Is the Cordoba House Good for America? (The Atlantic Wire)

WASHINGTON, DC – Now that the New York City landmarks commission has approved
the Cordoba House, an Islamic community center that has drawn attacks
for its planned location two blocks from the former World Trade Center
site, the so-called “Ground Zero Mosque” is one step closer to reality.
Whether it ends up happening as planned or is scuttled as demanded by
such conservatives as Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich, observers are
weighing in on what the center would mean for America. What would it do,
or not do, for the country and its millions of Muslim-Americans?

The Case Against the Cordoba House

• Senator Lieberman: ‘Pause’ The Project  Connecticut Independent Senator Joe Lieberman
  said on Fox radio show Imus in the Morning, “I’d say I’m troubled by
  it, but I don’t know enough to say that it ought to be prohibited. …
  But frankly I’ve heard enough about it and read enough about it that I
  wish somebody in New York would just put the brakes on for a while and
  take a look at this. … If the people building this large Islamic
  center are just looking to build a large facility — a house of worship
  and center — in New York, why so close to 9/11, with all the sensitivity
  associated with that? … I’ve also read some things about some of the
  people involved that make me wonder about their motivations.”

• ‘Undermines Interfaith Understanding’  Bush-era U.S. official in Iraq Dan Senor worries
  in the Wall Street Journal that the center could strengthen “the link
  between Islam and the brand of radicalism and violence espoused by al
  Qaeda and like-minded groups.” He writes, “the Cordoba House will not be
  seen as a center for peace and reconciliation. It will rather be
  celebrated as a Muslim monument erected on the site of a great Muslim
  “military” victory—a milestone on the path to the further spread of
  Islam throughout the world.”

• ‘Loathsome Extremism’ and Mysterious Funding of Center  The “Directors” of the conservative blog RedState declare, “The fact is that the groups behind the ‘Ground Zero mosque’ / Cordoba House / Park51 chose the site explicitly for its proximity to Ground Zero,
  and then spent months boasting about it in the press. … The arrogant
  and insensitive ‘Ground Zero’ branding of Rauf, Khan and el-Gamal is why
  we oppose this.” They accuse the center’s founders of “loathsome
  extremism” and of “deliberate opacity behind the ‘Ground Zero mosque’s’
  funding.”

The Case for the Cordoba House

• Center Hurts al-Qaeda, Makes Us Safer  The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg gets real.
  “The Cordoba Initiative, which is headed by an imam named Feisal Abdul
  Rauf, is an enemy of al Qaeda. … Bin Laden would sooner dispatch a
  truck bomb to destroy the Cordoba Initiative’s proposed community center
  than he would attack the ADL, for the simple reason that Osama’s most
  dire enemies are Muslims,” he writes. “Rauf represents what Bin
  Laden fears most: a Muslim who believes that it is possible to remain
  true to the values of Islam and, at the same time, to be a loyal citizen
  of a Western, non-Muslim country. Bin Laden wants a clash of
  civilizations; the opponents of the mosque project are giving him what
  he wants.”

• Alienating Friendly Muslims a Terrible Policy  The Washington Monthly’s Steve Benen writes, “For folks like Gingrich, Cheney, Giuliani, et al, Feisal Abdul Rauf is exactly the kind of American ally
  who should be embraced. Instead, the right is going to genuinely
  ridiculous lengths to isolate, offend, and ostracize him, signaling
  their belief that all Muslim Americans should be treated as second-class
  citizens. If Osama bin Laden were to write a script for what he’d like
  to see happen here, it’d be identical to the one Gingrich & Co. are
  following. This isn’t intended to question their patriotism, but rather,
  their sanity.”

• NYC Mayor Bloomberg: This Is America  New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg today delivered a speech defending the center. Highlights are below:

Our
doors are open to everyone. Everyone with a dream and a willingness to
work hard and play by the rules. New York City was built by immigrants,
and it’s sustained by immigrants — by people from more than 100
different countries speaking more than 200 different languages and
professing every faith. And whether your parents were born here or you
came here yesterday, you are a New Yorker.

… Whatever you may think of the proposed mosque and community center,
lost in the heat of the debate has been a basic question: Should
government attempt to deny private citizens the right to build a house
of worship on private property based on their particular religion? That
may happen in other countries, but we should never allow it to happen
here.

This nation was founded on the principle that the government must
never choose between religions or favor one over another. The World
Trade Center site will forever hold a special place in our city, in our
hearts. But we would be untrue to the best part of ourselves and who we
are as New Yorkers and Americans if we said no to a mosque in lower
Manhattan.

Let us not forget that Muslims were among those murdered on 9/11,
and that our Muslim neighbors grieved with us as New Yorkers and as
Americans. We would betray our values and play into our enemies’ hands
if we were to treat Muslims differently than anyone else. In fact, to
cave to popular sentiment would be to hand a victory to the terrorists,
and we should not stand for that.

… Political controversies come and go, but our values and our
traditions endure, and there is no neighborhood in this city that is
off-limits to God’s love and mercy, as the religious leaders here with
us can attest.