18: Obama Accounting: Who Owns the Proposed Near Ground Zero Fitness Center/Mosque Site?

How did the Near Ground Zero Fitness Center/Mosque site story begin? Sharif El-Gamal is one of the major investors in Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf's Near Ground Zero Fitness Center/Mosque business project.

In 2006, while shopping at The Sharper Image store, El-Gamal noticed Francisco Patino on the Reality TV show "American Inventor". He hired Patino to find a Manhattan property for the Fitness Center/Mosque. Patino rode his bicycle around Manhattan and saw the Old Burlington Coat Factory building. 51 Park Place was scheduled to be shown the following day by Chase Manhattan Bank. 4 years later Patino works for Chase Manhattan Bank and said he could not comment about his role in finding the site to a NY newspaper reporter.

El-Gamal is the CEO of Soho Properties, incorporated in 2003. El-Gamal has other property holdings in NYC. El-Gamal purchased the 51 Park Place site for $5 million down and a bank loan on the remainder from Mr. & Mrs. Steve Witkoff.

In contrast to Imam Rauf, El-Gamal sometimes stresses the non-religious aspects of the project, the fitness club, culinary school. Imam Rauf wants to build a chain of Muslim Fitness Centers/Mosque modeled on the YMCA (Young Mens' Christian Association).

Hisham Elzanaty, an Egyptian, is a major investor in El-Gamal's $4.8 Million proposed Fitness Center/Mosque, his lawyer W. Starosolsky told Fox5News. Elzanaty owns a $2 million home in Roslyn Heights, and operates 2 NY Neurological & Rehabilitation Centers, 1 in Brooklyn and 1 in Tarryton, NY, which produce over $5 million after-tax income annually. Elzanaty was ordered to repay NYS $331,000 in Medicaid overpayments in 2004-2005.

Elzanaty also co-signed a $39 million mortgage for El-Gamal and Soho Properties. Elzanaty's parents died in the 1999 Air Egypt Flight 990 crash into the Atlantic Ocean near Nantucket. All 217 passengers aboard died. The crash was due to co-pilot error or mechanical failure.

Elzanaty also was in the news in 2008 for his 1999 $6 million donation to the Holy Land Foundation(HLF). Elzanaty, an Egyptian, said he was donating $500/month for Muslim orphans.

In 2008, 5 leaders of HLF were convicted of providing material support to Hamas. HLF is a front group for Hamas, the Muslim terrorist organization.

It is important to remember that Hamas is an Iranian-based Muslim terrorist organization, trying to control the Gaza Strip after forcing out the Palestinian organization, Fatah.

Egypt is at the western border of the Gaza Strip. What if Elzanaty is not simply an Egyptian businessman making a random questionable donation to a terrorist front group, but a representative of another international terrorist organization, an Egyptian organization, or an Egyptian coalition with Iran's Hamas? This creates another level of concern for allowing Middle Eastern terrorism connections to take land and property in NYC and America. What if rival Muslim paramilitary or terrorist organizations begin to fight over control of land and property here as they do in the Middle East?

Over the summer, El-Gamal and Soho Properties fell $224,000 behind on property taxes for 51 Park Place. In September, 2010, El-Gamal dropped off a check for about $35,000 and signed an 8-installment agreement to pay the property tax. El-Gamal said the payment delay involves disputed property assessment values. As noted in Blog 16 of this series, Rauf believes he was granted a lifetime non-profit, no tax exemption by the IRS for Islamic Center properties. As noted in blog 17 of this series, Rauf is pending a lawsuit by Union City, New Jersey for repairs to 2 apartment buildings.

Graphic: Chase's Calendar of Events, 2010.

References: AP, Yahoo!News9/18/2010, NYPost.com 9/2/2010, 9/3/2010, BreakingGround.com.

Email mkrause381@gmail.com or mkrause54@yahoo.com to comment or for a copy of this or other blogs in the "Obama Accounting" series on http://monthlynotesfour.blogspot.com and http://monthlynotesfive.blogspot.com. Other blogs posted by mary for monthlynotesstaff can be found on http://monthlynotes(two, three, six).blogspot.com on www.google.com.

16: Obama Accounting: The Imam, The Near Ground Zero Fitness Center/Mosque Plan, and the Mayor.

The Imam is Feisal Abdul Rauf. He is the son of Egyptian Imam Mohammad Abdul Rauf, who came to New York City (NYC) to establish the Islamic Cultural Center of NY, which opened in 1991. The senior Rauf also established the Islamic Cultural Center of Washington, DC. Then the senior Rauf left for Malaysia.

The younger Imam Rauf studied Physics at Columbia University in NYC and in New Jersey, then was involved in teaching, sales, and real estate.

The Imam's plans for the Mosque are bold. The old Burlington Coat Factory is to become a 13-story fitness center with swimming pool, cultural center meeting rooms, and Mosque.

In July 2000, Imam Rauf said he envisioned not one, but a global association of Muslim community centers/Mosques, modeled after the American YMCA (Young Men's Christian Association).

The Imam's Center/Mosque is unlike the YMCA concept. YMCAs are non-denominational fitness centers with rooms for general community purposes, arts & crafts, sports teaching programs, without religious affiliation or religious services. YMCAs mainatain non-profit status by observing the doctrine of separation of church and state.

The Imam's plan is to establish centers for spreading moderate Islam worldwide, named "Cordoba House", which would include meetings rooms for a prostyletizing type of interfaith dialogue.

In the Imam's own words 7/2005: "Our stated objective is to establish this as a launching point, as a HQ (headquarters) is you want, of a global understanding of a moderate Islam that is true to its fundamentalist principles."

The Near Ground Zero Center/Mosque is a few blocks from Ground Zero, formerly the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center. Each Tower was destroyed by a Muslim Al-Qaeda suicide pilot "plane bombing", actually by flying a jet passenger airplane into the the walls of the Tower. As in the original meaning of "Ground Zero" as epicenter of a nuclear or other explosion, the waves of damage from the bombing have spread from the center of loss of about 3,000 innocent mostly American civilian lives, throughout The City, NY state, and the United States of America.

The American objection to the establishment of a Muslim Mosque so near Ground Zero is the insensitivity to the surviving family, friends, and co-workers of the WTC bombing victims. Surviving family has extended to include the majority of USA citizens objecting to the Muslim demand for this site. Other objections include a fear of future violence from a Muslim center near this site of destruction of American life and property. There also is a feeling that Muslims would be taking a bounty from a violent act of aggression against Americans on American soil, building a monument to themselves and their actioins at this site.

The proposed site originally was noted by the newsmedia as the old Burlington Coat Factory at 51 Park Place, but subsequently has been described as 45, 45-47, 45-51 Park Place.

Imam Rauf expresses only confidence in his plans. The Imam feels he has influenced American leaders, including American presidents. Imam mentions his influence on former Presient Bush. Bush will forever be remembered for his hypnotic address to the nation that "Islam is Peace" while sending American troops to stop the civil war-torn Muslim sectarian violence sites in Iraq and Afghanistan.

On CNSNews videotape posted 8/27/2010, Imam Rauf also says parts of his book were woven into Obama's Cairo speech, 2/2009. The speech was drafted by Obama White House staffers, Ben Rhodes, political advisor, and Rashed Hussein, Deputy Associate Counsel, Special Envoy to the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC).

Imam Rauf advises Muslims to "Think of ouselves as how to engineer solutions, we think of ourselves as an engineering shop. What has to be done to the US Government,
Israel, (sic, as) Muslims, educators, and media."

In alliances with Imam Rauf, American politicians have formed sloppy arguments about the rights to build a Mosque on private property. Whether the property actually is owned and by whom is a topic for a future blog.

Most of the American politicians who support the Mosque appeal to the 1st Amendment Right to practice one's religion. This of course is true, but does not include government help in acquiring property or helping with building expenses.

But NY politicians including Scott Stringer, Andrew Cuomo, Margaret Chin, and Daniel Squadron have expressed support. This would be using government to reverse the doctrine of separation of church and state, to support the Mosque at this site. NY Governor David Patterson has gotten involved offering to help find another site. If Patterson really meant on "state"-owned land he too would be violating the Separation of Church and State. Pre-Iftar Pres. Obama expressed some support but equivocated, remaining somewhat aloof on the issue.

But Imam Rauf may have influenced NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg the most. Mayor Bloomberg's staff stated NYC could offer the planned Muslim Fitness Center/Mosque special "non-profit funding".

The 9/2/2010 NY Post JG Riel also reported "tax-exempt" status for Imam Rauf's Muslim organizations. Documents indicate this tax-exempt status also applies to Rauf's wife's 1-bedroom Upper West Side apartment, listed as her residence, where they state over 500 members pray.

Rauf's 1997 American Sufi Muslim Association (ASMA), at 78th St., North Bergen, New Jersey and the 1998 ASMA, at a small (800 sq.ft.) apartment at 201 W.85th St. NYC, NY are both part of this exemption. The exemption is described as "never having to pay taxes, file returns, or reveal sources of congregation money or how it's spent", in documents reported by the Washington, DC-based Investigative Project on Terrorism.

ASMA has given money to Rauf's "Cordoba Project" which is said to support the Near Ground Zero Mosque.

Taxes may be somewhat differently assessed in NYC than in the rest of the US. But multiple lifetime, non-profit, but religious "mosque" exemptions in NY, NJ and who knows what other states, is a rather large "jizya" from the Non-Muslim, Jewish, NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg and his staff.

Graphic: Money from Chase's Calendar of Events.

Other references: NY Post, CNSNews.com, wikipedia.