Remember When Being Near Ground Zero Was The Selling Point Of The Mosque?

Red State has an interesting point to make in the matter of the Ground Zero mosque. While those behind the mosque have stopped calling it Cordoba House in favor of the inoffensive Park51, when the project first started, the supporters were actually very eager to have the mosque near Ground Zero:

The fact is that the groups behind the “Ground Zero mosque” / Cordoba House / Park51 chose the site explicitly for its proximity to Ground Zero, and then spent months boasting about it in the press. Those groups are the Cordoba Initiative (run by Feisal Abdul Rauf, the “Ground Zero mosque’s” imam-to-be); the American Society for Muslim Advancement, or ASMA (run by Rauf’s wife, Daisy Khan); and SoHo Properties (run by the aforementioned Sharif el-Gamal, its CEO). Just a few brief but illustrative examples from the principals:

• A December 8th, 2009, New York Times article stated, “The location [next to Ground Zero] was precisely a key selling point for the group of Muslims,” and quoted Rauf as noting that they got a property “where a piece of the [9/11] wreckage fell.” ASMA then touted the piece in its 2009 Year End Report. 

• A simple Google search of the Cordoba Initiative’s website reveals the phrase “Ground Zero” to be seeded throughout as a rather inept 1999-era SEO tactic to bring people looking for information about Ground Zero to the mosque promoters’ website. 

• On May 5th and 6th, ASMA’s Daisy Khan was on her Twitter account, boasting first that the “new muslim center near ground zero gets unaminous vote of approval from community board one in downtown nyc,” and then that she had a “Media blitz day for ASMA / Cordoba [on the] muslim commuity center near ground zero.” 

• On June 15th, Daisy Khan told the Washington Post’s Sally Quinn that “a divine hand” led to the Ground Zero proximity.

• Following the eruption of popular anger over their plans, the “Ground Zero mosque’s” proponents are attempting to rewrite history. El-Gamal, as seen above, now tells interviewers that there’s no “Ground Zero” at the “Ground Zero mosque,” and Khan’s tweets have the same phrasing, but a rather different emphasis. From July 28th: a “muslim community center NEAR ground zero.”

This list could go on at some length, but this is sufficient to demonstrate that the “Ground Zero mosque’s” stewards aren’t unfairly tarred by the phrase: they wanted it. Everyone discussing this issue should face this fact squarely and honestly. It’s the “Ground Zero mosque” because it was conceived and intended as the “Ground Zero mosque.”

The only problem is that despite the documentation, the argument is just not convincing of dark ulterior motives on the part of these groups. The last 3 quotes just show that in the beginning the group was using the name Ground Zero to market the idea--unseemly for a religious building perhaps, but not nefarious. And the first quote is actually a distortion of the original quote. As presented, the edited quote seems to imply an eagerness to build the mosque near actual wreckage. In reality, this is what the article said:

The location was precisely a key selling point for the group of Muslims who bought the building in July. A presence so close to the World Trade Center, “where a piece of the wreckage fell,” said Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, the cleric leading the project, “sends the opposite statement to what happened on 9/11.”

This is more a combination of the aforementioned crude marketing combined with naivete and gross insensitivity--but nothing to convey a sense of anything sinister. As I have blogged before, I am opposed to the Ground Zero mosque because the freedom of speech is not meant to be an absolute to be used as a club to deny the feelings of those who find this offensive and inappropriate. The Islamic history of  building mosques as a sign of victory is equally offensive. Then of course there are the questions about Rauf, both in terms of his legal problems as well as whether he is an extremist. But the arguments to be made that go beyond the insensitivity of the location need to be solid and rational. In this case, the argument that Red State puts forward just doesn't cut it.

 Hat tip: Jim Geraghty

 Technorati Tag: Ground Zero Mosque.