Fareed Zakaria, the ADL, and the Cordoba House

Fareed Zakaria of CNN and Newsweek has returned the First Amendment Freedoms Prize and $10,000 he received from the ADL in 2005 because of the organization's opposition to the Islamic Cordoba House planned for a site two blocks from where the World Trade Center once stood.

Zakaria said:

If there is going to be a reformist movement in Islam, it is going to emerge from places like the proposed institute. We should be encouraging groups like the one behind this project, not demonizing them. Were this mosque being built in a foreign city, chances are that the U.S. government would be funding it.

Zakaria rejected the ADL's position as bigotry, saying, "Does [ADL National Director Abraham] Foxman believe that bigotry is OK if people think they're victims? Does the anguish of Palestinians, then, entitle them to be anti-Semitic?"

Hats off to Zakaria for his principled action.