Excerpt:
The area around the former World Trade Center is a sacred space. It is a place where thousands of Americans' lives were taken by the purveyors of a hostile ideology based on Islam. The Cordoba House, a 13-story mosque and Islamic cultural center planned for a site near Ground Zero, is at best inappropriate, and at worst an attempt to hijack the memory of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.
The effort to memorialize 9/11 has seen an overweening and unnecessary deference to Muslims. Most memorials will not mention the fact that the Sept. 11 terrorist attackers were motivated by the faith of Muhammad. The Flight 93 memorial in Shanksville, Penn., featured a "crescent of embrace" motif that was altered after a public outcry over the use of Muslim symbolism to celebrate the deadly consequence of Muslim fanaticism. The memorial space at Ground Zero will name all the victims of the attack but will not make reference to why they died that day.
The accompanying National 9/11 Memorial and Museum will also soft-pedal the events of Sept. 11. According to Daisy Khan, executive director of the American Society for Muslim Advancement (ASMA), it will represent the "voices of American Muslims in particular, and it will honor members of other communities who came together in support and collaboration with the Muslim community on September 11 and its aftermath." But it is bizarre that the voices of American Muslims would dominate such a memorial, especially since the Muslim community was never in the forefront of denouncing the actions of their coreligionists after the Sept. 11 attacks. To hear Ms. Khan speak, one would think that Muslims were more the victims than the perpetrators of the carnage.