Daniel Pipes finds a Muslim he likes. No prizes for guessing that it’s Irshad Manji.
The Devil and Daniel Pipes
“Pipes has repeatedly demonstrated hostility toward Arabs and toward Islam as a religion,” says Mitchell Plitnick, co-director of the San Francisco-based Jewish Voice for Peace, one of several Jewish organizations that have mobilized against him. “Of equal concern is that Pipes has often espoused the view that force is the most appropriate solution to the problems in the Middle East and the Muslim world.”
The battle of the veil
Laurent Levy, a Paris lawyer who describes himself as an atheist, has become a champion for the freedom of religious expression since Lila, 18, and Alma, 16, were barred from their lycée in the northern suburb of Aubervilliers.
The girls – whose mother is a non-observant Algerian – were told the manner in which they wore the headscarf was “ostentatious” and unsuitable for sports lessons. The school authorities also accused them of taking part in a demonstration in their defence by around a hundred fellow students.
See also BBC News, 1 October 2003
Pipes appointed to the United States Institute of Peace
On August 12, Churches for Middle East Peace sent an urgent action alert about reports of President Bush’s intentions to make a recess appointment of Daniel Pipes to the board of the United States Institute of Peace (USIP). CMEP thanks all those who made calls to the White House opposing this action. Unfortunately, the Associated Press has reported that on Friday, August 23, President Bush bypassed the Senate Committee and appointed Daniel Pipes to the board of the USIP.
Muslims declare moral victory in Pipes appointment
In a statement released this morning, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said:
“While a defeat for democracy, the president’s backdoor appointment of Daniel Pipes is a moral victory for the tens of thousands of American Muslims, Arab-Americans, Christians, Jews, and civil rights activists who contacted the White House and the Senate since the nomination was announced in April.
“By issuing this recess appointment, the president acknowledges that Pipes’ nomination would have been turned down by the Senate, despite that body’s Republican majority. Without being approved by the Senate, Pipes will serve just 18 months of what would have been a four-year term.
“The campaign to defeat Pipes’ nomination and to expose his bigoted views also showed the Muslim and Arab-American communities that there are those in Congress who will stand up for what is right, despite tremendous political pressure to remain silent. At a July 23 Senate committee meeting on Pipes’ nomination, Sens. Edward Kennedy (D-MA), Christopher Dodd (D-CT) and Tom Harkin (D-IA) all opposed the appointment. Sen. Harkin, who was involved in the formation of the USIP, spoke at length about Pipes’ statements warning of the ‘dangers’ posed by the enfranchisement of American Muslims and his ‘dossiers’ on academic critics of Israeli policies.
“Perhaps the most positive by-product of the campaign was the creation of a broad coalition of religious, ethnic, and civil liberties groups that will last long after Pipes takes his seat on the USIP board.”
ADL commends President Bush for Daniel Pipes appointment
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) commended President George W. Bush for appointing Middle East scholar Daniel Pipes to the board of the United States Institute of Peace. In a letter to President Bush, Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director, said:
“We commend you for appointing Daniel Pipes to the board of the United States Institute of Peace. As a world renowned expert on the Middle East and extremist Islam, Dr. Pipes provides an important approach and perspective to the challenges facing the U.S. in the post-9/11 world. We are pleased that Dr. Pipes will be given the opportunity to share his expertise and viewpoint as a member of the board of the U.S. Institute of Peace.”
Pipes to be named to think tank
President Bush will sidestep congressional opposition by making a recess appointment today of a controversial Middle East scholar, Daniel Pipes, to the board of directors of the U.S. Institute of Peace, an administration official said. Although the position is largely honorary, Muslim organizations and some Jewish groups have campaigned vigorously since April against Pipes’s nomination to the federally funded foreign policy think tank.
Hijab: ‘a weapon of visual terrorism’
“This fake Islamic hijab is nothing but a political prop, a weapon of visual terrorism. It is the symbol of a totalitarian ideology inspired more by Nazism and Communism than by Islam…. It is used as a means of exerting pressure on Muslim women who do not wear it because they do not share the sick ideology behind it. It is a sign of support for extremists who wish to impose their creed, first on Muslims, and then on the world through psychological pressure, violence, terror, and, ultimately, war.”
Right-wing Iranian exile Amir Taheri commenting on the French hijab ban in the New York Post, 15 August 2003.
Reproduced on the website of the US neocon consultancy Benador Associates.
Pipes the propagandist
“I am not myself a pacifist, and I believe that Islamic nihilism has to be combated with every weapon, intellectual and moral as well as military, which we possess or can acquire. But that is a position shared by a very wide spectrum of people. Pipes, however, uses this consensus to take a position somewhat to the right of Ariel Sharon, concerning a matter (the Israel-Palestine dispute) that actually can be settled by negotiation. And he employs the fears and insecurities created by Islamic extremism to slander or misrepresent those who disagree with him.”
Even Christopher Hitchens draws the line at Daniel Pipes.
A small victory in the battle against bigotry
“Arab Americans and American Muslims won a small but important moral victory in the battle against bigotry last week. A US Senate committee declined to vote on the confirmation of a controversial anti-Muslim polemicist who has been appointed by the Bush administration to serve on the Board of the US Institute of Peace (USIP)….
“The current board nominee in question, Daniel Pipes, has … pursued a career devoted largely to defaming Arabs and Muslims, inciting against them and promoting conflict between the West and the Muslim world. His extensive body of writings, for example, displays a near perverse obsession with all things Arab and Muslim.”
James Zogby at Antiwar.com, 5 August 2003