A gap in Daniel Pipes distinction between moderate Islam and Islamists

Submitted by Ian Mordant (United Kingdom), Feb 2, 2007 at 21:07

Dear Dr Pipes, Good to be able to read your speech from 20^th January as it was to listen to it.

But your analysis seems to me to need at least one addition: the fact that not one of the mainstream organizations of Islam have ever criticized what is going on in Dharfur, just as 90 years after the event they have nothing to say about Turkish silence on the Armenians. They have nothing to say too on the oppression of the Kurds, actions against whom seem to me far more lethal than anything Israel does to Palestinians.

And imagine the uproar if Israel had put Yasser Arafat on trial, the way Turkey did Mr Ocalan in 1999?

Now are these silences the actions of Islamists or moderate Muslims?

I think your moderate modern Islam needs to tackle these too.

What the US government should be doing about these is a difficult question too, as it cuddles up to Saudi Arabia to help defeat Iran.

Ian Mordant

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