Location matters. Especially this location. Ground Zero is the site of the greatest mass murder in American history -- perpetrated by Muslims of a particular Islamist orthodoxy in whose cause they died and in whose name they killed.
Of course that strain represents only a minority of Muslims. Islam is no more intrinsically Islamist than present-day Germany is Nazi -- yet despite contemporary Germany's innocence, no German of goodwill would even think of proposing a German cultural center at, say, Treblinka.
As I said, the other day, sometimes analogies fail. Badly. Whether or not Islamists represent "only a minority" of Muslims, there is an argument to be made that they represent "true" Islam. They certainly think so. And if Nazis continued to have the influence today in Germany that Islamists appear to have in the Muslim world, plenty of Germans might be just fine with a German cultural center at Treblinka. (To say that no German "of goodwill" would propose such a thing is simply begging the question.)
And then there's this.
I'm absolutely certain that CK didn't intend to say that restrictions on liquor stores near schools are "for reasons of aesthetics." But that is, in fact, what he said.America is a free country where you can build whatever you want -- but not anywhere. That's why we have zoning laws. No liquor store near a school, no strip malls where they offend local sensibilities, and, if your house doesn't meet community architectural codes, you cannot build at all.
These restrictions are for reasons of aesthetics.
Because I totally concur with Krauthammer' s message, I wish he had delivered it in a stronger package. It's hardly original, but it bears repeating until it gets through.
The governor of New York offered to help find land to build the mosque elsewhere. A mosque really seeking to build bridges, Rauf's ostensible hope for the structure, would accept the offer.But of course.
Shabbat Shalom.
