Stop the Mosque at Ground Zero Rally – Part I

By El Marco

New York City, Sunday, June 6, 2010, – by El Marco

Pamela Geller, the co-founder of Stop Islamization of America, speaks passionately about jihad, sharia, and why the idea of a mosque in this spot is so wrong.

“We are here today in honor of D-Day, when the Allied Forces began to defeat Nazism. And the symbolism should not be lost. Not only should the symbolism not be lost, but we’re on the corner of Church and Liberty.

Ground Zero is a war memorial. Ground Zero is a burial ground…We are asking for sensitivity…

This is part of the plane that went into the Trade Center, that’s in the Burlington Coat Factory (the building that was bought with mysterious funding for the mosque). Designate it as a historic landmark, like Pearl Harbor. We are going to sue the U.S. Government to get a designation of war memorial status.”

The crowd gathers. Tower 7 is the tall building in the background.

Simon Deng, who was enslaved as a child by Arabs in his native land, Sudan, addresses rally.

Slavery, genocide, terrorism and sharia must not be tolerated. Many Americans, including Mayor Bloomberg, don’t understand enough about what Islamic countries are like. Even in the more moderate moslem countries, like Egypt, churches are burned and there is no tolerance of other religions.

Former Moslem Noni Darwish, who grew up in Gaza and Egypt, also addressed the rally. She said:

“We are threatened right here in America by mosques that are issuing fatwas against us…I understand the symbolism of a mosque…they’ve been built historically on the sites of Jewish temples, churches, Hindu temples — it’s a sign of being conquered. After they conquer a country, every church, every temple, must be converted to a mosque. You know the people who come here and ask for sensitivity training: where are the churches in Saudi Arabia? Even in Egypt, the churches have been burned…Do we need an area of pilgrimage for muslims in New York? Our 3,000 fellow Americans who were killed on 9/11 are looking down on us, and they are saying we don’t want to hear “Allah hu Akbar” any more.”

Robert Spencer of Jihadwatch. From his report:

“By the time the rally was in full swing, the crowd filled the pens, the park, and the other side of the street. Police estimated that 5,000 people were there, and other estimates ranged as high as 10,000. The crowd carried signs expressing their love for freedom, their contempt for Sharia, and their anger at Islamic supremacism and insult to the memories of those murdered on 9/11 that this mosque represents.

And we had a full spectrum of top quality speakers. There were 9/11 family members, including C. Lee Hanson, who lost his son, daughter-in-law and granddaughter on 9/11. There were people who experienced the oppression of Sharia firsthand, such as the Egyptian ex-Muslim Nonie Darwish, the Sudanese ex-slave Simon Deng, and the Hindu human rights activist Babu Suseelan. There was Dennis McKenna, who worked recovering remains from the ruins of the World Trade Center; Alan T. DeVona, the patrol sergeant on duty on September 11, 2001; and Keith LeBow, an ironworker who was one of the first responders on the scene on September 11. There was Herb London of the Hudson Institute and Beverly Carlson of the Band of Mothers — and a host of other speakers, all lovers of America and lovers of freedom.

The theme among all the speakers was common: the mosque is an insult to the Americans who were murdered there. It is a manifestation of a radically intolerant belief system that is incompatible with the freedoms guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. And even with all the political elites against us, and the mainstream media indifferent or compromised (5,000 to 10,000 people at the rally, and no mainstream media coverage!), we will prevail. All we have on our side is the truth.”

There are moslems who understand that the location for the mosque is a bad idea too. In an editorial in today’s Boston Globe, Jeff Jacoby writes:

“Stephen Suleyman Schwartz, a devout Muslim and director of the Center for Islamic Pluralism in Washington, notes that the spiritual leader of the Cordoba Initiative, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, describes himself as a Sufi — a Muslim focused onIslamic mysticism and spiritual wisdom. But “building a 15-story Islamic center at ground zero isn’t something a Sufi would do,’’ according to Schwartz, also a practitioner of Sufism. “Sufism is supposed to be based on sensitivity toward others,’’ yet Cordoba House comes across as “grossly insensitive.’’ He rejects Rauf’s stance that a highly visible Muslim presence at ground zero is the way to make a statement opposing what happened on 9/11. Better, in his view, is the approach of many Muslims “who hate terrorism and who have gone privately to the site and recited prayers for the dead silently and unperceived by others.’’

Dan Maloney of Gathering of Eagles, a veterans’ group whose motto is “fighting the insurgency at home”. Our men and women who are deployed in the middle east and elsewhere are putting their lives on the line, but so are those who are speaking out against radical Islam here at home.

The brave organizer, Pamela Geller. See her amazing blog, Atlas Shrugs. There are videos, interviews, and text about the Ground Zero mosque, about honor killings, sharia, and much more. Add it to your daily reading list if you want to understand Islam and the middle east.

Many more photos to follow later – come back soon for Part 2!

Update: videos of speeches are up at No Mosque at Ground Zero.

Commentary from the inimitable Pat Condell, who calls Cordoba House a “towering triumphalist mosque”:

…”It would be hard to imagine a more provocative gesture, short of standing on their graves and burning the American flag. Yet, how typical of Islam: with its own hair-trigger sensitivity to the slightest imagined insult, to do something so arrogant and so insensitive…

A much more appropriate place for a mosque would be the United Nations. It’s become so islamo-friendly in recent years I’m surprised it doesn’t already have a minaret…

Cordoba is the city in southern Spain where muslims built their first great mosque at the start of, and as a symbol of, their conquest of Spain. The Ground Zero mosque is intended to serve the same purpose in America. Building mosques on conquered sacred ground is standard practice. It’s what Islam has always done to assert its supremacy and that is what’s happening here…

And of course they know how offensive it is, how insulting it is…and they also know that once it’s there it’ll be there forever, as a permanent affront to all Americans, gloating in triumph, and a major bridgehead in the ongoing stealth jihad. That’s how the muslim world will see it, and that’s how they’ll be encouraged to see it. And to be fair to them, that’s exactly what it will be: confirming what they’ve always suspected – that America is a soft country, a decadent country, crippled by political correctness, confused and guilt-ridden, with no backbone and no pride…

They plan to open it on the tenth anniversary of the atrocity. Is that tasteless enough for you? I’m surprised they didn’t organize a 757 fly-past…

But you know, it doesn’t have to be this way.  Here in London, we had a similar situation just recently, where they wanted to build a giant mosque to overshadow the Olympic Games. Public opinion put a stop to that, and public opinion can put an end to this as well…”