Preacher planning Quran burning spurns plea by Petraeus

The pastor of a tiny, fringe evangelical church in Florida rebuffed a plea for restraint Tuesday from Gen. David Petraeus, who warned that a plan to burn the Muslim holy book could provoke violence against American troops and citizens overseas.

“Instead of possibly blaming us for what could happen, we put the blame where it belongs – on the people who would do it,” pastor Terry Jones of the 50-member Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Fla., told the Associated Press. “We should address radical Islam and send a very clear warning that they are not to retaliate in any form.”

Jones also said he was still praying over his decision and hinted that he might change his mind. “We understand the general’s concerns and we are taking those into consideration,” he told WOFL-TV in Orlando.

A coalition of Muslim, Christian and Jewish leaders held a news conference in Washington on Tuesday to condemn Jones’ statements and other slurs aimed at Muslims nationwide.

“The threatened burning of copies of the Holy Quran this Saturday is a particularly egregious offense that demands the strongest possible condemnation by all who value civility in public life and seek to honor the sacred memory of those who lost their lives on Sept. 11,” said a statement by religious leaders organized by the Islamic Society of North America.

Religious leaders warned that Muslims overseas will misinterpret extremists such as Jones as reflecting mainstream American attitudes toward Muslims. In Afghanistan on Monday, protesters made a point of wrapping an effigy of Jones in an American flag before burning both the effigy and the flag.

Reaction in the Arab news media was more muted, with most commentators and government officials calling on U.S. citizens to honor religious freedom and condemn Jones.

Petraeus, who directs U.S. forces in Afghanistan, seemed concerned that Jones’ insults would enrage ordinary Afghans whom his soldiers are trying to win over as they battle Taliban religious extremists.

The general said Monday that images of burning Qurans “would undoubtedly be used by extremists in Afghanistan – and around the world – to inflame public opinion and incite violence.”

Weeks of anti-Muslim diatribes by Jones have brought unwelcome publicity to Gainesville, a progressive college town of 125,000 that normally would be focused on the University of Florida’s season-opening football game Saturday. Jones’ antics have also fed into a wave of anti-Muslim sentiment nationwide as the 9/11 anniversary approaches and U.S. troops continue to die in two wars waged in Muslim nations.

The reverend’s threat follows angry protests against a proposed Islamic center two blocks from the ground zero site in New York. In recent weeks, other protesters have objected to planned mosques or Islamic centers in several states, calling them threats to local security.

In Gainesville, news crews have descended on the small stone-and-frame church, located on the city’s northern outskirts. Jones’ leathery, mustachioed face has delivered fiery condemnations of Islam on TV networks beamed worldwide.

City officials in Gainesville, where Mayor Craig Lowe has called the Dove World Outreach Center “an embarrassment to our community,” have vowed to try to prevent Jones from burning anything on Saturday, the ninth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

Jones has been denied a burning permit but says his lawyers have advised him that his First Amendment right to express his beliefs supersedes any local ordinance.

Police and other public safety officials will be on hand Saturday to enforce the city’s open burning law, said Bob Woods, Gainesville’s communications manager. The ordinance’s list of eight classes of items that may not be burned does not specifically include books, but does prohibit the burning of paper.

Asked what the city would do if Jones carried out his threat, Woods replied, “We would respond appropriately. It depends on his actions.”

Lowe asked Gainesville residents to “join me in continuing to assert our community’s true character” in response to what he called Jones’ “offensive behavior.”

Jones said he has received more than 100 death threats and now wears a .40-caliber pistol strapped to his hip. FBI agents have visited the preacher to voice concerns for his safety, according to the Associated Press.

In 2005, after a report in Newsweek – later amended – that U.S. guards at the Guantanamo Bay prison had flushed a Quran down a toilet, deadly riots broke out in Afghanistan and elsewhere in the Muslim world.

For Muslims, the Quran is the word of Allah. The book is treated with deep reverence; any defiling of it is considered a grave offense.

“The holy Quran is sacred, just like the Bible is to Christians,” Dr. Mohamed Elsanousi, director of community outreach for the Islamic Society of North America, said in an interview. “Desecration of this book is something people will not tolerate.”