Free Republic

The mosque developers are tax deadbeats. Sharif El-Gamal, the leading organizer behind the mosque and community center near Ground Zero, owes $224,270.77 in back property tax on the site, city records show. El-Gamal's company, 45 Park Place Partners, failed to pay its half-yearly bills in January and July, according to the city Finance Department. The delinquency is a possible violation of El-Gamal's lease with Con Edison, which owns half of the proposed building site on Park Place. El-Gamal owns the other half but must pay taxes on the entire parcel.

Americans are aghast that the president approves of the construction of a Victory Mosque by a pro-terrorism imam six hundred feet from Ground Zero. Revolting, yes. Shocking, no. One thing we know about Barack Obama is that he is committed to ruling in direct opposition to three-fourths of the American people on all core issues. Reread his contemptible speech in Cairo, in which the president spouted flagrant falsehoods about the charms of Islam, while berating the United States for being a bit churlish about radical Muslim ideology after 9/11. Obama’s boss, George Soros, has always thought we made too much...

Yes, Republicans, you can take advantage of this heated circumstance, backed by the families of the 9/11 victims, in their most emotional return to the public stage since 2001. But please don't do it. There are a handful of good reasons to oppose allowing the Islamic center to be built so close to Ground Zero, particularly the family opposition and the availability of other, less raw locations. But what is happening now — the misinformation about the center and its supporters; the open declarations of war on Islam on talk radio, the Internet and other forums; the painful divisions propelled...

NEW YORK -- A Hamas leader says Muslims "have to build" a mosque near ground zero. Mahmoud al-Zahar said Muslims "have to build everywhere" so that followers can pray, just like Christians and Jews build their places of worship. Al-Zahar spoke Sunday on "Aaron Klein Investigative Radio" on WABC-AM. He is a co-founder of Hamas and its chief on the Gaza Strip.

John Boehner, the Ohio Republican who is the House minority leader, said: ”The decision to build this mosque so close to the site of ground zero is deeply troubling, as is the president’s decision to endorse it.” “The American people certainly don’t support it,” Mr. Boehner said. Representative Peter King, a New York Republican, said that while the Muslim community has the right to build the mosque, doing so needlessly offends too many people. “President Obama is wrong,” Mr. King said. “It is insensitive and uncaring for the Muslim community to build a mosque in the shadow of ground zero....

State Department officials on Monday confirmed Feisal Abdul Rauf, the Imam of the so-called Ground Zero Mosque, will soon be going on a trip of the Middle East and the U.S. government will be picking up the tab. The planned construction of a mosque near Ground Zero in New York City has set off a contentious national debate over religious freedom in the U.S., drawing impassioned opposition from some families of 9/11 victims. Rauf has emerged as a controversial figure because of his refusal to acknowledge Hamas as a terrorist organization, which is how the U.S. government classifies the group....