Perhaps Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf really is a moderate Muslim. Yet if his words yesterday to the Council on Foreign Relations are any guide, he adheres to an orthodoxy even more defining than his brand of Islam: American liberalism.
Just before he spoke, Council President Richard Haass described Imam Rauf as a man “dedicated to building bridges between the Muslim and non-Muslim worlds.” The imam spoke accordingly. In a reassuring, National Public Radio sort of tone, he thanked Barack Obama and Michael Bloomberg for their support, spoke of “interfaith dialogue,” and called for American Muslims and non-Muslims to “break bread” together.
In this spirit, we might ask: If this is about mutual understanding, what are the fruits of his effort? We see them all around us. An obscure Florida pastor announces he’s going to burn the Quran and becomes a national figure. A group is videotaped ripping out pages of the Quran in front of the White House. On the 9/11 anniversary, Ground Zero becomes the site of angry marches between pro- and anti-Islamic Center crowds.
In other words, a typical experiment in liberal bridge building. Start with an enterprise—an Islamic Center near Ground Zero—bound to upset some people. Lecture those with opposing views about tolerance and respect for the Constitution. Have the man at the center suggest on CNN that if he doesn’t get his way, innocent Americans will find themselves “under attack.” Finally, declare yourself shocked, shocked, to discover your plans have provoked large-scale public opposition and not a few crude rejoinders.
For American liberals, that two out of three Americans oppose the construction of an Islamic center on its current cite occasions no second thoughts. To the contrary, it likely confirms a view of the American people as dangerous yahoos. In fact, it probably confirms the liberal view that the war on terror is less a war against radical Islamists than a more general battle between moderates and extremists of all varieties.
Yesterday at the Council, Imam Rauf made this explicit. “The real battlefront, the real battle that we must wage together today,” he said, “is not between Muslims and non-Muslims. It is between moderates of all faith traditions against the extremists of all faith traditions.”
Now, the world has its share of Christian, Jewish, Hindu and other religious extremists. Sometimes that extremism leads to violence. At least in America, however, to compare this to the sustained, organized international war crimes planned and carried out by Islamic extremists beggars belief.
No one walks the streets of Manhattan fearing a Methodist may blow up his office, hijack his flight, or kill his son fighting in Afghanistan. Unless you are Angelina Jolie or the dean of Yale Law School, this is not only true but obvious.
So where the Council on Foreign Relations may see in Imam Rauf the model of moderation, Americans may wonder whether a leader who cannot see what is uniquely threatening about Islamic extremism is the most effective spokesman for Muslim moderation. Maybe too his more troubling statements can be explained in context. But there sure are a lot of them, from his charge that the United States was an “accessory” to the September 11 attacks to his more recent declaration that we must build his center for “national security” reasons—or else.
Yes, we have Republican politicos who have made cloddish efforts to capitalize on public sentiment, here vowing a government witch-hunt if elected, there saying no mosque near Ground Zero until we see a church in Saudi Arabia. Without the liberal hectoring, they would have no currency. For President Obama and Mayor Bloomberg and their allies like to sermonize about a proposition not in dispute—the legal right of the imam to build on the property he’s bought—while imputing the lowest of motives to anyone who disagrees with them.
How different their approach (not to mention their results) is from that of George W. Bush, who could visit a mosque while the ruins of the Twin Towers were still smoldering, remind us that Muslim-Americans are free and equal citizens, and talk about how ordinary Muslim moms and dads wanted for their children what we want for ours. Maybe it had something to do with his being clear about the fight. Whatever the reason, when this “cowboy” was in the Oval Office, we didn’t have prominent politicians campaigning against mosques, Qurans being desecrated, or Gen. David Petraeus having to issue warnings about the consequences of such actions.
So here we are, with the grievances on all sides more aggravated than assuaged by this latest experiment in liberal bridge-building. If the president and the mayor and the imam sound bitter about the 71% of New Yorkers who would like to see the Islamic Center moved, we shouldn’t be surprised. It’s what happens to folks who cling to their liberalism and their antipathy to people who aren’t like them.