In the piece, she associates plans to build the center with Islamic terrorism, employing the guilt-by-association principle that serves as the bedrock of Islamophobia: "Islamic jihad took down those buildings when they attacked, destroyed and murdered 3,000 people in an act of conquest and Islamic supremacism. What better way to mark your territory than to plant a giant mosque on the still-barren land of the World Trade Center? Sort of a giant victory lap. Any decent American, Muslim or otherwise, wouldn't dream of such an insult." Despite the fact that the developer and organization behind the proposed center had no ties to al-Qaeda or extremist forms of Islam, Geller connects them to the 9/11 attacks without hesitation.

DEFINE: The quote illustrates guilt-by-association as the core rhetorical mechanism of Islamophobia.

Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Intro…, loc. 444