Here is how PCG's leaders describe Daniel Pipes: "Commentator", "commentator on Middle Eastern issues", " a respected voice in Middle Eastern affairs", "Middle East analyst", "a columnist who often writes pieces supporting Israel’s
right to exist", "enlightened thinker", "expert on Islamic affairs", "Islamic affairs expert", "Middle East expert", "analyst". In one article it is even mentioned he heads the Middle East Forum.
In fact Daniel Pipes is one of the central figures of
the Islamophobia Network which was identified by the Center for American Progress in their 2011 report
Fear, Inc.
Pipes' organization, the
Middle East Forum, "received more than $12 million" between 2001 and 2011 from six of the eight charities that fund the Islamophobia Network. Those eight charities poured in $57 million between 2001 and 2011 to organizations that vilify Muslims.
The Middle East Forum is at the center of the Islamophobia network. MEF
has received more than $12 million in funding from donors in the network
since 2001,
The Middle East Forum contributes to money to Robert Spencer's Jihad Watch blog, Steven Emerson's organization, Investigative Project on Terrorism and Robert Gaffney's organization, Center for Security Policy. Those three persons have also been
quoted by PCG as experts.
Daniel Pipes is often published by
FrontPageMagazine, an organization which is also a part of the Islamophobia Network.
Daniel Pipes also is an adviser for the Clarion Project (formerly the Clarion Fund) which infamously produced Obsession, a film infamous for vilifying Muslims.
There is no indication that PCG has approached Daniel Pipes or vice versa, but it is clear that his writings are taken quite seriously by PCG's leaders.
Here are 38 quotes from Daniel Pipes that PCG's writers have made of
his writings. Fourteen are from articles by Joel Hilliker. Five from
Brad MacDonald (including one written with Richard Palmer). Two from Ron
Fraser. Two from David Vejil (including one written with Victor Vejil). One from Mark Jenkins and Callum Wood
each. One article was by Philip Nice and Robert Morley. One article was
by Victor Vejil and David Vejil. Ten are anonymous.
One quote is from Gerald Flurry but it is actually taken from an article by Joel Hilliker. This is further evidence that
Joel Hilliker serves as Gerald Flurry's ghost writer.
It is quite striking
how Joel Hilliker's name keeps popping up on this list far more than
anyone else. Fourteen times, nearly three times as many as Brad
MacDonald, who only quoted Pipes in five articles.
This seems to indicate that Joel Hilliker may be the main person driving PCG's embrace of anti-Muslim attitudes. Or at least that he was the one assigned to write about this topic.
Daniel Pipes is PCG's main link to
the Islamophobia Network. And Joel Hilliker seems to be PCG's main connection to him.
Here are the quotes from PCG's writings which show how often they use Daniel Pipes' writings.
***
Commentator
Daniel Pipes asserts that the current period of
“backwardness, resentment, extremism and violence” within much of the
Muslim world is actually
atypical of Islam’s long history. “[I]ndeed,” he concludes, “it may be the worst era in that entire history” (
National Post, Aug. 2, 2002). ...
Even on the individual level, research shows that it is actually the
educated and more well-off people who tend toward extremism. Daniel
Pipes makes this connection: “Like fascism and Marxism-Leninism in their
heydays, militant Islam attracts highly competent, motivated and
ambitious individuals. Far from being the laggards of society, they are
its leaders. … [S]uicide bombers who hurl themselves against foreign
enemies offer their lives not to protest financial deprivation but to
change the world” (
National Interest, Winter 2001/2002). (
Joel Hilliker, Is Islam a Threat?,
February 2003.)
Here, then is the origin of the media’s story. For among the uneducated,
poverty-stricken masses, Islamists are finding a goldmine of support.
As
Daniel Pipes put it, the poor “make valuable foot-soldiers” (ibid.,
Winter 2001/2002). (Islamism's Foot Soldiers,
February 2003.)
It is a fact that the concept of Western civilization’s bloodguilt,
established in the aftermath of Versailles, promoted a philosophy of
appeasement that still flourishes today. This has produced what
Daniel
Pipes, writing for the
New York Post, describes as a “self-hating
weakness” which is destined to “lead again to disaster, no less than it
did leading up to World War
II” (Jan.
28). (
Ron Fraser, World War Déjà Vu,
March-April 2003.)
However, measure the way the Iraq campaign was fought against the history of warfare. As commentator
Daniel Pipes wrote in a
New York Post article (April 16), “traditional features of warfare have been turned upside-down.” (
Joel Hilliker, Weakness in Victory,
June 2003.)
The ultimate goal “is to apply the Islamic law (the Sharia) globally. In U.S. terms, it intends to replace the Constitution with the Koran” (
Daniel Pipes, FrontPageMagazine.com, September 23). For a clear statement of this goal, Pipes points to a 1989 book written by an influential commentator on American Muslim issues named Siddiqi: “Siddiqi argues that Muslims taking control of the United States has more importance than such goals as sustaining the Iranian revolution or destroying Israel, for it has greater impact on the future of Islam” (Pipes, Militant Islam Reaches America). The prospect of uniting America’s material success with the “superb ideology” of Islam is deeply motivating to Siddiqi. (
Joel Hilliker, Ugly Truths About Islamic Terrorism,
December 2004.)
“Dutch attitudes toward Muslims immediately and dramatically hardened,”
wrote commentator
Daniel Pipes. “A poll found 40 percent of the
population wanting the nearly million-strong Muslim community no longer
to feel at home in the Netherlands. Double that number endorsed more
stringent policies toward immigrants.
De Telegraaf, a leading
paper, published an editorial unimaginable before the Van Gogh murder
calling for ‘a very public crackdown on extremist Muslim fanatics.’ Even
left-wing politicians woke up to the need to speak ‘harsh truths’ about
immigration, focusing on the disproportionate criminality of Muslims” (
New York Sun, Nov. 16, 2004). (
Joel Hilliker, Hate Triangle,
January 2005.)
“This is a total perversion of the American public space, a blatant
effort to suborn it to serve Islamic missionary purposes,” said
Daniel
Pipes, commentator on Middle Eastern issues (FrontPageMagazine.com, Nov.
24, 2004). (Islam: Schooling America,
January 2005.)
Daniel Pipes comments, “Mr. Abbas shows tactical flexibility. Unlike
Arafat, who could never let go of the terrorist tool that had brought
him wealth, power and glory, Mr. Abbas sees the situation more cogently.
If stopping the violence against Israel best serves his goal of
eliminating the sovereign Jewish state, that is his program. He no more
accepts what he so charmingly the other day called the ‘Zionist enemy’
than Arafat did (or Hamas, or Palestinian Islamic Jihad), but he is open
to a multiplicity of means to destroy it” (
New York Sun, January 11).
(
Joel Hilliker, New Hope in the Peace Process?,
March-April, 2005.)
Daniel Pipes commented, “Mr. Abbas shows tactical flexibility. Unlike
Arafat, who could never let go of the terrorist tool that had brought
him wealth, power and glory, Mr. Abbas sees the situation more cogently.
If stopping the violence against Israel best serves his goal of
eliminating the sovereign Jewish state, that is his program. He no more
accepts what he so charmingly the other day called the ‘Zionist enemy’
than Arafat did (or Hamas, or Palestinian Islamic Jihad), but he is open
to a multiplicity of means to destroy it” (
New York Sun, Jan. 11, 2005). (Gerald Flurry, Jerusalem in Prophecy,
Chapter 2, 2001, 2005, 2010.)
[It is intriguing that Gerald Flurry uses a quote from an article by Joel Hilliker for one of his booklets. This is further evidence that
Joel Hilliker serves as Gerald Flurry's ghostwriter.]
In their essay “The U.S. Government, Patron of Islam?”,
Daniel Pipes and
Mimi Tillman document the primary strands of what has emerged as U.S.
policy regarding Islam. Politicians have been consistent in saying that
there is nothing inherently threatening about the religion—that, in
fact, Islam and terrorism are incompatible. Thus President Bush claims
that Muslim scholars and the vast majority of clerics reject the
extremist view and says that “[Islam’s] teachings are good and peaceful,
and those who commit evil in the name of Allah
blaspheme the name of Allah.” (
Joel Hilliker, The Ostrich, the Warriors and the Whirlwind,
January 2006.)
Daniel Pipes, a respected voice in Middle Eastern affairs, wrote an enlightening article discussing Ahmadinejad’s religious beliefs and how central they are to his leadership. (The Force Motivating Mahmoud Ahmadinejad,
January 20, 2006.)
The
New York Sun’s
Daniel Pipes reports that although the lack of
leadership and liberal stranglehold on higher education seems obvious
in the recent Harvard debacle, assuming smaller institutions are freer
of such domination is bad logic. His case study, Pennsylvania’s publicly
funded Slippery Rock University—representative of the low and middle
classes of post-secondary education—is wracked with politics and the
influence of the diversity regime, as exposed in Slippery Rock professor
Alan Levy’s report to the Pennsylvania House of Representatives’
committee on academic freedom. (Philip Nice and Robert Morley, The American University,
June-July 2006.)
Daniel Pipes categorized Pew’s findings with three broad statements: (
Joel Hilliker, Survey of Muslims Highlights Hatreds,
June 29, 2006.)
Though the malignancy of radical Islamism is spreading in many
non-Muslim nations—throughout Europe, North America and Southeast Asia
in particular—in Britain the problem is uniquely bad. For its pathetic
response to the incursion of militant Islam, commentator
Daniel Pipes
calls it the “weakest link in the Western chain.”
(
Joel Hilliker, The Sickness in Britain’s Heart,
November-December, 2006.)
On Dec. 26, 2006,
Middle East analyst
Daniel Pipes warned that the West could lose the
culture war with Islam, saying, “Should Islamists get smart and avoid
mass destruction, but instead stick to the lawful, political,
non-violent route, and should their movement remain vital, it is
difficult to see what will stop them.” The West is barely able to
maintain its determination to oppose active terrorism. How much effort
will Britain exert to stop a rising symbol?
Pipes warned that pacifism, self-hatred and complacency are
potentially fatal problems in the West. The conviction that “there is no
military solution” is applied to every Middle East problem; self-hatred
leads America and Britain to believe that terrorism is a just response
to the evil of our governments; the lack of an organized military force
among the Islamists breeds complacency. (Why London Doesn’t Need a Giant Mosque,
January 17, 2007.)
When
Daniel Pipes, a columnist who often writes pieces supporting Israel’s
right to exist, spoke at the University of California–Irvine, dozens of
students stood up and began yelling, bringing his lecture to a temporary
halt. After leaving the room, the students gathered in the hall, where
the staged protest’s leader condemned Pipes for hate speech and
declared: “It’s just a matter of time before the State of Israel will be
wiped off the face of the map.” Pipes often experiences such protests
when he lectures at universities. Walid Shoebat, a former Palestinian
Liberation Organization member who now supports Israel, has faced
similar opposition and walkouts. (Mark Jenkins, Tyranny in Universities,
June 2007.)
In truth, the assumption that Islamic terrorism is a product of poverty
and deprivation has been proven false. Measuring wealth and economic
trends nation by nation won’t tell you where Islamism will be weak or
strong. Islamic terrorists are not opposed to wealth. But they are
simply not interested in wealth in and of itself. “Economic assets for
Islamists represent not the good life but added strength to do battle
against the West,” wrote
Daniel Pipes. “Money serves to train cadres and
buy weapons, not to buy a bigger house or a late-model car. Wealth is a
means, not an end” (
National Interest, Winter 2001/2002).
(David Vejil, Failed Car Bomb Plot Defies Conventional Wisdom,
July 11, 2007.)
The experts and commentators that NRO consulted provide a number of
interesting answers. One important detail emerged from
Daniel Pipes’
answer. He linked to this
New York Times piece from Saturday, which strongly indicated that the riots were actually orchestrated by the Muslim Sudanese government. (Riots Over a Teddy Bear Named Mohammed: Orchestrated by Sudan,
December 3, 2007.)
Daniel Pipes takes up the provocative question of whether Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama was at one time a Muslim. After weighing the evidence he concludes,
Obama was an irregularly practicing Muslim who rarely or
occasionally prayed with his step-father in a mosque. … [H]e for some
years had a reasonably Muslim upbringing under the auspices of his
Indonesian step-father.
The ramifications of this revelation are important. Pipes documents one of them:
[I]f Obama once was a Muslim, he is now what Islamic law calls a
murtadd
(apostate), an ex-Muslim converted to another religion who must be
executed. Were he elected president of the United States, this status,
clearly, would have large potential implications for his relationship
with the Muslim world. (The Weekend Web,
January 13, 2008.)
[Obama is not a Muslim. It is not a "provocative question", it is
simply untrue.]
As
Daniel Pipes observes, “Indeed, Allam and Wilders may represent the
vanguard of a Christian/liberal reassertion of European values. It is
too soon to predict, but these staunch individuals could provide a
crucial boost for those intent on maintaining the Continent’s historic
identity” (
Jerusalem Post, op. cit.). (
Ron Fraser, Europe: Reacting to the Push,
April 6, 2008.)
Recently, several signs have pointed to the fact that Europe is waking
to the crisis.
Daniel Pipes identified several of these in a recent column for the
Jerusalem Post:
(Europe: Waking to Crisis,
April
11, 2008.)
Daniel Pipes, in a speech about radical Islamic methods at the World Summit on Counter-Terrorism
at Herzliya, Israel, last month, noted that the Hamas terrorist
organization—known for its refusal to negotiate with the West—took
control of Gaza’s government through
democratic elections. Then
the group, which the West applauded for its democratization, took
dictatorial control of the Strip with bullets. ... This “violence with
lawful tactics” is the future of radical Islam, according to Pipes. ...
The vigilance needed to combat this warfare is woefully lacking in
Britain. No number of counterterrorism conferences or speeches from
enlightened thinkers like
Daniel Pipes will change the decrepit mindset
of Britain. (Victor Vejil and David Vejil, Radical Islam's Greatest Deception,
October 7, 2008.)
Islamic affairs expert
Daniel Pipes remarked on this on Sunday: “Monogamy, this ruling suggests,
long a foundation of Western civilization, is silently eroding under the challenge of Islamic law. Should current trends continue,
polygamy could soon be commonplace”
(emphasis mine throughout). Pipes is not exaggerating: The British
government now condones the primarily Muslim practice of polygamy.
British welfare laws, for example, allow for husbands to collect state
handouts
for each wife! (Brad MacDonald, Is Britain Being
Conquered From the Inside?,
December
11, 2008.)
Daniel Pipes is dead-on in his assessment of Israel’s prospects for
victory in its conflict with Hamas in his Jerusalem Post article today,
“Israel’s Strategic Incompetence in Gaza.” While Hamas is taking hits,
the outcome of this war still depends on the decisions the Israeli
government makes from here, Pipes says. (The Weekend Web,
January 11, 2009.)
All this is building toward a major break between the U.S. and Israel.
Daniel Pipes points out that the Israeli government is strong enough
that it is unlikely that it will cave in to America’s demands. Instead,
it will go looking for new allies. For more information on where this
split with America is leading, see our article “Band of Brothers.”(The Weekend Web,
June 7, 2009.)
Daniel Pipes makes an interesting observation on his blog:
that the last 200 years of history contain a number of examples of
Europeans who defeated Muslims militarily and then claimed that their
real intent was to protect and liberate
. Napoleon, entering
Alexandria in 1798, said, “I have come to restore your rights .… I
respect God, his prophet, and the Koran.” Mussolini said in
Italian-ruled Libya in 1937, “Italy will always be the friend and
protector of Islam throughout the world.” Pipes alludes to the parallels
with America’s forays into Muslim countries today (he wryly notes that
the Muslims were never actually convinced that the foreigners had benign
intentions). It’s worth noting, however, that we are seeing a
repetition of this cycle today in
Europe. The Continent is forging ties with Muslim peoples that biblical prophecy tells us it is actually going to end up conquering.
(Brad MacDonald and Richard Palmer, The Weekend Web,
August 9, 2009.)
Daniel Pipes, detailing these measures in his 2003 book
Militant Islam Reaches America,
concluded, “In adopting a determinedly apologetic stance, [federal
officials] have made themselves an adjunct of the country’s Islamic
organizations. By dismissing any connection between Islam and terrorism,
complaining about media distortions, and claiming that America needs
Islam, they have turned the U.S. government into a discreet missionary
for the faith.” (
Joel Hilliker, An Advocate for Islam,
September 30, 2009.)
Middle East expert
Daniel Pipes says
Ahmadinejad’s religious fervor and unbending commitment to the return
of the 12th imam ranks him among the most dangerous leaders in history.
“The most dangerous leaders in modern history are those (such as Hitler)
equipped with a
totalitarian ideology and a
mystical belief in their own mission. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad fulfills both these criteria .…” (Brad MacDonald, Ahmadinejad’s Apocalyptic Ambitions,
October 8, 2009.)
It’s possible the Swiss government, facing pressure from other European
governments as well as Muslim leaders and governments, will overturn the
ban. Still, the vote was not insignificant. The “vote represents a
possible turning point for European Islam,” noted
expert on Islamic affairs
Daniel Pipes. “That a large majority of those
Swiss who voted on Sunday explicitly expressed anti-Islamic sentiment
potentially legitimates such sentiments across Europe and opens the way for others to follow suit” (emphasis mine throughout). (Brad MacDonald, The Clash Is Coming,
December 3, 2009.)
Thus, as commentator
Daniel Pipes
has brought out, the U.S. joined the list of Western nations since the
1989 Rushdie affair whose leaders have sacrificed their own country’s
liberties in order to appease Muslims. The Obama administration’s
“pressure on Mr. Jones further eroded freedom of speech about Islam and
implicitly established Islam’s privileged status in the United States,
whereby Muslims may insult others but not be insulted,” Pipes wrote.
“Mr. Obama in effect enforced Islamic law, a precedent that could lead
to other forms of compulsory sharia compliance.” (
Joel Hilliker, Why ‘Burn a Koran Day’ Fizzled,
October 6, 2010.)
It’s not just that country at risk of radicalization. As
Daniel Pipes
wrote, “This fast, seemingly easy, and relatively bloodless coup d’etat
could inspire globally Islamists to sweep away their own tyrants.” In a
region where religious extremism isn’t uncommon, people power isn’t
necessarily a good thing. (Joel Hilliker, Tunisia’s Revolt Could Set the Region on Fire,
January 19, 2011.)
After visiting Europe in February,
Daniel Pipes, an Islamic affairs
expert, reported, “Perhaps alone in the coterie focused on the Islamist
threat to Europe, I am cheerful these days.
That’s because I see the anti-Islamist reaction growing even more quickly than the Islamist threat itself.” (
Joel Hilliker, Europe Must Reclaim the Mediterranean,
April 2011.)
With all the many factions competing for power,
Daniel Pipes,
director of the Middle East Forum, believes anarchy, after the sort in
Somalia and Afghanistan, is more likely than civil war. “Yemeni
Islamists range from members of the Islah party, which competes in
parliamentary elections, to the Houthi rebels fighting Saudi forces, to
al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Their growing power boosts the
Iranian-backed ‘resistance bloc’ of states and organizations,” he
writes. (
Joel Hilliker, Is Yemen Sliding Toward Anarchy?,
June 16, 2011.)
Daniel Pipes fears that Western forces may have “brought civilization’s worst enemies to power” (The Week in Review,
August 26, 2011.)
Middle East expert
Daniel Pipes explained, “The
NATO
intervention [in Libya] in March 2011 was done without due diligence as
to who it is in Benghazi that it was helping. … Chances are good that
Islamist forces are hiding behind more benign elements, waiting for the
right moment to pounce .… I fear that a dead-end despotism will be replaced by the agents of a worldwide ideological movement. I fear that Western forces will have brought civilization’s worst enemies to power” (emphasis added throughout). (Brad MacDonald, After Qadhafi—What Next?,
October 2011.)
“American foreign policy is in unprecedented free-fall,” wrote analyst
Daniel Pipes, “with a feckless and distracted White House barely paying
attention to the outside world, and when it does, acting in an
inconsistent, weak and fantastical manner. If one were to discern
something so grand as an Obama Doctrine, it would read: ‘Snub friends,
coddle opponents, devalue American interests, seek consensus, and act
unpredictably’” (Nov. 12, 2013). (
Joel Hilliker, What Happens After a Superpower Dies?,
January 2014.)
Middle East expert
Daniel Pipes explained the looming disaster as genocide by way of “terminal dehydration.” Cutting off a nation’s water supply is potentially fatal in its severity and indiscriminate in its victims. The dry and arid regions of northeastern Syria will quickly empty if one of the most basic necessities of human life dries up.
The problem extends beyond Syria.
Much of Iraq’s freshwater supply originates in Turkey and flows through Syria before it is collected in dams in Iraq. If these dams experience a sharp drop in water and pressure, they could collapse. Daniel Pipes said that if one of these dams, the Mosul Dam, collapsed parts of Baghdad itself would be under water within a few hours. Within two hours, the city of Mosul, home to 1.7 million Iraqis, would be a Mideast Atlantis. (Callum Wood, Turkey Dries Up the Euphrates,
June 11, 2014.)
***
And so it is clear that Daniel Pipes is PCG's main link to
the Islamophobia Network.
