If you thought the controversy over New York City’s Cordoba House Islamic Center was long over, Republican NY-09 candidate Bob Turner wants you to think again.

Maria Rosa Menocal published this gem of a book just before the events of September 11th, 2001, when a cadre of young Arab Muslim men driven by the politics of occupation, empire and rage combined their grievances with a religio-ideological veneer and flew out of a clear blue sky into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon.

Stephen Prothero, a prominent religion professor and CNN Belief Blog contributor, said the ADL’s opposition to the Lower Manhattan Islamic center showed that the group and its leader, Abraham L. Foxman, “no longer occupy a moral high ground.”

2010 has been an unbelievable year! Can we say that we are happy that it is finally over? Only if that means that the wacky anti-Muslim Islamophobia that reached unprecedented and at times demented levels will recede. However, it doesn’t appear as though that will be happening any time soon.

The Muslims were bloodthirsty and treacherous. They conducted a sneak attack against the French army and slaughtered every single soldier, 20,000 in all. More than 1,000 years ago, in the mountain passes of Spain, the Muslim horde cut down the finest soldiers in Charlemagne’s command, including his brave nephew Roland.

Jewish Americans have generally been more supportive of the Cordoba House project than other Americans. Jews have been denied religious freedom and been the victims of religious discrimination so frequently that their natural sympathies lie with others who now confront these burdens.

The U.S. Justice Department has said it is monitoring 11 cases of potential land-use discrimination against Muslims, a sharp increase in cases under a federal law designed to protect religious minorities in zoning disputes.

Hijaz would not have given the incident a second thought, but after exiting the freeway the two cars came to a stop at an intersection, where the man verbally criticized Hijaz’s driving. When Hijaz defended herself, he called her a racial epithet and rolled up his window.

I really had never seen that, besides at a Seeds Of Peace Camp where Israeli and Palestinian kids are forced to play together — but this was different. These kids kept describing themselves as brothers.

Nine years ago today, the murder of a family friend changed the course of my life. His name was Balbir Singh Sodhi. Four days after 9/11, he was shot in the back in front of his gas station by a man who yelled when arrested, “I’m a patriot! Arrest me and let those terrorists run wild.”