iviews.com reveals links between Islamophobes

By Ismail Royer

An iviews.com investigation has revealed ties between the author of two recent editorials, which drew protests from Muslims, and pro-Israel author and researcher Steven Emerson. Well known to the American Muslim community, Emerson has a long history of defamatory attacks on their community and its representatives.

The two editorials, written by Daniel Pipes, director of the Philadelphia-based Middle East Forum (MEF), appeared in the Los Angeles Times and Canada's National Post. Both sought to draw a distinction between what he termed "traditional" or "integrationist" Muslims, and "chauvinist" or "Islamist" Muslims whom Pipes regards as a threat to Western society. More specifically, Pipes views Muslims as a particular threat to the American Jewish community. In an article that appears on the website of the pro-Israel Freeman Center for Strategic Studies, Pipes claims that "as the population of Muslims in the United States grows, so does anti-semitism." This despite recent attacks on a California synagogue and other Jewish facilities by neo-Nazis and white supremacists.

The Post article compared "Islamism" to Marxism, Leninism, and Fascism. In that commentary he also wrote, "whatever index one looks at, one finds Muslims clustering towards the bottom. Whether one talks of political stability, Nobel Prize winners, Olympic medals or any other easily gauged standard, Muslims are lagging."

Since the Times and Post articles were published, iviews.com research has revealed that Pipes had and may still have professional and financial ties to Emerson, a journalist whose credibility and accuracy have been questioned on a number of occasions by Muslims, experts on terrorism and fellow reporters.

Emerson is best know for his 1994 PBS documentary "Jihad in America," in which he claimed a network of American Muslim organizations supports terrorist acts in this country and overseas. Professor Jack Shaheen, author of The TV Arab, wrote in the St. Louis Post Dispatch, "'Jihad' is perilous television, pandering to stereotypes that feed collective hatreds."

Tony Cooper, a lecturer on international terrorism at the University of Texas at Dallas, told The Dallas Morning News that "Jihad in America" was a "patent distortion" and "pernicious propaganda."

Pipes has made a number of disturbing comments about Islam and the American Muslim community. In a glowing review in the Weekly Standard of "Why I Am Not a Muslim," Pipes remarked, "This religion would seem to have nothing functional to offer."

Pipes wrote in the National Review in November 1990: "Western societies are unprepared for the massive immigration of brown-skinned peoples cooking strange foods and maintaining different standards of hygiene...All immigrants bring exotic customs and attitudes, but Muslim customs are more troublesome than most."

Emerson's ties to Pipes came to light at a recent gathering of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), a powerful pro-Israel lobbying group. The program schedule for the event described Emerson as "Executive Director" of "Middle East Forum/The Investigative Project." Emerson, who is the Executive Director of The Investigative Project, had never before acknowledged affiliation with MEF.

When iviews.com initially asked Pipes about a possible relationship between MEF and The Investigative Project, he said, "Not true. There's no connection." When asked why AIPAC put "Middle East Forum" next to Emerson's name on its schedule of events, Pipes answered, "I can't explain that."

But corporate records filed with the State of Pennsylvania reveal that at least until early 1997, an entity called the Investigative Project was "owned" by MEF. The records show that the Investigative Project was actually a fictitious name used by MEF. The Philadelphia address listed for the Investigative Project in the documents MEF filed with the state is the same address listed for MEF in its publication, Middle East Quarterly.

Confronted with the Pennsylvania corporate records, Pipes's story shifted. The "Investigative Project" listed on MEF's corporate filings is not Emerson's, he told iviews.com, but their own. "We've used that name in the past, but Steven Emerson's Investigative Project is different than ours. I think his is for-profit," said Pipes.

Emerson offered his own version of the relationship between MEF and The Investigative Project. "Daniel's memory needs to be re-jogged," says Emerson. "Clearly I had a very close relationship with them and I continue to have a very close relationship." When asked whether the Investigative Project owned by the MEF as of 1997 is the same one Emerson says he now owns, Emerson replied, "Yes, absolutely."

Emerson also confirmed that MEF has funded his activities. When asked why AIPAC describes him as currently affiliated with the Middle East Forum, Emerson said, "That was an old reference; I used to receive grants from them."

The day after iviews.com.com interviewed Pipes, emailed iviews.com yet another version of his relationship with Emerson.

He wrote: "After checking our records, here is the pertinent information about the Investigative Project: 1. In 1997, the Middle East Forum had a project called the 'Investigative Project.' 2. In 1997, Steven Emerson did work for the Investigative Project. 3. The Middle East Forum no longer operates the Investigative Project. 4. Steven Emerson has operated an independent research project called the Investigative Project."

But financial reports from conservative philanthropic foundations that have funded Emerson and Pipes suggest a broader relationship.

In 1997, the year that Pipes says Emerson worked for MEF, the Bradley Foundation, a conservative group that funded Emerson's "Jihad in America," gave the Middle East Forum $45,000 for "the Muslims in America research book project."

And in 1993, the Foreign Policy Research Institute, at the time directed by Pipes, received a $20,000 grant from the Olin Foundation to complete the book Mohammed's Army: The Rise of Islamic Fundamentalism, to be written by Steven Emerson. The book was never published.