The imam behind the proposed Islamic Victory Monument known as the Ground Zero Mosque is about to leave on a multi-country jaunt to the Middle East funded by taxpayer dollars through the State Department.  Americans are rightly concerned that he will be using our money to raise the money he needs to build the $100,000,000 mosque. 

According to a State Department announcement that was given on Monday, Feisal Abdul Rauf is taking the publicly funded trip to foster “greater understanding” about Islam and Muslim communities in the United States.  Yeah, right. 

When asked about the trip, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said:

He is a distinguished Muslim cleric.  I think we are in the process of arranging for him to travel as part of this program, and it is to foster a greater understanding about the region around the world among Muslim-majority communities.

Crowley said no fund-raising for the mosque and cultural center during the trip would be permitted:

That would not be something he could do as part of our program.

However, Rauf is scheduled to make stops in Saudi Arabia, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Bahrain and Qatar, Islamic countries with deep pockets.

Abdul Rauf said funds for the center will come from Muslims and members of his congregation.

In a London-based Arabic-language newspaper that interviewed Abdul Rauf, the imam says he also will collect money from Muslim and Arab nations around the world.  This means that he will be using this goodwill mission to build contacts in those oil-rich states.

Debra Burlingame, a 9/11 family member, asks some pertinent questions:

Does the State Department have any idea they are sending a guy to the Middle East who is going to be fund-raising perhaps among the very same people he will be meeting with?  We know he has a fund-raising association with Saudi Arabia.

 Burlingame also noted that the Saudis have contributed money to underwrite programs by the American Society for Muslim Advancement, a not-for-profit that Abdul Rauf runs with his wife and that is one of the sponsors of the Ground Zero mosque:

He’s going to the well, and how can they say they do or don’t know what he’s doing?

Meanwhile, New York state regulators said the sale of an adjacent Con Ed building needed to complete the Ground Zero mosque might be subject to review after all, even as clueless New York City Mayor Bloomberg insisted the project has “nothing to do with Con Ed.”

According to Public Service Commission spokeswoman Anne Dalton, state law requires the agency to sign off on the “transfer or lease” of any property a utility owns within its franchise area.

The question is whether Con Ed satisfied that requirement nearly four decades ago, when it granted a 99-year lease on the former substation site at 49-51 Park Place. 

So, just who is Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf?  Is he the “Moderate” Imam that the Liberals proclaim him to be?  Nope.  In previous posts, I presented detailed information concerning his ties to Perdana and the Gaza Flotilla, and his interviews with Ed Bradley and the popular Islamic website, Hadiyul-Islam.

I now present information that you may not have seen before:  An interview the Sydney Morning Herald, published on their website on March 21, 2004:

The US and the West must acknowledge the harm they have done to Muslims before terrorism can end, says an Islamic cleric invited to Sydney by Premier Bob Carr.

New York-based Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, who impressed Mr Carr at an international conference last year, arrives in Sydney today for two weeks of meetings and public talks.

Speaking from his New York mosque, Imam Feisal said the West had to understand the terrorists’ point of view.

In a move likely to cause controversy with church leaders, Imam Feisal said it was Christians who started mass attacks on civilians.

“The Islamic method of waging war is not to kill innocent civilians. But it was Christians in World War II who bombed civilians in Dresden and Hiroshima, neither of which were military targets.”

Imam Feisal said the bombing in Madrid had made his message more urgent. He said there was an endless supply of angry young Muslim rebels prepared to die for their cause and there was no sign of the attacks ending unless there was a fundamental change in the world.

Imam Feisal, who argues for a Western style of Islam that promotes democracy and tolerance, said there could be little progress until the US acknowledged backing dictators and the US President gave an “America Culpa” speech to the Muslim world.

On July4th, 2009, United States of America President Barack Hussein Obama (Peace be upon him.), delivered that apology to the Muslim World at the University of Cairo, in the Islamic country of Egypt:

The relationship between Islam and the West includes centuries of co-existence and cooperation, but also conflict and religious wars. More recently, tension has been fed by colonialism that denied rights and opportunities to many Muslims, and a Cold War in which Muslim-majority countries were too often treated as proxies without regard to their own aspirations. Moreover, the sweeping change brought by modernity and globalization led many Muslims to view the West as hostile to the traditions of Islam.

…So I have known Islam on three continents before coming to the region where it was first revealed. That experience guides my conviction that partnership between America and Islam must be based on what Islam is, not what it isn’t. And I consider it part of my responsibility as President of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear.

Even to the point of assisting in the building of a Muslim Symbol of Victory on the Hallowed Ground of the greatest Terrorist attack on U.S. soil in the history of our country.

Sources:  nypost.com, smh.com.au, nytimes.com