Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Bravo to The Boston Phoenix. Most of the MSM has retreated into comfortable silence regarding the embattled Boston Mosque project...no, that's not exactly true, they still do puff-pieces...but as to controversy, most media has portrayed it as being a thing of the past when nothing could be further from the truth.
Enter today The Phoenix, bastion of lefty Boston journalism, with an impressive investigative piece: Menino's Mosque - The bizarre story behind the construction of Boston's most controversial building. David S. Bernstein has really done his homework, not only providing a useful overview of some of what we already know, but breaking a great deal of new ground and fleshing it out with an impressive amount of detail.
A but on the Dianne Wilkerson connection:
...Mohammed, according to reports in both the Globe and the Herald, is "Associate A" in the FBI affidavit outlining the current case against Wilkerson, submitted in federal court last month. A petition Wilkerson filed last month sought to name "Trinma Development and Management LLC as the developer of parcel 8." According to the FBI's allegations, Wilkerson accepted cash bribes in exchange for this assistance in giving Mohammed's company the rights to develop a large project in Lower Roxbury -- without going through normal city designation processes.
Sources who know both Mohammed and Ali-Salaam say that they are close friends. Both attended the Shawmut Avenue mosque for years. According to Moriarty, Ali-Salaam and Mohammed both attended an important pre-groundbreaking planning meeting, held at ISB's mosque on Prospect Street in Cambridge. And, says one source close to the project, Mohammed's company took over the Roxbury mosque construction project as a personal favor to Ali-Salaam.
As the federal case against Wilkerson proceeds, it will be interesting to see if it sheds any light on Wilkerson's stalwart support for the mosque. A person who worked for a time with the ISB now says that he had always found Wilkerson's support surprising, since the project seemed clearly to be for the benefit of a non-black, non-Roxbury group...
The piece casts considerable and well-deserved attention on Boston Redevelopment Authority official Muhammad Ali-Salaam, as well as the takeover by the Muslim American Society and the shouldering-aside of local, non-Gulf Muslims and the return of Walid 'Jews will be scourged' Fitaihi:
...one of the first things MAS-Boston did was put Fitaihi back on the mosque board of trustees.
This spring, Fitaihi donated $250,000 to the mosque, for a matching-fund drive. Kaleem confirms that Fitaihi was the donor, and that he remains active in the mosque development. "It's not like we're hiding that," says Kaleem.
This all came on the heels of a 2005 coup at the Islamic Center of New England (ICNE) in Quincy. Long-time religious leader Eid was forced out; Khalid Nasr of Egypt was hired as imam.
Many saw it as a victory of conservatives over moderates; some also saw it as part of a MAS-Boston takeover of area Islam. The ICNE leadership now consists primarily of MAS-Boston leaders -- the same handful of whom also have moved into positions at ICNE's academy, Al-Noor Academy, and other area Islamic institutions...
This is an important piece. The Phoenix has also provided a resource page, here.
Important supporting stories (Bernstein has been busy): Free pass on gay hatred? and The PTech connection? - Banking with terrorists. The resource page has even more.
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Charles Jacobs in this week's Jewish Advocate on the Boston Saudi-funded mosque (in full): Menino's Mosque: This was the title of the Boston Phoenix's lead story last week, featuring on the cover an image of Mayor Menino serving up a... Read More
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, p.44
Terrific article, Bernstein is truly an investigative reporter. Not many like him around. I'd put this in league with Dean Barnett's piece (may he rest in peace) and your article for PJM. He connected a lots o'dots and he discovered a lot of new stuff.
Re: gay hatred gets a pass, it even gets a pass from Boston Spirit, a gay publication which published a puff piece on the same issue a few weeks ago.
http://www.bostonspiritmagazine.com/articles/gay-muslims.html
From the article: "...everyone I spoke with agreed that American Muslims— and Muslims around the world—have more urgent matters on their hands than to pick fights over homosexuality, particularly dealing with fundamentalism and Islamophobia in the wake of 9/11."
The record of how Muslims around the world treat homosexuals is abysmal. How can that reporter be so willfully blind? Mind-boggling.