Rachael , Emily , your opposition to the mosque makes me crazy. An Islamic organization dedicated to Muslim-Western relations is precisely what we should be putting next to Ground Zero. Rachael , you say you can’t tolerate a “religion that itself tolerates such abhorrent behavior.” The Cordoba Initiative tolerates no such thing. In fact, that’s the whole reason it exists, to resist the trend within its own religion, which, by the way, very few Muslims are brave enough to do publicly these days. In fact, as Jeffrey Goldberg points out, Osama bin Laden would bomb the Cordoba Initiative if he could get close enough. Feisal Abdul Rauf, who runs it, is more his enemy than you and I are. When I visit Ground Zero with my children, that is the very first place I will take them, because it is one of the very few organizations that holds out an alternative vision to perpetual war with what has become our most vicious enemy. And if they chose that spot to get attention, more power to them, since their cause gets way too little respect and attention as it is.
Photograph of the proposed mosque site near Ground Zero by Timothy Clary/AFP.
