Monday, August 23, 2010
I heard there's some controversy over a proposed building project in New York City and there was political activity near the site yesterday.
RedPlanetCartoons: Defining Moments
At The Weekly Standard, Daniel Halper has on the scene reporting: Thousands Protest Ground Zero Mosque, and Pictures from the Ground Zero Mosque Protest
And then there's this: Anti-Semitic Incident at Ground Zero Mosque Counter Protest
At Sunday's Ground Zero mosque protest, I spoke to one man who had been with the counter-protesters, Joey "Boots" Bassolino, immediately after the police pulled him out from the crowd. What happened, I asked? "There was a guy standing up, a Pakistani guy, who had identified himself as a Pakistani, and he said: 'We're not going to sit there and back these Zionist Jews,'" Bassolino recounted, still clearly a little shaken up.
"And I'm like, whoa, wait a minute. What's up with the racism? And they're like, 'what's racist about that?'" The guy behind Bassolino yelled "f*** you," reached forward, grabbing his camera and hitting it. "So I kicked him in the shin," Bassolino said. Bassolino, a disabled U.S. army veteran, claims that he's an "objective" observer and was in the group of counter-protesters to "document what was going on."
"These are people that are supposedly protesting racism, yet you get people standing up there on a soap box yelling about 'Zionist Jews.' What the hell is that? That's racism to me, man," Bassolino explained to me.
Here's the video Bassolino uploaded to YouTube. The remark about "Jewish Zionist Israel" is at the 3:55 mark:
I love how the guy who shouts back at the speaker denouncing "Jewish Zionists" is the one drummed out of the crowd.
On the general issue, here is some commentary: Ted Nugent is on fire: Muslim mosque-teers - Rights aren't in question, but responsibilities are
There are no words to express the outrage Americans would have expressed if the Japanese government had proposed to build a memorial to their fallen soldiers at Pearl Harbor immediately following World War II. We can only hope President Truman would have ordered our military to carpet-bomb and firebomb the Japanese again for being so rude and stupid.
Slice it any way you want, but the Muslim community is being tremendously rude and stupid for wanting to build a mosque so close to Ground Zero in New York City. Instead of using the $100 million for their proposed mosque, I recommend that the Muslims donate the cash to the U.S. military so we can build more smart bombs to kill more radical, voodoo Muslims. That would earn my respect and admiration...
It goes on in that vein.
Our own Dennis Hale is a bit more measured: The Strongest Horse
Why it will be good for Muslims if the Ground Zero Mosque is stopped
The plan to build a mosque and Islamic center at the site of the 9/11 attacks is one of those rare events that is more important for what it portends than for what it does. To build a mosque on the spot where three thousand people died in the name of Islam would be deeply offensive; but what seems even more important about this event is what it teaches - about those who are building the center, about the non-Muslims who are supporting them. As President Obama might have put it, this is a "teaching moment." What can we learn?...
"Carlos" has one of his typically thoughtful pieces: Protesting the Mosque - A Stand for Tolerance
Finally, will the real Imam Rauf please stand up? More Immoderate Statements from Imam Rauf
