an enigma. Before embarking on his State-sponsored tour, he walled himself off for weeks in Malaysia, where he has longstanding ties and keeps an office. His Cordoba website now features a note that Rauf could not be available (apparently not even by phone) to explain himself to the people of New York because "he travels the world in his life-long endeavor to bring the message of moderation, peace and understanding to both Western and Islamic countries."
In Rauf's absence, Daisy Khan has been speaking prolifically from New York about the Cordoba House mega-mosque project (which the developer recently re-dubbed Park 51, and the Cordoba House is now describing as a "community center"). Her message, like the name of the project, has been morphing at speed. When Rauf and Khan won approval for their 15-story mosque-topped Cordoba House from a Manhattan community board this spring, they advertised their project as all about doing their part for harmony and healing near the site of the Sept. 11 attacks.
When it turned out that a majority of New Yorkers, and Americans generally, think this project is more like rubbing salt in a wound, Khan shifted focus. She's now talking about the Cordoba project as a test of American religious tolerance. If a majority of Americans--cognizant that the Sept. 11 attacks were carried out by Muslims, in the name of Islam--think it's inappropriate to stage that test near the edge of Ground Zero, Khan's retort is that they must be bigots. In an interview last week with the Washington Post's Sally Quinn, she lamented: "When will Muslims be accepted as plain old Americans?"
On Sunday, interviewed on ABC TV's This Week by Christiane Amanpour, Khan ratcheted up her complaints. Amanpour asked, "Is America Islamophobic?"
Khan replied, "It's not even Islamophobia, it's beyond Islamophobia. It's hate of Muslims."
Friday, August 27, 2010
Muslim Brotherhood looms larger in Ground Zero mosque
Islamofascism: New dots are emerging from the probe into who's behind the Ground Zero mosque, and the radical Muslim Brotherhood is coming into view.
While a couple of U.S. nonprofits — the Cordoba Initiative and its sister, the American Society for Muslim Advancement — are coordinating the New York project, they hardly give the full picture. A Saudi charity has sunk more than $300,000 into ASMA. It's called the Kingdom Foundation — headed by Alwaleed bin Talal, the Saudi prince whose 9/11 relief check was rejected after he blamed the attacks on U.S. foreign policy.
Bin Talal is a major financier of Muslim Brotherhood fronts in the U.S. His foundation is run by Saudi hijabi Muna Abu Sulayman, who appears on ASMA's Web site as one of its "Muslim Leaders of Tomorrow."
"Her work," according to her official bio, "focuses on increasing understanding between Islam and the West through establishment of academic centers and programs, both in the Middle East and the United States."
Sulayman, who spends much of her time in the U.S., happens to be the daughter of Dr. AbdulHamid Abu Sulayman, "one of the most important figures in the history of the global Muslim Brotherhood," according to the Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Report.
So? The Egypt-based Brotherhood is the parent of Hamas and al-Qaida and the source of most of the jihadi ideology and related terror throughout the world today. Citing its secret U.S. archives, prosecutors say the Brotherhood has a plan to "destroy" America "from within," and is using its agents and front groups in the U.S. to carry out that strategy. Like the mafia, it's highly organized, and uses shells and cutouts to launder money.
Dr. Sulayman's U.S. offices were raided by the feds after 9/11 on suspicion of providing material support to terror groups. An unsealed federal search warrant lists him as chairman and president of the International Institute of Islamic Thought, or IIIT, the Brotherhood's U.S. think tank.
In December 2008, IIIT hosted Ground Zero mosque imam Feisal Rauf to discuss his Shariah Index Project, which will be housed in the planned 15-story structure. The index will formally rate which governments best follow Islamic law, as practiced by Saudi.
While a couple of U.S. nonprofits — the Cordoba Initiative and its sister, the American Society for Muslim Advancement — are coordinating the New York project, they hardly give the full picture. A Saudi charity has sunk more than $300,000 into ASMA. It's called the Kingdom Foundation — headed by Alwaleed bin Talal, the Saudi prince whose 9/11 relief check was rejected after he blamed the attacks on U.S. foreign policy.
Bin Talal is a major financier of Muslim Brotherhood fronts in the U.S. His foundation is run by Saudi hijabi Muna Abu Sulayman, who appears on ASMA's Web site as one of its "Muslim Leaders of Tomorrow."
"Her work," according to her official bio, "focuses on increasing understanding between Islam and the West through establishment of academic centers and programs, both in the Middle East and the United States."
Sulayman, who spends much of her time in the U.S., happens to be the daughter of Dr. AbdulHamid Abu Sulayman, "one of the most important figures in the history of the global Muslim Brotherhood," according to the Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Report.
So? The Egypt-based Brotherhood is the parent of Hamas and al-Qaida and the source of most of the jihadi ideology and related terror throughout the world today. Citing its secret U.S. archives, prosecutors say the Brotherhood has a plan to "destroy" America "from within," and is using its agents and front groups in the U.S. to carry out that strategy. Like the mafia, it's highly organized, and uses shells and cutouts to launder money.
Dr. Sulayman's U.S. offices were raided by the feds after 9/11 on suspicion of providing material support to terror groups. An unsealed federal search warrant lists him as chairman and president of the International Institute of Islamic Thought, or IIIT, the Brotherhood's U.S. think tank.
In December 2008, IIIT hosted Ground Zero mosque imam Feisal Rauf to discuss his Shariah Index Project, which will be housed in the planned 15-story structure. The index will formally rate which governments best follow Islamic law, as practiced by Saudi.
Thursday, August 26, 2010
In the wake of his mosque gaffes and the BP oil spill, "voters are gearing up to retaliate against the president's incompetence"
Conflicting messages on the “ground zero mosque” are just the latest signal that a clear presidential strategy is missing—and voters are gearing up to retaliate against the president’s incompetence, says Douglas E. Schoen.
Not only has President Obama systematically put forward unpopular policies and programs that are not producing real, long-lasting results that reflect the wishes of the American people, he has not generated a sense of competence in the electorate.
Indeed, Obama’s judgment and instincts have been called into question by a series of bad decisions since he has become president. Put simply, rather than emphasizing results and outcomes, he has opted for rhetorical parsing and political gamesmanship every time. Voters have grown disillusioned with the administration’s reactive and seemingly hypocritical governing style, in which the notion of unity of command and a cohesive strategy have proved alien.
Obama’s flip-flopping on the “ground zero mosque” issue was no different from his handling of the Gulf oil spill, when he sought both to blame BP and assert federal responsibility.
“The problem,” wrote Politico’s John Harris and Jim VandeHei this summer, “is that he and his West Wing turn out to be not especially good at politics or communications—in other words, largely ineffective at the very things on which their campaign reputation was built.”
Whenever the American people are looking for leadership from the president, Obama and his administration have systematically put forth conflicting and ambiguous messages. As Maureen Dowd recently noted in a recent column for The New York Times: “He’s with the banks, he’s against the banks. He’s leaving Afghanistan, he’s staying in Afghanistan. He strains at being a populist, but his head is in the clouds.”
Obama’s flip-flopping on the “ground zero mosque” issue was no different from his handling of the Gulf oil spill, when he sought both to blame BP and assert federal responsibility, all the while seeking to distance his presidency from the crisis. There, as with the administration’s publicized internal debate over Afghanistan, no clear policy has been articulated. The president supported a surge in troops while simultaneously pledging to withdraw by 2011. In internal documents published in September 2009, General Stanley McChrystal, then the commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, warned of “mission failure” if U.S. forces did not increase their presence significantly in the country, while U.S Ambassador Karl Eikenberry warned that McChrystal’s request for new troops might be counterproductive. Meanwhile, Gen. David Petraeus has said that notwithstanding the set transition date of July 2011, we are “in this to win” and “it takes the accumulation of a lot of progress ultimately, needless to say, to win overall, and that’s going to be a long-term proposition, without question… I think that we will have an enduring commitment here in some fashion.”
By sending such distinctive and frequently incoherent messages, the administration appears adrift and divided. All the while, the public has no clear idea of the administration’s specific goals and intentions, our level of commitment, and the approach we will take on Afghanistan and on other issues.
These dual messages also ultimately reduce and minimize our country’s standing in the international community, delegitimizes our power, and reduces our influence in the eyes of our adversaries.
Looking at the president’s performance in recently published polling, there is a clear sense that voters' doubts whether Obama can solve our country’s problems are increasing.
Poll evidence shows that “the candidate who said he would ‘fundamentally change the way Washington works’ has seen public distrust of government grow to pre-French Revolutionary levels,” Michael Gerson noted this week in The Washington Post.
A Gallup poll last week found that more Americans disapprove than approve of Obama’s recent comments on the “ground zero mosque,” and twice as many strongly disapprove than strongly approve.
A July Washington Post-ABC News poll showed that disapproval of Obama’s handling of the Gulf oil spill continued to rise in the months following the spill, with disapproval outpacing approval by nearly 3 to 1 in the most affected counties on the Gulf Coast. And an early August USA Today/Gallup survey found that support for Obama’s management of the war in Afghanistan has fallen to 36 percent, down from 48 percent in a February poll.
If Obama isn’t able to project competence, his hopes of winning reelection, as well as the success for the Democratic Party in this fall’s midterm elections, will continue to deteriorate.
Not only has President Obama systematically put forward unpopular policies and programs that are not producing real, long-lasting results that reflect the wishes of the American people, he has not generated a sense of competence in the electorate.
Indeed, Obama’s judgment and instincts have been called into question by a series of bad decisions since he has become president. Put simply, rather than emphasizing results and outcomes, he has opted for rhetorical parsing and political gamesmanship every time. Voters have grown disillusioned with the administration’s reactive and seemingly hypocritical governing style, in which the notion of unity of command and a cohesive strategy have proved alien.
Obama’s flip-flopping on the “ground zero mosque” issue was no different from his handling of the Gulf oil spill, when he sought both to blame BP and assert federal responsibility.
“The problem,” wrote Politico’s John Harris and Jim VandeHei this summer, “is that he and his West Wing turn out to be not especially good at politics or communications—in other words, largely ineffective at the very things on which their campaign reputation was built.”
Whenever the American people are looking for leadership from the president, Obama and his administration have systematically put forth conflicting and ambiguous messages. As Maureen Dowd recently noted in a recent column for The New York Times: “He’s with the banks, he’s against the banks. He’s leaving Afghanistan, he’s staying in Afghanistan. He strains at being a populist, but his head is in the clouds.”
Obama’s flip-flopping on the “ground zero mosque” issue was no different from his handling of the Gulf oil spill, when he sought both to blame BP and assert federal responsibility, all the while seeking to distance his presidency from the crisis. There, as with the administration’s publicized internal debate over Afghanistan, no clear policy has been articulated. The president supported a surge in troops while simultaneously pledging to withdraw by 2011. In internal documents published in September 2009, General Stanley McChrystal, then the commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, warned of “mission failure” if U.S. forces did not increase their presence significantly in the country, while U.S Ambassador Karl Eikenberry warned that McChrystal’s request for new troops might be counterproductive. Meanwhile, Gen. David Petraeus has said that notwithstanding the set transition date of July 2011, we are “in this to win” and “it takes the accumulation of a lot of progress ultimately, needless to say, to win overall, and that’s going to be a long-term proposition, without question… I think that we will have an enduring commitment here in some fashion.”
By sending such distinctive and frequently incoherent messages, the administration appears adrift and divided. All the while, the public has no clear idea of the administration’s specific goals and intentions, our level of commitment, and the approach we will take on Afghanistan and on other issues.
These dual messages also ultimately reduce and minimize our country’s standing in the international community, delegitimizes our power, and reduces our influence in the eyes of our adversaries.
Looking at the president’s performance in recently published polling, there is a clear sense that voters' doubts whether Obama can solve our country’s problems are increasing.
Poll evidence shows that “the candidate who said he would ‘fundamentally change the way Washington works’ has seen public distrust of government grow to pre-French Revolutionary levels,” Michael Gerson noted this week in The Washington Post.
A Gallup poll last week found that more Americans disapprove than approve of Obama’s recent comments on the “ground zero mosque,” and twice as many strongly disapprove than strongly approve.
A July Washington Post-ABC News poll showed that disapproval of Obama’s handling of the Gulf oil spill continued to rise in the months following the spill, with disapproval outpacing approval by nearly 3 to 1 in the most affected counties on the Gulf Coast. And an early August USA Today/Gallup survey found that support for Obama’s management of the war in Afghanistan has fallen to 36 percent, down from 48 percent in a February poll.
If Obama isn’t able to project competence, his hopes of winning reelection, as well as the success for the Democratic Party in this fall’s midterm elections, will continue to deteriorate.
U.S. buying and distributing Imam Rauf's book on Islam
Unbelievable. You're not going to guess what our tax dollars are subsidizing. Actually, in this ObamaNation, maybe you will guess it. It turns out that you and I are funding the State Department to purchase and distribute copies of Feisal Abdul Rauf's book, What's Right With Islam: A New Vision for Muslims and the West.
Rauf is the imam behind the Ground Zero mosque and is the same imam who won't condemn Hamas as a terrorist organization; the same imam who said on “60 Minutes” that America was an "accessory" to September 11; and, as we reported at HUMAN EVENTS, the same imam who told a college audience overseas that the United States is worse than al Qaeda.
Yep, that dude. And not only has the State Department anointed him as our ad hoc ambassador to the Muslim world, but now they are acting as his personal Barnes & Noble to boot. Good grief! Buried in a recent New York Times article on Imam Rauf's global hopscotch, the paper casually referenced that our government buys and hands out his tome in an effort "to lecture about tolerance" and pursue "interfaith dialogue" with Islamic nations.
Only in the left's strange world does it make sense to support Imam Rauf as a goodwill spokesman for the United States while he's busy trashing the United States. But that aside, did the bureaucrats at the State Department ever take the time to read Rauf's What's Right with Islam? If so, they'll have to justify why they're promoting a book that faults America for stirring up conflict with Muslims, brags that America is "Sharia compliant," and makes excuses for suicide bombings.
Researchers at the American Center for Law and Justice combed through Rauf's 2004 book and found alarming passages. In the Orwellian-named chapter “What's Right with America,” Rauf goes on to—you guessed it—blame America. He writes: "If there is any quarrel Muslims have with America, it is that the United States does not always live up to its own ideal of ethics and values." In the same chapter, Rauf has a section called “America: A Sharia-Compliant State” wherein he contends that the "American political structure is Sharia compliant," especially if it begins to allow "religious communities more leeway to judge among themselves according to their own laws."
As if that weren't bad enough, our bud Rauf goes on to rationalize suicide bombings by blaming societal roots and not the warped Islamic fanatics themselves. Quoth the imam: "The most widely accepted view today in psychoanalysis is that suicide is most often a form of 'displacement.'… the individual inflicts upon himself the result of the frustration and anger caused by the perceived unraveling of the social fabric of his world."
Sounds exactly like the kind of guy best to represent American interests abroad, no? If you disagree, you're probably an Islamophobic racist!
Rauf is the imam behind the Ground Zero mosque and is the same imam who won't condemn Hamas as a terrorist organization; the same imam who said on “60 Minutes” that America was an "accessory" to September 11; and, as we reported at HUMAN EVENTS, the same imam who told a college audience overseas that the United States is worse than al Qaeda.
Yep, that dude. And not only has the State Department anointed him as our ad hoc ambassador to the Muslim world, but now they are acting as his personal Barnes & Noble to boot. Good grief! Buried in a recent New York Times article on Imam Rauf's global hopscotch, the paper casually referenced that our government buys and hands out his tome in an effort "to lecture about tolerance" and pursue "interfaith dialogue" with Islamic nations.
Only in the left's strange world does it make sense to support Imam Rauf as a goodwill spokesman for the United States while he's busy trashing the United States. But that aside, did the bureaucrats at the State Department ever take the time to read Rauf's What's Right with Islam? If so, they'll have to justify why they're promoting a book that faults America for stirring up conflict with Muslims, brags that America is "Sharia compliant," and makes excuses for suicide bombings.
Researchers at the American Center for Law and Justice combed through Rauf's 2004 book and found alarming passages. In the Orwellian-named chapter “What's Right with America,” Rauf goes on to—you guessed it—blame America. He writes: "If there is any quarrel Muslims have with America, it is that the United States does not always live up to its own ideal of ethics and values." In the same chapter, Rauf has a section called “America: A Sharia-Compliant State” wherein he contends that the "American political structure is Sharia compliant," especially if it begins to allow "religious communities more leeway to judge among themselves according to their own laws."
As if that weren't bad enough, our bud Rauf goes on to rationalize suicide bombings by blaming societal roots and not the warped Islamic fanatics themselves. Quoth the imam: "The most widely accepted view today in psychoanalysis is that suicide is most often a form of 'displacement.'… the individual inflicts upon himself the result of the frustration and anger caused by the perceived unraveling of the social fabric of his world."
Sounds exactly like the kind of guy best to represent American interests abroad, no? If you disagree, you're probably an Islamophobic racist!
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Critics argue Imam Rauf supports suicide bombers, Iranian repression, radical clerics and adoption of sharia law by the west
Almost as controversial as the proposed Park51 Islamic community center two blocks north of Ground Zero is the man behind the project, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf. Opponents of the "Ground Zero mosque" are building a case that Rauf is a "cynically brilliant" Islamic extremist in sheep's clothing, while supporters call him and fellow Park51 organizers "the kind of Muslim leaders right-wing commentators fantasize about: modernists and moderates who openly condemn the death cult of al Qaeda and its adherents." Who is the real Rauf? (Listen to some of Imam Rauf's controversial comments)
What's his background?
Born in Kuwait in 1948, Rauf has lived in New York since 1965, and has a physics degree from Columbia. He's been imam of Masjid al-Farah, a Sufi mosque in New York City's TriBeCa neighborhood, since 1983. Rauf has written three books on Islam and how it fits into Western society. He's married to his second wife, Daisy Khan.
Was he raised Sufi?
No. His father, Muhammad Abdul Rauf, was a more conservative Sunni Muslim who, with the support of Egypt, taught and studied at universities and mosques outside the Middle East. The elder Rauf moved his family around to England, Malaysia, and then the U.S. The exposure to different religions and Islamic traditions led Feisal to shift to the more moderate and mystical Sufi Islam.
What was Rauf best known for before the Park51 controversy?
Since the 1990s he has been heavily involved in interfaith dialogue with Christian and Jewish leaders, and has founded two nonprofits focused on building bridges between American Muslims, U.S. society, and the Muslim world: The American Society for Muslim Advancement (1997) and the Cordoba Initiative (2003). After 9/11, Rauf did sensitivity training for the FBI and has gone on four U.S.-sponsored speaking tours to the Mideast since 2007 to discuss how Islam meshes with American religious pluralism.
What's the case for him being a "stealth" extremist?
Critics say his peace-and-brotherhood talk covers up support for Palestinian suicide bombers, Iran's repressive Islamic government, radical Muslim clerics, and the imposition of Sharia law in the West. To support these charges, his detractors cite Rauf's refusal to call Hamas a terrorist group and his equating of certain U.S. actions with Islamic terrorism. The Cordoba Initiative and its Park51 project aren't about dialogue, critics say, but rather about proselytizing and spreading Islam.
Is the case persuasive?
Though a few of Rauf's speeches contain some jarring notes (see quotes below), those who have known him for a long time are surprised by the allegations. "To stereotype him as an extremist is just nuts," says the Very Rev. James P. Morton, longtime dean of the Church of St. John the Divine.
What's his background?
Born in Kuwait in 1948, Rauf has lived in New York since 1965, and has a physics degree from Columbia. He's been imam of Masjid al-Farah, a Sufi mosque in New York City's TriBeCa neighborhood, since 1983. Rauf has written three books on Islam and how it fits into Western society. He's married to his second wife, Daisy Khan.
Was he raised Sufi?
No. His father, Muhammad Abdul Rauf, was a more conservative Sunni Muslim who, with the support of Egypt, taught and studied at universities and mosques outside the Middle East. The elder Rauf moved his family around to England, Malaysia, and then the U.S. The exposure to different religions and Islamic traditions led Feisal to shift to the more moderate and mystical Sufi Islam.
What was Rauf best known for before the Park51 controversy?
Since the 1990s he has been heavily involved in interfaith dialogue with Christian and Jewish leaders, and has founded two nonprofits focused on building bridges between American Muslims, U.S. society, and the Muslim world: The American Society for Muslim Advancement (1997) and the Cordoba Initiative (2003). After 9/11, Rauf did sensitivity training for the FBI and has gone on four U.S.-sponsored speaking tours to the Mideast since 2007 to discuss how Islam meshes with American religious pluralism.
What's the case for him being a "stealth" extremist?
Critics say his peace-and-brotherhood talk covers up support for Palestinian suicide bombers, Iran's repressive Islamic government, radical Muslim clerics, and the imposition of Sharia law in the West. To support these charges, his detractors cite Rauf's refusal to call Hamas a terrorist group and his equating of certain U.S. actions with Islamic terrorism. The Cordoba Initiative and its Park51 project aren't about dialogue, critics say, but rather about proselytizing and spreading Islam.
Is the case persuasive?
Though a few of Rauf's speeches contain some jarring notes (see quotes below), those who have known him for a long time are surprised by the allegations. "To stereotype him as an extremist is just nuts," says the Very Rev. James P. Morton, longtime dean of the Church of St. John the Divine.
Obama's plan - destroy the economy, weaken defenses, support our enemies, force us to bow to government - is working well
If you are Barack Obama, your plans are working perfectly. You are driving the economy into the ground, fueling turmoil in the Middle East, weakening our nuclear defenses and supporting the enemies of civilization, while lining the pockets of your constituency and pushing us towards such great crises that a society already addicted to government may be forced to its knees wrongfully begging for an even greater paternal one. If you doubt my argument that the American people are still not awake enough to cause any meaningful change, consider that for all the talk of a backlash against this government, if you look at the Republicans that will take over Congress, almost none of them them would truly be willing to do the things necessary to make our government solvent, break the chains off of our private sector and defend us against our enemies and their abettors, starting with calling them by name, not a tactic like terrorism.
This brings us to Barack Obama’s stance on the Ground Zero mosque. Months ago I argued that Islam is not a religion in the traditional sense. I argued that as Islam is a theo-political system, it should not deserve the same Constitutional protections as other religions with a strictly spiritual component. In effect, to support Islam in this country would be to support a political system incompatible with ours, and intolerant of our pluralistic Judeo-Christian society. To promote Islamic institutions would be to weaken America’s freedom, not strengthen it. For Islam and America cannot coexist because America is a threat to the Ummah; us infidels would have to be converted by the sword or forced to live as second-class citizens under Islamic law, like Spaniards once did in Cordoba. Hence the Cordoba Initiative.
Yet Barack Obama consistently sides with Muslims; makes it a point to bow down to Muslims at every turn and has since the start of his Presidency and throughout his public life. He also studied in the madras as a child, has had the backing of major players in the Muslim community during his academic and political career and attended Reverend Wright’s church which parrots the same narrative as Imams worldwide. His true colors showed when he made the Ground Zero mosque a national issue by supporting it. Even Howard Dean has gone on record as questioning what Barack Obama could have been thinking politically. Of course he found it to be a political disaster, lest he should care about its destructiveness on principle.
But though Barack Obama knew the firestorm he would create, he did not care. He could not help himself when it came to something he truly believed in, jumping to say something unpopular to the American people but instinctive for him. Just like he did not care about creating fertile soil for economic growth, just like he does not care in my opinion about defending American lives as reflected by his policies. And when he says inflammatory things about white cops and business executives and mosques that make political pundits shake their heads in wonder, it is because he is showing who he is, and where his passions lie.
This President is a principled politician, but he supports principles that are crushing the American people. This is the most destructive President since FDR, and that it is intentionally so makes it all the more demoralizing. Until more people realize this, we won’t even have a fighting chance. We are going to be poorer, weaker and less likely to ever rekindle the flame of freedom in this nation, and I fear that our differences with our political opposition will prove irreconcilable
This brings us to Barack Obama’s stance on the Ground Zero mosque. Months ago I argued that Islam is not a religion in the traditional sense. I argued that as Islam is a theo-political system, it should not deserve the same Constitutional protections as other religions with a strictly spiritual component. In effect, to support Islam in this country would be to support a political system incompatible with ours, and intolerant of our pluralistic Judeo-Christian society. To promote Islamic institutions would be to weaken America’s freedom, not strengthen it. For Islam and America cannot coexist because America is a threat to the Ummah; us infidels would have to be converted by the sword or forced to live as second-class citizens under Islamic law, like Spaniards once did in Cordoba. Hence the Cordoba Initiative.
Yet Barack Obama consistently sides with Muslims; makes it a point to bow down to Muslims at every turn and has since the start of his Presidency and throughout his public life. He also studied in the madras as a child, has had the backing of major players in the Muslim community during his academic and political career and attended Reverend Wright’s church which parrots the same narrative as Imams worldwide. His true colors showed when he made the Ground Zero mosque a national issue by supporting it. Even Howard Dean has gone on record as questioning what Barack Obama could have been thinking politically. Of course he found it to be a political disaster, lest he should care about its destructiveness on principle.
But though Barack Obama knew the firestorm he would create, he did not care. He could not help himself when it came to something he truly believed in, jumping to say something unpopular to the American people but instinctive for him. Just like he did not care about creating fertile soil for economic growth, just like he does not care in my opinion about defending American lives as reflected by his policies. And when he says inflammatory things about white cops and business executives and mosques that make political pundits shake their heads in wonder, it is because he is showing who he is, and where his passions lie.
This President is a principled politician, but he supports principles that are crushing the American people. This is the most destructive President since FDR, and that it is intentionally so makes it all the more demoralizing. Until more people realize this, we won’t even have a fighting chance. We are going to be poorer, weaker and less likely to ever rekindle the flame of freedom in this nation, and I fear that our differences with our political opposition will prove irreconcilable
Friday, August 20, 2010
"I am a Jew" - a remarkable new perspective on the Ground Zero mosque's Imam Rauf from The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg
The right-wing campaign against the so-called "Ground Zero mosque" includes vicious personal attacks on the Muslim cleric who leads the Cordoba Initiative, the organization behind the plan. I know Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf, and I know him to be a moderate, forward-leaning Muslim -- yes, it is true he has said things with which I disagree, but I have never expected him to function as a member of the Zionist Organization of America.
In 2003, Imam Rauf was invited to speak at a memorial service for Daniel Pearl, the journalist murdered by Islamist terrorists in Pakistan. The service was held at B'nai Jeshurun, a prominent synagogue in Manhattan, and in the audience was Judea Pearl, Daniel Pearl's father. In his remarks, Rauf identified absolutely with Pearl, and identified himself absolutely with the ethical tradition of Judaism. "I am a Jew," he said.
There are those who would argue that these represent mere words, chosen carefully to appease a postentially suspicious audience. I would argue something different: That any Muslim imam who stands before a Jewish congregation and says, "I am a Jew," is placing his life in danger. Remember, Islamists hate the people they consider apostates even more than they hate Christians and Jews. In other words, the man many commentators on the right assert is a terrorist-sympathizer placed himself in mortal peril in order to identify himself with Christians and Jews, and specifically with the most famous Jewish victim of Islamism. You can read the full text of his remarks on the B'nai Jeshurun website, but here is an especially relevant portion:
We are here to assert the Islamic conviction of the moral equivalency of our Abrahamic faiths. If to be a Jew means to say with all one's heart, mind and soul Shma` Yisrael, Adonai Elohenu Adonai Ahad; hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One, not only today I am a Jew, I have always been one, Mr. Pearl.
If to be a Christian is to love the Lord our God with all of my heart, mind and soul, and to love for my fellow human being what I love for myself, then not only am I a Christian, but I have always been one Mr. Pearl.
And I am here to inform you, with the full authority of the Quranic texts and the practice of the Prophet Muhammad, that to say La ilaha illallah Muhammadun rasulullah is no different.
It expresses the same theological and ethical principles and values.
In 2003, Imam Rauf was invited to speak at a memorial service for Daniel Pearl, the journalist murdered by Islamist terrorists in Pakistan. The service was held at B'nai Jeshurun, a prominent synagogue in Manhattan, and in the audience was Judea Pearl, Daniel Pearl's father. In his remarks, Rauf identified absolutely with Pearl, and identified himself absolutely with the ethical tradition of Judaism. "I am a Jew," he said.
There are those who would argue that these represent mere words, chosen carefully to appease a postentially suspicious audience. I would argue something different: That any Muslim imam who stands before a Jewish congregation and says, "I am a Jew," is placing his life in danger. Remember, Islamists hate the people they consider apostates even more than they hate Christians and Jews. In other words, the man many commentators on the right assert is a terrorist-sympathizer placed himself in mortal peril in order to identify himself with Christians and Jews, and specifically with the most famous Jewish victim of Islamism. You can read the full text of his remarks on the B'nai Jeshurun website, but here is an especially relevant portion:
We are here to assert the Islamic conviction of the moral equivalency of our Abrahamic faiths. If to be a Jew means to say with all one's heart, mind and soul Shma` Yisrael, Adonai Elohenu Adonai Ahad; hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One, not only today I am a Jew, I have always been one, Mr. Pearl.
If to be a Christian is to love the Lord our God with all of my heart, mind and soul, and to love for my fellow human being what I love for myself, then not only am I a Christian, but I have always been one Mr. Pearl.
And I am here to inform you, with the full authority of the Quranic texts and the practice of the Prophet Muhammad, that to say La ilaha illallah Muhammadun rasulullah is no different.
It expresses the same theological and ethical principles and values.
Hard-hats attempt to rescue Ground Zero from the insane elite
A growing number of New York construction workers are vowing not to work on the mosque planned near Ground Zero.
"It's a very touchy thing because they want to do this on sacred ground," said Dave Kaiser, 38, a blaster who is working to rebuild the World Trade Center site.
"I wouldn't work there, especially after I found out about what the imam said about U.S. policy being responsible for 9/11," Kaiser said.
The grass-roots movement is gaining momentum on the Internet. One construction worker created the "Hard Hat Pledge" on his blog and asked others to vow not to work on the project if it stays on Park Place.
"Thousands of people are signing up from all over the country," said creator Andy Sullivan, a construction worker from Brooklyn. "People who sell glass, steel, lumber, insurance. They are all refusing to do work if they build there."
"Hopefully, this will be a tool to get them to move it," he said. "I got a problem with this ostentatious building looming over Ground Zero."
A planned 13-story community center and mosque two blocks from Ground Zero, Park51 has exploded into a national debate.
"It's a very touchy thing because they want to do this on sacred ground," said Dave Kaiser, 38, a blaster who is working to rebuild the World Trade Center site.
"I wouldn't work there, especially after I found out about what the imam said about U.S. policy being responsible for 9/11," Kaiser said.
The grass-roots movement is gaining momentum on the Internet. One construction worker created the "Hard Hat Pledge" on his blog and asked others to vow not to work on the project if it stays on Park Place.
"Thousands of people are signing up from all over the country," said creator Andy Sullivan, a construction worker from Brooklyn. "People who sell glass, steel, lumber, insurance. They are all refusing to do work if they build there."
"Hopefully, this will be a tool to get them to move it," he said. "I got a problem with this ostentatious building looming over Ground Zero."
A planned 13-story community center and mosque two blocks from Ground Zero, Park51 has exploded into a national debate.
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