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A Muslim Community CenterNear Ground Zero?

July 19, 2010

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  • american August 12, 2010 2:26 pm

    you are a nazi. you are a traitor.

  • Tony August 12, 2010 2:23 pm

    Mark LeVine must be the dumbest SOB alive. I just listed to him on Foxnew with M Kelly. He doen’t know true history. He has to be a Progressive or a Communist.

  • Mark Levine August 9, 2010 9:45 pm

    The dispute between the ADL and Fareed Zakaria really saddens me on both sides.

    When I was asked to comment on this on FOX, my position — although posed by FOX as the “pro-mosque” position — really was more nuanced and not that dissimilar from what ADL said.

    In other words, I:

    1) will defend to my utmost the legal right of the Muslim Community center (which houses a mosque among many things in that large space) anywhere on their own private property; but

    2) would encourage the Imam to build somewhere else; yet

    3) (and this is the part I add to what ADL said assuming the Imam would not agree to build somewhere else, I would strongly encourage him to have a memorial to the 9/11 victims inside the Community Center and to open the Community Center to make sure the entire center, and particularly the shrine to the victims, is open to the public (i.e. Muslims and non-Muslims) to visit.

    I’m really sorry that everyone seems to want to jump and point fingers and lock in positions when personal, private discussions and gentle suasion was, I believe, in order.

    Let’s start with the ADL.
    I would have hoped the ADL would have requested a private meeting with the Imam, where it would say precisely what I just said.
    1) We’ll defend your legal right to build the center, in court if necessary.
    2) We wish you wouldn’t choose this particular location (and encourage you not to: maybe even help you find a suitable building a bit farther away)
    But 3) If you won’t agree to move it, let’s try a compromise where you have a shrine to the victims of 9-11 and the center is open to the public.

    I’m actually quite hopeful that the Imam would have agreed to option 3.

    Then the ADL and the Imam could stand together in a joint press conference. Wouldn’t that be glorious? And the ADL could say that while they preferred the Imam had not chosen to build the Center so close to Ground Zero, the ADL emphasizes that the Imam and his congregation has every legal right to build the Center and that the ADL is pleased that the Imam has set forth his vision of having a 9-11 Memorial in the Center and the entire Center open to the general public (much as Jewish Community Centers are open to the general public for membership. Wouldn’t it be great if the Muslim Community Center also allowed a small percentage of non-Muslim members?)

    If the Imam did not agree to the option 3, the ADL could then have come out with a statement similar to what it said but with the added bonus of saying it tried hard to work out a compromise.

    The same is true with Fareed Zakaria.

    I wish he had called ADL and encouraged them to support the compromise number 3 — which I think the Imam would have readily agreed to, because he gets to keep his principle of building a mosque anywhere but also it shows his sensitivities to the fact that renegade Muslims did murder thousands of innocent Americans (including Muslims) so close by the proposed Center.

    If the ADL had not acted in haste, they could have playsed a real role as peacemaker.
    If Zakaria had not acted in haste, he could have played a real role as peacemaker.

    As it is, I think both of them were too quick to “choose sides” and less quick to find an acceptable compromise similar to the one I proposed.

    So I’m peeved at both the ADL and Zakaria, as well as the Imam because no one suggested my compromise option 3. I really don’t think I can’t be the only one in the world to have thought of it.

  • Robt August 2, 2010 1:24 pm

    You notice how Charlene (above) uses the word “Believe”, in her arguments?

    I believe my job will be there always, I believe in Santa Claus.
    None of that makes it so.

    I believe there are people that have been so propagandized that they would turn in their own family to the NAZI’s. Wait, is there history evidence that proves this beyond a belieg?

    Someone is guilty without facts or evidence because you believe. I couldn’t find that in the Constitution. Now tht is a greatt judicial system basic principal for a dictator.