Hate Rally at Ground Zero

With the wave of virulent anti-Muslim bigotry on display in the ongoing “Ground Zero mosque” controversy, it becomes abundantly clear that the full truth about 9/11 is needed more than ever. This hate-fueled media circus has shown us that, nine years down the road, the memory of the 9/11 attack still remains a dangerously potent force for fear-mongering propaganda.

Here are some words from those most affected.

The Telegraph:

“This is like a metastasized anti-Semitism,” said Daisy Khan, wife of Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf. “That’s what we feel right now. It’s not even Islamophobia, it’s beyond Islamophobia – it’s hate of Muslims. And we are deeply concerned.”

Philadelphia Inquirer:

“It’s a sin what [the fearmongers] are doing, making this about politics at the families’ expense,” said Robert McIlvaine, who lost his son when the planes hit the World Trade Center. “It’s producing hate, and it’s the last thing this country needs right now. People who have absolutely no connection to 9/11 are using it for their own political agendas. Fear and hatred help those agendas.”

Talking Points Memo:

“There is no simple, singular 9/11 group who really should or could speak for all 9/11 family members,” said Donna Marsh O’Connor of September Eleventh Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, a coalition of more than 250 families which recently endorsed the mosque. Since the endorsement, the membership numbers have grown, she said.

O’Connor said it’s unfair for groups like Debra Burlingame’s 9/11 Families for a Safe and Strong America to act as if they are representing everyone who lost loved ones in the attacks. O’Connor’s 29-year-old daughter Vanessa, pregnant at the time, was killed working on the 93rd floor of one of the twin towers.

The Star-Ledger:

Lorie Van Auken of East Brunswick, widowed by the attacks on the World Trade Center, says she feels chilled by efforts to prevent a Sufi Muslim community to expand their facilities in an old warehouse two blocks from Ground Zero. “It’s only because of religious tolerance in this country that my family is here,” says Van Auken, one of the so-called “Jersey Widows” who led the fight to create the 9/11 Commission. “They escaped intolerance in Europe — now we see it here.”

Mindy Kleinberg, of East Brunswick, another “Jersey widow,” says she was stunned by the force of the anti-Muslim rhetoric, but says she has other fights. “We still don’t have all the truth of what happened that day. We still have Guantanamo. This should not be the most important issue.”