Writing about the Middle East and Islam is a rough business, one where my critics sometimes go over the line into factual misrepresentation. I on occasion – in particular, when factual mistakes are involved – take the time to point this out. Here's a running log, in reverse chronological order, of the apologies, retractions, and corrections as I extract them.
I have written a series of articles on Obama's Muslim childhood which I list here in chronological order, for convenience sake:
"Was Barack Obama a Muslim?" FrontPageMag.com, December 24, 2007. Raises questions about Obama's childhood religion and considers its implications for the campaign and the presidency.
Pictures of the very first Airbus 380 flying from Dubai to New York City show a smiling attendant at the first class bar. Yes, a Persian Gulf airline serves alcohol. But what's really of interest is the plump bagel sitting on the right side of the counter, under a glass top. Bagels are, of course, the Jewish ethnic food that legend holds goes back to 1683 and the defeat of the Turkish army at Vienna. How curious to find them on a maiden A380 voyage of Emirates airline. Incidentally, those bagels are a relative bargain, with a one-way first-class Dubai-New York ticket costing just shy of US$7,000. (August 15, 2008)
"Der Spiegel" published this picture to illustrate its story on the maiden Airbus 380 flight from Dubai to New York.
Random House, a unit of Bertelsmann AG, has announced that is has canceled publication of a novel, The Jewel of Medina, by Sherry Jones, that was to be published on August 12. The novel concerns the child wife Aisha of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. Random House made no bones about its reasons in doing so, with Deputy Publisher Thomas Perry stating that Random House received "cautionary advice not only that the publication of this book might be offensive to some in the Muslim community, but also that it could incite acts of violence by a small, radical segment." Therefore, he went on, "In this instance we decided, after much deliberation, to postpone publication for the safety of the author, employees of Random House, booksellers and anyone else who would be involved in distribution and sale of the novel." Perry indicated that Jones is now free to shop her manuscript elsewhere.
Yoram Schweitzer has now responded twice to me, and I think it about time to close down his and my exchange, but not before one final, brief reply on my part.
In my three years resident in Cairo, between 1971 and 1977, I spent an inordinate amount of time combing the city's book stores for what the sellers called turath, or tradition - the classic texts of Islamic civilization. While searching out these cultural gems, however, I could hardly miss the garish, grisly titles and covers of Arabic-language books on current affairs, ugly rants against Israel, Jews, the United States, Americans, the West, Christians, orientalists, and other targets.
These memories come to mind on receipt of a traveler's recent photographs of current book covers in the book shops of Cairo. These have lost none of their wild-eyed, extremist, intemperate, or nasty qualities. Here is a sampling, with my translations into English. (Click on the pictures to see a full-size version of the covers.)
Soner Cagaptay, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, is one of the most astute analysts of Turkish politics. But he writes something in the conclusion to an article, "Turkey Versus Turkey," in the Wall Street Journal Europe that I cannot agree with. Looking at the "battle for Turkey's soul" currently taking place between "secular Turkey" and the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), he speculates what will follow should the AKP win. In that case,
In my column, "Which Has More Islamist Terrorism, Europe or America?" I show that "the Muslim per-capita arrest rate on terrorism-related charges in the United States is 2.5 times higher than in Europe." I mentioned there a difference in the legal systems between the two continents that makes that ratio even higher but lacked the space to explain it. In brief, European laws make it much easier to arrest terrorism suspects than do the American ones. Consider two expert views on the topic:
Moment Magazine asked several analysts briefly to discuss the state of Arab-Israeli diplomacy.
"Many Israelis, perhaps even a majority according to some polls, believe that the time has come for Israel to follow the 2003 Road Map to create two states—one Jewish, the other Palestinian. Yet, others in Israel and in the diaspora caution that the pursuit of peace at this time is hopeless, foolhardy, even dangerous. In the belief that it is important to hear voices from all sides of the debate, Moment posed the following question to a spectrum of such critics:
I pay my first visit to the "Googleplex" in a few days and thought I'd prepare by seeing how this website, www.DanielPipes.org, does in Google's rankings. I started out with the hot name of the moment, "Barack Obama," and was midly stunned to see that I come in #5, following only Obama's campaign site, his Senate site, Wikipedia, and Reuters – and ahead of nearly 61 million other entries.