The New York-based Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has joined a groundswell of opposition to a plan to build a large mosque next to Ground Zero.
The Jewish civil rights group, long committed to religious tolerance, says placing a Muslim cultural and religious center close to the spot where Islamist terrorists murdered some 3,000 people is just plain wrong.
In a statement to the media, the ADL declared over the weekend, “Ultimately, this is not a question of rights, but a question of what is right. In our judgment, building an Islamic Center in the shadow of the World Trade Center will cause some victims more pain – unnecessarily – and that is not right.”
The proposed 13-story, $100 million mosque is to be built just two blocks from the site of the “9/11” attack on New York by the international al-Qaeda terrorist organization, in the heart of the city's financial district.
Massive protests by various opposition groups have given the city pause, despite a decision by a city committee to approve the project. If the plan succeeds, hundreds of Muslims will worship daily at the Park Place site, barely 600 feet from the area where terrorists ignited an inferno that destroyed the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center and killed nearly 3,000 people .
Opponents are now setting their sights on the upcoming meeting of the Landmark Preservation Commission, scheduled for Tuesday, when they hope to convince officials to abandon the plan.
The commission, which is the only body that can block construction of the mosque, might decide to do so based on the fact that in order to build the Islamic center, contractors first must destroy the 152-year-old Cordova House warehouse, a venerable city landmark.