Daniel Pipes#On Iran

{{Short description|American Middle East commentator (born 1949)}}

{{Infobox writer

| name = Daniel Pipes

| image = Daniel Pipes LF.JPG

| caption = Pipes in June 2008

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| birth_date = {{birth date and age|mf=yes|1949|9|9}}

| birth_place = Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.

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| occupation = Distinguished Visiting Professor at Pepperdine University's School of Public Policy (Spring '07); President of Middle East Forum; Expert at Wikistrat

| nationality =

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| subject = Middle East, American foreign policy, Islamic terrorism, Islamism

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| relatives = Richard Pipes (father)

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| website = {{URL|http://www.danielpipes.org/}}

| alma_mater = Harvard University (AB, PhD){{cite web |title=Biographical Sketch of Daniel Pipes |url=https://www.danielpipes.org/bios/ |website=danielpipes.org |publisher=Daniel Pipes |access-date=31 July 2024}}

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Daniel Pipes (born September 9, 1949) is an American former professor, Anti-Islam activist,{{Cite web |date=18 April 2018 |title=Anti-Muslim figure Daniel Pipes advocates partnering with far-right political parties |url=https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2018/04/18/anti-muslim-figure-daniel-pipes-advocates-partnering-far-right-political-parties |access-date=2025-01-04 |website=Southern Poverty Law Center |language=en}}{{Cite web |date=14 August 2018 |title=Daniel Pipes {{!}} Factsheet: Islamophobia {{!}} The Bridge Initiative |url=https://bridge.georgetown.edu/research/factsheet-daniel-pipes/ |access-date=2025-01-04 |website=Georgetown University BRIDGE |language=en-US}} and commentator on foreign policy and the Middle East. He is the president of the Middle East Forum, and publisher of its Middle East Quarterly journal. His writing focuses on American foreign policy and the Middle East as well as criticism of Islamism.

After graduating with a doctorate from Harvard in 1978 and studying abroad, Pipes taught at universities including Harvard, Chicago, Pepperdine, and the U.S. Naval War College on a short-term basis but never held a permanent academic position. He then served as director of the Foreign Policy Research Institute, before founding the Middle East Forum. He served as an adviser to Rudy Giuliani's 2008 presidential campaign.{{cite news |url=https://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSN1641392220071119 |title= Giuliani style evokes concern among critics |work=Reuters |date=November 19, 2007 |first=Ellen|last=Wulfhorst|access-date=July 22, 2009}}

Pipes is a critic of Islam, and his views have been criticized by Muslim Americans and other academics, many of whom maintain they are Islamophobic or racist. Pipes has made claims about alleged "no-go zones" overrun by Sharia law in Europe and about U.S. President Barack Obama practicing Islam, and has defended Michelle Malkin's book In Defense of Internment: The Case for 'Racial Profiling' in World War II and the War on Terror.{{cite web |last1=Beutel |first1=Alejandro |title=Anti-Muslim figure Daniel Pipes advocates partnering with far-right political parties |url=https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2018/04/18/anti-muslim-figure-daniel-pipes-advocates-partnering-far-right-political-parties |website=Southern Poverty Law Center |access-date=24 February 2022 |language=en |date=18 April 2018}}

Pipes has written sixteen books and was the Taube Distinguished Visiting Fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution.[http://www.hoover.org/fellows/9955 Daniel Pipes] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140427043635/http://www.hoover.org/fellows/9955 |date=2014-04-27 }}, Fellows, Hoover Institution website. Accessed July 24, 2011.

Early life and education

The son of Irene (née Roth) and Richard Pipes, Daniel Pipes was born into a Jewish family in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1949.{{cite magazine | first = Eyal | last = Press | url = http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb1367/is_200405/ai_n6382769 | title = Neocon man: Daniel Pipes has made his name inveighing against an academy overrun by political extremists. | magazine = The Nation | date = May 2004 | access-date = August 17, 2007 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20071113071644/http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb1367/is_200405/ai_n6382769 |archive-date = November 13, 2007}} His parents had each fled German-occupied Poland with their families, and they met in the United States.Richard Pipes. Vixi: memoirs of a non-belonger. 2006, page 2; page 50 His father, Richard Pipes, was a historian at Harvard University, specializing in Russia, and Daniel Pipes grew up primarily in the Cambridge, Massachusetts area.

Pipes attended the Harvard pre-school, then received a private school education, partly abroad. He enrolled in Harvard University, where his father was a professor, in the fall of 1967. For his first two years he studied mathematics but said he "found the material too abstract".{{cite news |title=Daniel Pipes fights the worldwide threat of Islamism – from Malibu|url=http://www.danielpipes.org/article/4326 |last=Ballon|first=Marc|work=Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles|date=March 6, 2007|access-date=May 12, 2008}}{{cite news|first=Janet|last=Tassel|url=http://harvardmagazine.com/2005/01/militant-about-islamism.html|title=Militant about "Islamism"|work=Harvard Magazine|access-date=May 26, 2016|date=January–February 2005}} After visiting the Sahara Desert in 1968, the Sinai Desert in 1969, and travels in West Africa, he changed his major to Middle Eastern history. He obtained a A.B. in history in 1971. His senior thesis was a study of Al-Ghazali and other Muslim philosophers. After graduating in 1971, Pipes spent two years in Cairo, then earned a PhD in 1978, also from Harvard. He wrote a book on colloquial Egyptian Arabic, published in 1983.{{cite book|first=Daniel|last=Pipes|year=1983|title=An Arabist's Guide to Egyptian Colloquial|url=https://www.danielpipes.org/books/an-arabists-guide-to-egyptian-colloquial.pdf|location=Washington, D.C.|publisher=Foreign Service Institute|lccn=83081668}}

Career

=Work in academia=

Pipes returned to Harvard in 1973 and, after further studies abroad (in Freiburg-im-Breisgau and Cairo), obtained a Ph.D. in medieval Islamic history in 1978. His doctoral dissertation eventually became his first book, Slave Soldiers and Islam, in 1981. He switched his academic interest from medieval Islamic studies to modern Islam in the late 1970s, with the rise of Ayatollah Khomeini and the Iranian revolution.

He taught world history at the University of Chicago from 1978 to 1982, history at Harvard from 1983 to 1984, and policy and strategy at the Naval War College from 1984 to 1986. In 1982–83, Pipes served on the policy-planning staff at the State Department in 1982–83.Arabists: The Romance of an American Elite, Kaplan, Robert D., p. 287, Simon and Schuster, 1995

= Post-academia =

Pipes largely left academia after 1986, although he taught a course titled "International Relations: Islam and Politics" as a visiting professor at Pepperdine University's School of Public Policy in 2007.{{cite web|url=http://www.pepperdine.edu/pr/releases/2006/december/danielpipes.htm|title=School of Public Policy Announces 2007 Distinguished Visiting Professor: Daniel Pipes|publisher=Pepperdine University|access-date=May 13, 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071208195838/http://www.pepperdine.edu/pr/releases/2006/december/danielpipes.htm|archive-date=2007-12-08|url-status=dead}} Pipes told an interviewer from Harvard Magazine that he has "the simple politics of a truck driver, not the complex ones of an academic. My viewpoint is not congenial with institutions of higher learning."

From 1986 on, Pipes worked for think tanks. From 1986 to 1993, he was director of the Philadelphia-based Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI) and editor of its journal, Orbis. In 1990, he organized the Middle East Forum as a unit of FPRI; it became an independent organization with himself as head in January 1994. Pipes edited its journal, the Middle East Quarterly, until 2001. He established Campus Watch as a project of the Middle East Forum in 2002, followed by the Legal Project in 2005, Islamist Watch in 2006, and the Washington Project in 2009.

In 2003, President George W. Bush nominated Pipes for the board of the United States Institute of Peace. A filibuster was launched by Democratic Senators in the United States Senate against Pipes' nomination.{{cite news|title=A Misdirected Attack: Editorial|url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2003-aug-17-ed-pipes17-story.html|work=Los Angeles Times|date=August 17, 2003|access-date=May 12, 2008}} Senator Tom Harkin said that he was "offended" by Pipes' comments on Islam, and that while "some people call [Pipes] a scholar... this is not the kind of person you want on the USIP."{{cite news|url=http://www.baltimorechronicle.com/jul03_pipes-stalled.html|title=Daniel Pipes nomination stalled in committee|work=Baltimore Chronicle|date=July 23, 2003|access-date=May 13, 2008}} While defending Pipes' nomination, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer distanced Bush from Pipes's views, saying that Bush "disagrees with Pipes about whether Islam is a peaceful religion". Pipes obtained the position by recess appointment and served on the board until early 2005. His nomination was protested by Muslim groups in the U.S., and Democratic leaders.{{Cite web|url=http://www.husainhaqqani.com/2003/07/|title=Where's the Muslim Debate?|last=Haqqani|first=Husain|date=July 2003}}Lockman, Zachary. Contending visions of the Middle East. 2004, page 257Hagopian, Elaine Catherine. Civil rights in peril. 2004, page 113 The Los Angeles Times wrote that "in trying to prevent Middle East scholar Daniel Pipes from joining the board of the U.S. Institute of Peace, Sens. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.) and Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) are abusing their privilege."

''Campus Watch''

Pipes' think tank the Middle East Forum established a website in 2002 called Campus Watch, which identified what it saw as five problems in the teaching of Middle Eastern studies at American universities: "analytical failures, the mixing of politics with scholarship, intolerance of alternative views, apologetics, and the abuse of power over students." According to The New York Times, Campus Watch is the project for which Pipes is "perhaps best known."{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/28/nyregion/28school.html?_r=1&ref=nyregion&oref=slogin | title=Critics Cost Muslim Educator Her Dream School |first=Andrea |last=Elliot |date=April 27, 2008 |access-date=May 3, 2008 |work=The New York Times}}

Through Campus Watch, Pipes encouraged students and faculty to submit information on "Middle East-related scholarship, lectures, classes, demonstrations, and other activities relevant to Campus Watch".{{cite web |url=http://www.campus-watch.org/incident.php |title=Keep Us Informed |publisher=Campus Watch}} The project was accused of "McCarthyesque intimidation" of professors who criticized Israel when it published "dossiers" on eight professors it thought "hostile" to America. In protest, more than a hundred academics demanded to be added to what some called a "blacklist". In October 2002 Campus Watch removed the dossiers from its website.{{cite news | url = http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2002/09/28/MN227890.DTL | title = Professors want own names put on Mideast blacklist – They hope to make it powerless | work=San Francisco Chronicle | first = Tanya | last = Schevitz | date = September 28, 2002 | access-date = March 12, 2008}}{{cite web | url = http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/416 | title = Column a slur on Muslim community | first = Hussam | last = Ayloush | work=Orange County Register | date = December 1, 2002 | access-date = March 1, 2008 }}{{cite news | url = http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/209 | title = 'Dossiers' dropped from Web blacklist | work=San Francisco Chronicle | first = Tanya | last = Schevitz | date = October 3, 2002 | access-date = March 12, 2008}}{{cite news |first=Kristine |last=McNeil |url=https://www.thenation.com/article/war-academic-freedom/ |title=The War on Academic Freedom |work=The Nation |date=November 11, 2002 |access-date=October 21, 2007 |archive-date=May 26, 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100526090931/http://www.thenation.com/article/war-academic-freedom |url-status=dead }}

Views

=Radical and moderate Islam=

Pipes has long expressed alarm about what he believes to be the dangers of "radical" or "militant Islam" to the Western world. In 1985, he wrote in Middle East Insight that "[t]he scope of the radical fundamentalist's ambition poses novel problems; and the intensity of his onslaught against the United States makes solutions urgent."{{cite news | url = http://www.danielpipes.org/article/266 | title = "Death to America" in Lebanon | first=Daniel|last=Pipes | work=Middle East Insight | date = March–April 1985 | access-date = March 1, 2008 }} In the fall 1995 issue of National Interest, he wrote: "Unnoticed by most Westerners, war has been unilaterally declared on Europe and the United States."{{cite news | title = There Are No Moderates: Dealing with Fundamentalist Islam

| url = http://www.danielpipes.org/article/274 | work=National Interest | date = Fall 1995 | first=Daniel |last=Pipes | access-date = March 1, 2008 }}

He wrote this in the aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing; investigative journalist Steven Emerson had said in the aftermath of the bombing that it bore a "Middle Eastern trait." Pipes agreed with Emerson and told USA Today that the United States was "under attack" and that Islamic fundamentalists "are targeting us." Shortly after this, the bombing was determined by police to have been carried out by American anti-government terrorists Timothy McVeigh, Terry Nichols, and Michael Fortier.{{cite news|url=http://www2.indystar.com/library/factfiles/crime/national/1995/oklahoma_city_bombing/ok.html |title=Library Factfiles: The Oklahoma City Bombing |work=The Indianapolis Star |date=August 9, 2004 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110428230852/http://www2.indystar.com/library/factfiles/crime/national/1995/oklahoma_city_bombing/ok.html |archive-date=April 28, 2011 |url-status=dead }}

Pipes wrote in 2007, "It's a mistake to blame Islam, a religion 14 centuries old, for the evil that should be ascribed to militant Islam, a totalitarian ideology less than a century old. Militant Islam is the problem, but moderate Islam is the solution."{{cite news| first=Daniel| last=Pipes| url=http://www.danielpipes.org/article/4497| title=A Million Moderate Muslims on the March|work=New York Sun|date= May 8, 2007}} Pipes described moderate Muslims as "a very small movement" in comparison to "the Islamist onslaught" and said that the U.S. government "should give priority to locating, meeting with, funding, forwarding, empowering, and celebrating" them.{{cite news|url=http://www.danielpipes.org/article/4426|title=Bolstering Moderate Muslims|last=Pipes|first=Daniel|date=2007-04-17|work=New York Sun|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070429071909/http://www.danielpipes.org/article/4426|archive-date=2007-04-29|url-status=live}}

Pipes has praised Mustafa Kemal Atatürk in Turkey and the Sudanese thinker Mahmoud Mohamed Taha.{{cite news|first=Daniel |last=Pipes |url=http://fr.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1208356966718&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120708210504/http://fr.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1208356966718&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull |url-status=dead |archive-date=July 8, 2012 |work=The Jerusalem Post |title=A democratic Islam? |date=April 16, 2008 |access-date=May 13, 2008 }} In a September 2008 interview by Peter Robinson, Pipes stated that Muslims can be divided into three categories: "traditional Islam", which he sees as pragmatic and non-violent, "Islamism", which he sees as dangerous and militant, and "moderate Islam", which he sees as underground and not yet codified into a popular movement. He elaborated that he did not have the "theological background" to determine what group follows the Koran the closest and is truest to its intent.{{YouTube|Q7h3i0SHy3A|The Middle East with Daniel Pipes}}. Uncommon Knowledge. Hoover Institution. Published September 23, 2008. Accessed July 21, 2009.

=Muslims in Europe=

In 1990, Pipes wrote in National Review that Western European societies were "unprepared for the massive immigration of brown-skinned peoples cooking strange foods and maintaining different standards of hygiene ... Muslim immigrants bring with them a chauvinism that augurs badly for their integration into the mainstream of the European societies." At that time, he believed Muslim immigrants would "probably not change the face of European life" and might "even bring much of value, including new energy, to their host societies".{{cite web|url=http://www.danielpipes.org/rr/198.html|title=The Muslims are Coming! The Muslims are Coming!|last=Pipes|first=Daniel|date=1990-11-19|work=Middle East Forum|publisher=National Review|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180728205343/http://www.danielpipes.org/rr/198.html|archive-date=2018-07-28|url-status=live|access-date=2008-03-13}} New York University academic Arun Kundnani cited the article as "Islamophobic".{{cite news|url=http://gulfnews.com/arts-entertainment/books/the-muslims-are-coming-arun-kundnani-explains-terrorism-1.1313244|title='The Muslims are Coming!': Arun Kundnani explains terrorism|author=Syed Hamad Ali|date=2014-04-03|newspaper=Gulf News|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140404063652/http://gulfnews.com/arts-entertainment/books/the-muslims-are-coming-arun-kundnani-explains-terrorism-1.1313244|archive-date=2014-04-04|url-status=live}} Pipes later said "my goal in it was to characterize the thinking of Western Europeans, not give my own views. In retrospect, I should either have put the words 'brown-skinned peoples' and 'strange foods' in quotation marks or made it clearer that I was explaining European attitudes rather than my own."{{Cite web|url=http://www.danielpipes.org/198/the-muslims-are-coming-the-muslims-are-coming|title=The Muslims are Coming! The Muslims are Coming!|last=Pipes|first=Daniel|date=2017-04-05|website=Middle East Forum|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090208015944/http://www.danielpipes.org/198/the-muslims-are-coming-the-muslims-are-coming|archive-date=2009-02-08|url-status=live|access-date=2018-07-30}}

In 2006, Daniel Pipes said that certain neighborhoods in France were "no-go zones" and "that the French state no longer has full control over its territory." In 2013, Pipes traveled to several of these neighborhoods and admitted he was mistaken. In 2015 he sent an email to Bloomberg saying that there are "no European countries with no-go zones."{{Cite news|url=https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-01-14/debunking-the-muslim-nogo-zone-myth|title=Debunking the Myth of Muslim-Only Zones in Major European Cities|date=2015-01-14|newspaper=Bloomberg|access-date=2017-02-16}}

In response to the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy, Pipes wrote that the "key issue at stake" was whether the "West [would] stand up for its customs and mores, including freedom of speech" and the "right to insult and blasphemy". He supported Robert Spencer's call to "stand resolutely with Denmark." He lauded Norway, Germany and France for their stance on the cartoons and freedom of speech, but criticized Poland, Britain, New Zealand and the United States for giving statements he interpreted as "wrongly apologizing."{{cite news|first=Daniel|last=Pipes|url=http://www.nysun.com/foreign/cartoons-and-islamic-imperialism/27151/|title=Cartoons and Islamic Imperialism|work=New York Sun|date=February 7, 2006|access-date=May 13, 2008|archive-date=June 10, 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110610174729/http://www.nysun.com/foreign/cartoons-and-islamic-imperialism/27151/|url-status=dead}}

Through his Middle East Forum, Pipes fund-raised for the far-right Dutch politician Geert Wilders during his trial, according to NRC Handelsblad.{{cite news|url=http://vorige.nrc.nl/binnenland/article2544752.ece/Partners_Wilders_in_VS_verdienen_aan_acties_tegen_moslimextremisme|title=Partners Wilders in VS verdienen aan acties teen moslimextremisme|date=May 15, 2010|language=nl|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111012085802/http://vorige.nrc.nl/binnenland/article2544752.ece/Partners_Wilders_in_VS_verdienen_aan_acties_tegen_moslimextremisme|archive-date=October 12, 2011}} Pipes is quoted saying he collected in 2009 a 6-digit figure for the party of Wilders. Pipes has praised Wilders as "the unrivaled leader of those Europeans who wish to retain their historic [European] identity"{{cite news|url=http://www.nationalreview.com/article/228978/why-i-stand-geert-wilders-daniel-pipes|title=Why I Stand with Geert Wilders |author=Daniel Pipes|newspaper=National Review|date=Jan 19, 2010}} and called him "the most important politician in Europe." At the same time, he found Wilders' political program "bizarre" and not to be taken too seriously{{cite news|url=http://www.nzz.ch/nachrichten/kultur/aktuell/die_islamdebatte_im_westen_ist_primitiv_1.8328724.html|title=A conversation with the American critics of Islam Daniel Pipes|date=November 10, 2012|newspaper=Neue Zürcher Zeitung|language=de|author=Ramon Schack}} while criticizing Wilders' understanding of Islam as "superficial" for being against all of Islam and not just its extreme variant.{{cite news|url=https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2017/02/21/exclusive-usa-today-interview-with-dutch-anti-islam-politician-geert-wilders/98146112/|title=Would-be Dutch PM: Islam threatens our way of life|date=February 21, 2017|work=USA Today|author=Kim Hjelmgaard}}

=Muslims in the United States=

In October 2001, Pipes said before a convention of the American Jewish Congress: "I worry very much, from the Jewish point of view, that the presence, and increased stature, and affluence, and enfranchisement of American Muslims, because they are so much led by an Islamist leadership, that this will present true dangers to American Jews."{{cite web|last=Pipes|first= Daniel | url=http://www.danielpipes.org/article/1414 | title=A French lesson for Tom Harkin |work=World Net Daily |date=January 5, 2004|access-date=May 13, 2008}}{{cite web|last=Ferguson |first=Barbara |url=http://www.arabnews.com/?page=4§ion=0&article=59612&d=27&m=2&y=2005 | title=Daniel Pipes Continuing His Campaign Against Muslims |work=Arab News}}

The New York Times reported that American Muslims were "enraged" by Pipes' arguments that Muslims in government and military positions be given special attention as security risks and his opining that mosques are "breeding grounds for militants."{{cite news|url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F07E5DE133DF93BA15757C0A9659C8B63|title=For Muslims, a Mixture Of White House Signals|last=Stevenson|first=Richard|date=April 28, 2003|work=The New York Times|access-date=November 29, 2007}} In a 2004 article in The New York Sun, Pipes endorsed a defense of the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, and linked the Japanese-American wartime situation to that of Muslim Americans today.{{cite news|url=http://hnn.us/node/9289|archive-url=https://archive.today/20130716022606/http://hnn.us/node/9289|url-status=dead|archive-date=July 16, 2013|title=Japanese Internment: Why It Was a Good Idea – And the Lessons It Offers Today|newspaper=New York Sun|date=December 28, 2004}}{{cite web|url=http://hnn.us/articles/9512.html|title=Japanese Internment: Why Daniel Pipes Is Wrong|author=Irfan Khawaja|publisher=History News Network}}

Pipes has criticized the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which he says is an "apologist" for Hezbollah and Hamas, and has a "roster of employees and board members connected to terrorism".{{cite web | author=Daniel Pipes |author2=Sharon Chadha | url=http://www.danielpipes.org/article/3437 | title=CAIR: Islamists Fooling the Establishment | work=Middle East Quarterly | date=Spring 2006}} CAIR, in turn, has said that "Pipes' writings are full of distortions and innuendo."{{cite news| url=http://www.sptimes.com/2007/09/23/Worldandnation/With_CAIR__compromise.shtml | title=With CAIR, compromise complicated: The American Muslim group's stated goal is understanding. But some don't trust it. | newspaper=Tampa Bay Times |date=September 23, 2007 | author=Susan Taylor Martin|access-date=April 20, 2014}}

The New York Times cited Pipes as helping to lead the charge against Debbie Almontaser, a woman with a "longstanding reputation as a Muslim moderate" whom Pipes viewed as a representative of a pernicious new movement of "lawful Islamists." Almontaser resigned under pressure as principal of Khalil Gibran International Academy, an Arabic-language high school in New York City named after the Christian Arab-American poet. Pipes initially described the school as a "madrassa", which means school in Arabic but, in the West, carries the implication of Islamist teaching, though he later admitted that his use of the term had been "a bit of a stretch". Pipes explained his opposition: "It is hard to see how violence, how terrorism will lead to the implementation of sharia. It is much easier to see how, working through the system—the school system, the media, the religious organizations, the government, businesses and the like—you can promote radical Islam." Pipes had also stated that "Arabic-language instruction is inevitably laden with Pan-Arabist and Islamist baggage."

=Views on American foreign policy=

Pipes was a firm supporter of the Vietnam War, and when his fellow students occupied the Harvard administration building to protest it in the 1960s, he sided with the administration. Pipes had previously considered himself to be a Democrat, but after anti-war George McGovern gained the 1972 Democratic nomination for President, he switched to the Republican Party. Pipes used to accept being described as a "neoconservative", once saying that "others see me that way, and, you know, maybe I am one of them."{{cite news |url =http://www.abc.net.au/cgi-bin/common/printfriendly.pl?/pm/content/2006/s1603043.htm |title =US led coalition no longer responsible for Iraq: Daniel Pipes |publisher =Australian Broadcasting Corporation |last =Colvin |first =Mark |date =March 28, 2006 |access-date =2018-12-03 |archive-url =https://web.archive.org/web/20160304025700/http://www.abc.net.au/cgi-bin/common/printfriendly.pl?%2Fpm%2Fcontent%2F2006%2Fs1603043.htm |archive-date =2016-03-04 |url-status =dead }} However, he explicitly rejected the label in April 2009 due to differences with the neoconservative positions on democracy and Iraq, now considering himself a "plain conservative".{{cite news

| last = Daniel

| first = Pipes

| title = A Neo-Conservative's Caution

| publisher = Daniel Pipes

| date = March 8, 2005

| url = http://www.danielpipes.org/2447/a-neo-conservatives-caution

| access-date = April 10, 2009 }}

=Donald Trump and the Republican Party=

In 2016, Pipes resigned from the Republican Party after it endorsed Donald Trump as its 2016 presidential candidate.{{cite web|url=http://www.danielpipes.org/16834/why-i-just-quit-the-gop|title=Why I Just Quit the Republican Party|author=Daniel Pipes|date=2016-07-21|publisher=Daniel Pipes}} Yet he announced in a Boston Globe article of October 20, 2020, that he was voting for Trump in that year's presidential election, on the grounds that, "Rather than the person, I advise a focus on a party’s overall outlook... I urge fellow voters to dwell on the strikingly different platforms of the two major parties...and support whichever one better suits their own views; and to do so regardless of the candidates' many failings."Pipes, Daniel, "Why I'm voting for Trump," The Boston Globe, October 20, 2020, https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/10/20/opinion/why-im-voting-trump/?p1=BGSearch_Advanced_Results

=Arab–Israeli conflict=

Pipes supports Israel in the Arab–Israeli conflict and is an opponent of a Palestinian state. He wrote in Commentary in April 1990 that "there can be either an Israel or a Palestine, but not both ... to those who ask why the Palestinians must be deprived of a state, the answer is simple: grant them one and you set in motion a chain of events that will lead either to its extinction or the extinction of Israel."{{cite web|url=http://www.danielpipes.org/article/194 |title=Can the Palestinians Make Peace? |first=Daniel |last=Pipes |publisher=Commentary with alterations by Daniel Pipes, reprinted on DanielPipes.org |date=April 1990 |access-date=May 13, 2008}} Pipes has proposed a three-state solution to the conflict, in which Gaza would be given to Egypt and the West Bank to Jordan."Solving the 'Palestinian Problem,'" by Daniel Pipes, The Jerusalem Post, January 7, 2009 [http://www.danielpipes.org/article/6110]

In September 2008, he said, "Palestinians do not accept the existence of a Jewish state. Until that change, I don't see any point in having any kind of negotiations whatsoever." He also described the Israeli public as focused on a mistaken policy that he considers to be "appeasement".

Pipes supported Israel in the 2014 Gaza War stating "the civilized and moral forces of Israel came off well in this face-off with barbarism".{{cite news |last1=Pipes |first1=Daniel |title=Lessons of the War in Gaza |url=https://townhall.com/columnists/danielpipes/2014/08/10/lessons-of-the-war-in-gaza-n1877069 |date=10 August 2014}} He has also defended the controversial Canary Mission, stating "collecting information on students has particular value because it signals them that attacking Israel is serious business, not some inconsequential game, and that their actions can damage both Israel and their future careers".{{cite web |title=Shadowy Web Site Creates Blacklist of Pro-Palestinian Activists |date=27 May 2015 |url=https://forward.com/news/308902/shadowy-web-site-creates-black-list-of-pro-palestinian-activists/ |publisher=Forward}}

=Iran=

Pipes' opposition to Iran is long-standing. In 1980, Pipes wrote that "Iran made the transition to a post-oil economy. It is the only major oil exporter to abandon the heady billions and return to live by its own means."{{cite news|first=Daniel |last=Pipes |url=http://www.danielpipes.org/article/1026 |title=Iran's Good Fortune |newspaper=The Washington Post |date=July 10, 1980}} Pipes was critical of the Reagan administration for its role in the Iran–Contra affair, writing that "American actions also helped to legitimize other kinds of help for, and capitulation to, the Ayatollah."">{{cite magazine |first1=Daniel |last1=Pipes |url=http://www.danielpipes.org/5330/back-iraq |last2=Mylroie |first2=Laurie |title=Back Iraq: It's time for a U.S. 'tilt' |magazine=The New Republic |date=April 27, 1987}}

In 2010, Pipes advocated that U.S. President Barack Obama "give orders for the U.S. military to destroy Iran's nuclear-weapon capacity. ... The time to act is now."{{cite news|first=Daniel |last=Pipes |url=http://www.danielpipes.org/article/1026 |title=How to Save the Obama Presidency: Bomb Iran |work=The National Review |date=February 2, 2010}} He argued that "circumstances are propitious" for the U.S. to initiate a bombing of Iran, and that "no one other than the Iranian rulers and their agents denies that the regime is rushing headlong to build a large nuclear arsenal." He further stated that a unilateral U.S. bombing of Iran "would require few 'boots on the ground' and entail relatively few casualties, making an attack more politically palatable."

Pipes advocates that the U.S. support the People's Mujahedin of Iran (MEK) against the Iranian government.{{cite news |first=Daniel |last=Pipes |url=http://www.danielpipes.org/article/4747 |title=Unleash the Iranian Opposition |work=New York Sun|via=DanielPipes.org |date=July 10, 2007 |access-date=March 25, 2008}}{{cite news|url=http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2012/02/resettling-the-mujahedeen-e-khalq-of-iraq|title=Resettling the Mujahedeen-e Khalq of Iraq|newspaper=National Review Online|author=Daniel Pipes|date=Feb 28, 2012|access-date=July 15, 2014}} Previously listed as a terrorist group by the U.S. and the European Union, Pipes had long advocated a change in that listing.{{cite news|url=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/13/john-kerry-mek_n_4960059.html|title=John Kerry Gets Pressed To Grant Asylum To Former Terrorist Group MEK|author=Christina Wilkie|date=March 13, 2014|newspaper=HuffPost}} Pipes had described this listing as a "sop to the mullahs". He writes, "the MEK poses no danger to Americans or Europeans, and has not for decades. It does pose a danger to the malign, bellicose theocratic regime in Tehran."

=Obama's religion conspiracy=

On January 7, 2008, Pipes wrote an article for FrontPage Magazine claiming that he had "confirmed" that President Obama "practiced Islam".{{cite web |last1=Pipes |first1=Daniel |title=Confirmed: Barack Obama Practiced Islam |url=http://www.danielpipes.org/5354/confirmed-barack-obama-practiced-islam |website=Daniel Pipes |date=7 January 2008 |access-date=29 October 2020 |language=en}} Media Matters for America responded by exposing Pipes reliance on "disputed Los Angeles Times article", whose key claims were debunked by Kim Barker in the Chicago Tribune on 25 March.{{cite web |title=Daniel Pipes relied on disputed Los Angeles Times article to revive Obama-Muslim falsehood |url=https://www.mediamatters.org/items/200801020004?f=h_latest |website=Media Matters for America |access-date=29 October 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080106111128/https://www.mediamatters.org/items/200801020004?f=h_latest |archive-date=6 January 2008}}{{cite web |author1=Kim Barker |author-link1=Kim Barker |title=Archive - Chicago Tribune |url=https://chicagotribune.newspapers.com/search/legacy/#query=Kim+Barker&ymd=2007-03-25 |website=Chicago Tribune |access-date=29 October 2020 |language=en |date=25 March 2007 |archive-date=3 November 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201103201602/https://chicagotribune.newspapers.com/search/legacy/#query=Kim+Barker&ymd=2007-03-25 |url-status=dead }} Ben Smith, in an article on Politico, criticized Pipes for what he said were false or misleading statements about Barack Obama's religion, stating that they amounted to a "template for a faux-legitimate assault on Obama's religion" and that Pipes' work "is pretty stunning in the twists of its logic".Ben Smith: [http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/1207/The_Muslim_smear_version_20.html The Muslim smear version 2.0] Politico, December 30, 2007. Retrieved on December 26, 2008.

Reception

Pipes was included in the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) Field Guide to Anti-Muslim Extremists that was removed from the SPLC website after Maajid Nawaz filed a lawsuit.{{Cite web| title = Southern Poverty Law Center Deletes List of 'Anti-Muslim Extremists' After Legal Threat| work=CBN News| access-date = 2018-11-19| date = 2018-04-20| url = http://www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/us/2018/april/southern-poverty-law-center-deletes-list-of-anti-muslim-extremists-after-legal-threat}} However, on the SPLC website he is still considered an "anti-Muslim mainstay figure" and "anti-Muslim activist" in many Hatewatch and Intelligence Report articles.{{cite web |title=Roundup of anti-Muslim events and activities 8/9/2018 |url=https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2018/08/09/roundup-anti-muslim-events-and-activities-892018 |website=Southern Poverty Law Center |access-date=29 October 2020 |language=en |date=9 August 2018}}{{cite web |title=Anti-Muslim round-up: 6/22/18 |url=https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2018/06/22/anti-muslim-round-62218 |website=Southern Poverty Law Center |access-date=29 October 2020 |language=en |date=22 June 2018}}{{cite web |title=Anti-Muslim figure Daniel Pipes advocates partnering with far-right political parties |url=https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2018/04/18/anti-muslim-figure-daniel-pipes-advocates-partnering-far-right-political-parties |website=Southern Poverty Law Center |access-date=29 October 2020 |language=en |date=18 April 2018}}{{cite web |title=David Horowitz |url=https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/individual/david-horowitz |website=Southern Poverty Law Center |access-date=29 October 2020 |language=en}}

Similarly, Bridge Initiative, hosted at Georgetown University and headed by John L. Esposito, analyses and refers to Pipes as an "anti-Muslim figure", describing his activities as "promoting anti-Muslim tropes" and Pipes as financier of "numerous activists and organizations that spread misinformation about Muslims and Islam".{{cite web |title=Daniel Pipes: Factsheet: Islamophobia |url=https://bridge.georgetown.edu/research/factsheet-daniel-pipes/ |website=Bridge Initiative |access-date=29 October 2020 |date=14 August 2018}}{{cite web |title=Clarion Project: Factsheet: Islam, Muslims, Islamophobia |url=https://bridge.georgetown.edu/research/factsheet-clarion-project/ |website=Bridge Initiative |access-date=29 October 2020 |language=en |date=3 April 2018}} Pipes has also been described as a part of the counter-jihad movement,{{cite book|url=https://research-information.bris.ac.uk/files/192414854/Aked_Jones_Miller_Counterjihad_report_2019.pdf|last1=Aked|first1=H.|last2=Jones|first2=M.|last3=Miller|first3=D.|year=2019|title=Islamophobia in Europe: How governments are enabling the far-right 'counter-jihad' movement|series=Public Interest Investigations|publisher=University of Bristol|page=42|isbn=9780957027497|hdl=1983/cd525157-683a-493b-b27f-9a5ffbca312c|hdl-access=free|quote="Another key counter-jihad figure at the rally was American Daniel Pipes, who heads the Philadelphia-based Middle east Forum (MeF)"}}{{cite web|url=https://bridge.georgetown.edu/research/factsheet-counter-jihad-movement/|title=Factsheet: Counter-jihad Movement|work=Bridge Initiative|publisher=Georgetown University|date=September 17, 2020}} though more moderate than others.{{cite report |last1=Meleagrou-Hitchens |first1=Alexander |last2=Brun |first2=Hans |year=2013 |title=A Neo-Nationalist Network: The English Defence League and Europe's Counter-Jihad Movement |url=https://icsr.info/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/ICSR-Report-A-Neo-Nationalist-Network-The-English-Defence-League-and-Europe%E2%80%99s-Counter-Jihad-Movement.pdf |publisher=The International Centre for the Study of Radicalism and Political Violence |page=57|quote="Daniel Pipes, an academic who is also considered by some to be part of the more moderate wing of the Counter-Jihad movement, has also criticised the rejection of the Islam/Islamism distinction, describing it as ‘an intellectual error’"}}

Tashbih Sayyed, a former editor of the Muslim World Today and the Pakistan Times (not the Pakistani newspaper of the same name), stated about Pipes: "He must be listened to. If there is no Daniel Pipes, there is no source for America to learn to recognize the evil which threatens it... Muslims in America that are like Samson; they have come into the temple to pull down the pillars, even if it means destroying themselves." Similarly, Ahmed Subhy Mansour, a former visiting fellow at Harvard Law School, writes, "We Muslims need a thinker like Dr. Pipes, who can criticize the terrorist culture within Islam."

In The Nation, Brooklyn writer Kristine McNeil described Pipes in 2003 as an "anti-Arab propagandist" who has built a career out of "distortions... twist[ing] words, quot[ing] people out of context and stretch[ing] the truth to suit his purpose".

Zachary Lockman, Professor of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies and History, wrote in 2005 that Pipes "acquired a reputation in Muslim American circles as an 'Islamophobe' and 'Muslim basher' whose writings and public utterances aroused fear and suspicion toward Muslims". He stated that Pipes's remarks "could plausibly be understood as inciting suspicion and mistrust of Muslims, including Muslim Americans, and as derogatory of Islam".{{cite journal |last1=Lockman |first1=Zachary |title=Critique from the Right: The Neo-conservative Assault on Middle East Studies |journal=CR: The New Centennial Review |date=2005 |volume=5 |issue=1 |pages=63–110 |doi=10.1353/ncr.2005.0034|s2cid=145071422 }}

Christopher Hitchens, a fellow supporter of the Iraq War and critic of political Islam, also criticized Pipes, arguing that Pipes pursued an intolerant agenda, was someone who "confuses scholarship with propaganda", and "pursues petty vendettas with scant regard for objectivity".{{cite web|url=http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_words/2003/08/pipes_the_propagandist.html|title=Pipes the propagandist|first=Christopher|last=Hitchens| work=Slate|date=August 11, 2003|access-date=May 13, 2008}}

When Pipes was invited to speak at the University of Toronto in March 2005, a letter from professors and graduate students asserted that Pipes had a "long record of xenophobic, racist and sexist speech that goes back to 1990",{{cite news|url=https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/visit-by-pro-israeli-prof-causes-uproar-at-uoft/article18219241/|title=Visit by pro-Israeli prof causes uproar at UofT |work=The Globe and Mail |first=Caroline |last= Alphonso |date=March 29, 2005}} but university officials said they would not interfere with Pipes's visit.{{cite web |url=http://thevarsity.ca/articles/15401l |title=Open Letter |work=The Varsity}}{{dead link|date=April 2014}}

Professor John L. Esposito of Georgetown University has called Pipes "a bright, well-trained expert with considerable experience", but accuses Pipes of "selectivity and distortion" when asserting that "10 to 15 percent of the world's Muslims are militants". In summation, Esposito complains that equation of "mainstream and extremist[s] [sic] Islam under the rubric of militant Islam" while identifying "moderate Islam as secular or cultural" can mislead "uninformed or uncritical readers".{{Cite web|title=Militant Islam Reaches America (Daniel Pipes)|work=The American Muslim|date=October 17, 2002|author=John L. Esposito|url=http://theamericanmuslim.org/tam.php/features/articles/militant_islam_reaches_america_daniel_pipes/}}

Awards and honors

Pipes has received two honorary doctorates, from the American University of Switzerland (1988) and Yeshiva University (2003).{{Cite web|url=http://www.meforum.org/staff/Daniel+Pipes|title=Biography of Daniel Pipes|date=December 22, 2017|website=Middle East Forum}}[https://web.archive.org/web/20110720125109/http://spider.mc.yu.edu/news/articles/article.cfm?id=100169 Daniel Pipes, Middle East Scholar and Author, to Keynote Yeshiva University's Commencement Exercises and Receive Honorary Degree May 22] Yeshiva University May 12, 2003. Retrieved on December 26, 2008.
In May 2006, Pipes received the Guardian of Zion Award by Ingeborg Rennert Center for Jerusalem Studies at Bar-Ilan University in Israel.Ruthie Blum: [http://www.danielpipes.org/article/3667 Interview: 'I watch with frustration as the Israelis don't get the point'] Jerusalem Post June 9, 2006. Retrieved on December 26, 2008.

Select bibliography

Nothing Abides (2015) Daniel Pipes, New Brunswick and London: Transaction Publishers
Miniatures: Views of Islamic and Middle Eastern Politics (2003), Transaction Publishers, {{ISBN|0-7658-0215-5}}
Militant Islam Reaches America (2002), W.W. Norton & Company; paperback (2003) {{ISBN|0-393-32531-8}}
with Abdelnour, Z. (2000), Ending Syria's Occupation of Lebanon: The U.S. Role Middle East Forum, {{ISBN|0-9701484-0-2}}
The Long Shadow: Culture and Politics in the Middle East (1999), Transaction Publishers, {{ISBN|0-88738-220-7}}
The Hidden Hand: Middle East Fears of Conspiracy (1997), Palgrave Macmillan; paperback (1998) {{ISBN|0-312-17688-0}}
Conspiracy: How the Paranoid Style Flourishes and Where It Comes From (1997), Touchstone; paperback (1999) {{ISBN|0-684-87111-4}}
Syria Beyond the Peace Process (Policy Papers, No. 41) (1995), Washington Institute for Near East Policy, {{ISBN|0-944029-64-7}}
Sandstorm (1993), Rowman & Littlefield, paperback (1993) {{ISBN|0-8191-8894-8}}
Damascus Courts the West: Syrian Politics, 1989–1991 (Policy Papers, No. 26) (1991), Washington Institute for Near East Policy, {{ISBN|0-944029-13-2}}
with Garfinkle, A. (1991), Friendly Tyrants: An American Dilemma Palgrave Macmillan, {{ISBN|0-312-04535-2}}
The Rushdie Affair: The Novel, the Ayatollah, and the West (1990), Transaction Publishers, paperback (2003) {{ISBN|0-7658-0996-6}}
Greater Syria: The History of an Ambition (1990), Oxford University Press, {{ISBN|0-19-506021-0}}
In the Path of God: Islam and Political Power (1983), Transaction Publishers, {{ISBN|0-7658-0981-8}}
[https://www.danielpipes.org/books/an-arabists-guide-to-egyptian-colloquial.pdf An Arabist's Guide to Egyptian Colloquial] (1983), Foreign Service Institute
Slave Soldiers and Islam: The Genesis of a Military System (1981), Yale University Press, {{ISBN|0-300-02447-9}}