Free Republic

NEW YORK (AP) -- The developer of an Islamic cultural center that opened Wednesday evening near the site of the terrorist attacks that leveled the World Trade Center says the biggest error on the project was not involving the families of 9/11 victims from the start. People crowded into the center, where a small orchestra played traditional Middle Eastern instruments and a photo exhibit of New York children of different ethnicities lined the walls. The enthusiasm at the opening belied its troubled beginnings. snip He called opposition to the center - which prompted one of the most virulent national discussions...

The backers of the controversial “Ground Zero Mosque” have won a court fight clearing the way for them to build the mosque and community center complex two blocks from the site of the 9/11 terror attack. In a decision on Friday that was made public today, New York State Supreme Justice Paul Feinman dismissed a lawsuit by former firefighter Timothy Brown who argued that New York City was wrong to allow the destruction of a 150-year-old building to make way for the Islamic center. The ex-firefighter who was among those who responded to the terror attack on the World Trade...

A New York City construction worker who witnessed the terrorist attacks on 9/11 is very pleased the proposed "Ground Zero Victory Mosque" project has been stopped dead in its tracks. Recently The Associated Press reported that Daisy Kahn, wife of Imam Feisel Abdul Rauf, said that they were "pursuing a new vision for the future."

The organization planning to build an Islamic community center near the World Trade Center said the imam who has been the public face of the project, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, will be playing a reduced role in the facility. The nonprofit group Park51 announced Friday that it had named a new imam to help lead religious programing so that Rauf could focus on other initiatives. (snip) The group named another New York City imam, Abdullah Adhami, as its senior adviser. Adhami was born in Washington, D.C., and earned an architecture degree from the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. He has already...

The organization planning to build an Islamic community center near the World Trade Center said the imam who has been the public face of the project, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, will be playing a reduced role in the facility. The nonprofit group Park51 announced Friday that it had named a new imam to help lead religious programing so that Rauf could focus on other initiatives. Rauf announced late this fall that he would be starting a global movement that would fight extremism and promote better relations between people of different faiths and cultures. He is set to start a national...

Thought experiment

Complete title: Mayor Bloomberg’s Office Spearheaded Drive for Ground Zero Mosque Approval According to Documents Uncovered by Judicial Watch Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, announced today that it has obtained documents from New York City Mayor Bloomberg’s office that show his office was instrumental in helping Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, his wife Daisy Khan and their partner Sharif el-Gamal obtain approval for a massive mosque and “community center” to be built in the shadow of Ground Zero, the site of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The documents, obtained by Judicial Watch pursuant to an open...

They're emailing each other? The New York Daily News reported Thursday that "Mayor Bloomberg's top deputies went to great lengths to help those trying to build a mosque at Ground Zero - even drafting a letter to the community board for them, newly released documents show. City Hall on Thursday released a flurry of emails between its brass and Feisal Abdul Rauf, the imam pushing to build a mosque near the sensitive site, and his supporters." It's worse than we imagined. The release of these documents, emails and various exchanges between Mayor Bloomberg's office and the radical Imam Rauf and...

Saudi Arabia Says It's Not Involved In NYC Ground Zero Mosque Monday, Dec 20, 2010RIYADH (Zawya Dow Jones)--Saudi Arabia said late Monday it is neither involved in plans to build a mosque near the site of the September 11 attacks in New York, nor in possible talks to move the mosque to a less controversial site in Manhattan. The kingdom "has no involvement, either directly or indirectly, with Park 51, formerly known as Cordoba House, in New York City, nor is it involved --in anyway--in talks that may be taking place to relocate the proposed community center," the country's embassy...

SaudiKing Abdullah, in an effort to quiet Muslim criticism in the United States, is quietly looking into moving the ground zero mosque to a less controversial Manhattan location, according to news reports surfacing Sunday. New York lawyer Dudley Gaffin has contacted officials about the Saudi royal family's interest in moving the ground zero mosque to the shuttered St. Vincent’s Hospital site in the West Village, the New York Post and other news organizations reported Sunday. According to Mr. Gaffin, the king wants to save the hospital, which filed for bankruptcy earlier this year, and provide an alternative location for the...

Citibank sues Ground Zero mosque developer Sharif El-Gamal for $100G The developer of the so-called Ground Zero mosque owes nearly $100,000 in overdue credit, a new suit charges. In a complaint filed in Manhattan court, Citibank charges Sharif El-Gamal and his real estate firm, Soho Properties, have balked at repaying $99,489 borrowed from a business credit account in the past year. El-Gamal said the default was a standard way to negotiate better credit rates and that the matter would be resolved. "In every industry at this time, major business leaders are working with their financial institutions to restructure their debt...

Journalist and author Fareed Zakaria has made some grave accusations against those who oppose the building of the Islamic center near Ground Zero, and has predicated his own approval of the project on the moderateness of Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf. Zakaria wrote that Abdul Rauf “has said one or two things about American foreign policy that strike me as overly critical — but it’s stuff you could read on The Huffington Post any day.” Yes, indeed — you are likely to read similar “stuff” on the Huffington Post, since Rauf has written there. But how can that possibly constitute a...

Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf has advertised the controversial Ground Zero mosque as an Islamic outreach to the community, a cultural center open and intended to unify all religions. Today, he still stands by that assertion, even as his proposed mosque continues to exact the opposite effect before it’s even built. Now, harsh critics, such as Chairman of the Religious Freedom Coalition, William Murray, are presented with even more perplexing information in the form of Sharif El-Gamal (pictured), the mysterious developer behind the mosque. Reportedly a waiter by profession who suddenly “came into” the kind of money to spearhead a $100...

So far, the debate over the proposed Islamic center near Ground Zero has unfolded along predictable lines, with the man at the center of the project, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, drawing attacks from the right painting him as a terrorist sympathizer with ties to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood. But meanwhile, links between the group behind the controversial mosque, the CIA and U.S. military establishment have gone unacknowledged.

The ranking member on the House Homeland Security Committee accused the imam behind the mosque project near Ground Zero of arm-twisting and "blackmailing" to push Park51 through. "To me, it's almost as if he's blackmailing and threatening the United States that somehow if the mosque is not approved or people speak out against his mosque, you have to worry about being attacked by Islamic terrorists," Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) said of Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf on Fox Business Network on Friday. King said that the Islamic center was being "put their to make a statement, not to build bridges, but...

Rauf on the Ropes An Islamic community center at Ground Zero seems increasingly unlikely. 13 September 2010 The white flag hasn’t reached the top of the flagpole yet, but Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf all but surrendered on Monday morning in his battle to build a Muslim interfaith community center with a prayer room two blocks from Ground Zero. At an unusual meeting Monday morning at the Council on Foreign Relations in midtown Manhattan, Rauf said that he wanted to find a “solution” to the furious imbroglio over the planned center, which opponents say is inappropriate, insensitive to the memory of...

The vetting of the Flim Flam Imam and million-dollar slumlord continues with no cooperation from the moribund mainstream media. Nonie Darwish has exhumed some off the record remarks by the Victory Mosque imam that will never find their way into dinosaur media reports. The interview from June 20, 2006 unmasks Rauf’s long range goals for the United States. The great Bridge Builder’s game plan includes creating an Islamic State without borders, which Rauf believes would exist today if not for Western interference. The Ground Zero mosque imam also discusses some of his other objectives which include: (1) manipulating U.S. foreign...

The developer of the Ground Zero mosque is being bounced from his SoHo office, the Daily News has learned. Sharif El-Gamal, who runs the real estate firm Soho Properties and is heading the project two blocks from Ground Zero, was slapped with eviction proceedings last month after tallying up $39,000 in back rent, a Manhattan Housing Court filing shows.

Believe me, I have seen it all. What is going on here, with this Ground Zero mosque Imam? One day he says the “GZ mosque” MUST BE BUILT, otherwise there will be more attacks coming from Islamic jihadists from the Middle East or even homegrown ones here. Good golly, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, now you say you are looking at other options, as of this morning. Here is his interview with ABC’s Christine Amanpur on ABC’s Sunday morning show, “This Week” Exclusive. It all seems like a song and dance act from the get-go. This comes the morning after the...

The Drudgereport website said it all: “Mosque opponents, supporters face off in downtown NYC…” ….And indeed it was. Today, with the special memorial service to the nearly three thousand people who died on September 11, 2001 not far from Ground Zero 1 (were the former WTC Towers stood) there were thousands of protestors both for and against the planned Ground Zero mosque and culture center met to challenge each other, sometimes to the point of near violence.