AJC voices support for Cordoba Project. Kind of.
On Friday I wrote about the ADL’s spineless opposition to the Muslim community center planned for construction in downtown Manhattan. In that light, it is encouraging to see a national Jewish organization coming out in support of the project. AJC head David Harris has a new piece at the Huffington Post voicing his support. Kind of.
He pussyfoots around the issue for a while, it’s not as emphatic as I would have hoped it to be, but it is a prominent Jewish voice of support. Disappointingly, it has conditions:
Presently, there are two legitimate concerns about the proposed center.
First, with a $100 million price tag, what are the exact sources of funding? The public has a right to know that the donors all subscribe to an open, inclusive and pluralistic vision of the center.
Second, do the center’s leaders reject unconditionally terrorism inspired by Islamist ideology? They must say so unequivocally. This is critical for the institution’s credibility. There is no room here for verbal acrobatics. Otherwise, the pall of suspicion around the leaders’ true attitudes toward groups like Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah will grow – spelling the center’s doom.
If these concerns can be addressed, we will join in welcoming the Cordoba Center to New York. In doing so, we would wish to reaffirm the noble values for which our country stands – the very values so detested by the perpetrators of the September 11th attacks.
The second concern is the most troubling because it asks the kind of needless question that the fear-mongering right-wingers who want to turn this project into a wedge issue for the midterm elections. We do not need to hear from Imam Rauf whether he opposes terrorism or not. He opposes it. Publicly. Regularly. It’s kind of his thing. He is a moderate Muslim religious leader. That’s why he’s a prominent guy. This is like claiming that we need to ask Avraham Avinu if he believes in one god or many!
Seriously.
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Amen.
One thing I still can’t process is why no one cares that there is a mosque 4 blocks away from the WTC site, and, of course, this one, two blocks away, isn’t *on the site.*
But facts don’t matter when it comes to this kind of right-wing demagoguery. It’s almost like these people are put here to test our values. Too many people are failing the test, including the ADL.
—Jon · August 2nd, 2010 at 7:06 pm
GAH. This makes me so angry. Hating on other religious minorities in the US does not make things safer for Jews. Treating religious minorities as “other” is bad for the Jews. And it’s wrong and cruel to our Muslim brothers and sisters.
—Shoshie · August 2nd, 2010 at 7:40 pm
Jon, not to mention that it’s no more a mosque than the 92nd Street Y is a shul.
—David A.M. Wilensky · August 3rd, 2010 at 12:06 am
The AJC did no such thing. It said that first there had to be an investigation of the funding for the project, followed by loyalty oaths and anti-terrorist messages. Oh, and then called on it to be shunned if it was somehow disagreeable. Once it’s built, the first time it hosts a movie about the Nakba it will be on the AJC’s $hit list of anti-Semitic terrorist sympathizers. So the AJC did nothing of the sort; this was not a “welcome” to the neighborhood. It was a case of lining up 3 bricks to toss in the Cordoba Center’s windows once it’s open.
—David · August 3rd, 2010 at 4:31 pm
David, I don’t know if you read the post. But I’m pretty much in agreement with you on the two-faced non-support here.
—David A.M. Wilensky · August 3rd, 2010 at 5:25 pm
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