Donald Trump makes bid for proposed mosque building

By DAN MANGAN

How do you say "Let's Make a Deal" in Arabic?

New York real estate mogul Donald Trump today offered to buy the proposed site of a mosque near Ground Zero, seeking to end what has become a nationwide controversy.

Trump's all-cash offer of more than $6 million, if accepted, would put an end to any effort to building an Islamic community centering containing a mosque at the Park Place site -- which is two blocks from the World Trade Center site.

"It would be a good thing if they would do it," Trump, referring to the site's owners, told The Post. "I told them during a phone call today, 'You would engender so much good will if you did this.' "

But a lawyer for Egyptian businessman Hisham Elzanaty, who claims to have a majority ownership interest in the two-building site, blasted Trump's letter offering to buy the site as a publicity stunt.

"Mr. Elzanaty . . . found this letter somewhat laughable," said Wolodymyr Starosolsky, the lawyer, told The Post. "It is not a letter that is written by a professional real-estate man, a business person, it looks like a letter written by a publicist."

"Is he a savior now? Donald Trump? I don't know anything that he saved before. He's just trying to recapture the limelight and get into a situation that he doesn't really know anything about," Starosolsky said. "This is not a serious offer, and frankly Mr. Elzanaty is sort of disappointed, because he considers this an insult to him."

"If this was a serious offer, he would have communicated with him directly. This would not have been circulated all around, to the press."

Trump's offer is for the amount Elzanaty originally paid for the two-building site and related lease rights last year, plus a 25-percent premium. That would make the offer worth more than $6 million.

The offer also contains one key condition -- that any mosque built by the backers elsewhere "would be located at least five blocks further from the World Trade Center site," the mogul wrote in his letter to Elzanaty.

Trump, in his letter, said "I am making this offer as a resident of New York and a citizen of the United States, not because I think the location is a spectacular one (because it is not), but because it will end a very serious, inflammatory and highly divisive situation that is destined, in my opinion, to only get worse."

Trump told The Post he is a "big believer in freedom of religion," but added that his personal opinion was that the mosque should not be built close to Ground Zero, where they Twin Towers were destroyed and several thousand people died on Sept. 11, 2001, in a kamikaze airline attack by Islamic fundamentalist terrorists.

"There's tremendous anxiety over this" proposed mosque, Trump noted. "I think it should be built at a different location."

"There's a tremendous amount of anger going around over this particular subject, and I could give somebody a nice, substantial profit, make it go away . . . I think everybody should be happy."

But it doesn't look like Trump's offer -- even if it hadn't already insulted Elzanaty in the manner it was presented -- would be big enough to quash the mosque brouhaha.

Elzanaty yesterday had said he was willing to sell the site and related lease rights for "18 or 20 million dollars."

Elzanaty, who provided the majority of the $4.85 million financing used to acquire the site in 2009, said he has already received offers for three times that amount from other bidders.

Asked about those points, Trump scoffed at the idea that the share of the buildings that Elzanaty controls had either jumped in value so much over the past year, or that the prior owners had so grossly undervalued the site when they sold to Elzanaty.

"I find that hard to believe," Trump said of either scenario.

He noted that his offer to give Elzanaty a 25 percent return on his original investment would represent "a very substantial" profit over such a short period of time.

But Elzanaty's lawyer said, "Guess what? Trump is wrong."

Starosolsky said Elzanaty received an $18 million for the site after shortly he closed on the deal last year.

Asked if he was making the offer to take pressure off of Democratic candidates in the upcoming elections -- where opposition to the mosque issue has become a major Republican talking point -- Trump said, "No, I haven't a view, that's irrelevant to me."