In 2010, in protest at the ADL opposition to the building of the Park51 mosque and Islamic cultural center two blocks from the WTC site, Zakaria returned the Hubert H. Humphrey First Amendment Freedoms Prize awarded to him by the ADL in 2005. He declared that the ADL's opposition to the mosque meant that he could not "in good conscience keep [the award] anymore". In support of his decision, he stated that the larger issue in the controversy is freedom of religion in America, even while acknowledging that he is not a religious person. He also wrote that a "moderate, mainstream version of Islam" is essential to winning the war on terror, and that moves like the ADL's make it harder for such a moderate version of Islam to emerge and thrive here.
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