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Few others have credentials as impeccable as those of Daniel Pipes when reporting on developments in the Middle East. This is even more the case when favorable developments are reported. From his bio:
Daniel Pipes is director of the Middle East Forum, a member of the presidentially-appointed board of the U.S. Institute of Peace, and a prize-winning columnist for the New York Sun and The Jerusalem Post. His most recent book, Miniatures: Views of Islamic and Middle Eastern Politics (Transaction Publishers) appeared in late 2003. His website, DanielPipes.org, the single most accessed source of information specifically on the Middle East and Islam, offers an archive and a chance to sign-up to receive his new materials as they appear.
Mr. Pipes was one of the few analysts who understood the threat of militant Islam (“Unnoticed by most Westerners,” he wrote in 1995, “war has been unilaterally declared on Europe and the United States”). The Boston Globe writes that “If Pipes’s admonitions had been heeded, there might never have been a 9/11.” The Wall Street Journal has called him “an authoritative commentator on the Middle East.” MSNBC describes him as one of the best-known “Mideast policy luminaries.”
So it is particlarly interesting that he reports what he terms “stunning” and “very hopeful” news:
Finally the Voice of Moderate, Anti-Islamist Muslims Is Heard
In a stunning, unprecedented, and very hopeful sign, reports the Saudi newspaper Arab News, over 2,500 Muslim intellectuals from 23 countries sent a petition to United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, and the chairman and members of the Security Council. The organizers hope to have tens of thousands of signatories shortly. Most of the signatories are from Saudi Arabia, the Persian Gulf states, Iraq, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority.
In the petition, they call for an international treaty banning the use of religion for incitement to violence….
...”We cannot let such dangerous nonsense to pass as Islam,” Nablusi says. ...
Comment: Are the moderate, anti-Islamist voices in the Muslim world beginning to organize? If so, I cannot think of more cheering news.
Read the whole thing.
