Daisy Khan is the wife of Imam Feisal. Rabbi Joy Levitt is from the Jewish Community Center of Manhattan
now on The DU Video Forum:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x497675http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fE_XnmQRDPA .link to transcript:
http://abcnews.go.com/ThisWeek/week-transcript-karzai-khan-levitt/story?id=11454631&page=3snip:
Can I ask you first, Daisy, what has been you reaction? You haven't spoken publicly. What has been your reaction to the last several weeks of this?
KHAN: Well, we've been dialoguing with people. We've started meeting 9/11 families. We've started meeting other groups who have shown some concern. And you know, we've been bridge builders since 9/11, and that's what we do best, and that's what we've decided to do at this very moment.
AMANPOUR: When you say you started to meet them, did you not meet with families as you began to propose this Islamic center?
KHAN: Well, we have already been in touch with 9/11 Families for Peaceful Tomorrows. So, they represent 250 families. We've been working with them since 9/11. And so that group we have already worked with, and several other groups, but since this concern was raised, we've now started meeting with other groups privately.
snip:
KHAN: Yes, I think we are deeply concerned, because this is like a metastasized anti-Semitism. That's what we feel right now. It's not even Islamophobia, it's beyond Islamophobia. It's hate of Muslims. And we are deeply concerned. You know, I have had, yesterday had a council with all religious -- Muslim religious leaders from around the country, and everybody is deeply concerned about what's going on around the nation.
AMANPOUR: Do you agree with what she just said and how she described it?
LEVITT: Well, there is some part of it that feels very familiar, you know. Peter Stuyvesant refused to allow synagogues to be built in New York in the 1600s. It took an act of Congress here in Washington to allow a synagogue to be built. In Connecticut, there were no synagogues allowed to be built in the 1600s and the 1700s. The British wouldn't allow synagogues to be built in New York City. So, we understand some of this pain, and yet we've also experienced a tremendous amount of support in this country, so I think we actually are in a position to both understand and be helpful, to support religious tolerance in this country.
AMANPOUR: The last word, do you think it will go ahead?
KHAN: Of course it has to go ahead. There's so much at stake.
full transcript of interview:
http://abcnews.go.com/ThisWeek/week-transcript-karzai-khan-levitt/story?id=11454631&page=3.
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