The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has issued an apology for opposing the building of a mosque near Ground Zero in New York City, the site of the 9/11 attacks, twenty years ago.
Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO and national director of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), has issued an apology, saying their position was a mistake.
He also tweeted the following:
As we prepare for the High Holidays, I have been reflecting on a stance ADL took 11 years ago when we opposed the location of the then-proposed Park51 Islamic Community Center & Mosque near Ground Zero. As I write for @CNNOpinion, we were wrong, plain and simple.
He also said: “I believe the stance we took is one for which we owe the Muslim community an apology. We can’t change the past. But we accept responsibility for our unwise stance on Cordoba House, apologise without caveat and commit to doing our utmost going forward to use our expertise to fight anti-Muslim bias as allies.”
The apology comes ahead of the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people. In July 2010, the ADL issued a statement saying that “building an Islamic Center in the shadow of the World Trade Center will cause some victims more pain – unnecessarily – and that is not right”.
The news comes as Islamophobia and Islamophobic attacks are on the rise in 2021. As reported on Islam Channel, The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) released a report in the last month detailing many anti-Muslim incidents that occurred in the United States and Canada during the first seven months of 2021.
Similarly, a recent report by the Pew Research Centre has shown that while Muslims have seen their population growth in the US over the past two decades, they are still viewed negatively by the broader American public.
