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Debbie Almontaser is the founding and former principal of the Khalil Gibran International Academy, New York's first Arabic language school, which opened in 2007. She left that year over a controversy ignited by reports she defended the word "intifada" on a T-shirt, and she later said she was forced out by the office of Mayor Michael Bloomberg, according to The New York Times. She now chairs the Muslim Consultative Network. CNN's Nicole Dow talked to Almontaser about a new New York controversy that contains echoes of the one that embroiled her three years ago: a proposal to build an Islamic Center near Ground Zero.
What are your thoughts on the controversy surrounding the Cordoba House, the proposed Islamic center near Ground Zero?
I am saddened and perturbed that this hysteria is playing itself out again in New York City by the same interest groups that are out there basically spewing hate-filled propaganda about Muslims across New York City and America. America is bigger than that better than that. This country was built on the shoulders of giants who migrated from all over the world for the American dream.