Muslim Group Demands NYC Remove ‘Islamic Terrorists’ From 9/11 Memorial
A Muslim group in Owego, New York, the Islamic Organization of the Southern Tier, is demanding New York officials scrub the accurate term “Islamic terrorists” from a memorial for victims of the September 11 terrorist attack on the Twin Towers in 2001 at the hands of Islamic terrorists.
According to the Islamic organization, the term “Islamic terrorists” is incendiary and encourages hate crimes and animosity against Muslims. The group would, instead, like the memorial to be changed to read as “terrorists” or “al-Qaeda terrorists.”
Here’s the four-sentence long memorial inscription the Muslim group took issue with (emphasis added):
On September 11, 2001 nineteen Islamic terrorists unsuspectedly boarded four airliners departing east coast airports to hijack the planes and carry out a series of coordinated attacks against the United States. This is a tribute to all the lives lost that day and to the heroic sacrifice of all who rushed to help. As Americans, we honor their memory by living our lives in freedom. We will never forget.
As you might suspect, New York officials aren’t enthusiastically bending over backward to capitulate to the politically-correct request. In fact, they say they won’t, and don’t plan to. Ever.
“They want us to change the word from ‘Islamic Terrorist’ to either ‘terrorist’ or ‘Al Qaeda terrorist,’” explained City Manager Donald Castelluci. “I sent them back an email saying I disagreed with their premise 100 percent.”
Castelluci said he has zero intention of adhering to their demand, since, according to him, he doesn’t live in a “politically-correct world.” I live in a “historical fact world … Whether it’s American, homegrown, Christianity, Islamic, you call it what it is. And we don’t whitewash things, especially here,” he added.
Castelluci argued that the memorial “is not about religion,” but simply acts to memorialize “one event on one day that killed more than 3,000 people.”
Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who was in office at the time of the attack, also found the demand absurd. Giuliani likened the scrubbing of the term “Islamic terrorists” to removing the term “mafia” from “our history books.” Both are accurate, he explained, but do not act to paint an entire religion or ethnicity.
“My reaction to the Italian mafia was real simple: I’m Italian-American, I’m not embarrassed about them, I don’t belong to them. I want nothing to do with them and they represent the bad part of my ethnic background,” said the former mayor, Tuesday morning. “Every ethnic background has a bad part. There’s a bad part to the Islamic religion.
“The good part of the Islamic religion shouldn’t feel at all hurt by ‘Islamic terrorism.’ They should feel angry about it, they should feel like — maybe even stronger than I do — they should be wiped out,” he added. “I felt stronger, maybe people who weren’t Italian-American, the mafia should be wiped out.”
According to Giuliani, we “shouldn’t become defensive” about the bad people in our “group,” as it “makes it more difficult to overcome.”
The anti-PC memorial will be dedicated this Saturday to commemorate the 15th anniversary of the Islamic terrorist attack on American soil, notes The Blaze.
Source: Daily Wire