A MOSQUE IN MANHATTAN

Three cheers for Barack Obama's staunch defence of the plan to build a mosque and Islamic cultural centre at the south end of Manhattan Island in New York. The plan had been opposed by right-wing politicians in the U.S. such as Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich, on the grounds that it was close to Ground Zero, where the 9/11 attacks took place. A "stab in the heart of the families of the innocent victims of those horrific attacks", wrote the former; an "assertion of Islamic triumphalism", said the latter.

Tosh, said President Obama (I am paraphrasing him here). In a dignified speech at a White House dinner celebrating the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, he reminded listeners that the United States had been built by people fleeing religious oppression in Europe. He also repeated - once again - the necessary message that Al-Qaeda does not represent all Muslims, and that their message of terrorism does not represent Islam.

Although the Economist had chided the critics of the project in its Lexington column last week, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg had until now been the only prominent politician to have supported the proposed mosque, and the principle of religious freedom that it represents. Let's hope that President Obama's speech will embolden others to stand up publicly for the same cause.

Walter Blotscher