The Scary Guy developing the Community Center

[captain_kook]

Now we begin to get some background reporting (finally) on the lower Manhattan mosque. The New York Observer yesterday profiled developer Sharif El-Gamal, and reporter Dana Rubinstein produced these paragraphs:
 
He began visiting mosques downtown near where he lived and worked, and came away with the realization that there were more mosque-goers than there were mosques to accommodate them. Some mosques had to hold four services a night, and still there were people praying on the streets.
 
He began toying with the idea of developing a mosque himself. When asked if making a profit was his initial motivation, Mr. El-Gamal, smiling slyly, would only say, "I am a businessman. I am a businessman."
 
Soon, he met Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, and his plans grew more complex.
"I'd never met an American imam who spoke the way I speak, who, it was almost like I was listening to a professor," Mr. El-Gamal said. "I went up to him and I said, 'It's not fair that only 70 people get to hear this.' And I started a relationship with him."
 
"Then as I got married and as I became a father and a husband and a member of the Jewish Community Center on 76th and Amsterdam, I was like, 'Wow, let's build a community center.'"
 
 
Mr. El-Gamal, who now lives on the Upper West Side, continued to focus his energies on the Muslim community in Lower Manhattan, a neighborhood that had long expressed a desire for a new community center.
 
The District Needs Statement put out by Community Board 1 reads, "With the tremendous increase in the population of the Financial District and Seaport and Civic Centers, a community center is urgently needed to support a strong and stable community there."..
 
 
 
..."And it had nothing to do with the World Trade Center site," Mr. El-Gamal said. He repeated himself, this time more slowly: "It had nothing to do with the World Trade Center site. It had to do with me being an American, a New Yorker who has particular religious beliefs and wants to help his community."
 
 
 
Anyway, "Literally within two weeks, or within a month of him being here, he made a call and we found the Burlington site. And, when we found that site, he called a guy, who said, 'Oh, good timing, my son is showing the building tomorrow afternoon, and we want to sell.'"
 
 
 
It always astonishes me when people are caught off-guard in these situations, but I think most average people don't understand what the right-wing media culture is like in this country.
 
They just don't give it thought.
 
 
And they have no ability to think about how what they're doing can be portrayed by others whose political agenda is served by destroying them.*
 
 
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2010/aug/19/us-politics-new-york-will-mosque-even-be-built
 
* al Qaeda: WANTS you Cult members to go nuts over this

[mudslinger]

[captain_kook]

NEVER READ ANYTHING Mud
 
 
It might upset your pair of brain cells
 
I do give you credit for two
 
I'm generous

[sweetwater5s9]

Mosque debate divides Democrats, especially in NY AP via Yahoo! News - 3 hours ago

[sweetwater5s9]

Mosques in New York, NY

International Community Center
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Islamic Center
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Islamic Conference
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Islamic Society of Mid-Manhattan
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Madina Masjid
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Masjid Al-Farah
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Masjid Ar-Rahman
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Masjid Malcolm Shabazz
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Masjid Manhattan
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Masjid Othman Bin Afan
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Mosque of Islamic Brotherhood
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The Islamic Cultural Center of New York
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IslamicValley - Search for Mosques in NY
Searching for Mosques Select a city in New York
islamicvalley.com/prod/entitySearch.php/​t/09L/s/ny


The Islamic Cultural Center of New York is a mosque and Islamic cultural center in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, United States. [/list]

[mudslinger]

There are over one hundred Mosques in New York.

[Baretta19]

Most houses of worship are built within the communities they will serve, interesting that this mosque is being built in the middle of COMMERCIAL district.

Oh yeah it's not a mosque right Capt..ROFLMAO

[littleeye]

 This mosque is symbol. It is intended to boost Jihadist fervor across the planet. It will be used to promote anti-western propoganda. The immam who is pushing it stated flatly that the United States was in part responsible for the 9/11 attack. He meant all US citizens. It is no accident that liberals are promoting the mosque since it supports Comrade Obamas attacks on Western Culture.

[lluke47]

In the mosque port-a-lets around the country hate for America and its citizens is taught on a daily basis...
So tell me liberals what is it you support about that...?  You liberals must be self loathing to let people build things like this to preach hate against you as much as you hate Christian Churches for preaching against you liberal homo's...I say you are again hypocrites..