CENTRAL VIEW for Monday, August 30, 2010

Muslim Victory Mosque: GLOAT vs. RESPECT

Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf is on a U.S. taxpayer-funded trip through the Middle East to bolster support for the construction of what one might think of as the Muslim Victory Mosque (MVM) planned to be a mere 1,056-feet from where 19 Muslims murdered almost 3,000 innocent Americans during the most deadly attack on the U.S. mainland in history.

Imam Rauf says the purpose of the mosque he proposes to locate at 45 Park Place is to build understanding between Muslims and non-Muslims. If Iman Rauf is sincere about his stated purpose, then he must have received some incredibly stupid advice from some Madison Avenue public-relations firm.

Conceivably, the Imam got the bad advice from; let’s say satirically, the PR firm of Schmok and Meerhers. In turn, Schmok and Meerhers must have subbed out the MVM location decision to the Muslim-owned Global Location Occupation Advisory Team (GLOAT). No one else would be cunning enough to pick a location that would cast the long Shadow of Islam across the area where so many office workers, firefighters, police and other emergency personnel died on September 11, 2001.

Satire aside, we turn now to some serious trigonometry. During summertime, and just after dawn each day, a 13-story mosque located at 45 Park Place would cast a 2,080-foot-long shadow toward Ground Zero and well beyond. Therefore, Imam Rauf’s idea is so preposterous that it could not possibly have been conceived by Muslims truly seeking better relations with non-Muslims.

Amazingly, some on the Left contend Israel’s Mossad must have planted the idea for the MVM location right next to Ground Zero as a way of fomenting anger toward Muslims. If so, the Mossad succeeded.

Alternatively, some think a Christian or Jewish group planted the idea as a way to get the anti-religion, secular-Left to come out in favor of religion in the public square. Recall, for decades the Left (aided by the ACLU) has tried to get Christmas and Hanukah banned from the public square and tried (with some success) to get any kind of religious expressions banned from courtrooms and other public buildings. Prime example: the ban on prayer in public schools.

Suddenly, the anti-religion, secular-Left is rushing to defend the mosque as a badly-needed and vivid expression of tolerance toward religion in public places. If the religious community did, indeed, plant the MVM idea in the head of Imam Rauf, then light up the score board for the Judeo-Christians.

The secular Left would be well advised to read Pulitzer Prize winner Daniel Boorstin’s The Lost World of Thomas Jefferson and discover that Thomas Jefferson, the co-founder of the Democrat Party, was so deeply religious that he saw God, the Creator, at work in every animal, plant, vegetable, mineral, star and planet. Today, that is called: Intelligent Design.

Perhaps, Imam Rauf’s real purpose is to divide the American people between the anti-religious, secular Leftists (who want the MVM built right next to Ground Zero) and the vast majority of Americans who have no problem with, yet another, New York City mosque; provided, it does not overshadow Ground Zero, literally and figuratively.

If discord among Americans is the Imam’s true purpose, then he certainly “set the cat among the pigeons.” One way to quiet the pigeons would be to ignore the location recommendation made by GLOAT (we are back to satire) and accept the recommendation of the Relocation for Empathy, Sensitivity, Patriotism, Emotion, and Condolence Team (RESPECT).

RESPECT would place the proposed mosque just inside the southern boundary of the 14.9-acre Carl Schurz Park, which is just across the street from Mayor Bloomberg’s Gracie Mansion. That way, the Shadow of Islam would fall on Mayor Bloomberg and not on Ground Zero. Between GLOAT and RESPECT, one suspects many Americans would favor RESPECT.

Nationally syndicated columnist, William Hamilton, studied at Harvard’s JFK School of Government. Dr. Hamilton is a former assistant professor of political science and history at Nebraska Wesleyan University.

© 2010. William Hamilton.

Dr. Hamilton can be contacted at:

Email: william@central-view.com