JustASC

Abraham Foxman pens an oped defending ADL’s decision to oppose the Islamic cultural center near Ground Zero, and the ADL’s record of combatting anti-Muslim bigotry.

The essay starts off a little shakily:

Perhaps no issue in recent memory has aroused as much controversy and passion as the proposed Islamic community center and mosque two blocks from Ground Zero.

Really? Not the Gaza flotilla violence? The Arizona immigration law? The Shirley Sharrod controversy? This is either New York centrism, or a little apologia by way of explaining why the ADL felt it had to get involved.

Abe hits his stride in condemning “two kinds of attacks” that “have been particularly troubling: that we are violating principles of religious freedom, and that we are stereotyping Muslims.”

On both fronts, he reiterates ADL’s activism following a series of anti-Muslim incidents, and in defense of the construction of mosques and Muslims’ right to wear certain religious garments.

Foxman also compares the building of the mosque at Ground Zero to the Carmelite nunnery planned near the gates of Auschwitz:

In 1993, Pope John Paul II asked 14 Carmelite Nuns to move their convent from just outside the Auschwitz death camp. The establishment of the convent near Auschwitz had stirred dismay among Jewish groups and survivors who felt that the location was an affront and a terrible disservice to the memory of millions of Jews who died at the hands of the Nazis in the Holocaust.

Just as we thought then that well-meaning efforts by Carmelite nuns to build a Catholic structure were insensitive and counterproductive to reconciliation, so too we believe it will be with building a mosque so close to Ground Zero.

The difference I see is that Auschwitz served one purpose and one purpose only: A death factory for the slaughter of millions of people, mostly Jews. It is kept intact as a permanent memorial to those victims, a reminder of the Nazi atrocity, and a place of pilgrimmage for survivors and descendents. 

Lower New York  is the site of the Sept. 11 atrocity, but also a living, thriving downtown, a crossroads of commerce and culture layered with history going back to the city’s founding. It will be an important memorial site, but it will also be a place where people of many backgrounds live and work, and it will never be a sacral zone along the lines of Auschwitz. 

In addition, Auschwitz is a symbol of the Nazis’ war on the Jews, which the convent would have served the purpose of denying or obscuring. What is Sept. 11 a symbol of? I don’t think Foxman would agree that it is a symbol of “Islam’s war on Western civilization.” I think he might accept that it is a symbol of Al-Qaeda’s war on the West, or perhaps Radical Islam’s. But by opposing a mosque, anymosque, so close to the site, he has made such distinctions meaningless.  

I also see a difference in context: Polish is a Catholic country, wrestling with (and sometimes denying)  its passivity and complicity in the destruction of its Jews, of which Auschwitz is a potent symbol. The convent sought to transform the entire meaning of the site, by imposing a conspicuous Christian presence at its stark perimeter.

The Islamic center, however, will be just one more element in the New York streetscape. Even at its proposed size it will not impose its message (whether good or bad) on the site two blocks away, unless its opponents let it.

Finally, Foxman repeats the central thrust of the ADL’s opposition:

Just as we thought then that well-meaning efforts by Carmelite nuns to build a Catholic structure were insensitive and counterproductive to reconciliation, so too we believe it will be with building a mosque so close to Ground Zero.

The better way for Muslims seeking reconciliation and moderation would have been for them to reach out to the families of the victims, who we are sure could have recommended any number of actions to achieve those goals other than the present plan.

I think there is a tactical error in these paragraphs, when Foxman writes against “building a mosque so close to Ground Zero.” If I were he, I would have written, “an Islamic center of this size and scope so close to Ground Zero.” Because by writing “mosque,” he is declaring that the ADL is against the building of any Muslim house of worship in close proximity to the 9/11 site, because many of the victims and survivors view Islam itself as implicated in the attack.

I understand the Foxman wants to be sensitive to the survivors.  But he is really saying to Muslims: “Members of your religious faith perpetrated these attacks. The idea of that faith being practiced so close to the site is offensive to many of the victims and their survivors. As a result, we support a  buffer zone of indeterminate size around that site in which no Muslim house of worship will be erected.”

Would the ADL support a zoning law that created such a buffer zone?

I believe Abe when he says he is not motivated by bigotry. But does he really support the principle behind that sort of discrimination? Can he really explain how the effect is not a denial of religious liberty, or endorsement of religious discrimination?

Again, I think it is important for the victims and families to be heard on this. But I think ADL would have played a far more useful role bycreating a conversation around these issues rather than positioning themselves on one side of the controversy.