Ground Zero Mosque: Keep Quiet or Provoke Osama Bin Laden - Really? » Publications » Family Security Matters

Ground Zero Mosque: Keep Quiet or Provoke Osama Bin Laden - Really? » Publications » Family Security Matters:

One of the most appalling and bizarre opinion pieces about the Ground Zero mosque appeared on August 21st in The New York Times, Nicholas D. Kristof’s “Taking Bin Laden’s Side.” The op-ed closely follows and dovetails with a Times report on how opposition to the mosque has only “provoked” Islamic “extremists” and “played into their hands.”

Some counterterrorism experts say the anti-Muslim sentiment that has saturated the airwaves and blogs in the debate over plans for an Islamic center near ground zero in Lower Manhattan is playing into the hands of extremists by bolstering their claims that the United States is hostile to Islam.

Opposition to the center by prominent politicians and other public figures in the United States has been covered extensively by the news media in Muslim countries. At a time of concern about radicalization of young Muslims in the West, it risks adding new fuel to Al Qaeda’s claim that Islam is under attack by the West and must be defended with violence, some specialists on Islamic militancy say.

This amazing statement is based on the premise that not being “hostile” to Islam would somehow mitigate Islam’s hostility for the West and particularly its hostility for the United States. Ergo, we should just keep quiet about the Ground Zero mosque and not provoke “extremists” with “extremism” of our own.