This is a rush transcript from “Hannity,” May 13, 2010. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
SEAN HANNITY, HOST: Tonight in Your America, friends and family members of the victims of the 9/11 attacks are outraged over a plan to build a mosque in the shadow of where the Twin Towers once stood.
Now the 13-story structure is believed to be a $100 million project. The building would be erected just steps away from Ground Zero replacing a building that was actually damaged in the attack.
Now some are arguing that building a mosque there would help improve relations between Muslims and westerners, while others have called the project, quote, “humiliating and insulting.”
And joining me now to debate this controversial issue are the president of ActforAmerica.org and the author of “They Must Be Stopped,” Brigitte Gabriel. And the president of the World Muslim Congress, Michael Ghouse is with us.
Alright, Brigitte, good idea, bad idea?
BRIGITTE GABRIEL, ACT FOR AMERICA PRESIDENT: It’s a very bad idea. It is a disrespectful idea. It is a slap in the face to the victims of 9/11 who lost their lives as well as the face of their families.
What ever happened to the respect and sensitivities to those who lost their lives by the atrocities committed by radical Muslims in the name of their religion while they were screaming Allahu Akbar.
What we are concerned about the mosque also, Sean, is not only how disrespectful and insensitive it is, but also the radical lengths of the imam who’s going to be heading and teaching at this mosque.
Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf has said publicly that the September 11th attack was not perpetrated by Muslims. He said publicly on CNN that the United States was an accessory to the crime. And that Usama bin Laden was made in the United States.
So what type of teaching will be done in the mosque if it gets build across from the place where thousands of Americans lost their lives?
HANNITY: Mr. Ghouse, let me read for you from Andrea Peyser who writes from The New York Post, he quote, this guy Paul Sipos who said, “A mosque is a fine idea somewhere else.”
And this was the analogy used. If the Japanese decided to open a cultural center across from Pearl Harbor, that would be insensitive. If the Germans wanted to open a center across from Auschwitz even after all these years it would be an insensitive setting.
He said, I absolutely have nothing against Islam. Why there?
GABRIEL: Exactly why there?
MIKE GHOUSE, WORLD MUSLIM CONGRESS: It’s a good point, Sean.
GABRIEL: Because —
HANNITY: Well, hang on.
GABRIEL: Because it is symbolic.
HANNITY: Brigitte, let —
GHOUSE: Brigitte, Brigitte —
GABRIEL: We have to understand about the —
GHOUSE: Brigitte, it’s my turn.
(CROSSTALK)
GABRIEL: The imam who is basically spearheading this, is his father came out of Muslim Brotherhood, the oldest terrorist organization in the world. He was with the Muslim Brotherhood with Ayman al-Zawahiri, the second man of Al Qaeda.
HANNITY: Alright. Brigitte, let me get to that in a second.
GABRIEL: He was kicked out of Egypt —
HANNITY: Hang on a second.
GABRIEL: — and sent to Kuwait where Feisal Abdul Rauf was born. And then the father came to the United States in 1965 —
HANNITY: Brigitte, hang on one second.
GABRIEL: — and set up an Islamic censor in New York —
HANNITY: Brigitte, hang on one second.
GABRIEL: — funded by 49 Muslim countries.
HANNITY: Let me — let Mr. Ghouse response.
GABRIEL: So there are radical links we know. Anti-terrorism experts I talk in my books about the Muslim Brotherhood project for North America. This is the Muslim Brotherhood act work (ph) and they are using our laws and our open-mindedness against us.
HANNITY: I don’t think Brigitte can hear me, so Mr. Ghouse, it’s your turn.
GABRIEL: Oh, sorry.
GHOUSE: I’m glad, Sean. First of all, the acts committed were by wrong people. They were terrorists. Everybody including Muslims condemn them without any question.
This — what they are building is a community center like the Jewish community center. Like the YMCA.
HANNITY: They’re building a mosque.
GHOUSE: It is a Muslim community center.
HANNITY: With a — a mosque with a swimming pool.
GHOUSE: Mosque is going to be part of the — mosque is going to be a part of it too, large community center.
HANNITY: OK.
GHOUSE: And by the way, it is accessible to everyone who wants to go. Mosque is not a private sanctuary, it is a public place for every American who visits. The doors are open.
HANNITY: I got it, Mr. Ghouse. Here’s —
(CROSSTALK)
HANNITY: I want you to respond to what — to the quote that I read from you from Andrea Peyser’s column in The New York Post. The similarities, the Japanese, Pearl Harbor, Germans, Auschwitz.
How do you respond to that analogy considering it was radical Islamic terrorists that took out those towers?
GHOUSE: You are absolutely right. Go get the radical Islamist terrorists who did it, not the Muslims. 1.5 billion Muslims have nothing to do with this. It is their place of worship and not them. And this sends a very good message to the entire world that we are Americans, we are open-minded. We got a large heart. We are willing to forgive the wrongdoers. But we are also able to distinguish between the wrongdoers and the right people.
HANNITY: Alright. Let me go back to Brigitte.
Brigitte, you had started to bring up this issue of this connection with the people that are involved in this project and the father of the person that is directly involved in this project. What has your investigation found out?
GABRIEL: Correct. His father — the father of the imam who’s going to head up this mosque came out of the Muslim Brotherhood along with Ayman al-Zawahiri, the second man of Al Qaeda.
The Muslim Brotherhood is the oldest Islamic terrorist organization in the world. His father Mohammed left to Kuwait where Faisal was born and then came to the United States in 1965 and built an Islamic center in Manhattan funded by 49 Muslim countries.
So we are concerned about the links of the Muslim Brotherhood and its connection to this mosque. We know that the Muslim Brotherhood has a 100-year plan to dominate and infiltrate the west. We know that in the intelligence community. This is the Muslim Brotherhood’s plan through and through.
And they are using our open-mindedness. They are using the youthful idiots in the west who do not know about the Muslim Brotherhood project in order to advance the Islamic agenda in the west.
Remember —
HANNITY: Alright. Alright. Hang on.
GABRIEL: — this imam, Feisal Abdul Rauf, is a strong —
HANNITY: Mister —
GABRIEL: — adviser on Sharia. He is pushing Sharia law. He believes that the United States basically made Usama bin Laden up. And he believes that September 11th was not perpetrated by Muslims.
HANNITY: Alright. Hang on. Brigitte, hang on.
GABRIEL: What is he going to be teaching in his mosque?
HANNITY: Alright. Brigitte, let me go to Mr. Ghouse here.
Mr. Ghouse, what about that connection that she’s referring to here about the father of the imam that would run this mosque?
GHOUSE: Let me ask you this. If I commit a crime do I go to jail?
HANNITY: Stop for a second.
GHOUSE: Or my father, my mother or my brother.
HANNITY: I’m asking, should people be concerned about the connection that Brigitte Gabriel is bringing up here that she — that she just brought up?
GHOUSE: Not at all. It has nothing to do with — if I do something good or bad, it is me. Nothing to do with my father, my sister or my kids.
Jesus Christ was a Christian. His heritage was different. Look at every religious leader. The father was not the same as the son. They were different. He may have been related to him. His father may have been the chief of the brotherhood. But not him.
Look at his teachings. Study his teachings. It’s about pluralism, co-existence, building civil dialogue.
HANNITY: Alright.
GHOUSE: Sitting down and talking.
HANNITY: We got it. We’ll get into the last —
(CROSSTALK)
GABRIEL: Words straight out of the Muslim Brotherhood project. Words straight out of the Muslim Brotherhood project. We know that this is a Muslim Brotherhood through and through. We know how they are taught to talk. We know how they are operating.
This is exactly what they talk about in their project to advance Islam. And for them to even think about putting something like this next to the World Trade Center is a slap in the face.
And remember the Muslim world operates on symbols, everything has to be symbolic. And this — they chose this place in particular because of the symbol it represents to the Arabic world.
HANNITY: Alright, guys, thank you both for being with us.
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