The indefatigable Daniel Pipes, Director of the Middle East Forum and regular NY Post columnist, is at it again, this time (with Mimi Stillman) examining the “American street’s” reaction to Islam and comparing this somewhat measured view with the U.S. government’s “official” stance, which seems one bent on promoting the blind acceptance of Islam, almost as an article of American faith. Writing in the Winter Middle East Quarterly, Pipes (the journal’s editor) and Stillman observe:

[…] there is a fly in the ointment: the American ‘street views Islam less enthusiastically than do official spokesmen, and the discrepancy is an embarrassment to the officials. Sometimes they simply ignore it. President Clinton reported variously that ‘Americans respect and honor Islam’ and ‘the United States has great respect for Islam,’ statements that he and his staff often repeated almost word-for-word. In a rare example of greater specificity, William Milam, the U.S. ambassador to Pakistan, wished to ‘lay to rest the myth that the United States is hostile to Islam and Islamic peoples’ and reported that ‘most of the American people’ understand that there is no connection between terrorism and Islam.

But the penitential confession, to the effect that Americans are biased against Islam, gets about equal time. Albright spoke of Americans’ “appalling degree of ignorance” about Islam. Hillary Clinton wrote that ‘we, as a society, too often mischaracterize Islam and those who adhere to its teachings.'[…]

{…] The picture is confusing. Is there ‘respect and honor’ for Islam or is the religion ‘so terribly misconstrued’? The solution: blame the media for blocking the positive image of Islam purveyed by the officials. A Department of State fact sheet rues the ‘sometimes-distorted portrayal of Islam in Western media’ while promising that ‘the United States continues to address’ this problem.[…]

The article goes on to examine in some detail how the government (wrongly and often inadvertengly) promotes the spread of a dangerous brand of politicized Islam. Pipes and Stillman write in their conclusion:

[…]The earlier Western efforts to pander to Muslim sentiments came up short, as the Muslim leaders of Egypt fought Napoleon with all they had, while Mussolini failed to find the widespread Muslim support he had hoped to win. So too, the American effort will no doubt end in failure. It is nearly inconceivable that moderate Muslims will have any influence over their more radical coreligionists.

Practicalities aside, American officials would do well to ask whether their statements on Islam do not conflict with their government’s basic principles. The United States has a message for the world, and that message is not Islam. The message, it hardly needs pointing out, is one of individualism, freedom, secularism, rule of law, democracy, and private property.

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