Hamas supports Ground Zero Mosque

A leader of the Hamas Islamic terrorist group has jumped into the emotional debate on the plan to construct a mosque near Ground Zero - insisting Muslims "have to build" it there. "We have to build everywhere," said Mahmoud al-Zahar, a co-founder of Hamas and the organization's chief on the Gaza Strip. "In every area we have, [as] Muslim[s], we have to pray, and this mosque is the only site of prayer," he said. Hamas, he added, "is representing the vast majority of the Arabic and Islamic world - especially the Islamic side." Zahar said Muslims around the world, including those who live in this country, are united in a common cause. "First of all, we have to address that we are different as people, as a nation, totally different," he said. "We already are living under the tradition of Islam. Islam is controlling every source of our life as regard to marriage, divorce, our commercial relationships," Zahar said. "Even the Islamic people or the Muslims in your country, they are living now in the tradition of Islam. They are fasting; they are praying." Hamas first came up in the mosque debate when Feisal Abdul Rauf, the imam behind the proposed mosque, refused to describe the group as a terrorist organization - despite the State Department listing that identifies it as such.