Muslim Africans' Harrowing Journey to Israel

by Daniel Pipes  •  Summer 2023  •  Middle East Quarterly

"I was dancing with joy when I arrived. It was one of the happiest days of my life." So spoke Ismail Abdul-Rasul, a father or four from Darfur in Sudan, describing his 2007 reception in Israel after five miserable years in Egypt and a hellish journey across the Sinai Peninsula.

Generally forgotten today, a large influx of Africans – Eritreans and Sudanese especially – made their way without authorization during the years 2006-12 to live in Israel. Their immigration temporarily traumatized Israelis and left a substantial body of Africans living in the country, mainly in Tel Aviv. The total number of illegal migrants to Israel from Africa is estimated at 55,000, with about 35,000 living in the country today. This episode is worth recalling for its drama, horror, resolution, and implications.

The Passage

Muslim Africans nearly all reached the Jewish state by land. The influx began in 2006, apparently due to some Egyptian smugglers helping a few hundred Africans enter Israel and the Israeli government treating them leniently. As word got back to Egypt and more distant parts of the continent, larger numbers followed. Journalist Uriel Heilman in 2009 captured the motives of Africans living in Egypt:

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Turning off the Comments at DanielPipes.org

by Daniel Pipes  •  February 18, 2023

Dear Reader:

I opened my website, DanielPipes.org, to comments in April 2002. (This appears to be the oldest one: "Bravo.")

They came tumbling in – 185,000 in all. Of these, 165,000, or about 21 per day, made the editorial cut and were posted. I read them all and replied to thousands. The comments provided me important (and often enjoyable) feedback while adding substantially to the website's interactive nature.

But all things come to an end. In this case, social media has largely replaced website commentary, leaving too much spam and too much that is off topic. Accordingly, I have as of today, with sadness, closed DPO to further comments.

Daniel Pipes

2022's Biggest Hits at DanielPipes.org

by Daniel Pipes  •  January 18, 2023

Traffic statistics at DanielPipes.org indicate that the following ten articles are my most read writings published in 2022, in ascending order. (Gary Gambill of the Middle East Forum kindly provided the tabulations and summaries.)

10. Review of Arab American Women: Representation and Refusal (Spring 2022)

I review a new book on Arab American women and call into question whether the classification "Arab American" – denoting Arabic speakers of all backgrounds and religions – remains analytically meaningful. Most Arab Americans are Christians, who typically downplay or even deny their Arab identity. "It is high time to retire, not elevate, the slippery term Arab-American in favor of others, such as Muslim-American and Arabic-speaking Christian American," I conclude.

9. Israel Is the Least-Stolen Land (June 19)

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review of Sajjilu Arab American: A Reader in SWANA Studies

by Daniel Pipes  •  Winter 2023  •  Middle East Quarterly

The preface does not shy from declaring the politics that inspires what follows. The volume fits into something called the Critical Arab American Studies book series that raises and addresses "the politics of producing radical antiracist, anti-imperial, and feminist knowledges about Arab American and SWANA [a new term, meaning Southwest Asian and North African] communities as well as their connections to other racialized communities in the United States and in the global South more broadly." (News to me that the United States is in the global South.) The book under review "directly attends to such critical investments in radical and decolonial knowledge production, investments that continue to be articulated and solidified in response to ongoing racial and gendered violence and to evolving imperial agendas and military projects."

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The Revolt in Iran Lacks Leadership

by Tommaso Alessandro De Filippo interviewer  •  December 14, 2022  •  Atlantico (Italy)

Tommaso Alessandro De Filippo: Does the current protest movement in Iran differ in fundamental ways from prior ones?

Daniel Pipes: Yes, it does. No other protest since 1979 has continued for so long or been so widely supported. It also has key constituencies – Kurds and women – that add to its impact.

TADF: Does the Iranian regime still enjoy a solid position of power or might it collapse?

DP: The regime will likely survive. A counter-revolution needs leadership, which this one lacks. That many of the regime's top leaders helped to overthrow the shah means they have first-hand insights into suppressing their opponents.

TADF: Do you agree with the Biden administration's approach to Iran or should it support the anti-regime protests more?

DP: It should do more. At least Biden has improved somewhat on Obama's response in 2009, when the president, in an effort to reach a nuclear deal with Tehran, basically said nothing in support of the protests. But Biden's response is feeble. Now is the moment to declare that the U.S. government seeks a change of regime in Iran and that it will help those working toward such a change.

TADF: Will the Iranian nuclear buildup lead to a military intervention by either Israel or the United States?

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When Arab Politicians' Shouts and Whispers Contradict
Rely on Public Statements, Not Seductive Murmurings

by Daniel Pipes  •  Winter 2023  •  Middle East Quarterly

In 1933, an exasperated British ambassador to Iraq dressed down the country's King Faisal. "Was I to report to my government," he asked rhetorically,

that Iraq's public men, men who had held the highest positions in the State, made speeches on solemn occasions in which they voiced opinions which they knew to be false and meaningless? Was I to say that the Iraqi Parliament was just a sham, a place where time and money was wasted by a handful of men, who, while masquerading as statesmen, neither meant what they said, nor said what they believed?[1]

In like spirit, a U.S. ambassador to Iraq in the 1950s wrote of Nuri al-Sa'id, who served as prime minister on fourteen occasions: "Nuri's public statements on Israel differed sharply from what he had to say in private. His public statements, like those of all Pan-Arab nationalists, were bitter and uncompromising. In private, he discussed Israel calmly, reasonably, and with moderation."[2]

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Israel's Partial Victory
The Arab States Tiptoed Away

by Daniel Pipes  •  December 2022  •  Commentary

The State of Israel celebrates its 75^th birthday in 2023, a year that will also mark a major but generally unnoticed milestone in the Arab-Israeli conflict.

During Israel's first 25 years, from 1948 to 1973, Arab states – with Egypt, Jordan, and Syria in the lead, followed by Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Lebanon – fought it five times with­ conventional armed forces. They built up huge armies, allied with the Soviet bloc, and fought Israel on the literal battlefield. After 1973, the states quietly bowed out and remained out over the next 50 years – which is to say, for twice as long as the era during which they actively fought Israel.

The few exceptions to this cold peace – notably, a Syrian aerial confrontation in 1982 and an Iraqi missile attack in 1991 – help make the point. Their brevity, limitations, and failure enforced the wisdom of not confronting Israel. The Syrian air force lost 82 planes, while the Israeli air force lost none. And 18 separate Iraqi missile attacks directly killed one Israeli.* The Iraqi and Syrian regimes both started nuclear programs but gave them up after coming under Israeli attacks in 1981 and 2007, respectively.

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About Those Billboards in Israel ...
Letter to the Editor

by Daniel Pipes  •  November 2, 2022  •  Ha'aretz

Yarin Raban's article, "The Time Has Come to Violate the Divine Directive" (Oct. 12) misunderstands the billboard campaign initiated by the Israel Victory Project on the Ayalon Highway and elsewhere.

The billboards showed two prominent Israeli Arab politicians, Ayman Odeh and Ahmed Tibi, draped in and waving Israeli flags under the caption "This is the picture of victory." Raban understands this to mean our goal is "to subject Israeli Arabs to hegemonic Israeli culture, to Israeli national symbolism, and to the Jewish ethnic characterization of the Jewish state."

No, no. That is not the Israel Victory Project's object; I wish Raban had gone beyond the symbolism of the billboards to understand its purpose. Allow me to explain.

The billboards call on Israeli Arab leaders to accept the national identity of Israel, as symbolized by its flag. That does not mean imposing Israeli or Jewish culture on them. To the contrary, Israel provides for its Arab citizens a separate school system, recognition of its religious institutions and courts, and the Arabic language appears on every official state document and sign – and we are fine with that.

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Denmark Leads the West to Immigration Sanity

by Daniel Pipes  •  October 28, 2022  •  National Interest

Today in the West, no issue matters more than immigration policy, especially at a time when much of the world, from Mexicans to Nigerians to Pakistanis, wants to move to North America and Western Europe.

Controlling immigration has proven difficult because the Establishment in destination countries tends to view mass, unfettered, and unvetted immigration as a benign phenomenon. Two examples capture this outlook. In 2014, Sweden's establishment parties, making up 86 percent of the parliament, joined forces to marginalize the civilizationist party (that is, the party focused on controlling immigration and demanding the integration of immigrants) with 14 percent. Angela Merkel, the establishment German chancellor waved in a million-plus unvetted migrants, leading to a pan-European crisis in 2015-16.

Few parties are so arch-establishment as Denmark's Social Democrats (SD). Founded in 1871, it had the largest representation in parliament for seventy-seven straight years. Its accomplishments include creating the welfare state, building modern Denmark, and shaping the Danish character. "Deep down, we're all Social Democrats" a person who dislikes the party acknowledged to me.

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review of Searching for Peace: A Memoir of Israel

by Daniel Pipes  •  Fall 2022  •  Middle East Quarterly

The first thing of note about this memoir by a former prime minister of Israel? Its publication by a think tank, not a major New York house, signaling the limited appeal of what lies inside. And, indeed, it does lack wide appeal. Through hundreds of pages, Olmert feels sorry for himself, makes excuses for his errors, blames others for his sins, and generally avoids responsibility for his ignominious fall from the Prime Minister's Office to Cellblock 10 in the Maasiyahu Penitentiary.

The author complains of "a prolonged campaign that began immediately after I entered the Prime Minister's Office in January 2006 and ended only after I was behind bars" in February 2016. Why did this alleged 10-year campaign take place? Because "the authorities had conspired against me" and "a tremendous array of forces, based not only in Israel but also in the United States, came to the conclusion early on that the government I led threatened something they held dear." And what was that something they held dear? The belief "that any territorial compromise in the pursuit of a peace deal with the Palestinians was tantamount to treason." (One wonders why Rabin did not end up in prison.)

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review of Overcoming Orientalism: Essays in Honor of John L. Esposito

by Daniel Pipes  •  Fall 2022  •  Middle East Quarterly

On the surface, this Festschrift is as conventional as it is reputable. Students, colleagues, and a prominent university press celebrate a prolific and influential scholar on reaching his 80^th birthday with a substantial tome of original essays related to his lifelong interest.

But look harder and the apparatus shatters. The title alludes to the greatest intellectual scam of the generation – the claim that Western scholars of the Middle East served as cogs in imperialist machines. The feted scholar has written dozens of books apologizing for a totalitarian ideology, Islamism, while opening an academic center funded by and named after a notorious advocate of that same ideology. The book's editor revels in a university position named after one of the most active political leaders promoting that same ideology.

In other words, Overcoming Orientalism represents one cog (as it were) in the great deceit of post-1978 American scholarship, corrupt in its purposes, fraudulent in its ideas, and toxic in its impact. Rather than argue this point for all twelve essays, let us concentrate on a sample chapter, "How Islamic Is ISIS" by Soheil H. Hashmi, professor of International Relations on the Alumnae Foundation and professor of Politics at Mount Holyoke College.

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review of Muslim-Christian Relations in Damascus amid the 1860 Riot

by Daniel Pipes  •  Fall 2022  •  Middle East Quarterly

Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Karl Marx stand out as two of modern Europe's most enduringly influential thinkers; Abu-Mounes, author of this well-researched study of a major crisis in Muslim-Christian relations, perfectly exemplifies their influence.

Rousseau developed romanticism, and especially the idea of the noble savage, of the purity of life before civilization interfered and corrupted. This legend latterly transmuted into the idea that the world was a beautiful and peaceful place until Christian Europeans turned up. Today's soft visions of Al-Andalus and American Indians trace back to this outlook. When considering Syria before the Europeans, Abu-Mounes adopts this same inaccurate dreaminess: "Hitherto, the Jewish, Christian and Muslim communities who had established themselves in Damascus used to respect each other's beliefs and ways of life. Even though there were sporadic bouts of tension and suspicion between them, they generally lived peaceably together."

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review of Islam and Nationalism in Modern Greece, 1821-1940

by Daniel Pipes  •  Fall 2022  •  Middle East Quarterly

Noting the under-researched nature of his topic, Katsikas offers the results of more than twenty years' work in this volume. He defines his purpose as considering "the interactions between modern Greece and its Muslim populations from the Greek War of Independence in 1821 to the entrance of Greece into World War II in October 1940," or in what the University of Chicago assistant professor dubs the "post-Ottoman period" of Greek history.

He starts by emphasizing the "massacres, atrocities, and expulsions of Muslims" in the war of independence. Out of that brutal struggle, and quite contrary to other liberation movements, "the Christian religion was widely regarded as the most significant criterion of Greek nationality, and therefore it was often given prominence over the Greek language by the overwhelming majority of Hellenes." Local Muslims were associated with the Ottoman empire and seen as enemies in principle, though their actual treatment depended more on a Muslim's actions, whether pro- or anti- the new Greek state.

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review of In the Lion's Den: Israel and the World

by Daniel Pipes  •  Fall 2022  •  Middle East Quarterly

Danon is a talented fighter for Israel. This reviewer noted in a 2013 article about him, "Three qualities stand out: a devotion to principle, a mastery of tactics, and the ability to articulate a vision." As a Likud member of Knesset, these inevitably led him to clash with the long-time head of the party, Benjamin Netanyahu, leading to Danon's being humiliatingly fired by Netanyahu in 2014 from his position as Israel's deputy minister of defense. But Netanyahu could not keep his nemesis down, so he did the next best thing and appointed him to a prestigious but potentially career-ending position, that of Israel's ambassador to the United Nations in New York. Lion's Den tells the story of that five-year assignment, in 2015-20.

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review of A Good Country: My Life in Twelve Towns and the Devastating Battle for a White America

by Daniel Pipes  •  Fall 2022  •  Middle East Quarterly

In a shameless, prolonged whine, Ali-Khan tells her autobiography through the device of the twelve U.S. towns she has lived in since her birth in Florida in November 1974, using them as vehicles variously to impugn the United States. Relying on the well-known rhetorical method of contrasting ideals with realities, this sometime hijab-wearing extreme left-winger, the child of Pakistani immigrant parents, discovers a differently-flavored depravity in each of them.

For example, take Philadelphia, where this reviewer lives. Ali-Khan's chapter begins with 9/11, which took place almost simultaneously with her move to the city. Rather than share in her fellow-citizens' outrage at jihadis murdering three thousand Americans, she strikes a very different pose, dismissing Al-Qaeda as "an international terrorist group that claimed to speak for Muslims" and bemoaning that "my country" instantly turned "their rage toward Muslims." (Do excuse the bad grammar, a constant companion in this book.)

When the U.S. government responded to the attack with a war on the Taliban, Ali-Khan "imagined what Amer­ican attacks would mean for Afghan civilians ... and was repulsed by my country's misdirected vengeance and blood­thirst." (Note the mocking repetition of "my country.") The result was, "our nation laid waste to large Muslim civilian populations in Afghanistan and Iraq." Even worse, she reports, her country "opened the torture camp at Guantanamo."

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