Sept. 10, 2010 (Antiwar) -- One would think that after nine years at least some of the anger, the horror and shock of the 9/11 terrorist attacks would have dissipated: but no. Aglimpse at the headlines, a few days before the somber anniversary, disabuses us of this hopeful notion: a crazed pastor out in the boonies somewhere is burning Korans, and thecommander of our forces in Afghanistan feels compelled to respond, as does the President. The proposal to build a Muslim community center blocks from "ground zero" – modeled on Jewish community centers ubiquitous in New York – is met with furious opposition, and the "anti-Islamization" movement spearheaded by bigots takes off, with mosques all over the country under attack. Physical attacks on Muslims, or people perceived as Muslim, escalate: a New York City cabbie is assaulted by a crazed Islamophobe, and people who have lived in this country for the whole of their lives are afraid.
What’s going on? Andrew Sullivan, writing on his popular blog, writes he is "at a loss to understand why so many have reacted so ferociously to this project." After all, Imam Feisel Rauf, the Muslim cleric who wants to build Cordoba House, is a moderate who has condemned Islamic extremism: Rauf was sent by the Bush administration overseas to act as an ambassador of good will to Muslim countries. So where is the ferocity coming from?
To find the answer to this question, we just have to follow the money, and thankfully Ken Vogel and Giovanni Russonello over at Politico have done just that. After detailing the money coming into the Cordoba House project from mainstream donors like the Rockefellers, they write:
"There’s also big money behind the mosque opposition, as highlighted by the relationship between [David] Horowitz’s Los Angeles-based nonprofit, Jihad Watch – the website run by Spencer "dedicated to bringing public attention to the role that jihad theology and ideology play in the modern world" – and Joyce Chernick, the wife of a wealthy California tech company founder.
"Though it was not listed on the public tax reports filed by Horowitz’s Freedom Center, Politico has confirmed that the lion’s share of the $920,000 it provided over the past three years to Jihad Watch came from Chernick, whose husband, Aubrey Chernick, has a net worth of $750 million, as a result of his 2004 sale to IBM of a software company he created, and a security consulting firm he now owns.
"A onetime trustee of the …Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Aubrey Chernick led the effort to pull together $3.5 million in venture capital to start Pajamas Media, a conservative blog network …
"The David Horowitz Freedom Center had a budget of $4.5 million last year, according to its tax filings, of which $290,000 came from the conservative Bradley Foundation, which also gave $75,000 to the Center for Security Policy last year. Horowitz has received an average of $461,000 a year in salary and benefits over the past three years, while Spencer has pulled in an average of $140,000, according to the center’s IRS filings."
Laura Rozen follows up on her Politico blog, detailing the trail of donations from 2008 990 filings for Chernick’s charitable foundation, the Fairbrook Foundation, listing all the familiar suspects – CAMERA, Horowitz, MEMRI, Frank Gaffney’s Center for Security Policy, the Israeli nationalist "Stand With Us" campus project – and a few less familiar, such as theAmerican Friends of Ateret Cohanim, dedicated to thwarting our stated policy of no more settlements where it counts: in East Jerusalem.
