The Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish organization whose programs “counteract hatred, prejudice and bigotry,” has released a statement excoriating plans to build an Islamic community center and mosque near Ground Zero.
“Proponents of the Islamic Center may have every right to build at this site, and may even have chosen the site to send a positive message about Islam. The bigotry some have expressed in attacking them is unfair, and wrong,” the statement reads.
“But 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,” it says.
The ADL recommends the city “would be better served if an alternative location could be found.”
Conservatives, including Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich and Rudy Giuliani, have been frothing over the plans for the mosque, calling it an insult to the victims of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.