'We Will Not Take Money From Organizations That Have Un-American Values'

Well, I guess that rules out taking money from the Democrat National Committee.

Plans for the mosque near Ground Zero took a big step forward yesterday.

With controversy over the project still raging, the developer kicked off fund-raising for the Islamic center and mosque two blocks from the World Trade Center by raising $10,000 from a congregation of Muslim worshippers.

Sharif El-Gamal announced the start of the fund-raising drive at yesterday's prayer sessions, which have been taking place since last year in the vacant Burlington Coat Factory that's to be torn down to make way for the new center.

Conceptual plans for the mosque and center were made public last year, but its backers have long acknowledged they hadn't begun raising the estimated $100 million needed for construction and the additional millions needed to fund operations.

Wow, a whole $10,000? Only $99,990,000 to go. They should have that money together in no time.

The questions about financing fueled worries in some quarters that the backers might turn to foreign, anti-American sources for money.

Recently, a spokesman for the mosque created a stir when he refused to rule out taking funds from Iran or Saudi Arabia, and Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, leader of the mosque, has spoken about the possibility of raising money from Arab states.

But El-Gamal told CBS's "60 Minutes," however, that the money will not come from sleazy sources.

"We will not take money from Iran. We will not take money from Hamas. We will not take money from organizations that have un-American values," he told the news program in an excerpt from an interview released yesterday.

El-Gamal said a new nonprofit group had been formed to guide and control the project -- a formal step required before the fund-raising campaign could begin.

But he ran into a hitch this week filing paperwork to create the charity because a key requirement -- that he first obtain federal IRS tax-exempt status -- was not met.

This lowlife's past comments continue to bite him in the ass, but I guess it doesn't matter since his biggest supporters (we're looking at you, Mikey Bloomberg) are oblivious.

Meanwhile, records show Rauf has called for a "one state" solution to the Israeli-Palestinian problem -- an outcome some say could lead to Israel's disappearance.

The view, expressed in a 2005 speech in Australia, is contrary to the US government's long-standing "two state" solution of Israel and Palestine living "side by side in peace and security."