Conflicting reports: Is Jones cancelling the Koran burning, or is he offering to cancel the burning as a quid pro quo for moving the Ground Zero mosque?

CNN has this story:

Florida pastor calls off burning of Qurans

(CNN)—The Florida pastor who had planned to burn copies of the Quran on Saturday has called off the controversial event.

The Rev. Terry Jones of the Gainesville, Florida-based Dove World Outreach Center also announced Thursday that the imam who planned a mosque and Islamic center near ground zero in New York has agreed to move it to another location.

However, a spokesman from Soho Properties, the developer for New York project, told CNN that “the Muslim community center called Park 51 in lower Manhattan is not being moved.”

Jones said he will travel to New York on Saturday to meet with Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf. [the complete AP story is posted below.]

Well, that looks pretty pathetic, doesn’t it? However, NPR has this story, which makes things seem not so bad:

Preacher Offers Deal: May Spare Qurans If No NY Islamic Center
by Frank James

NPR’s Greg Allen reports that the would-be Quran-burning preacher in Gainesville, Fla., is offering a quid pro quo, according to the Islamic cleric who met with the preacher Wednesday and was to meet with him again on Thursday.

Terry Jones the preacher says he’ll reconsider the Quran burning if plans are ditched to build an Islamic Center near Ground Zero in Lower Manhattan.

Greg writes in an e-mail:

Imam Muhammad Musri, the guy from the Islamic Society of Central Florida who met with [Pastor Terry] Jones yesterday—-is back today and waiting to meet with Jones again. He says Jones told him that if the New York Imam calls off his plans to build the Islamic center near ground zero, he would consider calling off the Koran burning. Musri said he came back today to offer to lobby the New York imam on Jones’ behalf if he calls off the Koran burning. Musri says he himself opposes the NYC Islamic center project and that the two things—the Islamic center and the Koran burning have become linked in the public’s mind …

[end of NPR story]

As I said, the NPR story is not as discouraging as the AP, as it shows that Jones is still in the fight. However, if either the AP story or the NPR story is true (and the greater detail in the NPR story suggests that it is the true version), it shows that Jones’s stirring stand against Islam is compromised. In his article on “Ten reasons to burn a Koran,” he said that he regards Islam as a danger and a harm to us. How would that be changed if Rauf makes a deal and moves the mosque? Does Islam become less dangerous because one mosque was moved? Of course not. In fact, a timely and dramatic agreement by Rauf to move the mosque could be used by Muslims and liberals to promote the false idea that there really is a “moderate” Islam, thus leading conservatives to drop their opposition to the spread of Islam in the West and start singing Kumbaya. This is the risk that has been contained all along in the conservative position of only opposing the location of this particular mosque, rather than opposing the spread of Islam as such.

Jones’s disheartening failure to stay consistently with his rejectionist stand against Islam further proves one of the central ideas I have advanced at this website:

Because liberalism so dominates the world we live in and is the default position for all modern Westerners, including conservatives, unless a conservative has a completely worked out non-liberal position from which to oppose liberalism as liberalism, he will always end up surrendering to liberalism. The only way to oppose the rule of liberalism consistently, is to stand on independent and separate ground from liberalism.

Finally, I would add that of all Western belief systems today, only traditionalism provides such an independent and separate ground.

* * *

Here is the complete AP story—it is filled with all kinds of moving developments in addition to Jones’s announced cancellation of the burning.

Florida pastor calls off burning of Qurans

(CNN)—The Florida pastor who had planned to burn copies of the Quran on Saturday has called off the controversial event.

The Rev. Terry Jones of the Gainesville, Florida-based Dove World Outreach Center also announced Thursday that the imam who planned a mosque and Islamic center near ground zero in New York has agreed to move it to another location.

However, a spokesman from Soho Properties, the developer for New York project, told CNN that “the Muslim community center called Park 51 in lower Manhattan is not being moved.”

Jones said he will travel to New York on Saturday to meet with Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf.

The pastor appeared at an afternoon press conference with Imam Muhammad Musri of the Islamic Society of Central Florida.

“I think the location of the mosque next to the ground zero location is unnecessary,” Musri said.

A letter obtained from Donald Trump confirmed his offer to purchase the site to be used for the New York center for 25 percent above the purchase price. Jones’ plans to do the burning prompted outrage among Muslims and others around the world. U.S. military and State Department officials had warned of repercussions if it occurred. Jones told reporters that he took a phone call from Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who “was very gracious and encouraged us not to continue.”

Earlier Thursday, President Barack Obama called the plan by Jones to burn the Qurans a “recruitment bonanza for al Qaeda.”

“You could have serious violence in places like Pakistan or Afghanistan” as a result of the burning, Obama said on ABC’s “Good Morning America.” “This could increase the recruitment of individuals who’d be willing to blow themselves up in American cities, or European cities.”

Jones previously had said he would proceed with the plan Saturday—the ninth anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks—despite increased pressure to abandon the proposal and warnings that going ahead could endanger U.S. troops and Americans worldwide.

Interpol on Thursday issued a global alert to its 188 member countries, warning of a “strong likelihood” of violent attacks if the Quran burning proceeded.

The FBI visited Jones at the Dove Center on Thursday, according to Jeffrey Westcott, special agent in charge of the Jacksonville, Florida, bureau. The FBI also visited him a few weeks ago, he said, but would not say what was discussed.

Discussions were taking place within the Obama administration about the possibility of intervening, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters Thursday. Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said the possibility of calling Jones is under consideration, and that Defense Secretary Robert Gates was participating in the discussions.

Earlier this week, the top U.S. military commander in Afghanistan, Gen. David Petraeus, warned that the plan “could cause significant problems” for American troops overseas.

Jones had rejected the pleas, saying his message targets radical Islamists. “The general needs to point his finger to radical Islam and tell them to shut up, tell them to stop, tell them that we will not bow our knees to them,” Jones said on CNN’s “AC360.” “We are burning the book. We are not killing someone. We are not murdering people.”

Meanwhile, two websites associated with Jones and his church were down Thursday.

Rackspace Hosting took down the two sites because the church “violated the hate speech provision of our acceptable use policy,” said spokesman Dan Goodgame.

The company investigated a complaint in the past couple days and made the determination after reviewing both sites, said Goodgame, adding that Rackspace was under no pressure to act.

“This is not a constitutional issue. This is a contract issue,” he said.

Rackspace gave Jones until midnight Wednesday to migrate content and find another host. Goodgame said he did not know how long Rackspace had hosted the websites, but he said it did not handle design or content.

“We have about 100,000 customers,” Goodgame said. “We don’t even know what all the sites are.”

Jones and Dove World had agreed to terms on the Rackspace Cloud service, Goodgame said. The policy dictates the suspension or termination of service for offensive content, including material that is “excessively violent, incites violence, threatens violence or contains harassing content or hate speech.”

“We would have taken the same position if it was hate speech against Christians or other groups,” he added.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is one of the few public officials who defended Jones’ right to go ahead with the burning, even as he condemned the idea as “distasteful.”

“The First Amendment protects everybody, and you can’t say that we are going to apply the First Amendment to only those cases where we are in agreement,” Bloomberg said, citing the section of the Constitution that promises freedom of speech.

A Christian congregation in Germany on Thursday distanced itself from Jones, its founder and former pastor. Stephan Baar, one of the leaders of the Christian Community of Cologne, said the congregation split with Jones in 2008 over differences in the way the church was run.

The U.S. State Department issued a global travel alert because of the potential for anti-American demonstrations if the Quran burning is carried out.

Larry G. writes:

You wrote:

“Is Jones cancelling the Koran burning, or is he offering to cancel the burning as a quid pro quo for moving the Ground Zero mosque?”

Who knows? All I know is he caved. At least he managed to expose the true condition of America: scared to death of Muslims, and eager to suppress the constitutional rights of our own citizens to appease them. America’s claim to be a superpower is now laughable, and all our enemies know it.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at September 09, 2010 06:21 PM | Send