BARBARA'S TCHATZKAHS

Not once, since the Cordoba House Mosque controversy started - not ONCE have I heard the Imam or any of the mosque's planners, etc.  say they would be willing to move the mosque elsewhere.  No - they are SET on it being 2 blocks from Ground Zero. People actions speak MUCH louder than words and this action says it all - the mosque is a provocation.  An excuse for those who will be deluged with protests, attacks on the building, attacks on people worshipping there to say " SEE!! Americans are anti-muslim ."  And that's bulls**t.   If it was about a place of worship, moving it would a simple, easy to discuss matter.  A matter openly on the table.  But no, they're adamant.  And frankly, they're bullies.  Muslims have the right to worship in peace just like anyone else.  Since the planners won't discuss moving it - peaceful worship is obviously not the driving force here, is it? This is a very sensitive issue to people who lost loved ...

Come on, Barry - who are you fooling? You're the most blindly pro-Muslim President we've ever had. O.K. - we get it. Not all Muslims are bad... but a Mosque near Ground Zero is the height of inappropriate, not to mention it will become a target for those still angry over the events of 9/11/01. As Charles Krauthammer said just the other day: When we speak of Ground Zero as hallowed ground, what we mean is that it belongs to those who suffered and died there -- and that such ownership obliges us, the living, to preserve the dignity and memory of the place, never allowing it to be forgotten, trivialized or misappropriated. That's why Disney's 1993 proposal to build an American history theme park near Manassas Battlefield was defeated by a broad coalition that feared vulgarization of the Civil War (and that was wiser than me; at the time I obtusely saw little harm in the venture). It's why the commercial viewing tower built right on the border of Gettysburg was ta...

I will say, upfront, I have a connection to the Santora family. And yes, I think this is a bad idea. Insensitive, rude and inviting trouble for all parties concerned. NYers wage jihad vs. WTC mosque By Tom Topousis and Joe Mollica Angry relatives of 9/11 victims last night clashed with supporters of a planned mosque near Ground Zero at a raucous community-board hearing in Manhattan. After four hours of public debate, members of Community Board 1 finally voted 29-1 in support of the project. Nine members abstained, arguing that they wanted to table the issue and vote at a later date. The board has no official say over whether the estimated $100 million mosque and community center gets built. But the panel's support, or lack of it, is considered important in influencing public opinion. Holding up photos of loved ones killed in the Twin Towers and carrying signs such as, "Honor 3,000, 9/11 -- No mosque!" opponents of the proposed Cordoba House on Park Place called th...

While approval from the 50-member board is  not needed to build the center, the vote may indicate how residents of lower Manhattan feel about the idea. "The community board is a good barometer of the sentiment of the people in that neighborhood," said Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer. "Many of the people on the Community Board are people who stayed in the neighborhood after 9/11, who had to rebuild this area," he said. "These are good people with good instincts." The board's 12-member Financial District committee unanimously voted in favor of the project earlier this month. "From my perspective, there's not a lot to dislike about the project," said Ro Scheffe, 59, a member of the committee who runs a communications firm and lives three blocks from Wall St. Foes - including some members of the board - argue an Islamic community center so close to Ground Zero is insensitive to the families of people who died on 9/11. T...

I was here in NYC for 9/11. My ex is a 9/11 survivor. I vividly remember what this City was like in the week following this horror. I have been following this mosque story and I am horrified. Stunned & horrified. Religious Tolerance in the U.S. is a TWO-WAY street! Have we forgotten that too? Short on Allah dollars By ISABEL VINCENT, MELISSA KLEIN and TOM TOPOUSIS Last Updated: 2:22 PM, May 16, 2010 Dreams by a Muslim group to build a mosque near Ground Zero may not match its means. The ambitious and immediately controversial proposal to create the $100 million religious and cultural center does not seem to be backed by any cash. The American Society for Muslim Advancement, which proposed the center, has assets of less than $1 million, according to its most recent audited financial statement. A sister organization, the Cordoba Initiative, listed assets of less than $20,000 in 2008. Its tax filings do not disclose at least $60,000 in private contributions, a Post anal...