Posted on 04/22/2003 5:33:31 AM PDT by conservativeinbflo.
A controversial Islamic lobby group that casts itself as a mainstream voice for American Muslims is fiercely opposing President Bush's nomination of a leading Middle East scholar to the board of the U.S. Institute of Peace.
The Washington, D.C.-based Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, charges that Daniel Pipes, director of a Philadelphia-based think tank, the Middle East Forum, is an "Islamaphobe" whose views "have been instrumental in widening the divide between faiths and cultures."
Prior to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Pipes, who speaks Arabic and has a Ph.D. from Harvard, was castigated by Muslims as a racist for insisting militant Islam is a serious threat to U.S. security. Since then, he has been in regular demand as a pundit on television news programs, often explaining the distinction between militant Islam and Islam in general.
Like CAIR, however, many U.S. Muslim activist groups insist he unfairly paints Muslims in broad strokes, and on Sunday the Washington Post supported that assertion in an editorial condemning the nomination as "sort of a cruel joke."
The Post objected to Pipes' argument that since only Muslims are vulnerable to becoming militant Muslims or "Islamists," therefore Muslims should be given more scrutiny by U.S. security than others.
(Excerpt) Read more at worldnetdaily.com ...
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