WHO IS DANIEL PIPES?

http://www.aaiusa.org/pr/release12-17a-02.htm

Throughout his career, Daniel Pipes has exhibited a troubling bigotry
toward Muslims and Islam. As early as 1983, even an otherwise
positive Washington Post book review noted that Pipes displays "a
disturbing hostility to contemporary Muslims...he professes respect
for Muslims but is frequently contemptuous of them." Pipes, said the
reviewer, "is swayed by the writings of anti-Muslim writers...[the
book] is marred by exaggerations, inconsistencies, and evidence of
hostility to the subject." (The Washington Post, 12/11/83)

In The Weekly Standard (1/22/96), Pipes offered a glowing review of
the infamous anti-Muslim book "Why I Am Not a Muslim." The National
Catholic Reporter (11/17/95) called that book "the literary
equivalent of hate radio...literary warfare against Islam," useful
only to those "interested in returning to the polemical past to do
battle with Islamic believers." Pipes called the book "quite
brilliant" and "startlingly novel." "This religion would seem to have
nothing functional to offer," remarked Pipes.

Recently, Pipes questioned the origins of the Quran, Islam's revealed
text, and questioned whether the Prophet Muhammad ever existed.

Arabia,' but a collection of earlier Judeo-Christian liturgical
materials stitched together to meet the needs of a later age...A few
scholars go even further, doubting even the existence of Muhammad."
(The Jerusalem Post, 5/12/2000)

According to Pipes, the night journey of the Prophet Muhammad from
Mecca to Jerusalem referred to in the Quran (17:1) never occurred.
This event, known as "al-Isra wa al-Miraj," is marked each year by
millions of Muslims worldwide. In the Los Angeles Times, Pipes
wrote: "The Prophet Mohammed never went to the city, nor did he have
ties to it." (7/21/2000)

Pipes also displays a racist's distaste for Muslim immigrants
who "wish to import the customs of the Middle East and South Asia."
(Los Angeles Times, 7/22/99) For Pipes, this sort of raw bigotry is
nothing new.

In 1990, he said: "Western European societies are unprepared for the
massive immigration of brown-skinned peoples cooking strange foods
and maintaining different standards of hygiene...All immigrants bring
exotic customs and attitudes, but Muslim customs are more troublesome
than most." (National Review, 11/19/90)

In a review of a book that called for dialogue with the Muslim world,
Pipes objected to the fact that the author: "...fails to...consider
the implications of growing Muslim populations in the West. [The
book], in other words, provides little guidance to the Islamic
threat." (Wall Street Journal, 10/30/92)

On a radical pro-Israel web site, Pipes claims that "as the
population of Muslims in the United States grows, so does
antisemitism."

("The New Anti-Semitism,"
http://freeman.io.com/m_online/jan98/pipes.htm)

He does not limit this claim to Arab Muslims alone. Pipes wrote
that "Iranians and Pakistanis, to take two groups of non-Arabs, are
at least as widely conspiracy-minded and as anti-Semitic as, say,
Tunisians and Kuwaitis." (Commentary, 9/1/99)

Of African-American Muslims, Pipes wrote: "...black converts tend to
hold vehemently anti-American, anti-Christian, and anti-Semitic
attitudes." (Commentary, 6/1/2000)

In an editorial in Canada's National Post, Pipes implied that the
Canadian Muslim community could pose a threat to that country. He
wrote: "Following Marxism, Leninism and Fascism comes
Islamism...Islamism is a...phenomenon that has the power to do
mischief...right here in Canada." (8/7/99)

(Pipes now claims all these quotes were taken out of context.)

This is the same "expert" who claims Muslims have no real religious
attachments to the city of Jerusalem and who recently argued that
American Muslims pose a threat to the Jewish community. ("If I forget
thee: does Jerusalem really matter to Islam?" The New Republic,
4/28/1997, and "America's Muslims against America's Jews,"
Commentary, 5/01/1999)

In response to a suggestion that American Muslim voter registration
drives are a positive development, Pipes wrote: "I fail to see how
conducting voter registration drives implies the Islamists are
not 'bad.' The CPUSA [Communist Party USA] also staged registration
drives, and for similar reasons." (MSANEWS, 8/18/99)

Following the arrest of two Arab graduate students on a flight bound
for Washington, D.C., (the airline later apologized for the incident)
Pipes supported the practice of religious and ethnic profiling.

According to the Baltimore Sun: "'It seems well worth it in order to
keep would-be terrorists off guard,' said Daniel Pipes, director of
the Middle East Forum, a think tank. He defended the close monitoring
of Arab passengers, arguing that 'the record shows over the last
generation that the great acts of violence are coming from the Middle
East...'" (The Baltimore Sun, 11/24/1999, Page 1A)

Noted scholar and author Edward Said, whose works include "Covering
Islam" and "Orientalism," wrote that Pipes is one of a group of anti-
Muslim pundits who seek to "make sure that the '[Islamic] threat' is
kept before our eyes, the better to excoriate Islam for terror,
despotism and violence, while assuring themselves profitable
consultancies, frequent TV appearances and book contracts." (The
Nation, 8/12/1996)

A former director of Harvard's Center for Middle Eastern Studies (and
one of Pipes' instructors) had this to say:

"...to speak for myself, I have been appalled frequently by his
[Pipes] polemical stance on almost everything having to do with
Islam, Muslims, or the Palestinian/Israeli issue...

"...The irony in [an article written by Pipes] is of course that Dr.
Pipes and other radically and blindly pro-Zionist American Jews are
much farther along the chauvinist and ultimately anti-American
spectrum than are even radical American Muslims.

"Yet Dr. Pipes, despite his own apparently strong, even blind,
support for the Israeli state and its policies -- even those policies
that are attacked by thoughtful Israelis themselves as racist and
oppressive -- sees no incongruity in his condemnation of many Muslim
Americans as a threat to the American state and democracy..." (Posted
on Arabic-Info, PNET and Arab Nationalist lists, 9/10/99)

One of the anti-Muslim pundits supported by Pipes is Steven Emerson.
Emerson is best known for his 1994 PBS production "Jihad in America."
Muslims say he has a long history of defamatory and inaccurate
attacks on the Islamic community in this country.

Emerson was the "journalist" who fueled anti-Islamic hysteria by
blaming Muslims for the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. He also said
Muslims were responsible for the downing of TWA Flight 800 in 1996.

Emerson's organization, the Investigative Project, is a spin-off of
Pipes Philadelphia-based Middle East Forum (MEF). In an investigative
report by iViews.com, Emerson confirmed that MEF funded his
activities in the past and said: "Clearly I had a very close
relationship with them (MEF) and I continue to have a very close
relationship."

Emerson is currently involved in a multi-million-dollar defamation
lawsuit against a Florida newspaper, its senior editor, and a former
investigative reporter for The Associated Press (AP).

The complaint centers on allegations published by the newspaper that
two AP reporters said Emerson gave them a document on terrorism
supposedly from FBI files. The reporters said the document was
actually authored by Emerson. The lawsuit also disputes allegations
that Emerson gave false information to a Senate subcommittee during
testimony in 1998.

He has recently been forced to retract accusations he made last year
about a former journalism lecturer at California State University in
Hayward, Ca.

Of Emerson, Pipes says: "I am proud to work with him." (MSANEWS,
9/2/99)

Pipes also seeks to silence those who oppose his one-sided view of
Islam. In 1996, he attacked the Council on Foreign Relations for
publishing a newsletter that he accused of "giving voice to Muslim
fundamentalists." ("Fundamentalist Flap Roiling Council on Foreign
Relations," Forward, 5/10/1996)

American Muslims recall Mr. Pipes finger-pointing following the
bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. (Pipes now
admits that he was wrong on this point.) As The Village Voice
noted: "Leaping directly into hysteria was the right-wing Daniel
Pipes...who told USA Today...'People need to understand that this is
just the beginning. The fundamentalists are on the upsurge, and they
make it very clear that they are targeting us. They are absolutely
obsessed with us.'" (5/2/95)

It would seem Mr. Pipes is the one with the obsession.

Given this history of hostility toward Muslims in general and to the
American Muslim community in particular, it is not surprising that
Pipes paints a black and white image of good "integrationist"
or "traditional" Muslims who love mom and apple pie versus bad
Muslim "chauvinists" and "Islamists." This distinction without a
difference is merely a smoke-screen for attacks on any Muslim who
would defend Islam.

In his writings to date, Pipes has never offered objective criteria
that would distinguish between "integrationist" and "chauvinists."
His definition of "chauvinist" must be fairly broad. In his National

[chauvinist] sites; I doubt whether there is a single one that is
traditional [integrationist] Muslim." (8/7/99)

Pipes obviously hopes to convince people of other faiths that the bad
American Muslims are in the majority since he claims they "run most
of the Muslim institutions in the United States." (Los Angeles
Times, "It Matters What Kind of Islam Prevails," 7/22/99)

In a commentary on Pipes' claim that Muslims wish to take over
America *8/17/2000), San Francisco Chronicle writer Vlae Kershner
said: "...Daniel Pipes baldly states that Muslim claims that they
face discrimination and harassment in the United States are 'false.'
He gives no supporting evidence.

"Pipes goes on to write: 'all Islamists (fundamentalist Muslims) have
the same ambition, which is what they call 'the Islamization of
America.' By this, they mean no less than saving the US through
transforming it into a Muslim country.'

"Where'd he find that, some pseudo-document called the Protocols of
the Elders of Mecca?"

The kind of agenda-driven polemic offered by Pipes only serves to fan
the flames of ignorance and prejudice. But perhaps that is his
intent.

-----

CAIR

Council on American-Islamic Relations

453 New Jersey Avenue, S.E.

Washington, D.C. 20003

Tel: 202-488-8787

Fax: 202-488-0833

Page: 202-490-5653

E-mail: cair@...

URL: http://www.cair-net.org

================