Nat Hentoff writes about the New York City mosque controversy in Pols Clueless on Ground Zero Mosque:
The angry national debate over Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf’s intention to build a mosque two blocks north of the horror of 9/11 at Ground Zero has been further fueled by supporter Nancy Pelosi declaring, “I join those who have called for looking into how … this opposition to the mosque is being funded.”
If one of her sleuths knocks on my door, this opponent will readily state that I need no outside funding as a reporter who is deeply investigating the motivation of Imam Rauf’s choice of this site of mass murder for the mosque. I will add that, of course, all American Muslims have their First Amendment right to exercise their freedom of religion in their place of worship. There have been other mosques in New York City built without opposition. That freedom is not at stake here….
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg charges that opponents of Imam Rauf’s mosque “should be ashamed of themselves” and are bigots.
Me, too, Mr. Mayor?
If you want to join Speaker Pelosi in investigating me, your honor, I’d be glad to oblige. I’m just doing my job as a reporter. I wish more reporters had gone beneath the shouting on both sides. There’s another part of the First Amendment in addition to the free exercise of religion: The press is free to investigate the reasons for Imam Rauf’s fixation on the 9/11 location of his mosque.
And why does this location make Hamas glow?
Opposition to the mosque does not make a man or woman a bigot. The freedom to exercise is not at stake — Muslims worship in mosques across New York, and across America. That freedom to worship is secure, and it’s false and hysterical to contend otherwise. It’s secure even for those who would, if given the chance, deny freedom of worship to others.
(I don’t believe for a moment that Imam Rauf is a freedom-loving man — he’s a defender of so much that’s inimical to liberty — as Hentoff relates in his essay. Having pledged to take money from the Iranian and Saudi governments, both among the most tyrannical on earth, Rauf shows himself a willing, would-be supplicant of tyrants.)
There are general and unwelcome trends in all this. There’s been a change in America, these last few years, with many privileged Americans abandoning their support for democratic Israel in favor of a false, self-righteous fixation on radical Palestinians or radical Muslims as victims. In ways their well-heeled defenders in America won’t see, some Palestinians and Muslims are victims: of the violence, misogyny, and oppression of their own leaders.
This change in sentiment, against democratic Israel in favor of her violent enemies, has not possessed all Americans. Sensible people can still the difference between a mongoose and a cobra. (One may never find, by the way, a libertarian for whom the difference between Israel and her radical Muslim & Arab enemies isn’t obvious.)
Fortunately, Hentoff makes seeing the difference that much easier, for anyone willing to listen.