By Olivia Scheck
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
MANHATTAN — The Imam behind the proposed mosque and community center near Ground Zero said during a TV interview Wednesday he was worried about possible violent reactions from Islamic radicals if the center was forced to change locations.
Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf spoke to CNN anchor Soledad O'Brien on Wednesday night's episode of "Larry King Live" in his first interview since returning from a trip to the Middle East.
"If we move from that location, the story will be that the radicals have taken over the discourse," Rauf said. "The headlines in the Muslim world will be that Islam is under attack."
Rauf, 61, had just returned from a 15-day, State Department-sponsored trip to the Middle East to promote religious tolerance, according to the Associated Press.
The Imam said he was less concerned about the radicals in America than the ones in the Muslim world.
"We have to now make sure that whatever we do results in greater peace, not in greater conflict."
Rauf also noted that he was considering alternative locations for the site.
"We are discussing many things right now, but we haven’t found an option that would work," the Imam, who said he's served the lower Manhattan community for "the last quarter of a century," revealed.
Just hours after the hotly-anticipated interview, several newspapers reported that Hisham Elzanaty, the businessman who provided a majority of the funds used to purchase the building that would house the proposed Islamic center, was eager to sell the location.
"Develop it, raze it, sell it," Elzanaty told the AP.
"If someone wants to give me 18 or 20 million dollars today, it's all theirs."
Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani also weighed in on the issue Thursday in an Op-Ed column in the New York Daily News. The former mayor, who served during 9/11, urged New Yorkers to remain tolerant while recommending the Islamic Center change locations — a scenario he called an "honorable and sensitive compromise."
