August 29, 2002

Unlike the vast majority of

Unlike the vast majority of webloggers (yours truly included), John Hawkins is actually doing some original reporting. He recently interviewed Middle East expert, Daniel Pipes--buy his new book.

Here's Pipes on moderate Islam:

It's true that the voices of moderate Islam are scarce, they're intimidated, they're disorganized and they're in retreat. I think therefore there are two goals we need to pursue in our current war. One is to destroy militant Islam as we destroyed Fascism in WW2. The second goal, more subtle but no less important, is to build up and guide moderate Islam.

Then there's Pipes' pessimistic view of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict:

If you asked me that question ten years ago I would have said, "yes by 2010 a resolution to the conflict is possible." Because of the enormous reverses that resulted from the Oslo process I now think that a full resolution is decades away. The Oslo process set things back by twenty to thirty years.

I believe the historical record shows that closure comes only when there is clear victory or clear defeat and in this case that would mean either the Arab destruction of Israel or the Israelis winning the acceptance of their neighbors. Assuming it's the second that we're looking at, that acceptance has been retarded by the Oslo process but it is feasible. It can happen eventually when the Arabs come to the realization that their decades long attempt to destroy Israel has failed, that they better find something else to do with themselves.

An Interview With Daniel Pipes