re: #350 eclectic infidel

This is America, and feelings such as yours and others don’t trump the right of other Americans to associate and worship freely. You and others will need to move beyond this.

Where did I say or even suggest that Muslims do not have the right to worship freely? It is not about feelings. It is about allowing a symbol to arise.

After 9/11 one of the Saudi nobles came to NYC to donate a million dollars for repairs. At the ceremony, he condemned the attack but then added that he understood the attacker’s anger at the US because he, too, opposed our foreign policy. Giuliani, who was then mayor, refused to accept the gift. One of the best things Giuliani ever did. Had he accepted the gift, it would have been interpreted in the Arab world—even if not in the US— as a humiliating agreement that American foreign policy justified the attack. This is the kind of symbolism we risk with the mosque.

Once upon a time, I studied with Hans Morgenthau. I didn’t agree with him at the time. I’ve come to think otherwise: symbols can be important.