Former Tea Party Express leader Mark Williams defended his “Judenrat” blog post in an interview with CNN last night, and called for a Cordoba House-style cultural center reflecting Americana to be built in Mecca as a response to the Islamic center planned for lower Manahattan.
Williams, an avowed critic of the Cordoba House, raised eyebrows yesterday when he took to his blog and called New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg and Manhattan borough president Scott Stringer “Judenrats” for their outspoken support of the project. Both men are Jewish, and Williams’ comparison of their actions to the local Jewish councils that ran the ghettos in Nazi-occupied Europe led some to cry anti-Semitism. In an updated version of his original Judenrat post, Williams defended the phrase much as he did in an email to me last night.
“The closest American term for what they are is one that I believe arose in New York,” he wrote. “‘Rat Bastard’ in some circles comes with the same attached open season on the holder of the title.”
In an interview with CNN’s Jeff Simon, Williams said he’s on a new mission when it comes to the Cordoba House — he told Simon he will “personally commit myself to coming up with funding” for what he called a “mirror image” of Cordoba built in Mecca “that would be dedicated to showcasing American values.”
“How about we reinforce the peaceful, moderate nature that Islam claims to be and how about we have an Uncle Sam center to introduce people to the understanding of human rights?” Williams told CNN.
The right to build such a building would be all it takes for Williams to “drop his opposition to Park51,” he told the network.
