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PROPHET OR RACIST? Islam watcher Daniel Pipes (Pipes Vs Cair)
baptiststandard ^ | 4/7/2003 | Mark O'Keefe

Posted on 04/08/2003 8:51:43 AM PDT by TLBSHOW

PROPHET OR RACIST?

Islam watcher Daniel Pipes

PHILADELPHIA (RNS)-- He has been called an Islamophobe, an attack dog for the New Inquisition and a voice the Western world ignores at its peril. Author Daniel Pipes has become a lightning rod in America's struggle to contend with the post-Sept. 11 world.

Years before Sept. 11, 2001, Pipes warned that radical Muslims had declared war on the United States. He identified the threat as Islamism, an ideology working to submit secular society to Muslim laws and principles.

Then and now, his many critics charged that Pipes fuels anti-Muslim bigotry. After the Sept. 11 attacks, the fears were heightened. Pipes, they worried, would have a more visible platform.

Pipes himself was emboldened. "I have a lot to say," he declared. "This is my moment."

Pipes, 53, regards his views as a smart alternative to two extremes--attacking Islam as an evil cult or promoting it as the religion of peace.

___"I don't talk about the religion itself," he said during an interview in the Philadelphia office of the Middle East Forum, a think tank he founded. "That's because Islam is not the problem. Terrorism is not the problem. It's a terroristic version of Islam that's the problem.

___"I'm carving out a position between the two most popular ones, and it's not popular. But it will prevail."

___Pipes cuts a striking presence at 6-foot-4, with piercing dark eyes. He has become a regular guest on the cable news networks. Major newspapers treat him seriously and have reviewed his latest book, "Militant Islam Reaches America." The New York Post and Jerusalem Post print his weekly columns. Those who miss any of it can find it cataloged on Pipes' website.

___All this exposure troubles his critics, led by the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations.

___"Pipes is the premier Muslim basher," said CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper. "I hate to use that term, but for him it really fits. It's basically his job to smear an entire community and to create fear, apprehension and suspicion toward a religious minority in the United States for his own political, and apparently religious, agenda."

___But even among Muslim leaders, Pipes has admirers who thank him for exposing a threat that some, even now, are reluctant to face.

___"He does not bash Muslims," said Tashbih Sayyed, editor and publisher of Pakistan Today, based in Fontana, Calif. "What he attacks is a fascist interpretation of Islam.

___"Daniel Pipes, to me, is the voice of reason. Only time will tell--and God forbid that time tells--what will happen if we ignore a voice like Daniel Pipes'."

___In 1990, Pipes formed the non-profit Middle East Forum, which, according to its Internal Revenue Service income statement for 2001, took in $2.6 million while publishing the 96-page Middle East Quarterly, among other activities.

___The Quarterly has a pro-America tone and tries to publish authors not heard in other journals, particularly when they advocate strong ties with Israel and Turkey, the region's two democracies. The publication, like Pipes, is hawkish on the war with Iraq.

___Pipes' specialty has its roots in a summer trip. At 18, volunteering in the African nation of Niger, he was captivated by the desert. The next year he traveled to deserts of the Middle East, where his curiosity about the Islamic world, so different from the West, began to grow. This eventually led him to study Arabic, then Islamic history, the focus of his doctorate.

___During three years in Cairo, some of it spent living with a Muslim family, Pipes made lasting observations of Islamic culture, politics and society. He was unsure where it would lead him, especially since in the West, no one else seemed to notice, or care, about Islam.

___Then, in 1979, the Ayatollah Khomeini took power in Iran, powered by an Islamic revolution that denounced the West, seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and took hostages.

___"There was this new question that suddenly arose, and it was my issue," Pipes said. "That was the turning point of my career."

___He argues that the events in Iran also marked a milestone in modern-day Islamism.

___"An Islamist is someone who says whatever the problem, Islam is the solution," Pipes said. "In America, it would be someone who wants to replace the Constitution with the Koran. Islamism is a radical, utopian movement that has much in common with fascism and Marxism-Leninism."

___Pipes estimates 10 percent to 15 percent of the 1.2 billion Muslims worldwide are Islamists. He says the same percentage applies to Muslims in the United States, whose overall numbers are hotly disputed.

___Critics challenge both his methods and his terminology.

___"In his simple analysis," wrote editors of the Minaret, a Los Angeles-based magazine, "Muslims who are actively involved in public life while trying to shape their lives according to their beliefs are not the followers of Islam. Rather, they are Islamists."

___Hooper and others often speculate that Pipes is motivated by his faith.

___Friends say Pipes is Jewish, but it's a subject Pipes won't discuss.

___"I don't deny it. If you look at my associations, yes. But there are all sorts of things about my private life I don't talk about, such as my three children. It's my prerogative to put a fence around these things."

___CAIR devotes an expanding page of its website to quotes from Pipes' critics, who characterize him as an agenda-driven polemicist. CAIR also posts contentious comments from Pipes, including a call for religious profiling of Muslim government employees because of potential "connections to terrorism." In another he worries that "the presence and increased stature and affluence and enfranchisement of American Muslims" under Islamist leadership will "present true dangers to American Jews." In another he questions whether Western societies are ready to accept Islamic immigrants because "Muslim customs are more troublesome than most."

___Pipes says the CAIR attacks have "poisoned my name."

___On his own website, he offers point-by-point rebuttals, arguing that CAIR twists his comments out of context. He adds, for emphasis, that "CAIR represents not the great civilization of Islam but a radical utopian movement originating in the Middle East that seeks to impose its ways" on the United States.

___Undaunted, Pipes continues to write. He works more than 70 hours a week, composing columns, lengthy articles and parts of books sometimes years before they're ripe for dissemination.

___Meanwhile, he's on the lecture circuit, giving 143 speeches in 2002 alone. Many of his appearances are in college towns where Muslim student groups stage protests, CAIR's accusations in hand.

___Yet no matter what his critics say, few would deny Pipes a major "I-told-you-so" in his warnings on terrorism.

___In 1997, four years after the first attack on the World Trade Center, Pipes interviewed like-minded author Steven Emerson. The title of the resulting piece in Middle East Quarterly: "Get Ready for Twenty World Trade Center Bombings."

___In 1998, Pipes wrote in the Wall Street Journal Europe that "a state of war exists between them (militant Muslims) and the West, mainly America, ... because radical fundamentalist Muslims see themselves in a long-term conflict with Western values."

___Prescient analysis? Maybe so.

___But Omar Dajani, an Orlando, Fla., software engineer, fears that "Pipes and people like him" will create a climate in which discrimination against Muslims becomes routine. If there's another terrorist attack in this country, Dajani sees himself, his wife and his 15-month-old son in an internment camp similar to those that Japanese-Americans endured during World War II.

___"Daniel Pipes will be leading the way, saying we don't like to do this, but we have no choice, we have to be suspicious of every Muslim in this country," Dajani said.

___Morton Klein, president of the Zionist Organization of America, based in New York City, has a different fear. It's that the country won't wake up until it's too late.

___"I don't want to go overboard with this," said Klein, a friend of Pipes, "but in the 1930s there were only a few people, like Winston Churchill, speaking about the truth of the barbaric German regime and how making peace with them was not possible.

___"In a non-political way, Pipes is one of the few voices telling the story of Islamic extremism. This is the wrong time to let political correctness stifle and silence a voice of truth. Dan Pipes has been so right for so long that we need to listen to him."


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; Government
KEYWORDS: cair; clashofcivilizatio; danielpipes; islam; islamism; prophet
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___"I don't want to go overboard with this," said Klein, a friend of Pipes, "but in the 1930s there were only a few people, like Winston Churchill, speaking about the truth of the barbaric German regime and how making peace with them was not possible.

snip

John Rossi’s recent article in The Weekly Standard told us of Winston Churchill’s opinion of Islam. Here --- read this:

"That religion, which above all others was founded and propagated by the sword--the tenets and principles of which are...incentives to slaughter and which in three continents had produced fighting breeds of men--stimulates a wild and merciless fanaticism."

Is it time to listen to Winston Churchill?

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/736443/posts?page=28#28

1 posted on 04/08/2003 8:51:43 AM PDT by TLBSHOW
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Comment #2 Removed by Moderator

To: Dower
Not a prophet just a guy with a mind and a firm grip on reality....asking the non PC questions whose lack of PC bigotry allows him to explore areas off limits to his more ethically challanged colleauges
3 posted on 04/08/2003 9:14:37 AM PDT by joesnuffy (Moderate Islam Is For Dilettantes)
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To: joesnuffy
The Wahhabi Lobby (CAIR) doesnt like this guy...that alone imo is a great endorsement...
4 posted on 04/08/2003 9:15:50 AM PDT by joesnuffy (Moderate Islam Is For Dilettantes)
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To: Dower
Pipes is doing a fantastic job of raising the alarm bells for Americans about how full of fanatic hate the Arab and Muslim world is toward the U.S.

The fact that the Islamic terror-apologists in the media wish to paint him as a polarizing influence and make ad hominem attacks on him just points out how TRULY IMPORTANT is the work he is doing, and how threatening it is to the Islamic terrorists.

Right on, Mr Pipes !!
5 posted on 04/08/2003 9:17:39 AM PDT by UncleSamUSA (the land of the free and the home of the brave)
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To: TLBSHOW
Pipes is obviously an intelligent person who has studied the subject, and present his views without the watered down PC that infests other discussions on the topic.
6 posted on 04/08/2003 9:37:51 AM PDT by spodefly (This is my tag line. There are many like it, but this one is mine.)
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7 posted on 04/08/2003 9:38:19 AM PDT by Mo1 (I'm a monthly Donor .. You can be one too!)
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To: TLBSHOW
RadioFR's Unspun Interview w/ Daniel Pipes -- 3/28/02
Windows Media Format
Realplayer Format
FR Thread

8 posted on 04/08/2003 9:41:31 AM PDT by AnnaZ
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To: TLBSHOW; *Clash of Civilizatio
Nice, balanced article.
9 posted on 04/08/2003 9:46:16 AM PDT by denydenydeny
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To: TLBSHOW
Anti-Muslim bigotry = wisdom
10 posted on 04/08/2003 9:57:20 AM PDT by Dr. Thorne
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To: AnnaZ
bump
11 posted on 04/08/2003 10:53:17 AM PDT by TLBSHOW
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To: TLBSHOW
Pipes is not anti-Muslim - he's anti-Islamist. He's against those who use Islam as a political philosophy and wish to impose it on all. Of course, some of the groups that really are Islamists don't like anyone saying this to bring the issue out in broad daylight..after all, the more they can keep it secret the better for their plan.
12 posted on 04/13/2003 12:44:24 PM PDT by patriot5186
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To: Dr. Thorne
Anti-Muslim bigotry?????

If I understand your post correctly, I fear that you may suffer from a low tolerance level for the truth.

Your bio page says you are a Christian: Do you have ANY CLUE as to the oppressed condition of Christians living in predominately Muslim lands (to wit: Egypt; Iraq; Syria; Lebanon; Palestinian-governed areas of Israel; etc, etc)?

Take a look at this site: http://www.dhimmitude.org -- and THEN tell us that Professor Pipes is a bigot.

On the contrary, I fear that you may be "thinking" with your "feelings."

If you don't believe me, try walking into the Palestinian "refugee" camp in Gaza (in Israel) and start handing out Gospel tracts -- and see how many MINUTES you survive untouched.

Dr. Pipes is telling it like it is, my brother.

If CAIR were for real, they would shout to all the world how WELL Muslims are treated in this country, rather than whining all the time about how this Muslims feelings have been ruffled or that Muslim has been questioned for being in this country illegally.

If fact, if CAIR were for real, they would tell their Muslim friends in other lands: "Please treat the Christians in your countries as well as the Americans treat Muslims living in America."

I'm not holding my breath on these last two propositions.

13 posted on 04/13/2003 12:58:59 PM PDT by BenR2 ((John 3:16: Still True Today.))
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To: TLBSHOW
The advantage Pipes has is he not only has extensively studied Muslim culture, but has also been immersed in it as an outsider.

CAIR depends on their strident PC rhetoric to browbeat the logical arguments rather than face them with facts. They depend on noise and Western PC guilt to overcome opposition to this Islamist fanaticalism which wants to turn all societies into Islamic hell-holes as existed under the Taliban, Ayatollahs and Saddams of the world.

The Muslims are trying to accomplish this the only way they ever can and ever will - with the sword!

14 posted on 04/13/2003 1:23:53 PM PDT by Gritty
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To: Gritty
The Muslims are trying to accomplish this the only way they ever can and ever will - with the sword!

The womb has been an effective weapon so far, especially in Europe.

15 posted on 04/13/2003 1:26:39 PM PDT by Black Agnes
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To: UncleSamUSA
You wrote: "..ad hominem attacks on him just points out how TRULY IMPORTANT is the work he is doing, and how threatening it is to the Islamic terrorists."

Exactly. The radical Islamofascist terrorists know he's after them, but they're trying to make people believe that he's after all Muslims.

His exact words, quote: "My position is that militant Islam is the problem, and moderate Islam is the solution."

Bush just proved that he knows the difference, himself [excerpts]:

Muslims Protest Bush Nominee (Daniel Pipes)
Washington Post ^ | 4/7/03 | Alan Cooperman
Posted on 04/07/2003 2:44 PM EDT by GOPcapitalist
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/887348/posts

It's Round 3 of the bare-knuckle slugfest between Daniel Pipes and U.S. Muslim organizations.

The first round was on the Internet, and it went to Pipes. The second round was on college campuses, and it went to Muslim groups. Round 3 is at the U.S. Institute of Peace.

President Bush last week nominated Pipes for a seat on the board of directors of USIP, a nonpartisan, federal think tank established by Congress to promote "the prevention, management and resolution of international conflicts."

The Council on American-Islamic Relations, a D.C.-based civil rights group, called on the White House to rescind the nomination or the Senate to reject it. [snip]

His positions are controversial. He says Muslim government employees in law enforcement, the military and the diplomatic corps "need to be watched for connections to terrorism." He also contends that "mosques require a scrutiny beyond that applied to churches and temples." [snip]

"My position is that militant Islam is the problem, and moderate Islam is the solution." [snip]

USIP spokesman John Brinkley said the group would not comment on Pipes's qualifications. "We work happily with whoever they choose to put on our board," he said. [snip]

At the end of 2000, Pipes put up a Web site to promote his writings, www.danielpipes.org. About the same time, someone else put up www.danielpipes.com, which transported visitors to a page on CAIR's Web site titled, "Who Is Daniel Pipes?"

Threatening a lawsuit, Pipes won back the rights to his domain name after about a year. CAIR denies it was behind the crafty appropriation of Pipes's name. Last year, the feud deepened when Pipes founded Campus Watch, a group devoted to exposing college teachers, events and organizations that justify terrorism, denigrate Israel and support radical Islam. CAIR and other Muslim groups decried the move as a threat to academic freedom and an effort to chill pro-Palestinian speech.

They won a show of solidarity when more than 100 professors across the country asked Pipes to add their names to his watch list.

CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper said hundreds of CAIR's supporters have written to the White House asking the president to withdraw Pipes's nomination. Hooper said the group has not received a response from the White House.

Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A42881-2003Apr6.html

16 posted on 04/13/2003 1:30:32 PM PDT by Matchett-PI (Marxist DemocRATS, Nader-Greens, and Militant Islam are a clear and present danger to our Freedoms.)
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To: Black Agnes
The womb has been an effective weapon so far, especially in Europe.

I agree. But in the end, tipping the population scales in their favor does not ultimately succeed until they manage to bludgeon the minority (or compliant majority) into complete political, cultural and legal submission to Islamic Law.

That always includes, indeed, must include, "the sword".

17 posted on 04/13/2003 2:12:31 PM PDT by Gritty
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To: Jeremiah Jr; 2sheep; babylonian; Prodigal Daughter; BearWash
PROPHET OR RACIST? Islam watcher Daniel Pipes (Pipes Vs Cair)

Hmmm?

18 posted on 04/13/2003 2:18:11 PM PDT by Thinkin' Gal
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To: TLBSHOW; All
I was reading a thread at DU and found this insightful post concerning Prof. Pipes

One thing that I'm particularly familiar with is that Pipes is always careful to make a distinction between Islam and militant Islam.

Here's a quote from the editor of Pakistan Today:

"He does not bash Muslims,” said Tashbih Sayyed, editor and publisher of Pakistan Today, based in Fontana, Calif. “What he attacks is a fascist interpretation of Islam. Daniel Pipes, to me, is the voice of reason. Only time will tell—and God forbid that time tells—what will happen if we ignore a voice like Daniel Pipes’.”

I could go into Dr. Pipes' academic and professional credentials (which are truly impressive) but I won't unless you want me to, since that's not the point. The point is that Daniel pipes is a decent and reasonable man who has been the focus of a sustained and focused smear campaign by the good folks at CAIR. He knows his subject (radical Islam and the Middle East) as well as just about anyone on earth and generally makes valid points.

You said:

"While a reasonable might surmise that not all Muslims are fundamentalists and not all Islamic funadamentalists are terrorists, Dr. Pipes argues otherwise:

To me, every fundamentalist Muslim, no matter how peaceable in his own behavior, is part of a murderous movement and is thus, in some fashion, a foot soldier in the war that bin Laden has launched against civilization."

In fact, you have misrepresented Dr. Pipes. Nowhere in the quote you put forth did he so much as suggest that "all Muslims are fundamentalists." To the contrary, as I have pointed out, Dr. Pipes has repeatedly argued just the opposite point:

"I write about the Middle East and Islam with an intent to help Americans understand the complexities of these subjects. Toward this end, I emphasize a distinction between Islam the religion and militant Islam the ideology. I respect the former but abominate the latter as a form of totalitarianism. And no matter what CAIR would have you believe, plenty of Muslims - both observant and not - agree with me."

http://www.danielpipes.org/article/984

Also, he did not say that all fundamentalist Muslims are terrorists any more than I would say that all Nazis were mass murderers. His point that all fundamentalist Muslims are part of a "murderous movement" is one that I would be happy to discuss with you.

So, you see, while I may occasionally cite a source that I may, upon reflection, regret using, that is not the case in this instance.


19 posted on 04/13/2003 2:29:33 PM PDT by antaresequity (...)
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To: TLBSHOW
Bush Nominates Daniel Pipes ***Moderate Muslims Welcome the Appointment***
20 posted on 04/15/2003 8:52:15 PM PDT by JeepInMazar (www.answering-islam.org)
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