Pro-Israeli activist Daniel Pipes advocated ending the Palestinian-Israeli conflict by cutting off worldwide support to the Palestinian cause in a Thursday night speech sponsored by the Duke Conservative Union.
Pro-Israeli activist Daniel Pipes advocated ending the Palestinian-Israeli conflict by cutting off worldwide support to the Palestinian cause in a Thursday night speech sponsored by the Duke Conservative Union.
“Diplomacy in a time of war is not effective,” Pipes said. “It just gets in the way.”
The speech, the first of about a dozen campus events dealing with the issue this weekend, did not draw protesters, but the security presence was palpable. Factions of pro-Israeli groups have objected to the Palestinian Solidarity Movement conference that begins today.
About 200 people, many of them from outside Duke, gathered in the Levine Science Research Center to hear Pipes, a columnist for The New York Sun and The Jerusalem Post, explain the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and his proposals for ending it.
Although most campus groups have supported freedom of speech and are committed to non-violent discussion about the emotional conflict, officials were prepared for extremist reactions to Pipes’ talk.
Four uniformed officers flanked the sides of the room, and Duke University Police Department Lt. Jeffrey Best said more officers were stationed outside the event. Additional security personnel from Chapel Hill-based Show Pros manned metal detectors that beeped for nearly every person who walked through them.
Several people in attendance were hoping Pipes would offer guidance as to whether Israeli sympathizers should protest the PSM conference, but he only briefly mentioned the event. He praised DCU’s objections to the PSM conference and said the University was “abdicating its responsibility” to students by allowing it.
Most of Pipes’ talk focused on potential solutions to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “It is not a cycle of violence. It is not random terrorism. It is not the Hatfields and the McCoys,” Pipes said. “It is war.”
Palestinians seek “to see Israel destroyed in a direct way,” he said. Israel wants to be recognized as a sovereign state by its neighbors. Peace will not be successful until one side is willing to abandon its goal, he said, and the United States ought to change its policy and abandon negotiation efforts to facilitate peace.
Negotiated treaties failed, he said, because the Palestinian leaders did not represent the people and the Palestinian people were not sincere in their promises.
Instead, Pipes said, the United States should promote activities that dissuade the Palestinians to “give up their dream of destroying Israel,” including total financial abandonment of Palestinian causes and lack of official recognition of its leaders.
He added that Palestinian resistance was not the most intimidating threat to Israel. Rather, the growing Arab population within the Israeli state and the weapons of mass destruction from surrounding countries are more dangerous.
Comments and questions from the crowd revealed the diversity of opinion that exists even within the pro-Israeli side. Many attendees who said they were sympathetic to Israel’s position disagreed with Pipes, and a majority of the questions he fielded after his speech challenged the feasibility of his position on the conflict.
“I don’t agree that the only way to end it is to continue showing strength,” freshman Matt Guttentag said. “He didn’t seem to offer any methods of resolving the violence that seemed viable to me.”
Senior Nathan Carleton, DCU president, noted the rational tone of the event as an indication of its success. “Daniel Pipes showed how one can voice a strong opinion about the conflict in a reasonable way,” he said, adding that he offered a balance to the opinions of the PSM.
New York Post columnist Debbie Schlussel, who was supposed to introduce Pipes, did not arrive in time to speak because her flight into Durham was delayed. Instead, Carleton introduced Pipes.
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