The highly controversial ‘Ground Zero mosque’ project that was shelved after protests appears to be back in the form of a 16,000-square-foot Islamic cultural center set to be built in the same place in Manhattan.

The ‘Ground Zero mosque’ (originally named Cordoba House) was planned to be a 13-story Islamic community center and mosque in Lower Manhattan. It would have replaced a building that was damaged during the 9/11 attacks by plane parts and included a “prayer space” for up to 2,000 Muslims.

Following widespread controversy and opposition from 9/11 families, the project was abandoned, but an Islamic cultural museum with a Muslim “prayer space” was subsequently built and recently completed.

Summit reports: However, it appears as though a larger new mosque is being planned for the site.

New York YIMBY reports, “Construction has also yet to begin on 51 Park Place, which is slated to become a 71-foot-tall, 16,000-square-foot Islamic cultural center.” 

According to anti-Islam activist Pamela Geller, developer Sharif El-Gamal has learned from the ground zero mosque controversy and is trying to keep the new project secret.

“El-Gamal has many friends and allies among New York City’s political and media elites,” she writes. “It is likely that de Blasio city officials and the New York Times and other city papers all met with El-Gamal and agreed to keep the reporting on this project to an absolute minimum, so that it could get built without incurring the righteous anger of the public again. The first time around, they courted publicity and tried to make El-Gamal a hero. We demolished that and destroyed their plans. So now they’ve clearly decided to go ahead surreptitiously.”

Geller continues to insist that the notion of building a mosque at the site where Islamic terrorists slaughtered thousands of Americans is a deliberate provocation.

“It is…an Islamic pattern to build triumphal mosques on the cherished sites of conquered lands,” writes Geller. “History is riddled with triumphal mosques built on the sites of jihad attacks or appropriated from other religions: the Dome of the Rock and the al-Aqsa Mosque on the site of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem, the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, and innumerable mosques built on the sites of Hindu temples that were demolished by Muslims all attest to that.”

Baxter Dmitry

Baxter Dmitry is a writer at Your News Wire. He covers politics, business and entertainment. Speaking truth to power since he learned to talk, Baxter has travelled in over 80 countries and won arguments in every single one. Live without fear.
Email: baxter@yournewswire.com
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