Pipes Speaks, Civility Ensues

By Michael Ellis | Monday, January 31, 2005

Controversial Middle East scholar Daniel Pipes spoke at Dartmouth Hall on Thursday amid student and faculty protests to his visit. Currently the director of the Middle East Forum, a Philadelphia-based think tank specializing in Middle Eastern policy, Pipes previously served as a member of the board of the US Institute of Peace and has taught at the University of Chicago, Harvard, and the US Naval War College. The author of twelve books, Pipes has testified before many Congressional committees and lectured in twenty-five countries. One of the few experts who foresaw the threat that militant Islam posed to the US before the September 11 attacks, the Boston Globe noted that "if Pipes' admonitions had been heeded, there might never have been a 9/11."

Courtesy Daniel Pipes

— Daniel Pipes. —

But Pipes has his share of enemies as well. Under his direction, the Middle East Forum's "Campus Watch" program has highlighted and critiqued the anti-Israel biases of Middle Eastern Studies programs in universities across the nation. Unsurprisingly, his blunt criticism of Middle Eastern Studies' "analytical failures, mixing of politics with scholarship, intolerance of alternate views, apologetics, and abuse of power over students" has caused many a left-winger to decry his "extreme views" and "Islamophobia."

In his speech at Dartmouth, Pipes focused on the roots and potential solution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Calling the conflict "a war, not terrorism," Pipes maintained that the Israelis have misjudged the Palestinians by trying to "enhance their former enemy" with concessions at the 1993 Oslo Accords, while the real solution will come only when Palestinians fully accept the existence of the Israeli state.

Describing the impact of diplomacy as "extremely negative," Pipes insisted that "pieces of paper do not change sentiments" and observed that anti-Zionist sentiments in Egypt and Jordan only increased after their respective governments signed peace treaties with Israel. Pipes further noted that a diplomatic settlement will only become possible after the Israelis "impress on Palestinians the hopelessness of their cause" and that it may be decades before resolution is achieved. However, in the meantime, he advocates that the US refrain from granting financial aid, supplies, or diplomatic recognition to a Palestinian state until there is a dramatic change in the mindset of Palestinians.

The question and answer session that followed the speech was respectful and civil, as questioners were required to stay within the bounds of the speech, rather than bring up other issues related to Pipes' work. Pipes himself was pleased by the questions, noting that they were "better than average" and that there were not any "pre-cooked rabble rousing questions."

But before Pipes had even stepped on campus, his visit had become mired in controversy. When initially advertised in a e-mail bulletin of January 11th, the speech was listed as "sponsored by CHABAD of Dartmouth [the local chapter of Chabad Lubavitch, a Hasidic Jewish organization], and co-sponsored by the Jewish Studies Program, the Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Languages and Literature (DAMELL), the Asian and Middle Eastern Studies Program (AMES), and the Dartmouth Israel Public Awareness Committee (DIPAC)."

While the relatively pro-Israel Chabad and DIPAC were logical sponsors for the event, the other co-sponsors were slightly more surprising. The Jewish Studies Program has made a habit of bringing dovish Israelis (and especially Israeli Army refusers) to campus in the past and is chaired by Susannah Heschel, who responded to the Pipes' nomination to serve on the US Institute of Peace by quipping that "Pipes is not a peacemaker...it would be like appointing me to be the head of nuclear physics at Los Alamos." Given Pipes' strong words for Middle Eastern Studies programs on campuses across the nation, it was equally surprising to see DAMELL and AMES co-sponsoring the event.

But by January 13th, the advertisement had changed; the sponsorship of DAMELL and AMES had disappeared. Professor Steven Ericson, the chair of the AMES program, says that he initially approved AMES's co-sponsorship of the event without consulting any of the program's faculty members and without knowing that Daniel Pipes was a controversial figure.

A few weeks later, Ericson was contacted by several members of the AMES faculty, who were "stunned" that their program was co-sponsoring a "propagandist" who "attacks academic freedom." Pipes holds a Ph. D. in history and Middle Eastern Studies from Harvard. Pamela Crossley, one of the professors who objected to AMES sponsoring the visit, believes that the program should only sponsor academic events and noted that "I don't think anybody who knows him would argue that he's an academic." In face of the overwhelming opposition of the AMES faculty, Ericson had little choice but to withdraw the program's co-sponsorship of the event.

Shortly thereafter, a message was sent out from the AMES e-mail account stating that the program objected to Pipes' presence on campus. However, the program has since repudiated the e-mail. Ericson stated that it was incorrectly worded, and that while AMES has withdrawn sponsorship, it does not object to Pipes' visit to campus.

However, it wasn't just faculty who were upset by Pipes' visit. An e-mail sent out several days before the speech to the Young Democrats e-mail list attempted to rile up student protest by decrying Pipes' "McCarthy-style" actions and accusing him of racism against Muslim immigrants. Just like the e-mail from the AMES account, the Young Democrats retracted the e-mail and issued an apology to students who were offended by the e-mail.

Anticipating disruptions at the speech itself, uniformed officers from Safety and Security and the Hanover Police passed out fliers to the audience reminding them of the College's regulations on free speech and civil discourse.

Students from Al-Nur, Dartmouth's Muslim Student Association also handed out fliers to the audience, calling Pipes "the nation's leading Islamophobe." The flier also named Pipes as a chief promoter of "racial stereotyping" intended to "inspire mass-suspicion and hysteria," a supporter of Japanese internment during World War II, and a propagandist rather than an expert.

Dale Correa '06, president of Al-Nur, said that Pipes' speech was about what she had expected, although she would have liked to have been able to question him on his other writings regarding Muslims. "I appreciate that he came, and that we got to hear these sentiments from the horse's mouth," said Correa.

Rabbi Moshe Leib Gray of CHABAD had a different opinion of Pipes' visit. According to Gray, too many students at America's universities are "fed a lot of lies about Israel" without hearing the other side of the argument. Even though he doesn't agree with all of Pipes' views, Rabbi Gray said that he sees the visit as "being pro-active in a positive way" to counter "a lot of bias against Israel," noting that "finally, someone will speak the truth about what's going on in the Middle East and have no qualms about saying it."

Rabbi Gray also noted that it is not unusual for campus Jewish groups to take pre-emptive action against potential anti-Israel biases on campus. At Duke University last fall, Jewish groups brought the wreckage of a Jerusalem city bus that had been destroyed by a suicide bombing to campus before a meeting of the National Student Conference of the Palestine Solidarity Movement.

Ilya Feoktistov '06, the President of CHABAD and Vice President of DIPAC agreed with Gray, explaining that since Dartmouth has recently brought four of the approximately 200 Israeli military refusers to campus, Pipes' visit was necessary to "even out the debate."

Pipes himself characterized universities as "islands of repression within a sea of tolerance" where "you are unacceptable if you deviate from the truth." However, his visit to Dartmouth shows that groups dedicated to balanced academic discourse can succeed even when political correctness-minded groups attempt to censor free speech.

Pipes Speaks, Civility Ensues

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