I’m trying to be outraged but outrage has always required a certain level of surprise for me. There’s absolutely no surprise here. None.

Feisal Abdul Rauf — the Ground Zero mosque imam — has a history of opposing religious dialogue, advocating the barbaric Sharia legal system, and blaming the United States for the September 11th attacks. He’s hardly Islam’s Mother Theresa.

So you tell me he was part of the group that backed the anti-Israeli, pro-jihad flotilla, the participants of which decided to brutally assault lightly-armed Israeli commandos and then whine when the commandos responded in self defense?

No, really? You’re kidding me. I’m surprised.

The imam behind a proposed mosque near Ground Zero is a prominent member of a group that helped sponsor the pro-Palestinian activists who clashed violently with Israeli commandos at sea this week.

Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf is a key figure in Malaysian-based Perdana Global Peace Organization, according to its Website.

Perdana is the single biggest donor ($366,000) so far to the Free Gaza Movement, a key organizer of the six-ship flotilla that tried to break Israel’s blockade of the Hamas-run Gaza Strip Monday.

Sure enough, Rauf has a bio page at Perdana and Reuters confirms the biggest donation to the Free Gaza Movement is from…Perdana. (Other participants in the group? Barack Obama’s close buddies Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dorhn.)

The flotilla was also sponsored by a Turkish group designated as a terror organization by the international community, and many of the flotilla’s participants actually belong to the mother of Al Qaeda, the Muslim Brotherhood. So you can see the group of fine, upstanding citizens with which Rauf was involved.

Actually, it gets worse. The group (Perdana) is headed by an antisemite and, yes, 9/11 Truther.

If Rauf’s goal is really peace and healing, why is he involved in this group? It seems all of its goals — and his — involve violence, hatred, conspiracy theories, and antisemitism.