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Boston mosque project causes Muslim-Jewish tension
By Khalid Hasan
WASHINGTON: What could be the largest mosque in Northeastern United States is generating a great deal of tension between the Jewish and Muslim communities in Boston.
Work on the $24.5 million, 70,000 square foot project for the 70,000-strong Muslim community in the Boston area has come to a virtual halt because of litigation and increasing tension between the Jewish and Muslim communities. Around 70 percent of work on the mosque has been completed.
Jewish leaders charge that certain former and current officials in the Islamic Society of Boston, which is building the mosque, are linked to terrorist groups and have failed to distance themselves from radical Islam and anti-Jewish statements. This has been vigorously denied by the society, which defends its non-sectarian record.
The Jewish community has taken particular exception to a former trustee of the society, Egyptian cleric Sheikh Youssef al-Qaradawi, who has praised Hamas and Hezbollah, declared terrorist organisations by the US State Department. According to Larry Lowenthal, executive director of the American Jewish Committee’s Boston branch: “There is a great deal of anxiety. The distance that I think has to be established between these current leaders and their colleagues who have made troubling statements … has to be clearly distinct and established.”
The Jewish accusations have been rejected by Arsalan Iftikhar of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), America’s largest Muslim civil rights group. He says: “Unfortunately, I see the Boston case as indicative of a growing trend in anti-Muslim rhetoric that has grown after 9/11. It has especially impacted local Muslim communities in terms of building their mosques. High concentrations of Muslim populations are being given a hard time for just trying to practice their faith.”
Some Boston Muslims have been put off by the controversy and fundraising efforts by mosque trustees have suffered. “There is definitely fear in the fundraising community about giving to Islamic organisations,” Salma Kazmi of the society said. “Everyone is worried about their name appearing on a list and whether they will get visited by the FBI. People want us to publish our donor list but if we do that, we would never get any donations because everyone feels they’ll be subject to all kinds of harassment.”
A full-page advertisement in Jewish Advocate, a Boston newspaper, on Thursday accused the Islamic Society of Boston of using litigation to stifle discussion and failing to answer questions raised by Jewish leaders, who say that July’s bombings in London sharpened their concerns over mosques and terrorism. Another suit brought by a city resident urges the city of Boston to force the society to return the land on which the mosque is being built, charging that the Boston Redevelopment Authority breached constitutional divisions between state and religion by selling the site at a value far below the market rate.
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default...8-1-2006_pg7_9
Boston mosque project causes Muslim-Jewish tension
By Khalid Hasan
WASHINGTON: What could be the largest mosque in Northeastern United States is generating a great deal of tension between the Jewish and Muslim communities in Boston.
Work on the $24.5 million, 70,000 square foot project for the 70,000-strong Muslim community in the Boston area has come to a virtual halt because of litigation and increasing tension between the Jewish and Muslim communities. Around 70 percent of work on the mosque has been completed.
Jewish leaders charge that certain former and current officials in the Islamic Society of Boston, which is building the mosque, are linked to terrorist groups and have failed to distance themselves from radical Islam and anti-Jewish statements. This has been vigorously denied by the society, which defends its non-sectarian record.
The Jewish community has taken particular exception to a former trustee of the society, Egyptian cleric Sheikh Youssef al-Qaradawi, who has praised Hamas and Hezbollah, declared terrorist organisations by the US State Department. According to Larry Lowenthal, executive director of the American Jewish Committee’s Boston branch: “There is a great deal of anxiety. The distance that I think has to be established between these current leaders and their colleagues who have made troubling statements … has to be clearly distinct and established.”
The Jewish accusations have been rejected by Arsalan Iftikhar of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), America’s largest Muslim civil rights group. He says: “Unfortunately, I see the Boston case as indicative of a growing trend in anti-Muslim rhetoric that has grown after 9/11. It has especially impacted local Muslim communities in terms of building their mosques. High concentrations of Muslim populations are being given a hard time for just trying to practice their faith.”
Some Boston Muslims have been put off by the controversy and fundraising efforts by mosque trustees have suffered. “There is definitely fear in the fundraising community about giving to Islamic organisations,” Salma Kazmi of the society said. “Everyone is worried about their name appearing on a list and whether they will get visited by the FBI. People want us to publish our donor list but if we do that, we would never get any donations because everyone feels they’ll be subject to all kinds of harassment.”
A full-page advertisement in Jewish Advocate, a Boston newspaper, on Thursday accused the Islamic Society of Boston of using litigation to stifle discussion and failing to answer questions raised by Jewish leaders, who say that July’s bombings in London sharpened their concerns over mosques and terrorism. Another suit brought by a city resident urges the city of Boston to force the society to return the land on which the mosque is being built, charging that the Boston Redevelopment Authority breached constitutional divisions between state and religion by selling the site at a value far below the market rate.
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default...8-1-2006_pg7_9
The game plan of the AQ is taking fruit.
Religious tensions are surfacing in the USA. Those who have experienced religious tensions in their country can visualise that this is but the beginning of riots. Innocuous events, but charged!
The AQ's purpose will be served if these tensions continue and there is riots!
There was no requirement to sell the land at a lower rate. This has allowed a cause for the Jews and that is reinforced with the alleged terror support rhetoric by the trustee.
The local Moslems too are worried and because of the US being very vigilant and having touch laws, there is good reason to be worried since they can be collared and shut up in the clink!
One wonders why the Moslems have to build massive monuments in the name of religion. Smaller in scale would not have created apprehensions and would have equally served the purpose of Moslems.
Such massive projects will only agitate and raise the fear psychosis of others that they are being swamped!
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