The war on terror, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Arab-Israeli conflict—again and again in the twenty-first century, crises coming out of the Middle East confront and puzzle Americans. Daniel Pipes has, to much acclaim, been explaining the region since the 1960s. The Wall Street Journal considers him “an authoritative commentator on the Middle East” and the Washington Post deems him “perhaps the most prominent U.S. scholar on radical Islam.” The New York Times calls him “smart and well-informed.”
In this volume, Daniel Pipes tackles many questions: Are Muslims truly fatalistic, as their reputation holds? Is radical Islam still on the rise or is it declining? Why are substantial numbers of Iranian-Muslims converting to Christianity? Which American city has emerged as a global center of criminality with female coverings as accessories? Why does tension exist between the Jews of Europe and Israel? How did it happen that Israel is the only country in the world that did not come into existence through conquest? Why are Muslim countries the hold-outs in eradicating polio?
In the skilled hands of a leading Middle East authority, these topics come to life as Daniel Pipes explains much about the world’s most volatile region.
Introduction
What is the role of Islam in public life? Do ex-Muslims have importance? How have Christian-Muslim relations changed over the centuries? How fares Islam in the West? What trajectory is the Arab-Israeli conflict following? These are some of the questions I have contemplated since taking up the Middle East and Islam as an undergraduate student in 1969.
The following articles address those and other questions. They represent about 1 percent of my writings but offer some of my most enduring work. They take up eight topics, each containing five articles.
1. Islam and Islamism goes beyond the now-stale debate on whether these two terms differ, to look at some key questions about them both. “Islam’s Surprising Impact on Daily Life” surveys the impressive range of inadvertent ways Islamic customs reach far beyond the religion to affect personal health, family life, artistic motifs, and geography. “Are Muslims Fatalists?” takes up that chestnut of a question discussed at levels high (Winston Churchill), middle (Agatha Christie), and low (Maktub, a Seattle-based pop music group) and concludes that “Fatalism does not help explain Muslim life,” and so should be dropped. “A Century of the Muslim Brotherhood: Taking Stock” introduces a recent book by Cynthia Farahat that documents the range, depth, and danger of this once-Egyptian but now-global organization; her study, in my words, finds that the Muslim Brotherhood is not just “one of many contending Islamist organizations but...a historic trailblazer and the source of untold misery.” Bizarre and consequential statements by major Western leaders make up the contents of “Why Politicians Pretend Islam Has No Role in ISIS,” hoping their bad example will serve as a warning. “Two Weaknesses Could Undo the Islamist Movement” points to internecine fighting and unpopularity as the long-term undoing of the world’s most dynamic radical utopian ideology.
2. Ex-Muslims takes up a topic that just a decade ago I considered marginal but now find central to the future of Islam. “Will Islam Survive Islamism?” reviews four patterns of anti-Islamism: reform Islam in Egypt, deism in Turkey, Christianity in Iran, and atheism in Saudi Arabia, and concludes that “radical utopianism has pushed the world’s second-largest religious community into a concealed but severe crisis with volatile results.” “When Muslims Leave the Faith” finds that, though lower profile, Western deconversion from Islam is more important than the better-known wave of conversions to the faith. The three next chapters, “The Perilous Path from Muslim to Christian,” “Iran’s Christian Boom,” and “Atheism among Muslims Is ‘Spreading like Wildfire,’” look in more detail at the most radical of those trajectories—converting to Christian or becoming atheist—and the many challenges they almost invariably present.
3. Muslims in the West reviews the ever-growing phenomenon of Islam outside its traditional territories, and in those of its great historic rival, Christianity. I visited many Muslim-majority areas, primarily in Western Europe, to figure out whether non-Muslims can enter them without danger; I offer my assessment at “Partial No-Go Zones Endanger Europe.” Thieves used Islamic full-body covers as accessories accounts, had a role in fourteen robberies, and attempted robberies in six years in one American city, causing Philadelphia’s Burqa Crisis. (That number subsequently expanded to thirty-four incidents in nine years.) “Melbourne’s Petite, Pretty, Honors-Student Jihadi” tells the story of a legal Muslim immigrant to Australia who imported the furies of her home country of Bangladesh, yes, wreaking havoc in her new residence. (After being incarcerated, she went on to stab a fellow prisoner.) Russia is the Christian-majority country with the largest Muslim community in both relative and absolute terms; “Muslim Russia?” assesses startling current trends that may change that country’s identity. “Middle East Migrants: Stay in Your Culture Zone” argues that the whole world cannot find a home in the West, that non-Westerners should stay in their general localities (Africans, for example, should stay in Africa).
4. Western Responses to Muslims surveys reactions to Islam among Europeans and North Americans. “‘Godless Saracens Threatening Destruction': Christian Responses to Islam and Muslims” reviews one thousand four hundred years of intense interaction between the two religious communities, tracing how the centuries of premodern hostility declined during the era of Christian supremacy, only to revive in recent decades. “Europe’s Stark Options” lays out three possible routes forward for Europe, namely “harmonious integration, the expulsion of Muslims, or an Islamic takeover,” and predicts their respective likelihoods. “Europe’s Civilizationist Parties” evaluates the political parties commonly called “Far Right,” seeing in them, however flawed, a rising and inevitable force that alone holds out hope for sustaining Western civilization. “Europe’s Jews vs Israel” contends for the great importance of Jewish attitudes toward these civilizationists, reveals the divide between Jewish leaders in Europe and Israel, and predicts the latter’s predominance. Lastly, how can the Western governments distinguish normal Muslims from Islamists at immigration control, in order to exclude the latter? “Smoking Out Islamists via Extreme Vetting” addresses this vexing issue.
5. Palestinians vs. Israel focuses on the heart of the Arab-Israeli conflict. As Arab states (Egypt, Jordan, and Syria in particular) abandoned their war on the Jewish state after 1973, the conflict has largely devolved to the Palestinian arena. “Not Stealing Palestine, but Purchasing Israel” refutes the widespread claims that Israel robbed Palestinians of their land by pointing out, first, the falsity of this claim and, second, the remarkable fact that Israel alone of the nations bought its patrimony through the voluntary sale of land. “Palestinians Who Helped Create Israel” establishes the key role of cooperative Palestinians in the interworld war period; arguably, without their assistance, the State of Israel would not have come into existence. “Is Jordan Palestine?” (written with Adam Garfinkle) makes the case against this permanently tempting, but simplistic and counterproductive, solution to the Palestinian issue. “End the False Israeli-Palestinian Parity” points to the error in Yitzhak Rabin’s meeting with Yasir Arafat on the White House lawn in 1993 and its harmful legacy. Normally, knowing one will lose on the battlefield is a reason to avoid conflict, so “Why Does Hamas Want War?” Because it expects political gains to outweigh military losses.
6. Others vs. Israel. Even if the Palestinians have become the foremost enemy of Israel, plenty of others remain hostile. Massive attention to the Jewish state and its enemies may make it seem like the greatest military confrontation of our time; but, as Gunnar Heinsohn and I show, “Arab-Israeli Fatalities Rank 49th” in terms of casualties since 1950, or fewer than such obscure conflicts as the Sierra Leone Civil War of 1991 to 2002. The Palestinian leader Amin al-Husseini initiated a radical refusal to accept Zionism shortly after World War I; “On Arab Rejectionism” documents the consequences of this century-long curse on Palestinians and Israelis alike. Antique antisemitism focused on religion and modern antisemitism on race; in contrast, “The New Antisemitism” centers on Israel. While the actual confrontation takes place in Israel and its surroundings, in a curious way, “Americans Battle the Arab-Israeli Conflict” more ardently than do their Middle East counterparts. “When Israel Is at Peace” looks beyond the issues of the moment to project how things will look when the war on the Jewish state finally concludes.
7. Middle Eastern Patterns. Studying the Middle East for over a half century has given me the opportunity to reflect on some striking and paradoxical configurations. “The Sick Middle East” reviews the massive problems facing the region, problems that seem to grow direr with the passage of time. “The Middle East’s Tribal Affliction” suggests that the duality of tribal self-rule and tyrannical centralism explain much of that sickness, including the region’s most characteristic features and its inability to modernize. “Fighting and Hugging in the Middle East” notes the kaleidoscopic coalitions and enmities that characterize the region’s politics. “When Arab Politicians’ Shouts and Whispers Contradict” argues counterintuitively that reading newspapers and watching television helps understand Middle East politics better than talking privately to politicians or reading confidential diplomatic cables. “Give War a Chance: Arab Leaders Finesse Military Defeat” explores the strange pattern whereby Arab rulers time and again not only survive military defeat but even gain from it, attributing this pattern to a mix of six factors: honor, fatalism, conspiracism, bombast, publicity, and confusion.
8. Conspiracy Theories. World conspiracy theories—the false notion that some group is planning to take control of the world—distort Middle East politics perhaps more than those of any other region. “Just Two World Conspirators” summarizes my framework, namely just two persistent alleged conspirators going back nine hundred years: Jews and members of secret societies, excluding 94 percent of humanity. At the same time, fears of conspiracy are not always wrong; “Middle East Mischief: Real Conspiracies” looks at the record and the terrible damage wrought by plots that did actually exist. (This chapter documents another of the patterns noted in Section 5.) “Princess Diana and Arab Conspiracy” (written with Hilal Khashan) recounts the many and fantastical theories that instantly grew up around the 1997 death in a traffic accident of the British royal. “A Conspiracy Theory Spreads Polio” explains how, just as polio was on the verge of eradication, Islamists conjured up conspiracy theories that keep the disease alive. “Conspiracy Theories in the Time of COVID-19" finds that the age-old pattern of blaming just two alleged conspirators—Jews and secret societies—has continued with the pandemic.
