| Home | Articles | Blog | Reviews | Spoken | Books | Biographical | Middle East Forum | About this site | Mailing List |
Articles and Blog Posts by Daniel Pipes
|
President-elect Donald Trump wants nothing to do with Syria. On December 7, 2024, he wrote that "THE UNITED STATES SHOULD HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH IT. THIS IS NOT OUR FIGHT. LET IT PLAY OUT. DO NOT GET INVOLVED!" (his capital letters).
I disagree. In fact, the U.S. government should help Bashar al-Assad, a brutal, totalitarian dictator, to remain in power. This unhappy example of counter-intuitive Realpolitik follows on the circumstances in Syria.
Simply put, when both sides to a conflict are loathsome, Americans must put aside their usually welcome and instinctive feelings of short-term humanitarianism and instead think strategically. What outcome, they should ask, will do least long-term damage to civilians and to U.S. interests?
As I wrote about Syria in 2013, "Evil forces pose less danger to us when they make war on each other. This (1) keeps them focused locally and it (2) prevents either one from emerging victorious (and thereby posing a yet-greater danger)."
In the prototypical example, the Roosevelt administration correctly helped Stalin against Hitler. It did not do so out of sympathy for the Soviet Union but out of concern that it would fall, thereby augmenting the power of Nazi Germany. Better they should battle each other on the Eastern Front than aggress globally. In similar spirit, the Reagan administration supported Iraq against Iran.
Continue Readingreview of The Only Jew in the Room: Searching for Understand in an Arab Islamic College
by Daniel Pipes • Winter 2025 • Middle East Quarterly
After 24 years in the Israel Defense Forces, much of it focused on the West Bank and Gaza, Lt. Col. (ret.) Avi Shalev, a Jew, made the unique decision in his late 40s to devote two-day weekends for the next 1½ years to acquiring a graduate-level teaching certificate from the Al-Qasimi Academic College of Education in the Israeli Muslim-majority town of Baqa al-Gharbiya. Founded in 1989 with a distinctly Islamic orientation, the college offers B.A.s and M.A.s. The Only Jew builds on his real-time notes to present a sometimes boisterous, sometimes anguished account of his unusual experience.
Shalev keeps it personal and stays away from politics but he always remains aware of the topsy-turvy situation whereby he, a former member of Israel's power elite, voluntarily subjects himself to linguistic, religious, and social marginality at Al-Qasimi.
The Only Jew contains many observations of value. On Jerusalem: "In Arab and Islamic public consciousness there has never been a Jewish Temple in Jerusalem." When he disagreed with this consensus, he met with frank disbelief: "A Jewish temple in Jerusalem? Come on, ya Avi. Who told you this lie? There was always a mosque there, it's a well-known fact."
review of Narrating the Pilgrimage to Mecca
by Daniel Pipes • Winter 2025 • Middle East Quarterly
"It was magical; more magical than Disneyland!!" Thus does a British Muslim recall her 'umra, while Moroccans recall their pilgrimage experience as "beyond words," requiring that one "personally experience the journey to understand it." In contrast, a nineteenth-century Indian pilgrim found Mecca to have "a dreary, repulsive aspect" and "the majority of the people are miserly, violent-tempered, hardhearted and covetous," while a Soviet-era pilgrim in Mecca felt himself thrown into the "hellish sufferings of the middle ages."
Between those extremes lie many, many reactions by Muslim visitors to the Masjid al-Haram and related sites in and around Mecca. Buitelaar and van Leeuwen, of the University of Groningen and the University of Amsterdam, respectively, have collected nine of what they call historical accounts of pilgrimage (the most recent dating from 1965) and seven contemporary accounts.
by Daniel Pipes • Winter 2025 • Middle East Quarterly
Understandably, given the sensitivities involved, the words Islam and Muslim barely come up in this immensely important study of immigration. But The Culture Transplant has obvious and major implications for the movement of Middle Eastern, African, and South Asian peoples to the West. Jones, an economist at George Mason University, starts by noting the common assumption that immigrants and their descendants assimilate to their adopted countries; he then devotes his short book to refute this erroneous belief.
He first acknowledges the triple intellectual origins of this inquiry: 1990s computing power; an influential 1997 article by Xavier Sala-i-Martin that pointed to cultural factors as a major component of economic growth; and the surge in scholarship on the role of culture that then followed.
Jones argues that "the shadow of the past is transmitted through culture to shape the diverse economies we see around the world today." He cites the case of Argentina, which went from one of the richest countries to a poor one, as an example of immigration drastically changing political ideas and economic institutions. Focusing on levels of trust ("a critical ingredient in the nation's prosperity recipe"), he notes the persistence of patterns of trust or mistrust unto the fourth generation.
by Daniel Pipes • October 30, 2024
About:
"Islam's Battle with a Hostile World." By John Lloyd, Financial Times, January 11, 2003. A comparison of the careers of Richard and Daniel Pipes.
"Appreciations of Richard E. Pipes." By Historians, Government Colleagues, Former Students, Editors, Critics, et al., 43 in All. July 11, 2013. Collected by Daniel Pipes. As the full title explains, "Presented on his 90th Birthday. Presented, as befits an historian, in reverse chronological order."
"Richard Pipes, Historian of Russia and Reagan Aide, Dies at 94." By William Grimes, The New York Times, May 17, 2018. An obituary.
"'He Has Lived': Richard Pipes, 1923-2018." By Daniel Pipes, The Australian, June 2, 2018. An appreciation.
"The Intrepid Duo: Pipes, Father and Son." By Jiri Valenta and Leni Friedman Valenta. Gatestone Institute, May 20, 2019. A joint appreciation.
Let Argentina, Israel, Italy, Taiwan and Others Lead
A weaker U.S. may compel allies to increase strength
by Daniel Pipes • October 22, 2024 • The Editors
The posed question has a dated quality to it: It made sense between 1945 and 2008, from the United States becoming a great power to the election of Barack Obama. Now, sadly, it is an anachronism.
America represented a new kind of great power, one uniquely melding national interest with moral principle. Forged in the hot war with Nazism and the Cold War with Communism, girded by a faltering but adequate bi-partisan consensus, uncontested in its leadership, Washington indeed stood proud for two-thirds of a century as the tribune of "freedom, democracy, and rule of law."
It then fell from this position, and increasingly so with time. Between a Democratic party that features loud elements who despise the United States ("F**k America") and a Republican party that responds with petulant isolationism ("Stop Funding Ukraine War"), the center has weakened over the past fifteen years. None of the candidates for president (not even the minor ones) offers the potential leadership for the United States to fulfill its former mission of leadership and morality.
Therefore, I cannot offer "promising, concrete, specific steps." Instead, I can point to a mostly-unnoticed silver lining: the bolstering of American allies.
How a Never-Trumper Votes for Trump
Letter to the Editor
by Daniel Pipes • October 11, 2024 • DanielPipes.org
To the Editor of the Wall Street Journal:
Kevin D. Williamson located "five tribes of the anti-Trump right" ["Where Do Never Trumpers Go From Here?" Oct.11]. May this Never-Trumper, who left the Republican party when Donald Trump was nominated, point out a sixth? That is, we who hold our collective nose and vote for him.
One can find Trump repellant as a human being, deem him wildly unsuited for the presidency, revel in the lawsuits against him, and despair of the conservative movement – yet still conclude, faced with a binary choice, that he is preferable to Kamala Harris. Personally, I have two main reasons for doing so.
First, each of us has his priority issues: mine are the cultural wars and foreign policy (i.e., not economics nor abortion). On every cultural issue, from public toilets to systemic racism, Trump's views (and judicial nominees) are far closer to mine. Foreign relations are more complex, with Harris being better on Ukraine and NATO, Trump better on Iran and Israel. As a whole, then, I prefer Trump's policies.
Second, although we tend to see presidential elections as High-Noon-style shoot-outs between two individuals, large presidential teams run the executive branch's three million employees. Here too, the Republican squad comes closer to my views than the Democratic one.
Israel's Reversion in 2023's Closing
by Daniel Pipes • October 7, 2024 • MEForum.org
October 7 changed everything in Israel, they said. But did it?
The immediate reckoning was brutal. "So many policies and paradigms," David M. Weinberg of the Misgav Institute wrote, "have been proven faulty, phantastic, illusory, and grotesque." The idea of a Hamas-governed Gaza placated by economic well-being, Martin Sherman of the Israel Institute for Strategic Studies concluded, was but "a hallucinatory pipe dream."
Politicians abruptly and radically changed their tune. Netanyahu spoke repeatedly of victory and winning. "Victory will take time. ... now we are focusing on one goal, and that is to unite our forces and storm ahead to complete victory." He told soldiers "The entire people of Israel are behind you and we will deal harsh blows to our enemies to achieve victory. To victory!" And: "We will emerge victorious.
Many others in government followed suit. Defense Minister Yoav Gallant quoted himself informing President Joe Biden that Israel's victory "is essential for us and for the United States." To his soldiers, Gallant declared, "I am responsible for bringing victory." Bezalel Smotrich, the minister of finance, announced the halt "of all budgetary outlays and redirected them to one thing only: Israel's victory." He called the goal of Israel's war with Hamas to be "a crushing victory." Benny Gantz, a member of the War Cabinet, deemed it "the time for resilience and victory."
Israel's Two Archenemies, Iran and the Palestinians
The array of threats facing Israel make it unlike any other contemporary state
by Daniel Pipes • October 5, 2024 • Australian
What followed the Oct. 7 massacre clarified a reality: while most people and governments around the world accept the existence of Israel and wish its people well, two determined sets of enemies with different qualities and posing distinct threats want it and its Jewish inhabitants destroyed. Each of them, Iran's regime and the Palestinians, has a network that makes it fearsome in contrasting ways.
Context. The Jewish state has faced a unique barrage of six threats. These include, going from most to least violent:
Questioning Israel's War on Hezbollah
by Daniel Pipes • September 28, 2024 • MEF Observer
Like any normal person, I celebrate the demise of the evil but capable Hassan Nasrallah. He headed Hezbollah, the Islamist organization that dominates Lebanon as an agent of the Islamic Republic of Iran and he turned it into the country's most powerful force. The world is a better place without him. Kudos to the Israelis for pulling off yet another brilliant intelligence and air force miracle.
With that praise out of the way, I shall criticize this step as a likely error: It distracts from the main theater of warfare, that of Gaza against Hamas.
For a year now, Israel has responded to the Oct. 7 atrocity. Not only was it unprepared on that day itself, but the government lacked plans for attacking Hamas, had relatively meager intelligence on its assets or leadership, and faced a powerful domestic and foreign lobby that urged making the return of hostages the first priority.
These limitations have rendered Israel's operation in Gaza only tolerably successful. Yes, military technicians may praise its tactics, but Hamas' leadership remains cohesive, its fighters remain active, its control over the population fairly intact, and its international support higher than ever. Not to put too fine a point on it, the middling progress over a year's duration contrasts dramatically with dispatching the three large state armies in six days in 1967.
A Muslim Aliyah Paralleled the Jewish Aliyah
Part II, Since 1948
by Daniel Pipes • Fall 2024 • Middle East Quarterly
"When I saw the Israeli soldiers, I nearly fainted from happiness. I fell on the floor and kissed the earth before their feet. It was as if I was born all over again...I saw a country that cared about its citizens, something that would not happen to such an extent even in Western cultures like the United States." – Yusuf Samir
Yusuf Samir
No, the exuberant statement above was spoken not by a Jew making aliyah (lit. going up; fig. immigration to the Land of Israel) but by an Egyptian journalist and poet, Nabih Sirhan, who changed his name in Israel to Yusuf Samir to hide his identity. Samir likely has the distinction of being the only Muslim twice to flee for his life to Israel. He did so first in 1968 when, after criticizing Egyptian media inaccuracies, he fled the country and, via Libya and Greece, found refuge in Israel, working at Israel Radio's Arabic service, eventually becoming a citizen.
At 75, Staying Healthy Is My New Career
Financial, emotional, mental, nervous and physical requirements lie ahead
by Daniel Pipes • September 9, 2024 • Washington Times
I turn 75 years old today and two facts loom. First, the Social Security Administration reports that over 40 percent of my male American peers are already deceased. Second, 75 marks the accepted point when physical and mental abilities begin markedly to decline.
I mark this birthday by starting a new career: that of extending my health-span. ("Health-span" means a life without serious disease or disability, when a person can do the things important to him). This goal may sound obvious, even banal, but this new career has its own distinct character, with specific challenges, just as did my former career.
That one began precisely as I turned 20 years old. I announced it to my parents in a September 1969 letter: "My studying this year is ... a complete break with the past. I have gone into the Middle East business with totalness." Indeed, my college classes consisted of Arabic language, medieval Islamic history, Saharan anthropology, and the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Studying the Middle East defined my life for the next 55 years, including an undergraduate degree, three years in Cairo, a Ph.D., teaching at four universities, working at the State and Defense departments, heading one think tank and founding another.
review of Jewish Muslims: How Christians Imagined Islam as the Enemy
by Daniel Pipes • Fall 2024 • Middle East Quarterly
Jewish Muslims? The Pulver Family Professor of Jewish Studies at Colby College explains his oxymoronic title as follows: "Premodern Christians fully understood that Muslims are not Jews. Precisely for this reason, many found it useful to allege that Muslims are Jewish – or, if you prefer, "Jew-ish" – as a means of defining Muslims and Islam as the enemies of Christians and Christianity. This intentionally counterfactual assertion of similarity bordering on identity, like the insult, 'you're a pig!,' is metaphorical: it adds value to rhetoric by distorting reality. ... The assertion that Muslims are Jewish is also an intentional distortion that, many Christians believed, increases the value of their rhetoric by applying to Muslims familiar negative ideas about Jews."
Freidenreich finds that premodern Christian polemicists resorted to portraying Muslims as Jewish for three related purposes: to place Muslims in a biblical context, to justify assaults on Muslims, and to formulate proper Christian behavior. The last goal has greatest importance: His book, the author explains, concerns "Christians who intentionally misrepresented Muslims as Jewish because they believed that such rhetoric would spur their audiences to become better Christians."
review of In Obscura: Adventures in the World of Intelligence. Part I
by Daniel Pipes • Fall 2024 • Middle East Quarterly
Theroux made an unusual set of career transitions from journalist (Wall Street Journal) to feature story writer (National Geographic) to book author (Translating LA) to translator from Arabic (Cities of Salt) to intelligence analyst (Central Intelligence Agency) to bureaucrat (Department of State) to policy advisor (National Security Council). In this preliminary part of a two-part book, he focuses on the latter two roles, offering a cynical but genuine take on government work, "without sensationalism or score-settling."
As befits a literary man, Theroux tosses off one-liners through the book. Noting that Syrian propaganda rarely calls Israel by its name, preferring Occupied Palestine, the Zionist Entity, or the Zionist Usurping Power, he comments that, "Like Allah, Israel seemed to have ninety-nine names." As an intelligence agent, he felt "a kinship with the stunt actors, who worked in the shadows, whose names would never show in bright lights, but who made the mission work." The CIA has the unenviable task of just delivering problems "with the awkwardness of being the bad-news people without solutions." "The hardest part about the White House job was ... not global crises, but getting clothes dry cleaned" (because of lack of time). "Lifers in the policy world often did outlive the revolving-door tribe who were their supposed superiors."
review of A History of the Muslim World: From Its Origins to the Dawn of Modernity
by Daniel Pipes • Fall 2024 • Middle East Quarterly
"How does one write a single volume about a history that extends in time over fourteen centuries and in space from Morocco to Mindanao? The answer, of course, is by leaving most of it out." Thus does Cook, the Class of 1943 University Professor of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University, introduce his doorstopper of a study of the Muslim experience over twelve (not fourteen) centuries, until around the year 1800. The author helpfully advises the reader not "to try to get through it in one sitting."
As the rare historian in English to dare to take up this massive topic in the near-half-century since the 1975 publication of Marshall G.S. Hodgson's three-volume Venture of Islam,[1] Cook (b. 1940) focuses on "the making and unmaking of states, and really major cultural shifts that affect large populations," while paying less attention to such topics as economics, society, intellectual life, and non-Muslims. He admits to a bias "to the articulate and the opinionated to the virtual exclusion of the silent, the tongue-tied, and the anonymous mass of the population."
The result is an original, somewhat quirky, always interesting near-thousand pages (when all the extras are counted).
Most Viewed
New Translations
First-Hand Accounts
For a listing of original stories concerning non-Muslim women with Muslim men, starting in September 2019, please click here.
All materials by Daniel Pipes on this site: © 1968-2024 Daniel Pipes. [email protected] and @DanielPipes
Support Daniel Pipes' work with a tax-deductible donation to the Middle East Forum.Daniel J. Pipes
(The MEF is a publicly supported, nonprofit organization under section 501(c)3 of the Internal Revenue Code.
Contributions are tax deductible to the full extent allowed by law. Tax-ID 23-774-9796, approved Apr. 27, 1998.
For more information, view our IRS letter of determination.)