If ever you needed proof that the state-run media only speaks for the hard core radical left in this country here it is…
The democratic-media complex is now comparing anti-Ground Zero Victory Mosque sentiment to the Japanese internment camps during World War II. This is despite the fact that 71% of liberal New Yorkers are against building the victory mosque.
Sadly, this is not satire.
Rachel Zoll at the Associated Press wrote this:
In recent months, mosques in Tennessee, California, New York and elsewhere have been shot at and vandalized. Threatening messages were left at one mosque. A Florida pastor caused a global uproar with his ultimately unfulfilled threat to make a bonfire of Qurans on Sept. 11.
Many Jewish, Roman Catholic, mainline Protestant, evangelical, atheist and other groups have responded with an outpouring of support for Muslims, but suspicion remains high among many Americans.
Islamic centers have become a focus of non-Muslim fears. Federal authorities have placed informants in mosques, saying doing so is a critical counterterrorism tool. Muslim groups have separately created national campaigns encouraging congregations to monitor for any sign of radicalization, but they have also complained bitterly about the use of informants, worried the innocent will be caught up in the net police have set for criminals.
Akbar Ahmed, professor of Islamic studies at American University, found a wide range of mosques — from literalist to modernist to mystical — while researching his book, “Journey Into America, The Challenge of Islam.” He said many mosques are engaged in internal struggles between Muslims with rigid and modernist views, but he found none that fit the imaginings of anti-Muslim conspiracy theorists.
Historians, and several Muslim leaders, see similarities to the prejudice Roman Catholics and Jews experienced as newcomers to America starting in the 19th century. The hierarchical Catholic church was denounced as a threat to the separation of church and state. Synagogues were banned in many states, and Jews were viewed as undermining the nation’s Christian character.
Mark Silk, director of the Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life at Trinity College in Connecticut, said the experience of Japanese Americans in World War II more closely parallels the current plight of Muslims. After the Pearl Harbor bombing, Silk said Americans asked, “Are our Japanese different from those Japanese?”
“I don’t think we’re about to round up all the Muslims and put them in concentration camps,” Silk said. “But I don’t think we’ve ever seen the degree of legitimacy given by people in positions of authority to straight-up, anti-Islamic expression.”
The Muslim Public Affairs Council, a Los Angeles-based advocacy group, blames bigotry on “a small cottage industry” that foments prejudice on the Web and elsewhere. These organizations have dramatically expanded their reach since 2001 through social media, and have made celebrities of Muslim converts to Christianity who disparage Islam as thoroughly violent.
“The reality is that there are very well-funded initiatives to spread misinformation about Islam,” said Ingrid Mattson, president of the Islamic Society of North America, an umbrella group for thousands of Muslims. “For the Muslim community, we are finding ourselves so stretched. We’re a young community.”
Hat Tip J. Simpson
It’s all your fault. If you stupid Islamophobes would have kept your mouths shut about that Ground Zero Victory Mosque, the AP wouldn’t be forced to lecture you on tolerance.
