2009 Opening of Islamic Center of Boston. See the young black-haired man at the end in particular.

This is a disturbing video in a number of ways. It appears to be a film, evidently at the same Islamic Society where Tamerlan Tsarnaev attended prayer services, taken by a Jewish man concerned about the political implications of the mosque in his neighbourhood — and the threat to what he sees as values of freedom and tolerance in America for all religions and peoples — and regardless of his delivery of this message through confrontation, he has a point.

First, let me say that my own personal idea of fun would not be to go to the opening of somebody's religious organization and heckle them and pick fights with them, as this film-maker or narrative decides to do — although he has good reason, given the controversies surrounding the mosque in this case.

In New York, in the days after 9/11, some people on the Lower East Side surrounded a mosque with a human chain to prevent anyone from attacking it.  Remember that New Yorker cover with the poor Sikh taxi driver and a zillion American flags trying to make sure no one confused him for a Muslim? I remember years ago, marching on behalf of Salman Rushdie by the New York Public Library. The Pakistani men in their news kiosks all along 42nd Street and 5th Avenue, when they saw us coming with banners, looked absolutely terrified. Terrified. Not angry, but fearful that someone might come for them, the way they did in their homeland.

I didn't like making my fellow New Yorkers fearful in that manner, people who had always been cheerful when I bought my newspaper. It was a strange moment, because on the one hand I wanted to demonstrate for Rushdie's right not to suffer an insane fatwah and death threat from the mullahs, but on the other, I didn't want the Muslim people to feel afraid of what this might mean. I can only express that quandary.

I was for the "Ground Zero Mosque," because of the First Amendment — you can't pick and chose what you will or won't give a building permit to on content grounds if they have not committed any building violations. To be sure, I pointed out it really was ground zero — the building at 22 Cortlandt near the towers,  where there was a publishing house where a book I was working on later got cancelled due (as the lawyer's letter said) "force majeure", was right near the mosque location — and we sure felt that was "ground zero" because the blast affected it! (Ground zero is not merely the direct footprint of the building). That building was condemned and the people had to flee their offices forever until major repairs were done. So let's be clear where the mosque was and what it was — it was hugely political, as it had lefty secularists on it who wanted to use the occasion to get in the face of conservatives; conservatives from out of town used it as a point to whip up hysteria. In the end, it got cancelled for unrelated reasons — and yet you have to accept that these kinds of houses of worship are here to stay.

If you've ever been in Alexandria, VA near our nation's capital on a Friday evening, you will see hundreds of people streaming to mosques for services. You will see the halal groceries with the Koran readings and the women in veils shopping at the Walmarts. More and more, there are communities like this growing, settling, blending in — and not going anywhere. This is America.

Rather than get into a discussion about what some of these mosques mean in some places, I can only say, watch the video, see the issues, then see the guy at the end.

I thought he might have been a young Tamerlan Tsarnaev. I don't think it's him — the hair isn't right even if the eyes, face, and nose are similar and the dandyish clothing. But the accent sounds Canadian English and not Russian English.

Within minutes of posting a question on Twitter as to whether this was Tamerlan, for some reasons, I instantly had an answer from people not following me. Now…how does that happen? Well, for one, because all kinds of creepy people following me with throwaway accounts and day-old accounts, usually from Anonymous but also from other creepy things like the Russian government I imagine.

So this anonymous girl with a rather newish account instantly told me it was not Tamerlan, and I said as she was vague and anonymous, I couldn't be sure she was telling the truth. She then instantly found someone else who appeared to really be from Watertown, and have loads of anti-American, pro-Islamic revolution sort of stuff on her profile — the stock set of images and hurt feelings and anger about "America's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan" that — it always boggles the  mind — never seem to concede that the overwhelming number of civilians killed in these wars is not by American troops but by extremist forces like the Taliban, Al Qaeda, militants backed by Iran, etc. In fact, the US shows up there because of that, and cannot be charged with causing it. Tune in back when the Soviets invade Afghanistan and kill a million people, and don't spout ignorant propaganda spoon-fed to you from Pakistanki propagandists on Twitter or worse that somehow these Taliban is all of America's making.

One of the reasons this sort of terrorism — and the aftermath of zillions of teens deciding to become fans of these terrorists — is because the Soviet Union is not taught in the schools. The sheer evil of it — with far more people massacred in greater and longer-eduring crimes against humanity than the Holocaust — is just never explained or studied or understood. Indeed, even to make a factual statement like this is to start a firestorm of controversy from those who want to make sure the horror of the Holocaust faces no threat of being diminished by having competition from Lenin and Stalin. Never fear; Stalin made common cause with Hitler and that's exactly part of the problem.

The whole reason the Chechens were uprooted from their homeland and exiled forcibly, with many being killed, to Central Asia, is because Stalin suspected them of collaborating with the Nazis. Perhaps some did, but by and large this was hysterical insanity — there were millions of such punished people by the trainload. But if there were, it was likely because the peoples were so persecuted under the Soviets and crushed of any attempt to have independence that the enemy of their enemy looked good by contrast — a very old story in this area.

In any event, the man at the end of this video cannot seem to accept that the Jews exist as a people and have a historic homeland to which they are entitled. Not only is he ignorant on this point and utterly brainwashed by whatever he sees on the Internet or even hears in the mosque — he's angry, and obsessed and ready to lunge at anyone who suggests otherwise. Look at how intense it is.

The girl on Twitter who claimed to know him — and claimed it was her friend in Waterton's brother — said he was a Palestinian whose homeland was occupied and I should feel sorry for him.

I don't. I'm short on tears for people who nurse hatreds well past the sell-by point and even after they come to America as young people. This nurturing of grievances is artifical and paid for by the Saudis and others, of course, but also part of the Obama Administration's strategy (Cairo speech). I'm having none of it. The deliberate myopia — the lies — that go into acting as if the occupation of Palestine isn't rooted in the persistent violence and terrorism with which the Palestinians and their Arab backers have tried to resolve their grievances and disputes — is something I have less and less patience for. I think it needs to be called out. I think when no one — leaders, writers, thinkers — ever makes these obvious points and constantly coddles those with violent means of solving their problems — we get the terrorism we get. I'm the exact opposite of Glenn Greenwald who is spouting yet again today that America's chickens are coming home to roost — like Obama's preacher that he had to cut loose in order to become president; like the Ground Zero Mosque imam who said the same thing. Hey, roost in your own yard, chickens, your tyrants and kleptocrats and killers all existed before we came there and exist after we left. You deal with them and stop blaming it on us.  The psychology of all this just has to change.

When my great-grandparents came to this country or Canada, they had to forget about the old country and get to work to survive — and they wanted to work and get ahead, as in Ireland people were starving and losing their farms and running up debts and there was no hope. They forgot about the motherland and the only thing my relatives would ever say about it was "the smart people left there" and that they couldn't go back as they had left a lot of debts! Well, then!

A hundred years ago, the bars had signs up saying NO IRISH. They were a pain in the ass, got into fights, and those who had been here longer didn't want the scruffy new immigrants. They had to learn to behave themselves.

When I see somebody who is 20 or 24 screaming about some other people in a land thousands of miles away that he thinks maybe shouldn't be on his own ancestral land, I'm sorry, but I have to say, look, dude, you're here now. Let it go. Get ahead, get an education, get a job, make a contribution to your people and your community that way.

I also see all around me Russians. There are some that are welfare queens and drug addicts and losers and criminals, and some that have had terrible suffering, years in the GULAG, like my children's father, yet they buckle down, get to work, get an education and a business started, try to make their way in the world. The whining and excuses that they can't do this because somebody chucked them out of their homeland, or their homeland doesn't exist anymore, having been swallowed up by something else or having collapsed — it doesn't cut it. You will have to move on.

What I feel happens with the Muslims in these predicaments is that nobody has this sort of conversation with them. Out of inability to relate to what we can see is a heavily politicized religion that always has to have a fight about geopolitics to go with it; out of fear of being politically incorrent.

I thought about my own parish church and the geopolitics discussed there in the 30 years I've been going there. Let's see…It's all Irish, Polish, and Spanish people there, some Filipinos and Koreans. I can't remember a single homily, event, talk, sign, book about the IRA or Ireland; about Poland and Solidarity; about Marcos.

Yet in that time, I can remember taking actions or collecting donations or protesting about the war in Bosnia; about immigration policy for Latin Americans; and I can recall the priests saying that the war in Iraq was not a "just" war in the definition of St.Thomas Aquinus. I've been to a number of Catholic churches of varying types; also to Protestant churches, including fundamentalist born-again churches; and to synagogues. The scene outside this mosque in Boston would be absolutely unthinkable outside of any house of worship of any type I've ever seen.

There are other videos you can find on Youtube about this particular mosque. There are some hysterical conservative ones — a school trip to the mosque to learn about other people's culture; a mere prayer of some of the non-Muslim boys with the Muslims — this because a cause for hateful hysteria. And that's extreme, of course.

But I do think we can say, hey, you are weaving your religion in with a brand of extremist politics that is really hateful and contrary to the spirit of America and the melting pot and freedom and equality as well.

Until we can find ways to polemicize with people in ways that are both more effective than the in-your-face fellow making this film, but yet don't turn into puddles of mush and refusal to stand up for Israel's right to exist — and America's, for that matter! — we are going to see more terrorism.