Ground Zero mosque, Jews and us

M. Taufiqurrahman, Jakarta | Sat, 08/21/2010 10:39 AM | The Jakarta Post, Opinion

I am not quite sure if anti-Semitism is an issue in this country, but judging from the easy
availability of books carrying incendiary themes of some Jewish conspiracy trying to control the
world, people in this country have a strong suspicion toward Jewish people, to say the least.

Add this to the frequent misstep that the Israeli government makes in dealing with the Palestinian
occupation, you can easily turn the suspicion into a paranoia toward anything Jewish.

If holding the belief that a grand Jewish conspiracy was responsible for the 9/11 attack on the
New York’s World Trade Center — a suggestion which in fact was printed as a headline of a
major newspaper in this country only days after the attack — is not paranoia, I don’t know what
paranoia is.

Late last year, I attended to a seminar in which speakers, without any hint of irony, discussing
how the same Jewish conspiracy had been responsible for almost any ill plaguing the society,
from the change in our diet, the outbreak of mysterious illness and putting Alzheimer in the
vaccine for haj pilgrims to the change in our school curriculum.

Whenever George Soros, the wealthy Jewish financier drops by at the State Palace, some people
on the fringe of the political spectrum suspected that he was cooking up a next sinister plan to
control the country.

I don’t believe in conspiracies — I agree with British author Joseph Conrad when he says that all
ideas containing political plots and conspiracies are childish, crude inventions for the theater or a
novel — but I have problems proving that those paranoid people are wrong.

Until the Ground Zero Mosque controversy broke out.

Some believers of the conspiracy theory surely don’t want to admit, but long before US President
Barack Obama threw his support for the construction of the Muslim community center two
blocks away from Ground Zero, the first champion of the plan was New York Mayor Michael
Bloomberg. And yes you are right. He is a Jewish financier whose fortune comes from owning
financial news and data company Bloomberg, which makes up one third of the US$16 billion
global financial data market.

In his emotional speech to defend the construction of the community center and mosque,
Bloomberg said that the construction project should go ahead as “this nation was founded on the
principle that the government must never choose between religions, or favor one over another.”

And in taking the stance, Bloomberg has consulted who were for and against the construction
including leaders of the Muslim community in New York.
In supporting the project, Bloomberg heeds the suggestion from the Muslim community saying
that the community center will be the only place in New York City for Muslims to share their
Muslim faith with their Jewish and Christian friends.

The mosque construction is also a personal crusade for Bloomberg.

He just wants to pay back the injustice that befell his family. His parents had to ask their
Christian lawyer to buy a house and then sell it back to them to hide their identity in an
unwelcoming Massachusetts suburb.

Bloomberg may just think that Muslims should not become victims of discrimination under his
watch.
Bloomberg is not the only group of Jewish people who defended the Ground Zero Mosque.

Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Thomas Friedman, a Jew from Minnesota, is also an early
defender of the project, believing that the construction of the mosque will further nurture the
diversity of America, which will in turn boost the country’s most competitive advantage: “The
sheer creative energy that comes when you mix all our diverse people and cultures together”.

Friedman said that defending the mosque also meant defending Broadway shows — the epitome
of American cultural diversity, he said in his article “Broadway and the Mosque” from the Aug.
3 edition of The New York Times.

What about Jews in the White House?

For all I know, Obama’s chief adviser David Axelrod has been reduced to become a chief
spokesman for Obama’s stance on the project.

Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel — a Chicago Jew who spent his time joining the Israeli Defense
Force (IDF) and arguably the most powerful voice in the White House — certainly had
something to say in the discussion that led to Obama’s joining the discussion on the Ground Zero
mosque controversy. Suppose he failed to convince Obama to decide otherwise, we now know
that Jews don’t always get the upper hand.

Cynics will easily dismiss this as nothing but politics, but I will be more than happy to highlight
those facts, to point out that reality is never as simple as what conspiracy theorists want us to
believe.

The author is a staff writer at The Jakarta Post.