Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York, has an op-ed in today’s New York Post defending the Ground Zero mosque. Actually, the Post informs us, it’s an adaptation of “Bloomberg’s prepared remarks for his annual Ramadan celebration at Gracie Mansion yesterday.”

It is a low performance. Bloomberg panders to his audience by slandering the two-thirds or so of Americans who take offense at the idea of a fancy new mosque near the site of an Islamic supremacist atrocity:

Islam did not attack the World Trade Center–al Qaeda did. To implicate all of Islam for the actions of a few who twisted a great religion is unfair and un-American.

The substance of this statement is unremarkable: Obviously it is wrong to implicate all of Islam in the 9/11 attacks.

But the mayor employs scurrilous McCarthyite rhetoric in an attempt to inflame emotions and divert attention from a point that should be equally obvious: The Ground Zero mosque planners have implicated themselves by seeking to exploit the symbolism of the site, whatever their purpose is in doing so.

Taranto points out one obvious flaw in Bloomberg’s statement: that the mosque supporters have essentially inserted themselves into the controversy by the very fact that they deliberately chose the site of the mosque solely based on the symbolism of the site and the opportunity to exploit that symbolism. THAT is why we are targeting them, and NOT simply because they are Muslim.

Another entirely different flaw in Bloomberg’s statement that I have yet to see anyone pick up on is the fact that Bloomberg simply shifts the blame from “Islam” to “al Qaeda”.

Using Bloomberg’s own logic for defending “Islam” in that ridiculous statement, one could just as easily say that it wasn’t all of al Qaeda who attacked us on 9/11; it was only those 19 hijackers! So, if he wants to be so technical about over-generalizing, why is he careful not to attribute the attacks to “Islam” (in whose name they were carried out), but not similarly careful when  attributing them to al Qaeda (also in whose name they were carried out)?

Ultimately, if one truly wants to be “fair” about it, one should do the judging not by religion or organization, per se, but by affiliation. In other words, anyone who affiliates themselves with individuals who publicly support such terrorist attacks should be equally condemned. As George W. Bush succinctly stated: “Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.” It’s that simple.

So, if those behind the Ground Zero Mosque have been known to be affiliated with terrorists or supporters of terrorists (as has been widely reported), then it doesn’t matter whether they are with “al Qaeda” or with “Islam” in general. They chose to be with the terrorists, and they don’t belong in this country, let alone at Ground Zero.

Thankfully, this bizarre statement did not go unanswered in the media. The Washington Times jumped on it with the following great editorial (emphasis in the following is my own):

President Obama says Islam has always been part of America, which raises the question, does the president know something about American history that we don’t?

It has become customary for presidents to offer greetings to various religious communities on the occasion of their most holy days. Presidents Ford and Carter both issued Ramadan messages, as did Presidents Clinton and George W. Bush. The Ramadan greeting became intensely political during Mr. Bush’s tenure because he was seeking to dispel the charge that the war on terrorism was a crusade against Islam. But Mr. Obama has used the occasion of Ramadan to rewrite U.S. history and give Islam a prominence in American annals that it has not earned.

In this year’s greeting, Mr. Obama said the rituals of Ramadan “remind us of the principles that we hold in common and Islam’s role in advancing justice, progress, tolerance and the dignity of all human beings. Ramadan is a celebration of a faith known for great diversity and racial equality. And here in the United States, Ramadan is a reminder that Islam has always been part of America and that American Muslims have made extraordinary contributions to our country.”

That Islam has had a major role in advancing justice, progress, tolerance and the dignity of all human beings may come as a surprise to Muslim women. Young Afghan girls who are having acid thrown in their faces on the way to school might want to offer their perspectives. That Islam is “known” for diversity and racial equality is also a bit of a reach. This certainly does not refer to religious diversity, which is nonexistent in many Muslim-majority states. This is a plaudit better reserved for a speech at the opening of a synagogue in Mecca.

Most puzzling is the president’s claim that “Islam has always been part of America.” Islam had no influence on the origins and development of the United States. It contributed nothing to early American political culture, art, literature, music or any other aspect of the early nation.

Throughout most of American history, the Muslim world was perceived as remote, alien and belligerent. Perhaps the president was thinking about the Barbary Pirates and their role in the founding of the U.S. Navy, or Andrew Jackson’s dispatch of frigates against Muslim pirates in Sumatra in the 1830s. Maybe he was recalling Rutherford B. Hayes’ 1880 statement regarding Morocco on “the necessity, in accordance with the humane and enlightened spirit of the age, of putting an end to the persecutions, which have been so prevalent in that country, of persons of a faith other than the Moslem, and especially of the Hebrew residents of Morocco.” Or Grover Cleveland’s 1896 comment on the continuing massacre of Armenian Christians: “We have been afflicted by continued and not infrequent reports of the wanton destruction of homes and the bloody butchery of men, women and children, made martyrs to their profession of Christian faith. … It so mars the humane and enlightened civilization that belongs to the close of the nineteenth century that it seems hardly possible that the earnest demand of good people throughout the Christian world for its corrective treatment will remain unanswered.”

It also is customary in the United States to search for obscure contributions made by in-vogue minority groups as a feel-good way of promoting inclusion. One of the earliest Muslims to come to the United States was a 17th-century Egyptian named Norsereddin, who settled in the Catskills and was described by one chronicler as “haughty, morose, unprincipled, cruel and dissipated.” Spurned by the princess of an Indian tribe that had befriended him, he managed through a subterfuge to poison her. He was later run down by the betrayed Indians, who burned him alive. It is not the kind of tale that makes it into politically correct history books.

If, as the project’s sponsors claim, Muslims want to promote healing and reconciliation, Americans of all stripes have made it abundantly clear that two blocks from Ground Zero is the wrong place to do it. It is a strange sort of “reconciliation” when the aggrieved party is expected to endure an insult as part of the healing process. Muslims are forever droning on about how the west needs to be more respectful of their culture and traditions. And, should someone offend Muslim sensibilities – by portraying Muhammad in cartoon form, for example – riots, protests and murders inevitably follow. Yet, when the sandal is on the other foot, the people whose lives were changed forever after an attack made in the name of a religion are supposed to meekly accept an edifice celebrating that same religion in the very place where the attack happened. Ground Zero is sacred ground to Americans and building a mosque upon it is no more acceptable to us than constructing a synagogue in Mecca would be to Muslims, the difference being that only one of those two projects would ever stand a chance of moving forward.

I then tried to listen to both sides of the argument, and to the claims that this was an effort to showcase “moderate Islam” in the most visible location. I also listened to the arguments for freedom of religion and tried to think of it from the Muslims’ point of view.

As hard as I tried, though, it was impossible for me to understand how these people thought they were going to promote the “sensitivities” of “moderate Islam”, along with interfaith dialog and reconciliation, when they’re essentially steamrolling their way over everyone’s feelings, forcing their way into everyone’s faces uninvited, and establishing their new mosque on a foundation of controversy, animosity, and lawsuits?  Who are they really fooling then, thinking that this will foster a healing process?

Well, finally, someone has written a clear and concise piece echoing those very sentiments, using an example from the past. Pope John Paul II, in his great wisdom and sensitivity, forced his own nuns to abandon an Auschwitz convent for the sake of sensitivity to Jews, despite the nuns’ inability to understand what the offense was when they were only praying for them with pure intentions, and despite the law being on their side. This is clearly a great example to follow, although admittedly not an easy one, as it involves sacrificing one’s own plans for the sake of repercussions one may not even understand or feel are warranted.

Here is the piece, written in today’s WSJ by William McGurn:

With every passing day, the dispute over the planned Islamic Center near Ground Zero grows more acrimonious. These feelings will probably only get worse today, when the New York City Landmark Preservation Commission is expected to remove another hurdle by ruling against landmark status for the undistinguished old building the center will replace.

So maybe it’s time to look beyond the lawyers and landmark preservation commissions and regulatory agencies. When we do, it will be hard to find a better example than the grace and wisdom Pope John Paul II exhibited during a similar clash involving another hallowed site on whose grounds innocents were also murdered: Auschwitz.

In the 1980s, Carmelite nuns moved into an abandoned building on the edge of the former Nazi death camp to pray for the souls taken there. As with the dispute over the mosque near Ground Zero, the convent’s presence escalated into a clash not only between different faiths but between competing historical narratives. As with today’s clash too, it seemed intractable until the Polish pope stepped in.

For Jews, Auschwitz is a symbol of the Shoah, and the presence of a convent looked like an effort to Christianize a place of Jewish suffering. Suspicions were further aroused by a fundraising brochure from an outside Catholic group, which referred to the convent as a “guarantee of the conversion of strayed brothers.” The protests mounted over the course of several years and various interfaith agreements, and pointed to the real strains that remained between Poles and Jews over a shared history with very different perspectives.

Many Catholics, not just in Poland, could not understand how nuns begging God’s forgiveness and praying for the souls of the departed could possibly offend anyone. There was also a nationalist element. Many members of the Polish resistance had also been murdered at Auschwitz. And again like our present controversy at Ground Zero, intemperate reactions and statements from both sides only inflamed passions.

So what did Pope John Paul II do? He waited, and he counseled. And when he saw that the nuns were not budging—and that their presence was doing more harm than good—he asked the Carmelites to move. He acknowledged that his letter would probably be a trial to each of the sisters, but asked them to accept it while continuing to pursue their mission in that same city at another convent that had been built for them.

Let’s remember what this means. By their own lights, the nuns believed they were doing only good. They may have had a legal title to be where they were. And it is likely that they never would have been forced to move by local authorities had they insisted on staying.

There’s a lesson here. Even those who favor this new Islamic Center surely can appreciate why some American feelings are rubbed raw by the idea of a mosque at a place where Islamic terrorists killed more than 2,700 innocent people. If feelings in Auschwitz were raw after nearly half a century, it’s not hard to see why they would remain raw at Ground Zero after less than a decade.

On the other hand, Mayor Michael Bloomberg is right about the law: Our freedom of religion means nothing if it doesn’t mean freedom of religion for all. Indeed, the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty—a sort of ACLU for freedom of religion—has spent decades defending churches, synagogues, mosques and even a Zoroastrian temple against public officials who have tried to invoke zoning laws or arcane regulations to keep them off a property.

Yet not all big questions can—or should—be reduced to legal right. Living together as neighbors in a free and inescapably diverse society requires more skills than just knowing how to hire sharp lawyers. Sometimes it requires leaders willing to sound a grace note, even yielding to the feelings of others who may not see our plans the same way we do.

For their part, the two people at the heart of this center—Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf and his wife, Daisy Khan—defend the center as an antidote to 9/11. “Our religion has been hijacked by the extremists,” Ms. Khan told National Public Radio, “and this center is going to create that counter-momentum which will amplify the voices of the moderate Muslims.”

Perhaps. But it’s hard to argue with the Anti-Defamation League’s assessment that the controversy created by building the center at this location “is counterproductive to the healing process.”

Without doubt Pope John Paul II did not share the more malevolent interpretations attached to the presence of the Carmelites at Auschwitz. By asking the nuns to withdraw, he didn’t concede them either. What he did was recognize that having the right to do something doesn’t mean it’s the right thing to do.

This is no way for our undergraduate students to behave. We have an opportunity to hear from a policy-maker relevant to one of the most important issues facing this planet, and you are preventing not only yourself from hearing him but hundreds of other people in this room and hundreds of other people in an overflow room. Shame on you! This is not an example of free speech.

This was particularly insightful because he made sure to call them on their presumable “free speech” defense, which is an incredible farce. Too many people use “free speech” as a cover to stifle other people’s opinions. One such clown is Salam al Marayati, the Executive Director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council.

As Dr. Albert Arking eloquently puts it:

Salam al Marayati is asserting a new civil right that has not heretofore been recognized: the right to deny other people their rights.  He defends the action of the 11 students at UC Irvine who were arrested for attempting to prevent Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren from speaking.  The defense amounts to an assertion that the students were exercising their rights when they repeatedly interrupted Ambassador Oren with loud shouting.  The hecklers ignored the moderator, who implored the protesters to allow the speaker to be heard, after which there would be time for questions and discussion.

In making such an assertion, Mr. Marayati is making the work of his organization, in protecting the rights of Muslims against discrimination, that much more difficult.  How would the Muslim Public Affairs Council react to someone asserting a right to prevent Muslims from speaking?

Of course, we all know the answer to that likely rhetorical final question, because anyone following Palestinian politics knows quite well the double standards that are employed almost as a matter of Palestinian policy. So, what’s considered “free speech” for a Palestinian would of course be “hate speech” or “discriminatory speech” for an Israeli.

To watch these Muslim students disgracing themselves (and to hear Michael Oren speak), the video can be viewed here:

Reuters is reporting on a “party” that Qaddafi had arranged with 200 Italian women, having recruited them with an ad asking for women “between 18 and 35 years old, at least 1.70 meters (5 foot, 7 inches) tall, well-dressed but not in mini-skirts or low cut dresses.”

They were told that “they would receive 60 euros ($90) and ‘some Libyan gifts’” for attending what they expected to be a party.

Instead, Qaddafi arrived and “gave them a lesson on Libya and the role of women in Islam.” Then, after approximately two hours “the lesson, including questions and answers through an interpreter, concluded with an exhortation by [Qaddafi] to ‘convert to Islam’ and with each woman given a copy of the Koran and a book of sayings by [Qaddafi].”

Among his bizarre ramblings that night included the gem of a claim that “Jesus was not crucified but that ‘someone who looked like him’ was put to death in his place.”

Priceless.

Here’s a video news report of it by al-Jazeera:

When US President Barack Obama reached out to the Muslim world in his landmark speech in Cairo on June 4, he listed the achievements of Muslims throughout history.

Among them, he singled out that they had won Nobel prizes. But Obama, who wanted to find favor with Muslims, did them a favor by not getting into numbers.

Since the prize was first given in 1901, it has been bestowed upon exactly nine Muslims. Now, thanks to Ada Yonath, the tiny state of Israel, home to just 7.4 million people, has equaled the achievement of some 1.5 billion Muslims, who make up roughly one fifth of the world’s population.

And that’s just Israelis. There are only about 13.3 million Jews in the world today, yet Yonath will become the 171st Jew to win the Nobel Prize.

Yonath is the first Israeli woman to win the prize. The Muslims who have won it are also eight men and one woman.

But the list of Muslims includes a couple of dubious awards given to people who will not by any means be remembered fondly by much of the world.

Yasser Arafat shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres in 1994 for the Oslo diplomatic process. Norwegian Kaare Kristiansen resigned from the Nobel Committee in protest.

International Atomic Energy Association director Mohamed ElBaradei won the Peace Prize in 2005, but if Iran succeeds in obtaining nuclear weapons, ElBaradei could be remembered not for peace, but for the deaths of thousands or even millions of people.

The rest of the Muslims who have won it are less controversial: Peace Prize winners Anwar Sadat, Shirin Abadi and Mohammad Yunus; Abdus Salam in physics; Ahmed Zewail in chemistry; and Naguib Mahfouz and Orhan Pamuk in literature. Obama was referring to Zewail when he talked about American Muslims who had won the prize.

With Nobel number nine, Israel now has won more prizes than Spain and China and only one less than Australia.

This is a clip of Dr. Mordechai Kedar, an Israeli scholar of Arabic literature and a lecturer at Bar-Ilan University, debating an anchorman on al Jazeera on Jerusalem and Islam, and  is truly one of the most entertaining and memorable debates I’ve ever seen.

They also say that they “will take revenge for the honour of our daughters and sisters against France and against its interests by every means at our disposal.”

So, I guess the real question now is whether or not France will do what it usually does in these situations, i.e., surrender, or if they will suddenly grow a spine and fight al Qaeda’s calls for violence along with their new battle against the Islamo-misogynistic burqa.

In this clip, Wafa Sultan speaks very movingly about her terrible experience growing up as a female in Islam, and very bravely gives a brief eye-opening background into the history of violence against women in Islam dating back to Mohammad.

This clip exposes the very basic abusive nature of Islam at its core, contrary to those revisionists and apologists who try to twist the basic principles of Islam to make it sound less violent and more suitable for public consumption.

The case of the jitters manifested itself as a public pro-Israel letter to Obama, the need for which is quite bizarre when you stop to consider the easy access that Senator Reid (D-NV) has to the president.

Apparently, Reid is sensing the outcry over the bizarre implications of Obama’s speech to the Muslim world and, representing the strong pro-Israel views of Congress, has taken the opportunity to distance himself in this area from Obama’s policies under the guise of an otherwise-unnecessarily public “public letter”.

His letter states:

I believe negotiations will be successful only with a renewed commitment from the Palestinians to be a true partner in peace. Arab states in the region must also act to support the peace process. All parties must recognize Israel’s right to exist, end terrorism, and respect previous agreements made with Israel.

David Nather of CQ Politics sums it up nicely when he writes:

It’s all couched in diplomatic language, but the message to Reid’s constituents seems clear: If you have a problem with Obama’s speech, don’t take it out on me.

Even so, though, it’s still nice to see that Muslim constituents haven’t intimidated our Senators and Congressmen enough to silence their support for Israel.

Now, while this is a nice development for the Fifth Republic, it just seems like too little too late. Instead of taking a hard look at all the Muslim fanatics (some of whom are undoubtedly terrorists) that France has been admitting and harboring for quite a few years now—the source of the newly-unacceptable burqa—he chooses to instead wake up now and look at the product of France’s dangerous immigration policies.

When Muslims were burning down half of the capital not too long ago, it didn’t seem to shake anyone up enough to look at the growing Muslic fanatic problem. When Muslims turned up the anti-Semitism from mere rhetoric to numerous physical assaults against Jews, most of them disgustingly and heinously inhuman, France wanted to sweep it all under the carpet without even calling many of them by the hate-crime label they clearly deserved.

So, what is it about the burqa that is finally making the president of France come out with such strong, harsh words and to actually commission panels? And, the more serious follow-up question: can this finally open their lethargic, heavy-lidded eyes to the growing Muslim fanatic problem that they have in their country? Or will they wait until the Muslims are finally in the majority and sharia law is voted in?

A good friend, DMB, has summed up Netanhayu’s gameplan very nicely as follows:

1. A demilitarized Palestinian state.
2. No new settlements.
3. Natural growth to continue in existing settlements.
4. No Palestinian “right of return” in Israel.
5. No dividing Jerusalem.

To elaborate a bit on these five points:

1. Netanyahu has for the first time publicly conceded the formation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel. However, he has set some obviously necessary conditions only under which he would agree to such a state.  The primary two conditions that he outlined was:

1. the state must be a demilitarized state; and
2. the state must recognize Israel, and recognize it as a Jewish state.

The first condition is obviously necessary because of the lesson learned from Gaza. Seeing how a militarized Palestinian territory like the current Gaza cannot keep itself from launching rockets daily into Israel, it’s obvious that arms must be strictly controlled.

The second condition is also necessary because up until now they have refused to recognize Israel.  Their recognition of Israel will be a historically significant gesture, essentially putting their past grievances behind them.  Not doing so only signals that they still have plans to continue fighting long-lost battles, which means that they really are not in fact ready to move ahead.

Already, the Palestinians have not surprisingly criticized both of these conditions.  ”Not surprisingly”, because it’s apparent that with the hatred permeating their society and their culture of death, there’s no way that they are even remotely ready to move ahead for peace.  With all the pressure increasingly being put on Israel to make peace ever since Obama claimed the “throne”, no one stopped to realize that Israel really has no partner for peace in this process.

2. Netanyahu also made a pretty strong concession in foregoing any new settlements. Settlers are some of the most patriotic people in the country and making a statement like that is going out on a limb in isolating some of the country’s most reliable and loyal citizens.  However, unlike the Palestinians, Netanyahu sees that some hard concessions are necessary to move ahead and, as usual, Israel is trying to lead by example by showing its willingness to make concessions.  My personal opinion is that if this is going to help show the Palestinians a way to negotiate and to make compromises, and consequently bring peace, then I am certainly not against it.  However, I have yet to see the Palestinians provide any reason for believing that they are serious and for Israel to therefore make any real concessions just yet.

3. Natural growth is a very hot topic in Israel. Many people do not realize what this even means.  Natural growth means the ability for growing families to get permits to renovate their homes, to extend their homes, to build new floors or new apartments in building and to build new homes in an existing settlement (without extending any settlement boundaries).

Suppose a boy who grew up his whole life in a particular settlement meets a girl in school and they ultimately get married.  By stifling natural growth, they would be prohibited from living in their hometown, in which they spent their whole lives and in which both their families live.  This newlywed couple would be forced to move away from their hometown and away from their families (especially at a very sensitive period of their lives when they need the most support of their families to build a home and a family of their own).

Another example would be a family who has two or three more children and is running out of space in their home.  In any other town in any other country, it would often be a relatively simple matter to renovate or extend the house and add a room or two, but by stifling natural growth they would be forced to live in increasingly cramped conditions.

As you can see, being that this does not even change the boundaries of the settlements at all, this is strictly a policy aimed at demoralizing families living there and making their lives unnecessary difficult. Whether you agree with settlements or not, this is not a policy whose outcome determines new settlements or removes old settlements; it only determines the living conditions of human beings.

So, in my opinion, Netanyahu should stay firm with this as being a non-negotiable point, especially considering the concession he is making in prohibiting any new settlements.

4. Palestinian “right of return” is another non-negotiable point for Israel. Allowing the numerous descendents of the original Palestinians emigrants to return would, in effect, convert Israel to a majority-Palestinian state and allow the Palestinians to abolish the state by democracy.  Every country in the world has their own ability to determine citizenship—yes, even the United States offers very strict and limited citizenship to immigrants and does so to prevent any imbalance that would affect the essence of the country’s status quo.

So, why should Israel be any different and be forced to accept what is today essentially millions of people who claim to descend from emigrants?  Until every country is forced to start implementing limitless open citizenship, or at least forced to accept all previous residents, then I think the world needs to shut up and not hypocritically pursue this point with Israel.

5. Jerusalem is yet another non-negotiable point for Israel. This is for political and religious reasons.  The religious reasons are mostly obvious, but I will point out one subtle nuance that is only mentioned infrequently:  Jerusalem is the single-most holy city for Jews the world over for three millenia, since the birth of the nation.  As for the Muslims (a younger religion, less than two millenia old, I might add), Jerusalem remains merely their third-holiest city, after Mecca and Medina.  In fact, although Jerusalem is mentioned countless times in the Jewish Bible, it is not even mentioned a single time in the Qur’an (it is only alluded to in the story of Muhammad’s dream).

Religious reasons aside, the political reasons are the ones that matter most in these negotiations.  And, the political reasons are:

1. Jerusalem is the capital of Israel and no capital should be forced to be split.  Remember the militarized mess that East/West Berlin was like back in the day, complete with tanks, guns, spies, tunnels, walls, defectors, etc.; and
2. Jerusalem is one of the most populous cities in Israel. Splitting it would in effect remove a large amount of available residential land for those inhabitants and, more importantly, would position two large volumes of people side by side with a frighteningly small and vulnerable area of separation between them, which does not at all make for comfortable and secure living arrangements.

So, to sum up:  although, as a conservative, I am not 100% in agreement with all of Netanyahu’s points in a vacuum, I do agree that under the current circumstances and given the gesture that he is trying to make for the sake of peace, that his gameplan outlined in this speech is 100% necessary to: (a) establish some firm ground rules to move forward with peace; and (b) exhibit his willingness to make some concessions for the sake of moving forward.

Now, let’s see if the Palestinians will have the sense to see what a generous gesture this is, given the fact that every carrot they have been given by Israel in the past 8 years was merely chewed up and digested by them—and then hastily and thoughtlessly defecated back out onto the Israelis’ feet.

The time has come for them to make the decision if they really want peace, or if they want more of the same:  more of Hamas killing and intimidating their own people in Gaza… more of the decrepit squalor that they’re mired in… more of the corruption that runs rampant among them… more of the hatred that they teach their small children… more of the culture of death that they preach in their mosques and schools…

…in short:  more of the “hated Israel” prospering because they just want to live, while their own people can’t even lead normal lives because they just want to keep hating and to die as “martyrs”.