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Articles and Blog Posts by Daniel Pipes
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Ignore the overblown title and the publisher's rush to get this book out quickly following Syria's December 2024 revolution; its charm and power lie in the evocation of nearly 55 years of life under the Assads, father and son, 1970-2024. Although a Syrian herself and knowledgeable of the country from the inside, the author's sensibilities are those of a liberal Westerner. (English is her first language.) Calling herself "a Syrian-born writer, a policy and diplomacy adviser, and a communications strategist," she manages to capture the ironic, futile, brutal, and nonsensical nature of the Assad era better than anyone else I have read.
Continue ReadingIsrael Now Endangers Diaspora Jewry
And What To Do About That
by Daniel Pipes • October 3, 2025 • JTA
For over 75 years, the State of Israel has taken pride in protecting worldwide Jewry as well as its own citizens. The current surge in antisemitism, however, reveals a collapse in this dual promise and obligates Diaspora leaders to adopt a new assertiveness toward distracted decisionmakers in Jerusalem.
The Basic Law of the Jewish state establishes Diaspora wellbeing as a priority: "The State shall strive to secure the welfare of members of the Jewish People and of its citizens who are in straits and in captivity due to their Jewishness or due to their citizenship." Additionally, the law promises "to preserve the cultural, historical, and religious heritage of the Jewish People among Jews of the diaspora."
These are not empty words. In the past, Jerusalem has frequently fulfilled those pledges. Some efforts were small scale, as when Israel's parliament lobbied European governments not to ban kosher meat. Others were larger, as when Israeli diplomats won the right of Jews "in captivity" to emigrate from hostile states, notably the Soviet Union and Syria. Most ambitiously, Israeli planes rescued Jews "in straits" from countries such as Yemen, Iraq, and Ethiopia, airlifting them to safety in Zion. In brief, Israel's existence strengthened the Diaspora.
How Israel Became a "Leper State" – and How It Can Redeem Itself
by Daniel Pipes • August 16, 2025 • Australian
Israel's former prime minister Naftali Bennett rightly concludes that events in Gaza have turned his country into a "leper state." This brutal assessment comes only weeks after Israel had earned international admiration for its extraordinary campaign to downgrade Iran's military capabilities.
What caused so rapid a collapse in its standing? It resulted from the Government of Israel ignoring two key facts. The hour is late, but if it takes them into account and recalibrates, its rehabilitation can begin.
I. Israel's High Profile
First ignored key fact: Israel receives wildly, uniquely disproportionate global attention. Comparing it to its demographic peer countries of around 10 million residents makes this evident. Nearly everyone knows of Jerusalem and Benjamin Netanyahu; who can name the capital cities or prime ministers of Azerbaijan, Papua New Guinea, Sierra Leone, Tajikistan, or Togo? Nearly everyone has an opinion on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict but who has informed views on Nagorno-Karabakh, the Free Papua Movement, the Sierra Leonean Civil War, Tajik-Kyrgyz border clashes, or the calls for Faure Gnassingbe to resign? Merely asking such questions establishes Israel's exceptionally high profile.
Mamet Misconstrues Military Slavery History
Letter to the Editor
by Daniel Pipes • August 11, 2025 • Wall Street Journal
To the Editor:
David Mamet's op-ed "Sorry, Billionaires—There's No Escape" (Aug. 7) establishes that, come the apocalypse, no amount of money will help the ultrarich reach safety because their aides will revolt and take over.
To emphasize his point, Mr. Mamet includes a colorful sentence about historic Middle Eastern military slavery: "The Ottoman Turks raised enslaved Mamelukes to the status first of guards and then of administrators, and all was well until the 'Lukes did the math and realized they didn't need the Turks."
The Momentous Turkish vs. Israeli Battle over Syria
by Daniel Pipes • July 22, 2025 • MEF Observer
How to understand the fighting in Syria between the central government in Damascus and its many foes, including Alawites, Kurds, Druze, and the Israel Defense Forces?
During its first quarter-century of independence, 1946-70, a weak Syrian state served as the battlefield for its many stronger neighbors to project their ambitions, a predicament summed up in the title of a well-known book, The Struggle for Syria. That struggle disappeared through the four decades of rule by Hafez and his son Bashar al-Assad only to reemerge during the civil war of 2011-24 and then reach new heights after the overthrow of Bashar in December 2024.
His overthrow nearly eliminated Iran as a factor in Syria, leaving Türkiye and Israel as the primary external combatants. While Syrians are the main protagonists, they effectively serve as proxies for the governments of those two most powerful neighbors.
Each of Türkiye and Israel faces three major risks in Syria.
What Just Happened?
A Twelve-Day War's Twelve Surprises
by Daniel Pipes • June 28, 2025 • Australian
For those who follow international politics, the days following Israel's June 13 attack on Iran meant an addictive check of the smartphone every few hours to learn the latest twist. From that avalanche of surprises, twelve stand out, one marking each day of the Twelve-Day War. A question about the future follows each historical snippet.
For starters, the American side:
1. The White House cowboy succeeded
An uninhibited, reckless, norm-breaking egomaniac dominates American public life as no politician in 236 years. Yes, Donald Trump served as president once before, but he then felt relatively constrained. Four years out of power, some of it sitting humiliated in a dingy courtroom, meant a return to the presidency raring to do things his way, ignoring customs, caution, and propriety. This initially played out domestically, with an unprecedented assertiveness vis-à-vis the executive branch, Congress, and the courts. The Israel-Iran War took it to the world stage, with Trump apparently solo extemporizing his own rules, strategies, and communications, startling even his own aides. To a remarkable extent, his efforts worked. Is this a one-time fluke or a sign of things to come?
Is it true that Israel 'stole Palestine'? No, it is false
Attempts to undermine Israel's legitimacy with claims of land theft' are ironic ... and wrong
by Daniel Pipes • June 14, 2025 • Australian
How best to undermine Israel's legitimacy as a country? Simple, argue that it came into existence through "the theft of Palestine" and the expulsion of its people.
Thus does a learned book carry the title The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine and the Palestinian Authority (PA) holds that "Zionist gangs stole Palestine and expelled its people," then "established their state upon the ruins of the Palestinian Arab people." In all, this caused a catastrophe "unprecedented in history," no less.
International organizations, newspaper editorials, and faculty petitions pick up these accusations and spread them worldwide. For example, Independent Australia bemoans the historic "theft of Palestine" and the Australasian Muslim Times goes further, complaining about the "wholesale land theft of Palestine and Australia."
Trump's Travel Ban Protects Jews
The Boulder attack is part of a long history of antisemitic violence by immigrant Muslims
by Daniel Pipes • June 9, 2025 • Wall Street Journal
It's no coincidence that President Trump's decision fully to restrict the entry of nationals from 12 countries, including six Muslim-majority ones, and review the screening practices of Egypt, immediately followed the June 1 antisemitic attack in Boulder, Colo.
That day Mohamed Sabry Soliman—a migrant from Egypt who overstayed his visa—taped himself telling his family "Jihad for God's sake is more beloved to me than you," as translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute. Mr. Solimon packed a Quran and 18 Molotov cocktails into his car, then threw incendiaries at people marching for the hostages in Gaza, injuring 15.
Updates on the Persecution of Alawites
by Daniel Pipes • June 4, 2025
My article "'Are you Alawite?': A Call to Prevent Genocide in Syria" covers the experience of Alawites under the Sunni regime that came to power in December 2024. This blog continues coverage of that topic.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, members of security checkpoint for sectarian reasons executed eight civilians and injured five others — all Alawite, traveling in bus in the Hama countryside. (June 4, 2025)
June 5, 2025 update: A BBC podcast, "The Future of the Alawites," contains much interesting information, especially on the Alawite practice of taqiya, or religious dissimulation. The interviewer quotes "a local Alawite cleric" named Ali Asi:
The local Alawite cleric, Ali Asi, tells me he feels the international community is not supporting these Syrians because they are accused of being remnants of the Assad regime. I am also struck by how often Alawites have emphasized to me that they are Muslims. I asked cleric Asi how their practices differ from Sunni and Shia Islam.
"Are you Alawite?"
A Call to Prevent Genocide in Syria
by Daniel Pipes • Summer 2025 • Middle East Quarterly
No one knows how many unarmed Alawites were killed in Syria between March 6 and 10, 2025, but Joshua Landis of the University of Oklahoma estimates more than three thousand. While Alawites constitute but a small religious community, perhaps 10 percent of Syria's 15 million resident population, they suffer from a position of unique prominence and vulnerability.
In brief, throughout the centuries, the Alawites stood out as Syria's most isolated, impoverished, despised, and oppressed ethnicity. Only when generals from their community seized power in Damascus in 1966 did the power balance change in their favor. But the Alawites' ruthless domination of Syria for the next 58 years caused the country's majority Sunni Muslim population to rebel, leading to a full-scale civil war that began in 2011 and ended in December 2024, when Sunnis overthrew Alawite rule and returned to power. Recent events point to an ominous Sunni desire for retribution.
Anti-Hamas Protests by Gazans Persist
by Daniel Pipes • April 7, 2025
I published an article on April 4, "Gazans, 'The Bravest People on Earth,' Confront Hamas" about the activities that peaked in late March. The protests continue but the media tends to ignore them, so X provides much of the information. Here are some captions of recent videos:
Ariel Oseran: "Thousands of Gazans are out in the streets of Jabalia, Northern Gaza, in renewed anti-Hamas protests. Crowds are chanting, 'Hamas are scum, Hamas are terrorists!'"
In Jabalia, Gazans are flooding the streets chanting:
"No siege and no destruction — we want to live with dignity and stability."
"Spread the message: Hamas is garbage."
"Hamas is a terrorist organization."
"Osama Hamdan is a spy."
"Sami Abu Zuhri is a collaborator."
Awdeh TV: "Demonstrations have renewed in the Jabalia camp in the northern Gaza Strip that demand an end to the war and the departure of Hamas." (April 7, 2025)
Apr. 8, 2025 update: Bassam Eid:
Gazans, 'The Bravest People on Earth,' Confront Hamas
by Daniel Pipes • April 5, 2025 • Australian
Events
Starting on March 25, crowds of overwhelmingly young male Gazans have marched by the thousands through streets flanked by destroyed buildings, bellowing out slogans and carrying signs. Proceeding peacefully with uncovered faces in broad daylight, speaking angrily into close-up video cameras, they assail not Israel but Hamas, their jihadist overlords. If Jerusalem pays them attention, their protest could mark a positive turning point in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
This spontaneous, unforeseen event began with mourners at a funeral in the Beit Lahiya district of the Gaza Strip, then spread. Their slogans including the following, which I personally witnessed in videos:
"Do Not Leave Any Alive"
Sunnis vs. Alawites in Syria
by Daniel Pipes • March 22, 2025 • Australian
No one knows how many unarmed Alawites were killed in Syria between March 6 and 10, but University of Oklahoma Middle East studies professor Joshua Landis estimates more than 3000.
While Alawites constitute but a small religious community in Syria, perhaps 10 per cent of the country's 15 million resident population, they suffer from a unique prominence and vulnerability.
Through a millennium, they stood out as Syria's most isolated, impoverished, despised and oppressed ethnicity. Only when generals from their community seized power in Damascus in 1966 did the power balance change.
But the ruthless domination of Syria by Alawites for the next 58 years caused the country's majority Sunni Muslim population in 2011 to rebel, leading to a full-scale civil war that ended in December 2024 when Sunnis overthrew Alawite rule and returned to power.
Recent events point to an ominous Sunni desire for retribution. To understand its sources and implications requires a look at the past.
review of Slavery, Abolition, and Islam: Debating Freedom in the Islamic Tradition
by Daniel Pipes • Spring 2025 • Middle East Quarterly
Bashir signals his outlook in the first paragraph: "Let us for a moment imagine a world in which Muslim seminaries are training scholars to actively challenge 'modern slavery' across the globe." Having established that, he poses a first question, one derived from Muhammad Abduh: Given that Islam "eagerly anticipates the liberation of slaves, why have Muslims spent centuries enslaving the free?" Then comes a second question: How did it come to be that "In the contemporary world, Muslim nations have unanimously rejected the institution of slavery on numerous occasions"?
Despite his requisite fashionable academic signaling, invoking Edward Said and bashing Bernard Lewis, Bashir offers a sophisticated analysis that reviews classic Qur'anic exegesis and classic legal rulings, then looks at reform ideas generally before focusing on two main schools of interpretation: what he calls Qur'anic abolition and Qur'anic gradualism. The final section attempts to reconcile these many contradictions, exploring "why there remain such clear differences among scholars."
review of Possessed by the Right Hand: The Problem of Slavery in Islamic Law and Muslim Cultures
by Daniel Pipes • Spring 2025 • Middle East Quarterly
Recalling Muhammad's apocryphal last words about Muslims needing to take care of their slaves, Freamon, a Black American Muslim and professor emeritus at Seton Hall Law School, argues that they "have not lived up to this admonition" either in law or in practice. Writing with anguish in his large, rambling, and original study, he calls these "vexing problems ... that have never been solved." Possessed by the Right Hand explains this discrepancy and then offers a remedy.
Freamon expresses dismay at Islamic scholars' endorsement of slavery: That they "would ignore and sometimes give their imprimatur to the horrific practices of slave raiders and slave dealers for over 1,300 years raises profound and deeply disturbing questions about the viability of Islamic law as an effective legal tool for reform and progress, particularly in the colonial and post-colonial eras."
Thus, while "Hindu and Buddhist slavery eventually died out ... slavery and slave trading in Muslim communities in the region [of South Asia] did not." Rather, "the illusion of abolition occurred across much of the Muslim world." Indeed, "the abolition of slavery in the Muslim world has been an illusion and will remain illusory if Muslims do not come to grips with the problem." Worse, "attitudes toward [slaves] in the Muslim world have not improved and perhaps have even gotten worse."
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For a listing of original stories concerning non-Muslim women with Muslim men, starting in September 2019, please click here.
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