Daniel Pipes facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Daniel Pipes
Pipes in June 2008
Born	(1949-09-09) September 9, 1949 (age 75) Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.
Occupation	Distinguished Visiting Professor at Pepperdine University's School of Public Policy (Spring '07); President of Middle East Forum; Expert at Wikistrat
Alma mater	Harvard University (AB, PhD)
Subject	Middle East, American foreign policy, Islamic terrorism, Islamism
Relatives	Richard Pipes (father)

Daniel Pipes (born September 9, 1949) is an American writer and expert on foreign policy, especially about the Middle East. He is known for sharing his thoughts on these topics. He leads an organization called the Middle East Forum and publishes its journal, Middle East Quarterly. His work often focuses on how the United States deals with other countries and on different ideas about Islamism.

Pipes studied at Harvard University and also lived abroad. He taught at several universities for a short time, including Harvard and the U.S. Naval War College. However, he never held a permanent teaching job. Later, he became the director of the Foreign Policy Research Institute before starting the Middle East Forum.

Pipes has written many books and is known for his strong opinions. He has talked about topics like areas in Europe where he believed Sharia law was taking over. He also defended a book about internment of Japanese Americans during World War II.

Early life and education

Daniel Pipes was born in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1949. His parents, Irene and Richard Pipes, were from Jewish families who had left German-occupied Poland. They met in the United States. His father, Richard Pipes, was a historian at Harvard University who studied Russia. Daniel grew up mostly in Cambridge, Massachusetts, near Harvard.

Pipes went to private schools, including some time studying abroad. He started at Harvard University in 1967, where his father taught. For his first two years, he studied mathematics. But he felt it was "too abstract," meaning too theoretical. After traveling to the Sahara Desert and West Africa, he changed his main subject to Middle Eastern history. He earned his first degree in history in 1971. His final paper was about Muslim thinkers like Al-Ghazali. After graduating, Pipes spent two years in Cairo, Egypt, and then earned his PhD from Harvard in 1978. He also wrote a book about the everyday language spoken in Egypt.

Career and public work

Working in academia

Pipes returned to Harvard in 1973. After more studies in places like Freiburg im Breisgau and Cairo, he earned his PhD in medieval Islamic history in 1978. His PhD paper later became his first book, Slave Soldiers and Islam, published in 1981. In the late 1970s, as Ayatollah Khomeini and the Iranian revolution became important, Pipes shifted his focus from old Islamic studies to modern Islam.

He taught world history at the University of Chicago from 1978 to 1982. He also taught history at Harvard from 1983 to 1984. From 1984 to 1986, he taught policy and strategy at the Naval War College. For a year in 1982–83, Pipes worked on the policy-planning staff for the U.S. State Department.

After teaching

After 1986, Pipes mostly left teaching at universities. He did teach a course at Pepperdine University in 2007. Pipes once said that his views were "not congenial with institutions of higher learning." This means his ideas didn't fit well with universities.

From 1986 onwards, Pipes worked for organizations called "think tanks." These groups research and suggest ideas about public policy. From 1986 to 1993, he led the Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He also edited its journal, Orbis. In 1990, he started the Middle East Forum as part of FPRI. It became its own organization in 1994, with Pipes as its head. He edited its journal, the Middle East Quarterly, until 2001. He also started other projects like Campus Watch in 2002.

In 2003, President George W. Bush nominated Pipes to join the board of the United States Institute of Peace. This is an organization that works to prevent and solve conflicts. Some senators disagreed with Pipes' nomination. Senator Tom Harkin said he was "offended" by Pipes' comments on Islam. He felt Pipes was not the right person for the USIP. However, the White House said President Bush disagreed with some of Pipes' views but still supported his nomination. Pipes eventually got the position and served on the board until 2005.

Campus Watch

In 2002, Daniel Pipes' organization, the Middle East Forum, created a website called Campus Watch. This website aimed to point out issues in how Middle Eastern studies were taught at American universities. It looked at things like whether politics mixed with learning or if different ideas were not accepted.

Campus Watch asked students and teachers to share information about Middle East-related studies and activities. Some people criticized the project. They said it was trying to scare professors who had different views, especially those who criticized Israel. This happened when Campus Watch published "dossiers" (collections of information) on some professors. More than a hundred academics protested and asked to be added to what some called a "blacklist." In October 2002, Campus Watch removed these dossiers from its website.

Pipes' views

Different types of Islam

Pipes has often warned about what he calls "radical" or "militant Islam." He believes this is a danger to Western countries. In 1995, he wrote that "war has been unilaterally declared on Europe and the United States."

In 2007, Pipes wrote that it is wrong to blame Islam, which is a very old religion. Instead, he said, the problem is "militant Islam," which he sees as a harsh political idea that is less than a century old. He believes that militant Islam is the problem, but "moderate Islam" is the answer. Pipes described moderate Muslims as a small group. He said the U.S. government should help and support them.

Pipes has praised leaders like Mustafa Kemal Atatürk from Turkey. In a 2008 interview, Pipes explained that he divides Muslims into three groups. He sees "traditional Islam" as practical and peaceful. He views "Islamism" as dangerous and aggressive. And he sees "moderate Islam" as a quiet movement that is not yet widely known.

Muslims in Europe

In 1990, Pipes wrote that Western European societies were "unprepared for the massive immigration of brown-skinned peoples cooking strange foods and maintaining different standards of hygiene." He later said that he was trying to describe how some Europeans thought, not his own views. He wished he had made that clearer.

In 2006, Daniel Pipes said that some areas in France were "no-go zones." He believed the French government no longer had full control there. But in 2013, Pipes visited some of these areas and admitted he was wrong. In 2015, he said that there are "no European countries with no-go zones."

When there was a controversy about cartoons of Muhammad in a Danish newspaper, Pipes wrote about it. He said the main issue was whether Western countries would stand up for their customs, including freedom of speech. He supported the idea of standing with Denmark. He praised Norway, Germany, and France for their stance on the cartoons.

Pipes' Middle East Forum helped raise money for Dutch politician Geert Wilders during his trial. Pipes has called Wilders "the most important politician in Europe." He sees Wilders as a leader for Europeans who want to keep their traditional identity. However, Pipes also said Wilders' political ideas were "bizarre." He also felt Wilders' understanding of Islam was "superficial" because he seemed to be against all of Islam, not just its extreme parts.

Muslims in the United States

In 2001, Pipes said he was worried that the growing presence and influence of American Muslims could be dangerous for American Jews. He believed this was because of the leadership of some Muslim groups.

Pipes has also criticized the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). He says CAIR supports groups like Hezbollah and Hamas. CAIR, in turn, has said that Pipes' writings are full of misleading information.

Pipes was also involved in a debate about Debbie Almontaser. She was a Muslim woman known for being moderate. Pipes saw her as part of a new movement of "lawful Islamists." Almontaser resigned as principal of an Arabic-language high school in New York City. Pipes had called the school a "madrassa," which means school in Arabic. But in the West, it can sometimes suggest Islamist teaching. He later said his use of the term was "a bit of a stretch." Pipes explained his opposition by saying that promoting radical Islam could happen through schools, media, and other organizations. He also stated that teaching Arabic often comes with ideas about Pan-Arabism and Islamism.

American foreign policy

Pipes strongly supported the Vietnam War. When students at Harvard protested the war in the 1960s, he supported the university's administration. Pipes used to be a Democrat. But after George McGovern, who was against the war, became the Democratic candidate for president in 1972, Pipes switched to the Republican Party. Pipes once accepted being called a "neoconservative," which is a type of conservative. But in 2009, he said he no longer used that label. He now considers himself a "plain conservative."

Donald Trump and the Republican Party

In 2016, Pipes left the Republican Party after it chose Donald Trump as its presidential candidate. However, in 2020, he announced he would vote for Trump in that year's election. He explained that he advised people to focus on the overall ideas of a political party, not just the candidates' flaws. He urged voters to support the party whose ideas best matched their own.

Arab–Israeli conflict

Pipes supports Israel in the Arab–Israeli conflict. He does not support the idea of a Palestinian state. In 1990, he wrote that "there can be either an Israel or a Palestine, but not both." He believes that if Palestinians were given a state, it would lead to problems for either that state or Israel. Pipes has suggested a "three-state solution." In this idea, Gaza would go to Egypt and the West Bank to Jordan.

In 2008, he said that Palestinians do not accept Israel's existence. He felt that until this changes, there is no point in negotiations. He also said that the Israeli public was focused on a mistaken policy he called "appeasement."

Pipes supported Israel during the 2014 Gaza War. He said that Israel's actions were "civilized and moral." He has also defended the Canary Mission, which collects information on students. He believes this information helps show students that criticizing Israel is a serious matter.

Iran

Pipes has long been against Iran's government. In 2010, Pipes suggested that U.S. President Barack Obama should order the U.S. military to destroy Iran's nuclear weapons ability. He argued that it was the right time for the U.S. to bomb Iran. He believed that only Iran's rulers and their supporters would deny that Iran was trying to build nuclear weapons. He also said that a U.S. bombing of Iran would not need many soldiers on the ground. This would make the attack more acceptable politically.

Pipes believes the U.S. should support the People's Mujahedin of Iran (MEK) against the Iranian government. The MEK was once listed as a terrorist group by the U.S. and the European Union. Pipes had argued for a long time that this listing should change. He believes the MEK is not a danger to Americans or Europeans. He says it only poses a danger to the strict religious government in Tehran.

Obama's religion

In 2008, Pipes wrote an article claiming he had "confirmed" that President Obama "practiced Islam." Other news organizations responded by saying Pipes relied on a disputed article. They said its main claims had been proven wrong. Some journalists criticized Pipes for what they called false or misleading statements about Barack Obama's religion. They said his work created a "template for a faux-legitimate assault on Obama's religion."

Awards and honors

• Pipes has received two special degrees called honorary doctorates. These were from the American University of Switzerland (1988) and Yeshiva University (2003).
• In May 2006, Pipes received the Guardian of Zion Award. This award is given by the Ingeborg Rennert Center for Jerusalem Studies at Bar-Ilan University in Israel.

See also

In Spanish: Daniel Pipes para niños

• From Time Immemorial
• Martin Kramer
• Fouad Ajami

Images for kids

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  Pipes in June 2008