U.S. Senate pipes down Pipes' nomination, James J. Zogby

Opinion, July 2003, www.aljazeerah.info

U.S. Senate pipes down Pipes' nomination

James J. Zogby

Gulf News, 28-07-2003

Arab Americans and American Muslims won a small but important moral victory in the battle against bigotry last week. A U.S. 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 U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP).

The Usip is a Washington based thinktank created by an act of Congress in 1984 to "promote the prevention, management, and peaceful resolution of international conflicts". Members of the Usip board and its visiting scholars share the Institute's goals and promote its objectives.

Over the years the Institute has hosted a number of distinguished Americans and international scholars who have produced studies dedicated to seeking the peaceful resolution of conflicts and promoting reconciliation among embattled peoples.

The current board nominee in question, Daniel Pipes, has, on the other hand, 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.

In a long piece titled, The Muslims are coming! The Muslims Are Coming! written over a decade ago, Pipes warns about the dangers of an influx of Muslim immigrants to the West. He notes: "All immigrants bring exotic customs and attitudes, but Muslim customs are more troublesome than most…Fears of a Muslim influx have more substance than the worry about jihad.

"West European societies are unprepared for the massive immigration of brown-skinned peoples cooking strange foods and not exactly maintaining Germanic standards of hygiene. Muslim immigrants bring with them a chauvinism that augurs badly for their integration into the mainstream of the European societies."

More recently he has been criticised for an article he co-authored on Muslim immigrants in Denmark in which he is accused of characterising them as "being parasites on the society, being disproportionately engaged in criminal behaviour, having 'unacceptable customs', seeking to take over the country and being rapists."

Serious problem

Pipes further warns that Muslim converts are a serious problem and in a June 2000 article he appears to approvingly quote a Ku Klux Klan leader who in 1959 outrageously observed that "if we fail to stop the Muslims now, the sixteen million niggers of America will soon be Muslims, and you will never be able to stop them."

As a result of his contempt for the culture of Muslims and his obsessive fear of their attitudes, it is no surprise that Pipes warns government agencies to beware of Muslims.

Just this year he wrote: "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."

When it was announced that the vote on Pipes' nomination was to take place last week, Arab Americans and American Muslim organisations lobbied Congress hard against confirmation. At first, we were told that it would be impossible to block the effort.

While some Democrats would oppose Pipes, it was said that Republicans had enough votes to push through the nomination. The situation became even more dire when it became know that AIPAC (the pro-Israel lobby) had, at the last minute, entered the fray and was pressing hard for confirmation.

However, after reviewing Pipes' critiques, some Democratic and Republican Senators became so troubled that they felt compelled to publicly express their concern.

At the committee meeting that was scheduled for the vote, Senator Ted Kennedy (Democrat, Massachusetts) led the charge. He noted that the statements and writings of Dr. Daniel Pipes were the opposite of the principles of the Usip.

Senator Tom Harkin (Democrat, Iowa), one of the principal founders of Usip, spoke passionately about the need to respect diversity. In the report on Harkin's comments issued by the Muslim Public Affairs Council, Harkin is quoted as saying, "some people call (Pipes) a scholar... but this is not the kind of person you want on the Usip." Senator Harkin added: "My state has the very first Mosque ever built in the U.S... in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and Muslims are a vibrant part of our diverse community."

Quoting Pipes: "(The) increased stature and affluence and enfranchisement of American Muslims...will present true dangers to American Jews." an exasperated Senator Harkin said: "Enfranchisement?

Mr. Pipes is talking about voting!...Mr. Pipes' fears of Muslim enfranchisement fall on deaf ears when it comes to this Senator...if Mr. Pipes' views on Muslims were true, than what we would have in Iowa would be exactly the opposite of what we have today...American Muslims who are lawyers, union members, doctors...Muslims who are thoroughly Americanised.

"When (Pipes) talks about Muslims being funny looking, maintaining different standards of hygiene...I don't know why we are even considering this person, Mr. Chairman."

Not assured

As other Senators joined in opposition it became clear that the nomination of Pipes was not assured. Having successfully delayed action on the confirmation, Arab Americans have turned their attention to the White House, appealing to the President to withdraw Pipes' name, noting that his views ran counter to the President's own efforts to promote respect for Islam and for the Arab American and American Muslim communities.

The White House may decide to press forward with the case for Pipes or even wait until the Senate goes into recess and then give the controversial nominee what is known as a "recess appointment" putting him on the Institute's Board against the wishes of the Senate.

That, however, would be viewed as a deep and hurtful insult to the Usip, the Senate and the Arab American and American Muslim communities. The nomination should never have been made. It was a mistake and it should be withdrawn.

The writer, president of the Arab American Institute

Earth, a planet hungry for peace

The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03).

The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers in the West Bank (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03).