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Daniel Pipes

Daniel Pipes is an American scholar specializing in the politics and history of the contemporary Middle East, with a focus on militant or terrorist Islamist movements.

Table of contents
1 Biography
2 Criticism
3 Campus Watch
4 Quotation
5 List of Works
6 External links

Biography

Pipes studied at Harvard University, where he was awarded a Ph.D. in history in 1978. Since then, he has written over a dozen books on the politics of Islam and the Middle East, and taught at Harvard University, the University of Chicago, and the U.S. Naval War College. Pipes currently serves as the director of the Middle East Forum, and is an established media presence, writing columns for the New York Post and the Jerusalem Post, and appearing frequently as a commentator on various television news programs.

Criticism

In August 2003, news leaked of Pipes' imminent appointment to the government-sponsored U.S. Institute of Peace. Soon afterwards, a broad array of Arab, Muslim, and inter-faith relgious groups vehemently denounced the appointment, claiming that Pipes was a racist, anti-Islamic extremist. Several Democratic senators, including Ted Kennedy (D-Massachusetts) and Christopher Dodd (D-Connecticut), then expressed opposition to the nomination and delayed a committee vote on it, though it is expected President Bush will bypass the Senate and go ahead with the appointment.

This incident illustrates Pipes' controversy, and is only the latest in the series of confornations he has had with various U.S-based Islamic groups, especially the Council on American-Islamic Relations. CAIR charges that Pipes is anti-Islamic bigot, while Pipes in turn maintains that CAIR is an apologist for Islamic terrorist groups like Hezbollah and Hamas. Links to CAIR's charges and Pipe's response to them are given below.

Pipes is also controversial in academia, where his generally conservative positions conflict with the views of many Middle East studies scholars. In particular, his strong support for Israel and argument that Islamism is a threat to the United States. Some academics such as John Esposito claim that Islamist movements can be forces for democratic progress. Pipes has also been attacked by Edward Said who, though technically not in the field of Middle Eastern studies, exerted enormous influence over it with his book, Orientalism.

Campus Watch

The Philadelphia-based "think-tank" Middle East Forum, of which Pipes is director, sparked a controversy in 2002 by establishing a web site Campus Watch that lists American universities and academics whose track record in Middle East Studies don't meet its approval. The list claims to identify "five problems: analytical failures, the mixing of politics with scholarship, intolerance of alternative views, apologetics, and the abuse of power over students". Students are encouraged to submit reports on their teachers.

Campus Watch was immediately labeled a "McCarthyist blacklist" and similar epithets, not only by the listed academics but by more than 100 others who demanded to be listed as well.

Quotation

There is no escaping the unfortunate fact that Muslim government employees in law enforcement, the military, and the diplomatic corps need to be watched for connections to terrorism, as do Muslim chaplains in prisons and the armed forces. Muslim visitors and immigrants must undergo additional background checks. Mosques require a scrutiny beyond that applied to churches, synagogues, and temples. Muslim schools require increased oversight to ascertain what is being taught to children.
--Jerusalem Post, Jan 22, 2003. p.9

List of Works

External links