This just in — the Jim Lafferty of the Virginia Anti-Shariah Task Force (VAST) is going to hold a press conference in front of the cemetery which has chosen to embrace Boston terrorist Tamerlan Tsarnev:
The Virginia Anti-Shariah Task Force (VAST) and other pro-freedom organizations will hold a press conference at 10 a.m., Monday, May 13 near the main entrance to the Al-Barzakh Cemetery in Doswell, Virginia.
Tamerlan Tsarnev, one of the Boston Marathon bombers, was buried in this cemetery on Thursday.
VAST has been in contact with local officials and community leaders who oppose the burial.
“We are hopeful that the Caroline County Board of Supervisors will investigate and act to correct this matter,” said VAST Chairman James Lafferty. “No terrorist deserves burial in the same soil that so many brave Virginians and Americans died to protect.”
Folks, there are a lot of questions surrounding this gravesite. No one in Caroline County was notified of this — not a soul. The county administrator wasn’t consulted, the Board of Supervisors, neighbors… no one.
What’s more, no one factored in the cost. What sort of demands are going to be placed upon local law enforcement to “protect” this site? What about any concerns that Tsarnaev — terrorist he is — has a following elsewhere that could very well demand to build a mosque nearby?
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Before you think I’m jumping off the deep end here… consider the following.
Back in 1999, I visited the Church of the Annunciation in Nazareth. It is a beautiful church… built on a hill and dominating the skyline of the town — one of the few remaining Christian towns left in Israel proper, though that once-majority has now dwindled to a 30% plurality among Israeli Arabs.
The Muslims there knew this. Just north of the church, they claimed the burial site of a Muslim martyr. Over this site, they planned to build a massive mosque that would obscure and dominate the Nazareth skyline.
According to Christian tradition, it was in the Church of the Annunciation that the Virgin Mary was told by the Angel Gabriel that she would be giving birth to Jesus Christ. As such, it is considered one of the key Christian holy sites.
Local Christians want to build a plaza on surrounding empty land to accommodate the hundreds of thousands of pilgrims expected to visit the site over the millennium, the 2,000th anniversary of Christ’s birth.
Local Muslims however, also lay claim to the ground because it holds the tomb of a revered Muslim sage.
The Israeli Government last month ordered a compromise deal, allowing the mosque to be built on part of the site, after the millennium.
A cornerstone for the mosque is due to be laid next Monday, provided that Muslims remove a temporary prayer tent by the same day.
The issue has caused tensions which erupted into unusual sectarian violence between indigenous Muslims and the Christian minority in Easter.
. . .
The Vatican has criticised the Israeli Government for allowing the mosque to be built, and hinted that the visit could be “negatively affected” by the decision.
The New York Times covered this as well:
Some Muslims in Nazareth have been camped out for a year on the site proposed for the mosque, a site they say has historic associations with Saladin, the Muslim warrior who drove out the Crusaders. For Catholics, the disputed vacant lot is their cathedral’s front plaza.
The ethnic, ecclesiastical and municipal political battle over the mosque plan set off riots in Nazareth last Easter, and since then has led to rising tension between the Roman Catholic Church and the Israeli government. In their first concerted attempt to block the mosque plan, Catholic and Orthodox churches closed their doors for one day last spring. Vatican officials recently suggested that the dispute could provoke the cancellation of a visit to Nazareth planned in March by Pope John Paul II, who would be the first pope to visit Israel.
Israeli officials persuaded local Muslim leaders to greatly scale back their plans — the minarets as originally conceived would have towered over the neighboring church spires — and to delay construction until after Christian celebrations of the millennium.
But for the Christian hierarchy here, any mosque at the Annunciation site would be a deliberate affront. They have portrayed the decision to permit construction as an electorally motivated move to placate the newly assertive Muslim majority in Nazareth, which had long been dominated economically and demographically by Christians.
Some “sage” — eh? Some mosque… as the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs noted in 2002:
With the razing of an old school for this project, attention was given to the tomb of Shehab ed-Din, nephew of Salah ed-Din, Muslim hero in defeating the Crusader army. Muslims erected a tent-mosque on the spot and began prayers. Plans were revealed for construction of a $29 million mosque which would include a 325-foot-high minaret towering over the historic church.
Thankfully, intervention by the Latin Patriarch and by then-Pope John Paul II allowed the United States to intervene as well — and for now, no mosque will be built to obscure the Church of the Annunciation. For now.
But this is what happens when we bury Muslim martyrs. Was anyone really bargaining for a “victory mosque” in Doswell, Virginia? What stops anyone from demanding this?
Near Kings Dominion?
In Virginia?
UPDATE: Even the Islamic Center of Virginia is outraged:
Imam Amonette said he would not have approved had someone asked his opinion of bringing the terror suspect’s body here.
“I don’t think it was proper that a body should be taken from another state far away and brought here,” he said. The person has no association with this area whatsoever.”
Indeed.
