Crusader plants new seeds

[bemildred]

Meet Daniel Pipes.

He has proposed the creation of a new "Anti-Islamist Institute" (AII) designed to expose legal "political activities" of "Islamists", such as "prohibiting families from sending pork or pork by-products to US soldiers serving in Iraq", which nonetheless, in his view, serve the interests of radical Islam.

"In the long term ... the legal activities of Islamists pose as much or even a greater set of challenges than the illegal ones," according to the draft of a grant proposal by Pipes' Middle East Forum (MEF) obtained by Inter Press Service.

---

In addition, Pipes has been a fierce opponent of Palestinian nationalism. He told Australian television this month, for example, that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's Gaza-disengagement plan and his agreement to negotiate with the new Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, were a "mistake" because 80% of the Palestinian population, including Abbas, still favor Israel's destruction.

In 2002, Pipes launched "Campus Watch", a group dedicated to monitoring and exposing alleged anti-Semitic, anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian and/or Islamist bias in teachers of Middle Eastern studies at US colleges and universities.

Asia Times