EFL - I got this from an email from my cousin, I don’t have the URL
VIENNA, Austria (AP) -- Plans to name a Vienna square after Zionist Theodor Herzl drew protest Tuesday from the Arab League, which urged city fathers to reconsider for the sake of continued ``good relations’’ with the Arab world. Representatives of Vienna’s Islamic community also opposed the plan to honor the founder of Zionism, the movement to establish the state of Israel...the 22-nation Arab League sent a letter to Haeupl expressing its ``regret’’ at the decision to honor a man whose name `represents a sad memory for Arabs and Muslims.’’ The letter, which was dated April 29, also suggested the plan could lead to terrorism.
[ah yes the indirect veiled threat]
But municipal officials said Islamic opposition came late and ...
[the article says that Austria is trying to finally come to terms with its role in the Holocaust]
Carna Amina Baghajati, a spokeswoman for Vienna’s 120,000-strong Islamic community
[most of whom are not citizens],
also criticized the plan. She suggested a square be named instead for Mohammad Asad, the Austrian-born Jew
[actually he was ethnically Polish but born in a part of Poland that was part of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire]
who changed his name from Leopold Weiss, converted to Islam and went on to become an honored 19th century Muslim scholar
[he ended his life being very critical of Islamic backwardness and near dispair over the culture of the Arab and Islamic world] |