Sarah Palin Post: AP Orders Staff "Stop Using the Phrase 'Ground Zero Mosque"'

In an unusual move, the Associated Press has publicly released an advisory memo to its reporters on how to cover of the Ground Zero mosque story - and the first rule is that journalists must immediately stop calling it the "Ground Zero mosque" story.

"We should continue to avoid the phrase ‘Ground zero mosque' or ‘mosque at ground zero' on all platforms," reads the advisory, which was issued by the AP's Standards Center.

Instead of the "Ground Zero mosque," AP recommends that reporters use the terms "mosque 2 blocks from WTC site," "Muslim (or Islamic) center near WTC site," "mosque near ground zero," or "mosque near WTC site." […]

Also included in the advisory is a "Fact Check" to provide "additional background" for reporters.

"A New York imam and his proposed mosque near ground zero are being demonized by political candidates - mostly Republicans - despite the fact that Islam is already very much a part of the World Trade Center neighborhood," reads the first paragraph of the Fact Check. "And that Muslims pray inside the Pentagon, too, less than 80 feet from where terrorists attacked. And that the imam who's being branded an extremist has been valued by both Republican and Democratic administrations as a moderate face of the faith."

One of the "facts" that the AP feels the need to "clarify" is that Ground Zero mosque organizer Feisal Abdul Rauf is a moderate Muslim.  […]

The advisory also "fact checks" pure opinion statements made by conservatives, like former House Speaker Newt Gringrich's assertion that "America is experiencing an Islamist cultural-political offensive designed to undermine and destroy our civilization." […]

AP is arguable the most influential news organization in the country, and many media outlets adhere to its guidelines in their reporting.

The AP Staff E-Mails:

agoldman@ap.org, akennedy@ap.org, amiga@ap.org, asanner@ap.org, ataxin@ap.org, awestfeldt@ap.org, bdobbin@ap.org, bdraper@ap.org, bfouhy@ap.org, blewis@ap.org, cbabington@ap.org, cbarry@ap.org, clong@ap.org, crugaber@ap.org, cwoodward@ap.org, dbauder@ap.org, ddaniel@ap.org, despo@ap.org, dgram@ap.org, dhastings@ap.org 

dkdaniel@ap.org, dnephin@ap.org, esimon@ap.org, evandore@ap.org, fdemilio@ap.org, fklug@ap.org, gjohnson@ap.org, gkatz@ap.org, gmulvihill@ap.org, gwong@ap.org, hjkorea@ap.org, javersa@ap.org, jbarbassa@ap.org, jbilleaud@ap.org, jhdavis@ap.org, jheintz@ap.org, jholland@ap.org, jkuhnhenn@ap.org

gdjohnson@ap.org, jsong@ap.org, kdaigle@ap.org, kgannon@ap.org, kritter@ap.org, lbaldor@ap.org, ldeutsch@ap.org, lshepherd@ap.org, lsidoti@ap.org, mapuzzo@ap.org, mbaker@ap.org, mcrutsinger@ap.org, mdale@ap.org, mgordon@ap.org, mlee@ap.org, mniesse@ap.org, mrobinson@ap.org, mvolz@ap.org, npickler@ap.org, ntoosi@ap.org

orodriguez@ap.org, pames@ap.org, pelliott@ap.org, pgorndi@ap.org, phess@ap.org, pjrlinek@ap.org, ppylas@ap.org, psvensson@ap.org, pyost@ap.org, razalivar@ap.org, rburns@ap.org, rfoley@ap.org, rfournier@ap.org, rnakashima@ap.org, rpyle@ap.org, sbauer@ap.org, sgraham@ap.org, squinn@ap.org, stheimer@ap.org, tcone@ap.org

tparadis@ap.org, traum@ap.org, tross@ap.org, ttompson@ap.org, wmccall@ap.org, zkaram@ap.org

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AP Orders Staff: "Stop Using the Phrase 'Ground Zero Mosque'"

Sarah Palin Post: We Muslims Know Ground Zero Mosque Deliberate Provocation by Muslim Canadian Congress

Last week, a journalist who writes for the North Country Times, a small newspaper in Southern California, sent us an e-mail titled "Help." He couldn't understand why an Islamic Centre in an area where Adam Gadahn, Osama bin Laden's American spokesman came from, and that was home to three of the 911 terrorists, was looking to expand.

The man has a very valid point, which leads to the ongoing debate about building a Mosque at Ground Zero in New York. When we try to understand the reasoning behind building a mosque at the epicentre of the worst-ever attack on the U.S., we wonder why its proponents don't build a monument to those who died in the attack?

New York currently boasts at least 30 mosques so it's not as if there is pressing need to find space for worshippers. The fact we Muslims know the idea behind the Ground Zero mosque is meant to be a deliberate provocation to thumb our noses at the infidel. The proposal has been made in bad faith and in Islamic parlance, such an act is referred to as "Fitna," meaning "mischief-making" that is clearly forbidden in the Koran.

The Koran commands Muslims to, "Be considerate when you debate with the People of the Book" -- i.e., Jews and Christians. Building an exclusive place of worship for Muslims at the place where Muslims killed thousands of New Yorkers is not being considerate or sensitive, it is undoubtedly an act of "fitna"  […]

It's a repugnant thought that $100 million would be brought into the United States rather than be directed at dying and needy Muslims in Darfur or Pakistan. 

Let's not forget that a mosque is an exclusive place of worship for Muslims and not an inviting community centre. Most Americans are wary of mosques due to the hard core rhetoric that is used in pulpits. And rightly so. As Muslims we are dismayed that our co-religionists have such little consideration for their fellow citizens and wish to rub salt in their wounds and pretend they are applying a balm to sooth the pain.  […]

If this mosque does get built, it will forever be a lightning rod for those who have little room for Muslims or Islam in the U.S. We simply cannot understand why on Earth the traditional leadership of America's Muslims would not realize their folly and back out in an act of goodwill.

As for those teary-eyed, bleeding-heart liberals such as New York mayor Michael Bloomberg and much of the media, who are blind to the Islamist agenda in North America, we understand their goodwill.

Unfortunately for us, their stand is based on ignorance and guilt, and they will never in their lives have to face the tyranny of Islamism that targets, kills and maims Muslims worldwide, and is using liberalism itself to destroy liberal secular democratic societies from within.

Raheel Raza is author of Their Jihad ... Not my Jihad, and Tarek Fatah is author of The Jew is Not My Enemy (McClelland & Stewart), to be launched in October.  Both sit on the board of the Muslim Canadian Congress.

Source: 

The Ottawa Citizen:  Mischief in Manhattan by Raheel Raza & Tarek Fatah

Muslim Canadian Congress: Muslim Canadian Congress urges New York’s Ground-Zero Mosque Imam to abandon project 

Sarah Palin Tweet: Please read this op-ed: http://is.gd/ehXMB by Raheel Raza & Tarek Fatah

Sarah Palin Post: Sacrilege at Ground Zero by Charles Krauthammer

A place is made sacred by a widespread belief that it was visited by the miraculous or the transcendent (Lourdes, the Temple Mount), by the presence there once of great nobility and sacrifice (Gettysburg), or by the blood of martyrs and the indescribable suffering of the innocent (Auschwitz).

When we speak of Ground Zero as hallowed ground, what we mean is that it belongs to those who suffered and died there -- and that such ownership obliges us, the living, to preserve the dignity and memory of the place, never allowing it to be forgotten, trivialized or misappropriated. […]

Even New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who denounced opponents of the proposed 15-story mosque and Islamic center near Ground Zero as tramplers on religious freedom, asked the mosque organizers "to show some special sensitivity to the situation." Yet, as columnist Rich Lowry pointedly noted, the government has no business telling churches how to conduct their business, shape their message or show "special sensitivity" to anyone about anything. Bloomberg was thereby inadvertently conceding the claim of those he excoriates for opposing the mosque, namely that Ground Zero is indeed unlike any other place and therefore unique criteria govern what can be done there. […]

Religious institutions in this country are autonomous. Who is to say that the mosque won't one day hire an Anwar al-Aulaqi -- spiritual mentor to the Fort Hood shooter and the Christmas Day bomber, and onetime imam at the Virginia mosque attended by two of the 9/11 terrorists?

An Aulaqi preaching in Virginia is a security problem. An Aulaqi preaching at Ground Zero is a sacrilege. Or would the mayor then step in -- violating the same First Amendment he grandiosely pretends to protect from mosque opponents -- and exercise a veto over the mosque's clergy?

Location matters. Especially this location. Ground Zero is the site of the greatest mass murder in American history -- perpetrated by Muslims of a particular Islamist orthodoxy in whose cause they died and in whose name they killed. […]

These restrictions are for reasons of aesthetics. Others are for more profound reasons of common decency and respect for the sacred. No commercial tower over Gettysburg, no convent at Auschwitz -- and no mosque at Ground Zero.

Build it anywhere but there. The governor of New York offered to help find land to build the mosque elsewhere. A mosque really seeking to build bridges, Rauf's ostensible hope for the structure, would accept the offer. letters@charleskrauthammer.com

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Sarah Palin Tweet: Krauthammer: Sacrilege at Ground Zero 

The Washington Post: Sacrilege at Ground Zero By Charles Krauthammer