The problem for the evening, for the debate and indeed for the city we were in had been summed up in a nutshell. We are not Islamic societies yet, but we had been led into having the debate on Islamic terms — terms that forbade us from stating our own truths.

The problem that America and Europe today face was summed up by that exchange. Islam is not our belief system yet people in that religion have successfully persuaded our governments and legislatures that our future and theirs is predicated on successful reform of that religion. A reform which has so far proved impossible but which, we are told, might be achieved this time. The attractions are obvious. But it means that Western societies end up promoting something we do not believe in. It means we must pay to proselytise something we do not support. It means that we must hope that something we consider untrue can be accepted by others as true.

As we come to the tenth anniversary of 9/11, we can begin to discern certain patterns in our recent behaviour. For the last decade, we have fought the war against Islamic extremism on exactly the wrong terms. And though Britain has led the charge in the wrong direction, the US is now following.

Defeating the Soviets during the Cold War required a large box of tools. They ranged from the doughtiest Washington-based Cold Warriors to Polish socialists who disagreed with tenets of Russian communism. In the same way, the war against Islamic extremism will only be won by a large toolbox approach. That will include Muslim reformers who will work for many years to try to wrench their religion away from its magnetic literalism. But it will also include those like Ayaan Hirsi Ali and others, who believe that we must be allowed to say what we see when we look at this religion and retain the right to shine a light on it.

The tragedy is that for many of the so-called reformers, such as those with whom we debated that evening, their task can, they believe, only be fulfilled by attacking those who speak the truth about Islam. They attempt to retain what little credibility they have by denying what are to very many of us self-evident and demonstrable truths about Islam. It has become the default position of European — and now American — governments to ground their resistance to Islamic extremism in the bolstering of people who are going out and telling what to our societies must be seen to be untruths. It is as though we had fought the Cold War while disallowing any criticism of communism. 

America had its debate fast and furiously. Over the course of weeks, not years, facing the choice of remaining American in their outlook, or following us down the European route, America took the European road. It may not now be too late to change this, but some day it will be.

The New York mosque debate has died down. But when that debate arises next time it must be on American not Islamic terms. Foremost among them might be this: that there are rights which people have which are nevertheless not pursued because they will cause grievous offence and upset to others. I have the legal right to burn a Koran outside a mosque but do not exercise the right because the act of burning books is never a good one and because numerous Muslims would find such an act provocative and upsetting. Many Muslims say that even knowing a single Danish newspaper has published a likeness of a historical figure they revere is unimaginably offensive to them. We have feelings too. And though to build a vast Islamic complex alongside Ground Zero may be a legal right, it is one which causes evident and significant hurt and upset to a great many of us.