"A flag bearing a crescent and star flies from a flagpole in front of the World Trade Center, next to a Christmas tree and a menorah."
New York Times, 1997
In 1997, Mohammed T. Mehdi, the head of the Arab-American Committee and the National Council on Islamic Affairs, lobbied to have a crescent and star put up at the World Trade Center during the holiday season. His wish was granted, despite the fact that he had been an adviser to Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman also known as the Blind Sheikh.
In the name of diversity and political correctness, an adviser to the religious leader behind the World Trade Center bombing, was allowed to plant an Islamic symbol of conquest in the very place that had been bombed.
Long before the Ground Zero Mosque was even a twinkle in the eye of a violent ex-waiter and a slumlord Imam, the World Trade Center allowed Mohammed T. Mehdi to bully it into flying the symbol of Islam.
By 1997, Mohammed T. Mehdi had become an unambiguously ugly public figure. He had been fired by Mayor Dinkins in 1992 for anti-Semitic remarks. The year before he had proclaimed that, "Millions of Arabs believe Saddam stands tall having defied Western colonialism".
In 1995, the US Attorney's Office in New York had listed Mehdi as an unindicted co-conspirator in the trial of Sheikh Rahman. Mehdi had already published a book titled "Kennedy and Sirhan: Why?", which contended that Robert Kennedy's assassin had been acting in self-defense.
Because of Mehdi's role in actively working on behalf of the Sheikh behind the wave of terrorism that included the original attack on the World Trade Center, turning down his request should have been a no-brainer. Instead in the winter of 1997 there was an Islamic star and crescent at the World Trade Center. And another one at the park in front of the White House.
Four years before the September 11 attacks; both targets had already been marked.