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![Muslims Groups Back NYC Mosque Plan]()
The leaders of U.S. Muslim groups had a chance to do something really significant in the fight over Park 51, the constitutionally protected but widely despised plan to build a mosque and Islamic cultural center near Ground Zero in New York.
The Muslim leaders could have said that while it is their right to build the mosque, they would demonstrate their concern for the people of New York and move their project to a place that wouldn't cause 70 percent of Americans to oppose their project.
But they missed the opportunity.
Instead, the leaders of U.S. Muslim groups called for a continued dialogue and again asserted the right everyone knows they have to build the mosque.
So we can all expect the rhetoric to get more radicalized on both sides of the debate, with the public protests to get a little more dangerous and the hope for a solution to grow a little dimmer.
While the developer of Park 51 didn't attend the meeting with the Muslim groups, it is certain that had the group, which included the Council on Islamic-American Relations and the Islamic Society of North America, said it supported moving the project, the developer would have had to pay attention.
It is ironic that while the Muslim leaders had plenty to say about what they see as an anti-Islamic tide rising in the United States, they refused to answer a question about whether they would denounce Hamas, the militant Palestinian group that the U.S. government considers a terrorist organization.
Another missed opportunity.
Polls show that 7 out of 10 Americans are opposed to building Park 51 near Ground Zero. I'm not sure if anything will change those overwhelming numbers against the plan.
But Muslims could engender some goodwill among other faiths in the United States by confronting the radical elements within their own religion who use terrorism as a shield. Until that begins to happen on a larger scale, interfaith dialogs between Muslims and non-Muslims will be a waste of everyone's time.
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