Daniel Lubetzky

by Adeena Schlussel on behalf of Daniel Lubetzky

Check out this great PBS piece featuring PeaceWorks and Daniel’s efforts to end the Mideast conflict with OneVoice! Thank you Fred De Sam Lazaro for showing how entrepreneurship can enhance relations between Israelis and Palestinians (as well as in other conflict regions) while being lucrative as well.  With the persistence of others who share Daniel’s unyielding passion and belief that economic cooperation can lead to peace, we hope to see a decrease in Mideast tensions soon.

by Adeena Schlussel on behalf of Daniel Lubetzky

A recent article by Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, OneVoice Board Member and leader in the effort to build the Cordoba House downtown, eloquently portrays a key argument in the ongoing debate; as Imam Rauf puts it “the level of attention [that this debate has garnered] reflects the degree to which people care about the very American values under debate: recognition of the rights of others, tolerance and freedom of worship.” The community center, in its essence, aims to promote tolerance and foster community engagement, both with the support of the downtown community. 

The article is crucial and a great one, but one point that was not mentioned  (and that has not been prominent in the ongoing debate) is that Imam Rauf is not travelling across the world, the country, or the city to enact his vision.  The very reason that the community center will be built in the proposed area is that Imam Rauf has been leading religious services in the very same area – just two blocks away – for many years. While the plan is often portrayed as a deliberate and disrespectful decision, the choice to build a mosque near ground zero is in reality a function of the fact that this area is Imam Rauf’s neighborhood. Perhaps this point can quell people’s unfounded fears and put an end to ignorance.

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by Adeena Schlussel on behalf of Daniel Lubetzky

The furor over the inaccurately dubbed "Ground Zero Mosque" has done nothing but reinforce al Qaeda propaganda. This, Nawaz says, is because many commentators confuse traditionalist Muslims with Islamists. But Islamism is not Islam. Islam is a faith, which, like all other faiths, has a spectrum of progressives and conservatives fighting over interpretation. Islamism, on the other hand, seeks to impose an interpretation over everyone else through state law. Throughout history Muslims have rejected the (al Qaeda) agenda of enforcing one view of Islam over all society. Nawaz concludes that it is time to challenge misleading and divisive views that see Muslims pitted against non-Muslims.  Read an excerpt of the article below.

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I received the following email forward from a friend who is skeptical about my work to build bridges between the West and Islam.  I find the point persuasive that even if extremists are a minority, they can cause enormous devastation when they rule and the moderate majority is silent and hostage.  But it seems to prove rather than dispute the importance of efforts like OneVoice’s to amplify the voice of moderates and empower ordinary citizens who cherish co-existence and respect.

What I asked my friend and ask everyone who reads emails like the below is, what are you doing about it? And is it more effective to draw lines in the sand and turn an entire civilization into the enemy, or to align all moderates together to isolate, discourage and neutralize violent extremists all across?

The author of this email is said to be Dr. Emanuel Tanay, a well-known and well-respected psychiatrist. A German’s View on Islam A man, whose family was German aristocracy prior to World War II, owned a number of large industries and estates.   When asked how many German people were true Nazis, the answer he gave can guide our attitude toward fanaticism. ‘Very few people were true Nazis,’ he said, ‘but many enjoyed the return of German pride, and many more were too busy to care. I was one of those who just thought the Nazis were a bunch of fools.   So, the majority just sat back and let it all happen. Then, before we knew it, they owned us, and we had lost control, and the end of the world had come.   My family lost everything. I ended up in a concentration camp and the Allies destroyed my factories.’ We are told again and again by ‘experts’ and ‘talking heads’ that Islam is the religion of peace and that the vast majority of Muslims just want to live in peace.   Although this unqualified assertion may be true, it is entirely irrelevant.   It is meaningless fluff, meant to make us feel better, and meant to somehow diminish the spectre of fanatics rampaging across the globe in the name of Islam. The fact is that the fanatics rule Islam at this moment in history.   It is the fanatics who march.   It is the fanatics who wage any one of 50 shooting wars worldwide.   It is the fanatics who systematically slaughter Christian or tribal groups throughout Africa and are gradually taking over the entire continent in an Islamic wave.   It is the fanatics who bomb, behead, murder, or honour-kill.   It is the fanatics who take over mosque after mosque.   It is the fanatics who zealously spread the stoning and hanging of rape victims and homosexuals.   It is the fanatics who teach their young to kill and to become suicide bombers. The hard, quantifiable fact is that the peaceful majority, the ‘silent majority,’ is cowed and extraneous. Communist Russia was comprised of Russians who just wanted to live in peace, yet the Russian Communists were responsible for the murder of about 40 million people.   The peaceful majority were irrelevant.   China’s huge population was peaceful as well, but Chinese Communists managed to kill a staggering 70 million people. The average Japanese individual prior to World War II was not a warmongering sadist.   Yet, Japan murdered and slaughtered its way across South East Asia in an orgy of killing that included the systematic murder of 12 million Chinese civilians; most killed by sword, shovel, and bayonet. And who can forget Rwanda , which collapsed into butchery.   Could it not be said that the majority of Rwandans were ‘peace loving’? History lessons are often incredibly simple and blunt, yet for all our powers of reason, we often miss the most basic and uncomplicated of points: · Peace-loving Muslims have been made irrelevant by their silence. · Peace-loving Muslims will become our enemy if they don’t speak up, because like my friend from Germany , they will awaken one day and find that the fanatics own them, and the end of their world will have begun. · Peace-loving Germans, Japanese, Chinese, Russians, Rwandans, Serbs, Afghans, Iraqis, Palestinians, Somalis, Nigerians, Algerians, and many others have died because the peaceful majority did not speak up until it was too late. As for us who watch it all unfold, we must pay attention to the only group that counts–the fanatics who threaten our way of life. Lastly, anyone who doubts that the issue is serious and just deletes this email without sending it on, is contributing to the passiveness that allows the problems to expand.   So, extend yourself a bit and send this on and on and on!   Let us hope that thousands, world-wide, read this and think about it, and send it on – before it’s too late.

I have written repeatedly to defend Muslims from being discriminated against, including most recently with the establishment of a mosque in downtown Manhattan (see here, here, and here).

This video I just got raises serious valid concerns about extremists using religion to further illegal activities, and of them subverting Islam to their purposes.

To my mind, it makes it all the more clear why we want to support moderate Islamic role models and why people like Imam Feisal, Naif al-Mutawa and countless others deserve all our support.  Muslims leaders like Imam Feisal should not be asked to “choose sides.”  Theirs is not a culture of division.  By being themselves, they will continue to win by building bridges, rather than burning them on either side.

Additionally, this article illustrates the frightening opposition that many mosques face as they attempt to build across the country, where more and more opponents are beginning to admit their discomfort with Islam itself.  In reality though, budding mosques have proven to quell many of the fears of radicalism, according to a recent study that the articly quotes.

Muslims, like all other human beings, are overwhelmingly moderate and kind.  Extremists with ideologies of supremacy and domination feed off of the divisions between cultures that they try to foster.  We would only grant terrorists a victory if we were to cower into painting all the “others” as our enemy!  That was the main goal of Osama Bin Laden! If we want to win, we have to do so not just with weapons but also with brains and souls – with an ideology of inclusion best represented by Western and Muslim leaders that offers a better vision than that of an eternal struggle of us vs. them.

Beyond the earlier geo-political and human arguments I made supporting Imam Feisal Abdel Rauf’s courageous work for tolerance and the Islamic community center he is building in downtown NYC, Tom Friedman advanced beautiful additional arguments that center around the critical value of diversity to foster a creative culture that brings out the best for America and the world – and makes us most competitive.

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by Adeena Schlussel on behalf of Daniel Lubetzky

This article by Robert Wright features the harsh continued debate over the construction of a mosque near ground zero.  The debate is filled with intolerance, fears of radicalism, and biased players; the attacks on Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf are especially disheartening and the opposition of some NY politicians are incredibly disappointing.

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Further to this post by Adeena regarding the rising attacks against the Mosque being erected in downtown NYC, let me provide some more background to the thousands of people that are attacking this project without taking the time to do a little bit of research about it.

I received this video post by Pat Condell from my sister, attacking the project.

Here was my response to my sister:

The mosque near Ground Zero is being opened by a dear friend and member of the PeaceWorks Foundation’s Honorary Board, and a remarkable human being who our Dad would have loved as much as he loved Rabbi Scheinberg [our Orthodox Rabbi in San Antonio, TX, who we all admire for his deep humility, warmth, and respect of others]. He is a humanist and a pluralist, a tolerant sweet man, and the role model of what we should want EVERY religious leader – Muslim or otherwise – to be like.  Please forward back to Oren and anyone else who shared this with you.

To briefly expound on this note, let me respond to some of the assertions made by Mr. Condell.

He attacks the religion of Islam as an ocean of hatred, violence and intolerance.  But intolerance and hatred are sadly not exclusive to Islam. All major religions have their regrettable elements of excess.

Incidentally just a couple days ago I saw a fantastic movie – Goya’s Ghosts – starring another PeaceWorks Foundation Honorary Board member, Natalie Portman, as a woman who is jailed, raped, and oppressed by the Spanish Inquisition.

There is no question that there are monstrous people who I call "pseudo-Islamic terrorists" who usurp a religion that can be about love and respect, and hijack it to advocate extremism and hatred.  But they do not represent the Islam that many of my friends follow, a religion of humility and striving to be better human beings. 

The real challenge is who is going to win – the tolerant and progressive leaders of Islam, or the regressive ones?

It is up to us to uphold the tolerant and enlightened and respectful leaders who dedicate their lives to peace – as is the case with Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf.  Demonizing and isolating and chastising them is not a way to strengthen the moderate voices within Islamic countries!!!

Pat Condell writes about how Islam divides people into us vs. them, but he seems to miss the irony in that this is precisely what he does in his video posting by trying to portray all of Islam as intolerant. 

It is true that diversity and tolerance are critical to a functioning democracy.  But sermons like the one by Pat Condell are just as offensive to this notion as intolerant Muslims.

Contrast that to Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf. Mr. Condell clearly has never met him.  But more disturbing, he hasn’t even taken the time to research the Cordoba Initiative.  The initiative was conceived by Imam Feisal almost a decade ago to celebrate the CO-EXISTENCE and DIVERSITY that characterized Cordoba during its golden age.  Condell claims that the Cordoba Initiative was named that way to emphasize the conquest of Christianity by Islam.  He should have started by doing some research!

by Adeena Schlussel on behalf of Daniel Lubetzky

Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, a OneVoice board member has become the subject of accusation in a fierce debate about constructing a proposed mosque nearby to Ground Zero that he is actively spearheading.  Opponents feel that building a mosque in close proximity to the location of the 9/11 attacks would be disrespectful or even threatening.  The Daily News, Wall Street Journal and New York Magazine and other news sources all feature articles depicting the criticisms that come from a population that is otherwise known as one of the most tolerant around the world.

Rick Lazio challenges Cuomo over legality of Ground Zero mosque funding, cites ‘security questions’

BY Lore Croghan
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Originally Published:Wednesday, July 7th 2010, 1:58 PM
Updated: Thursday, July 8th 2010, 2:21 AM

Republican gubernatorial candidate Rick Lazio challenged his Democratic opponent Wednesday to explore the legality of the funding behind a proposed mosque near Ground Zero.

"New Yorkers have a right to feel safe and be safe," Lazio told reporters in lower Manhattan. "There are serious security questions about the appropriateness of this mosque."

Lazio demanded Attorney General Andrew Cuomo figure out where the backers of the Cordoba House expect to get $100 million to build it.

"Anyone who has evidence of wrongdoing should send it to us, and we will review it," Cuomo replied in a statement.

In a letter he sent to Cuomo, Lazio cited press accounts that Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, who’s spearheading the mosque’s construction, is a "key figure" in an organization that funded the flotilla that sought to break Israel‘s Gazablockade.

Debra Burlingame, whose brother Charles was a pilot on the plane terrorists crashed into the Pentagon on 9/11, said the imam has written about his hopes of bringing strict Islamic law to the United States.

"He means to use the Ground Zero location of the mosque to ‘leverage’ people to Islam," said Burlingame, the co-founder of 9/11 Families for a Safe and Strong America.

Organizers behind Cordoba House have said they have peaceful intentions and the mosque is just one part of a larger community center that will be open to everyone.

The center would be located on Park Place, about two blocks from the World Trade Center site.

Poll: Majority of New Yorkers Oppose Ground Zero Mosque

Cordoba Initiative

More than 50% of New York City voters oppose a plan by a Muslim group to build a mosque and cultural center just blocks away from Ground Zero, according to a poll released Thursday by Quinnipiac University.

“New York enjoys a reputation as one of the most tolerant places in America, but…opponents suggest that the mosque would dishonor the memory of the [9/11] attack’s victims,” said Maurice Carroll, the director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.

According to the poll, 52% of New Yorkers oppose the plan to build the mosque and cultural center, known as the Cordoba House, compared to 31% who are in favor of it and 17% who are undecided.

The poll of more than 1,000 registered voters across the city found that support for the $100 million project appeared to be strongest in Manhattan, where 46% of poll respondents said they were in favor of it, compared to 36% who said they were opposed.

Elsewhere across the five boroughs, the project appears to face staunch opposition, especially in Staten Island and Brooklyn, where as The Journal’s Sumathi Reddy reports, local chapters of the Muslim American Society want to build mosques in Sheepshead Bay and Midland Beach.

In Staten Island 73% of respondents said they were against the Cordoba House proposal, compared to 14% who said they supported it. In Brooklyn and the Bronx, 57% of respondents said they opposed the mosque and cultural center, while in Queens opposition stood at 52%.

The poll found that whites, Hispanics, Jews and Catholics appeared to be more likely to be opposed to bringing the mosque and cultural center near Ground Zero. Blacks and protestants– while still largely against the plan–revealed more divided opinions, the poll reported.

Despite the opposition, 44% of New Yorkers said they had a generally favorable opinion of Islam, compared to 28% who have an unfavorable view of the religion and 28% who didn’t know. A majority of those indicating favorable opinions tended to support the plan for Cordoba House, the poll reported, while those with an unfavorable opinion of Islam were almost unanimously against it.

In May, the project, which is being spearheaded by the American Society for Muslim Advancement, received the support of Lower Manhattan’s Community Board 1. Yet as Metropolis previously reported, board officials said they only voted on the proposal for the cultural center, not the mosque, which has generated some controversy.

Objections aside, the biggest obstacle to the 13-story project appears to be history. Later this month, the Landmarks Preservation Commission will decide whether the building currently on the site is architecturally significant enough to merit protected status. That in and of itself would not derail the mosque and cultural center, but it will make it unlikely that the building could be demolished to build the proposed projects.

The Ground Zero Mosque Is Now a Campaign Issue

7/7/10 at 2:10 PM

Republican gubernatorial candidate Rick Lazio, languishing far behind Democratic front-runner Andrew Cuomo, needs something to shake up the race. How about anti-Islamic sentiment? Yes, that will do. A few days after a poll showed that a majority of New Yorkers oppose the building of a mosque and community center two blocks from ground zero, Lazio has released a letter calling on Cuomo (who supports the mosque) as attorney general to investigate certain issues the media has raised about the mosque’s leader, including his refusal to label Hamas a terrorist organization and his membership in an organization that donated money to the Palestinian aid flotillas — neither of which are illegal, but sure, why not?

People are often unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered; Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives; Be kind anyway.

If you are successful you will win some false friends and true enemies; Succeed anyway.

If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you; Be honest and frank anyway.

What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight; Build anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous; Be happy anyway.

The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow; Do good anyway.

Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough; Give the world the best you’ve got anyway.

You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and God; It was never between you and them anyway.

-Mother Teresa