NEW YORK —
Will a mosque at ground zero bring hurt or healing to the nation?
Not everyone in the Valley is as clear on the issue as a leader of Hamas — a known Muslim terrorist group — which recently voiced his strong support of the $100 million Park51 Islamic cultural center and mosque proposed by Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf for an area located two blocks from the World Trade Center site, where thousands of people died when Islamic extremists flew jets into the twin towers on Sept. 11, 2001.
Mahmoud al-Zahar said Muslims “have to build” a mosque near ground zero, The Associate Press reports. They “have to build everywhere,” he said, so followers can pray.
“I certainly believe that one of the primary reasons that America was established was for religious freedom,” said Pastor Arlie Davis, of Christ Wesleyan Church, Milton. “But religious freedom should never be used to squelch the voice of the people.”
The largest percentage of Americans still believes the United States is a Christian nation, he added.
“The ability to build a mosque in New York City, or anywhere, should be up to that religious sect,” Davis said, “but the height of insensitivity is to build a mosque in the location of ground zero. Consideration for the pain of those who have experienced loss by the hands of the radicals within the Muslim faith should be clearly realized by all.” It is just totally inappropriate.”
Davis compared the proposal to “those radical people from Westboro Baptist Church who petition outside the funerals of those who have lost a loved one in the war.”
“If our faith makes us more tolerant of other people and gives us the power to love others, why wouldn’t it make us more sensitive to the hurts and pain of others?” he asked.
Valley Muslim Safiyyah Jihad Levine, however, sees things differently.
Rauf, the leader of the project, she said, worked for the State Department.
“The man is one of the most moderate Muslims we’re going to find,” she said. “I don’t think anyone thinks his intentions are bad.”
The fear and contention, she said, has been caused by the media touting “right wing hateful stuff.”
First immigration, then gay marriage, “and now us,” she said.
The issue is about freedom and rights, Levine said.
Both my mother, father and stepfather were veterans,” she said.
Veterans “go to war for our constitution,” she explained. “Those rights apply to every American citizen. Just because one group of people doesn’t want another group of people to have their rights…do we trump our constitution and everything we fought for and died for…to pacify a small group of people?”
“Once you start asking people or demanding people give up their rights as Americans, what does that mean for our country?” she asked.
Levine calls such an argument “a victory for the terrorists.”
“Not only did they knock down those buildings on 9/11,” she said, “now they have the American society against American Muslims. They win again. When does the collective guilt stop?”
While there may be small groups of Muslims who support such terrorist activity, the majority of Muslims don’t, she assured. “We’re Americans, our children go to school here, our lives are here. Why would we support thinking like that? That’s not evening our religion.”
A local member of the Jewish congregation in Sunbury also supports the building of the mosque.
The 13-story center, which will include not only a mosque but an art studio, athletic center and culinary studio, will be a source of much-needed education about the Islamic faith, said Mike Wolfberg, of Selinsgrove.
“Whenever there’s been an occasion like 9/11 – the bloodshed we witnessed there – we have to take a step back and say, ‘that’s not what Islam is about,’” he said.
“People are seeing the atrocity of 9/11, and I think what they’re looking at is basically the perpetration of the misunderstanding of Islam itself.”
Unlike the Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish civil rights group which opposes the project, Wolfberg said he fully supports the project.
As does Rick Longenberger, former Sunbury police chief who traveled to New York City as part of a stress team from the Susquehanna Valley offering support at the city Port Authority for anyone who wanted to talk, or needed to begin a healing process shortly after the 9/11 attacks.
Despite that experience, Longenberger said he is not against the building of the mosque.
“It would be nice to have it,” he said, “as part of the healing process.”
“One police officer doesn’t make all police officers bad,” he explained. “One fraction of Muslims doesn’t make all Muslims bad.”
Lisa Beamer, wife of Todd Beamer, who became famous for his actions to thwart the plans of Muslim Hijackers, which ended in his death in a plane crash in Shanksville, had no comment on the subject of the mosque on Wednesday, according to the publicist for her book, “Let’s Roll.”
Joyce Acker, Beamer’s aunt and former Lewisburg resident, is reportedly out of the country doing missionary work, and was unavailable for comment.
New York Governor David Paterson suggested last week that developers of the proposed Islamic center and mosque consider a different location, according to The Associated Press.
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