Timeline on the fearmongering at the mosque

[billvon 3,132]

. . . if anyone cares.

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How the "ground zero mosque" fear mongering began

A viciously anti-Muslim blogger, the New York Post and the right-wing media machine: How it all went down

By Justin Elliott

A group of progressive Muslim-Americans plans to build an Islamic community center two and a half blocks from ground zero in lower Manhattan. They have had a mosque in the same neighborhood for many years. There's another mosque two blocks away from the site. City officials support the project. Muslims have been praying at the Pentagon, the other building hit on Sept. 11, for many years.

In short, there is no good reason that the Cordoba House project should have been a major national news story, let alone controversy. And yet it has become just that, dominating the political conversation for weeks and prompting such a backlash that, according to a new poll, nearly 7 in 10 Americans now say they oppose the project. How did the Cordoba House become so toxic, so fast?

In a story last week, the New York Times, which framed the project in a largely positive, noncontroversial light last December, argued that it was cursed from the start by "public relations missteps." But this isn't accurate. To a remarkable extent, a Salon review of the origins of the story found, the controversy was kicked up and driven by Pamela Geller, a right-wing, viciously anti-Muslim, conspiracy-mongering blogger, whose sinister portrayal of the project was embraced by Rupert Murdoch's New York Post.

Here's a timeline of how it all happened:

* Dec. 8, 2009: The Times publishes a lengthy front-page look at the Cordoba project. "We want to push back against the extremists," Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, the lead organizer, is quoted as saying. Two Jewish leaders and two city officials, including the mayor's office, say they support the idea, as does the mother of a man killed on 9/11. An FBI spokesman says the imam has worked with the bureau. Besides a few third-tier right-wing blogs, including Pamela Geller's Atlas Shrugs site, no one much notices the Times story.

* Dec. 21, 2009: Conservative media personality Laura Ingraham interviews Abdul Rauf's wife, Daisy Khan, while guest-hosting "The O'Reilly Factor" on Fox. In hindsight, the segment is remarkable for its cordiality. "I can't find many people who really have a problem with it," Ingraham says of the Cordoba project, adding at the end of the interview, "I like what you're trying to do."

* (This segment also includes onscreen the first use that we've seen of the misnomer "ground zero mosque.") After the segment — and despite the front-page Times story — there were no news articles on the mosque for five and a half months, according to a search of the Nexis newspaper archive.

* May 6, 2010: After a unanimous vote by a New York City community board committee to approve the project, the AP runs a story. It quotes relatives of 9/11 victims (called by the reporter), who offer differing opinions. The New York Post, meanwhile, runs a story under the inaccurate headline, "Panel Approves 'WTC' Mosque." Geller is less subtle, titling her post that day, "Monster Mosque Pushes Ahead in Shadow of World Trade Center Islamic Death and Destruction." She writes on her Atlas Shrugs blog, "This is Islamic domination and expansionism. The location is no accident. Just as Al-Aqsa was built on top of the Temple in Jerusalem." (To get an idea of where Geller is coming from, she once suggested that Malcolm X was Obama's real father. Seriously.)

* May 7, 2010: Geller's group, Stop Islamization of America (SIOA), launches "Campaign Offensive: Stop the 911 Mosque!" (SIOA 's associate director is Robert Spencer, who makes his living writing and speaking about the evils of Islam.) Geller posts the names and contact information for the mayor and members of the community board, encouraging people to write. The board chair later reports getting "hundreds and hundreds" of calls and e-mails from around the world.

* May 8, 2010: Geller announces SIOA's first protest against what she calls the "911 monster mosque" for May 29. She and Spencer and several other members of the professional anti-Islam industry will attend. (She also says that the protest will mark the dark day of "May 29, 1453, [when] the Ottoman forces led by the Sultan Mehmet II broke through the Byzantine defenses against the Muslim siege of Constantinople." The outrage-peddling New York Post columnist Andrea Peyser argues in a note at the end of her column a couple of days later that "there are better places to put a mosque."

* May 13, 2010: Peyser follows up with an entire column devoted to "Mosque Madness at Ground Zero." This is a significant moment in the development of the "ground zero mosque" narrative: It's the first newspaper article that frames the project as inherently wrong and suspect, in the way that Geller has been framing it for months. Peyser in fact quotes Geller at length and promotes the anti-mosque protest of Stop Islamization of America, which Peyser describes as a "human-rights group." Peyser also reports — falsely — that Cordoba House's opening date will be Sept. 11, 2011.

Lots of opinion makers on the right read the Post, so it's not surprising that, starting that very day, the mosque story spread through the conservative — and then mainstream — media like fire through dry grass. Geller appeared on Sean Hannity's radio show. The Washington Examiner ran an outraged column about honoring the 9/11 dead. So did Investor's Business Daily. Smelling blood, the Post assigned news reporters to cover the ins and outs of the Cordoba House development daily. Fox News, the Post's television sibling, went all out.

Within a month, Rudy Giuliani had called the mosque a "desecration." Within another month, Sarah Palin had tweeted her famous "peaceful Muslims, pls refudiate" tweet. Peter King and Newt Gingrich and Tim Pawlenty followed suit — with political reporters and television news programs dutifully covering "both sides" of the controversy.

Geller had succeeded beyond her wildest dreams.
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[Amazon 7]

Color me not on that timeline

[mnealtx 0]

Cool - can you do one on the fearmongering of the Qur'an burning, too?

Mike
I love you, Shannon and Jim.
POPS 9708 , SCR 14706

[normiss 906]

Your Google busticated?

[turtlespeed 226]

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Your Google busticated?

I believe his point was that it's "Poor Muslims" again.

I'm not usually into the whole 3-way thing, but you got me a little excited with that. - Skymama
BTR #1 / OTB^5 Official #2 / Hellfish #408 / VSCR #108/Tortuga/Orfun

[airdvr 210]

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There's another mosque two blocks away from the site

Perfect. Why build another one?

BTW...I don't have a problem with them building a mosque there. But, knowing that there is already one 2 blocks away just confirms my feeling that this is a move designed to piss people off.

Please don't dent the planet.

Destinations by Roxanne

[wmw999 2,603]

The other "mosque" is too small. And if there's a Baptist church in town, why would the Methodists need to build another?

Wendy P.

There is nothing more dangerous than breaking a basic safety rule and getting away with it. It removes fear of the consequences and builds false confidence. (tbrown)

[airdvr 210]

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The other "mosque" is too small. And if there's a Baptist church in town, why would the Methodists need to build another?

Wendy P.

http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&um=1&ie=UTF-8&q=mosques+in+NYC&fb=1&gl=us&hq=mosques&hnear=New+York,+NY&view=text&ei=sZSKTLvyGtX9nAe9yIHwDA&sa=X&oi=local_group&ct=more-results&resnum=6&ved=0CDYQtQMwBQ

Hmmm...someone would like you to believe it's the only one in town.

Please don't dent the planet.

Destinations by Roxanne

[jakee 1,611]

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There's another mosque two blocks away from the site

Perfect. Why build another one?

BTW...I don't have a problem with them building a mosque there. But, knowing that there is already one 2 blocks away just confirms my feeling that this is a move designed to piss people off.

I'd be interested to know the average concentration of churches per block in Manhattan. You'd be amazed at how heavily these type of things can saturate an area before the demand runs out.

I'd also be interested to compare the faciltites of the existing mosque vs the planned facilities of the new mosque, whether the respective Imams teach the same form of Islam, whether they plan a similar range of community activities, whether they will host the same sort of events and whether they will run the same kind of classes.

But apparently you know all of those things already.

Do you want to have an ideagasm?

[Amazon 7]

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The other "mosque" is too small. And if there's a Baptist church in town, why would the Methodists need to build another?

Wendy P.

http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&um=1&ie=UTF-8&q=mosques+in+NYC&fb=1&gl=us&hq=mosques&hnear=New+York,+NY&view=text&ei=sZSKTLvyGtX9nAe9yIHwDA&sa=X&oi=local_group&ct=more-results&resnum=6&ved=0CDYQtQMwBQ

Hmmm...someone would like you to believe it's the only one in town.

What is the population of the New York Metropolitan area again?????

I think they might just need one or two mosques.. considering the diplomatic community.. not to mention the ethnic diversity of New York and the amount of people all over the world that view New York in the USA as they do London in the UK or Paris in France or Tokyo in Japan.


No its not the capitol... now.. but a whole lot of people in this world think of New York when you say USA

[jakee 1,611]

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The other "mosque" is too small. And if there's a Baptist church in town, why would the Methodists need to build another?

Wendy P.

http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&um=1&ie=UTF-8&q=mosques+in+NYC&fb=1&gl=us&hq=mosques&hnear=New+York,+NY&view=text&ei=sZSKTLvyGtX9nAe9yIHwDA&sa=X&oi=local_group&ct=more-results&resnum=6&ved=0CDYQtQMwBQ

Hmmm...someone would like you to believe it's the only one in town.

Interesting map there. It shows nine mosques in a borough with a population of over 1.6M (which doesn't take into account the number that commute in to work each day). Does that sound excessive to you?

Do you want to have an ideagasm?

[billvon 3,132]

>Perfect. Why build another one?

Same reason there are seven churches within the same area, I suppose. People like em.

>BTW...I don't have a problem with them building a mosque there.

Then no problem.

[airdvr 210]

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The other "mosque" is too small. And if there's a Baptist church in town, why would the Methodists need to build another?

Wendy P.

http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&um=1&ie=UTF-8&q=mosques+in+NYC&fb=1&gl=us&hq=mosques&hnear=New+York,+NY&view=text&ei=sZSKTLvyGtX9nAe9yIHwDA&sa=X&oi=local_group&ct=more-results&resnum=6&ved=0CDYQtQMwBQ

Hmmm...someone would like you to believe it's the only one in town.

Interesting map there. It shows nine mosques in a borough with a population of over 1.6M (which doesn't take into account the number that commute in to work each day). Does that sound excessive to you?

Nope. they can build them all over the place. I told you I don't care where they build it. If they build it 2 blocks from ground zero it's an 'in your face' kind of move. I'd rather know where they're coming from.

Just like the preacher threatening to burn the Koran. I also don't care whether he torches 1,000 Korans this weekend but I know where he's coming from.

Please don't dent the planet.

Destinations by Roxanne

[wmw999 2,603]

So is it your contention that when the Cordoba Initiative bought that property a few years ago they were alreay looking to thumb their noses?

They already own it. They've owned it for a few years. They've been meeting in it. Now they just want to actually build on their property to suit. If they really wanted to thumb their nose at 9/11 they'd've done it closer, and said so. Because what good is it to thumb your nose at someone is they don't realize they're being dissed?

Wendy P.

There is nothing more dangerous than breaking a basic safety rule and getting away with it. It removes fear of the consequences and builds false confidence. (tbrown)

[jakee 1,611]

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I told you I don't care where they build it.

And yet you so obviously do.

Do you want to have an ideagasm?

[airdvr 210]

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>Perfect. Why build another one?

Same reason there are seven churches within the same area, I suppose. People like em.

>BTW...I don't have a problem with them building a mosque there.

Then no problem.

If only everyone felt this way. So I assume you also have no problem with the preacher's right to torch the Koran?

Please don't dent the planet.

Destinations by Roxanne

[airdvr 210]

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I told you I don't care where they build it.

And yet you so obviously do.

No. What I have a problem with is the hypocracy of fighting to allow the mosque but going ballistic over the burning of the Koran.

Please don't dent the planet.

Destinations by Roxanne

[billvon 3,132]

>So I assume you also have no problem with the preacher's right to torch the Koran?

Correct. He bought it (presumably) - he can do what he wants with it.

[jakee 1,611]

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>Perfect. Why build another one?

Same reason there are seven churches within the same area, I suppose. People like em.

>BTW...I don't have a problem with them building a mosque there.

Then no problem.

If only everyone felt this way.

You don't.

Do you want to have an ideagasm?

[mnealtx 0]

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So is it your contention that when the Cordoba Initiative bought that property a few years ago they were alreay looking to thumb their noses?

Last year, actually - it was bought in July 09.

As for thumbing noses... from the Park 51 wiki page:

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"Muslim neoconservative[147] journalist Stephen Schwartz, Executive Director of the non-profit Center for Islamic Pluralism, said that building the mosque two blocks from Ground Zero is inconsistent with the Sufi philosophy of simplicity of faith and sensitivity towards others and disregards the security of American Muslims."

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"Another founding member of the Center for Islamic Pluralism, Zuhdi Jasser, who is also the founder of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, a group of Muslim professionals in the Phoenix Valley of Arizona, strongly opposed the mosque, saying:

For us, a mosque was always a place to pray...—not a way to make an ostentatious architectural statement. Ground Zero shouldn't be about promoting Islam. It's the place where war was declared on us as Americans."[17]

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Authors Raheel Raza and Tarek Fatah, board members of the Muslim Canadian Congress, said:

New York currently boasts at least 30 mosques so it's not as if there is pressing need to find space for worshipers. We Muslims know the ... mosque is meant to be a deliberate provocation, to thumb our noses at the infidel. The proposal has been made in bad faith, ... as "Fitna," meaning "mischief-making" that is clearly forbidden in the Koran.... As Muslims we are dismayed that our co-religionists have such little consideration for their fellow citizens, and wish to rub salt in their wounds and pretend they are applying a balm to sooth the pain.[150]

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Akbar Ahmed, Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies at American University, while noting that blaming all Muslims for 9/11 was "ridiculous", said:

I don't think the Muslim leadership has fully appreciated the impact of 9/11 on America. They assume Americans have forgotten 9/11 and even, in a profound way, forgiven 9/11, and that has not happened. The wounds remain largely open [...] and when wounds are raw, an episode like constructing a house of worship—even one protected by the Constitution, protected by law—becomes like salt in the wounds.[151]

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Abdul Rahman Al-Rashid, general manager of Al-Arabiya television, also criticized the project in a column titled "A House of Worship or a Symbol of Destruction?" in the Arab daily A-Sharq Al-Awsat, saying:

Muslims do not aspire for a mosque next to the September 11 cemetery...the mosque is not an issue for Muslims, and they have not heard of it until the shouting became loud between the supporters and the objectors, which is mostly an argument between non-Muslim US citizens! [152][153]

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Rima Fakih, the first Muslim-American crowned Miss USA as Miss USA 2010, opposed the mosque on the grounds of it being insensitive to families of 9/11 victims, telling Inside Edition:

I totally agree with President Obama with the statement on the constitutional rights of freedom of religion. [But] it shouldn't be so close to the World Trade Center. We should be more concerned with the tragedy than religion.[154]

Mike
I love you, Shannon and Jim.
POPS 9708 , SCR 14706

[airdvr 210]

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>Perfect. Why build another one?

Same reason there are seven churches within the same area, I suppose. People like em.

>BTW...I don't have a problem with them building a mosque there.

Then no problem.

If only everyone felt this way.

You don't.

Only a liberal would attempt to tell me how I feel.

Please don't dent the planet.

Destinations by Roxanne

[jakee 1,611]

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Quote

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>Perfect. Why build another one?

Same reason there are seven churches within the same area, I suppose. People like em.

>BTW...I don't have a problem with them building a mosque there.

Then no problem.

If only everyone felt this way.

You don't.

Only a liberal would attempt to tell me how I feel.

Well, your question: "Why build it there?"

Bill's answer, because people want one.

Your answer, because they're deliberately trying to piss people off.

Please explain to me how that means you feel the same as Billvon?

Do you want to have an ideagasm?

[normiss 906]

What are you the Church review board?

How many people live in your house?
How many houses are in your neighborhood?
What do you use your house for, based on per-square footage use?
How many cars do you own?
Who paid for these cars?
Where do you park them?
What is your impact to the environment including the air you breathe?

[normiss 906]

I guess then you prefer the titties-in-your face strip joints and the bars and nightclubs and other mosques in the vicinity....

I really don't understand how so many distrust them based on nothing.

[Amazon 7]

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I guess then you prefer the titties-in-your face strip joints and the bars and nightclubs and other mosques in the vicinity....

I really don't understand how so many distrust them based on nothing.

They are scary......