http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...238186074.html
Mosque Planner Says Opposition Goes 'Beyond Islamophobia'
NEW YORK
AUGUST 22, 2010, 4:38 P.M. ET
By THOMAS CATAN
WASHINGTON—A leader of a planned Muslim community center near Manhattan's Ground Zero compared opposition to the project to the persecution of Jews, in comments that could add to the controversy over the center's proposed site.
"We are deeply concerned, because this is like a metastasized antisemitism," said Daisy Khan, who is spearheading the project with her husband, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf. "It's beyond Islamophobia. It's hate of Muslims."
Ms. Khan, appearing on ABC News's "This Week" on Sunday, vowed to push ahead with plans to build a 15-story complex two blocks from the site of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in lower Manhattan, saying there was "too much at stake."
The words could further inflame an already angry debate about the proposed location of the community center, which opponents denounce as a "victory mosque." Rival protests for and against the $100 million center were planned in lower Manhattan on Sunday....
The imam behind the project is described by many as a moderate Muslim leader who has long called for reconciliation between religions. But critics have focused on comments he made shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, to question whether he is as moderate as his supporters say.
Specifically, they point to comments by Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf that while the U.S. didn't deserve what happened on 9/11, its policies were "an accessory to the crime." Asked on Sunday about those comments, Ms. Khan said they had been part of a wider interview that addressed support by the Central Intelligence Agency for Osama Bin Laden and the Taliban in the 1980s - when the U.S. was fighting a proxy war against Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.