Crimefighters: Plaut and Pipes
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| By: Israel Insider staff and partners |
| Published: March 12, 2005 |
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Former U.S. Peace Institute one-termer Daniel Pipes, and his trusty sidekick, Associate Professor of Economics Steven Plaut, have allegedly uncovered what the latter describes as an online crime involving the violation of at least two of the Ten Commandments. What initially seemed to be the transgression of one man has been revealed by them to be a vast conspiracy involving hundreds of writers and columnists accused of "abetting" the terrible crime, a syndicate of literary sin growing in size with each passing day.
For years the dynamic duo have been in hot pursuit of the wily and nefarious Barry Chamish, notorious for his research pointing to a conspiracy in the Rabin assassination.
More personally problematic for Pipes (and Plaut, who sits on the editorial board of the Middle East Forum which Pipes directs), Chamish traced some of MEF's funding sources, as well as the organizational connections of Pipes and Plaut to parties that are working behind the scenes to internationalize and further militarize the Mideast conflict.
Particularly embarrassing was Chamish's recent reference to a Pipes' comment last summer that the most efficient way to evacuate all settlements in Gaza was for the IDF to simply withdraw and let the settlers fend for themselves. The risk of violence, Pipes said, "makes me wonder why the Israeli authorities do not take quite a different track and merely stop providing security for them." Despite his subsequent attempts to rationalize the comment, the MEF Director's well-polished pro-Zionist credentials were badly tarnished. Chamish also pointed out Pipes' support for the eventual formation of a Palestinian state.
Pipes and Plaut, enforcers of truth, justice and the American Way came to the conclusion that Chamish had to be squelched and marginalized at all costs, dismissed with ad hominem attacks, depicted as a nutcase so that his research would be dismissed and not discussed. After the mainstream Israel Insider occasionally published his articles, Pipes, with his sycophants, launched what he called a "quiet pressure campaign" intended to force Reuven Koret to stop publishing Chamish. Their strategy was to write as many contributors to Israel Insider as they could, instructing them to tell Koret that he must choose between publishing Chamish and publishing them.
When Koret brought the conspiracy of silence to to public attention on Israel Insider, and indicated that he would not be intimidated, Plaut supplemented the quiet pressure campaign with name-calling, characterizing Koret as a "moron" and a "buffoon."
Now the Defenders of Freedom have ratcheted up the pressure and are no longer quite so quiet. In a circular email sent to dozens of leading columnists, journalists, and editors, Plaut fingered the suspect and accused him of theft in the Subject Line: "Reuven Koret is stealing." The email went on to detail the horrific alleged crime.
Plaut writes: "Koret has now begun running Pipes' materials, taking them off the web from newspapers in which Pipes publishes, stealing the material and running it on Israel Insider without permission. See http://web.israelinsider.com/Articles/Briefs/5130.htm. Pipes has demanded the material be removed and Koret is refusing."
A quick check of the link cited by Plaut reveals the depravity of Koret's crime. He actually quotes a sentence directly from Pipes, as well as a sentence fragment, and then invites the reader to link to the full story on Pipes' site. The crime scene is a shocker to anyone who has ever surfed the Internet. Imagine: quoting and linking? in public! And the dastardly lawbreaker refused to remove the link to the article even though Pipes demanded it. What chutzpah!
Plaut went on to deduce that mental incapacity alone is insufficient to explain Koret's criminal behavior. "This means that Koret is not merely a halfwit incapable of seeing through Chamish's conspiracy "theory" nonsense. Seems the 8th and 10th of the Ten Commandments are not in effect at Israel Insider!"
Plaut's Sherlockian deduction and his Biblical reference requires some explanation for lesser minds, let alone those who have only half their wits. The Eighth Commandment-- "thou shalt not steal" -- is clear enough, the Tenth? That one goes: "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbor's" (Ex. 20:17).
It may not be instantly apparent to those less gifted than Plaut and Pipes in understanding the nature of the criminal mind how Koret's link to their external websites can be construed as coveting or why he would want to covet their writings, let alone their wives, manservants, maidservants, oxen or asses. There are clearly plenty of asses to go around.
But the massive scale of the crime Plaut alleges becomes shockingly apparent in his closing statement: "Anyone who now publishes material with Koret is abetting theft."
That means that some five hundred writers -- Israelis and North Americans, Jews, Christians and Moslems, from left, right, and center -- who have published thousands of op-eds in Israel Insider since it began daily publication in 2001 may be guilty of aiding and abetting, prospectively, the commission of Grand Theft Pipes. How could they not have noticed that Israel Insider links to other websites. How could they have not observed that it quotes sentence from other people? How could they not now that it does not ask permission from every person quoted in every story. Ignorance of the law is no excuse!
Evidence of this vast conspiracy is supported by the fact that Plaut routinely sends out an email warning to new contributors to Israel Insider, warning of the terrible danger of this serial quoter and linker, are subsequently leaked by multiple members of his own mailing list to Koret himself! One such "abetter" confided that he was quaking in his boots, waiting for the inevitable knock on the door: "If [Plaut] is right, it means that I can be charged with conspiracy for theft. Hope that Israel does not convince America to extradite me." Another reported that from now on he is going to submit all his links out to Plaut to make sure he isn't breaking any law.
Humanity can only be grateful that Plaut and Pipes are on the job, keeping the Internet safe from writers who quote from other people and link to other sites! But Plaut isn't resting on his laurels, writing to those whose contributions are published on Israel Insider: "A group of Jewish columnists, including Pipes, Jacoby, Jon Tobin, myself, and about 20 others, have informed Israel Insider that we will no longer publish with them because they insist on running Chamish's lunatic nonsense. We urge you to join us in this. Appearing on the same pages with Chamish accusing everyone in Israel he can think of as being spies and murderers [sic] is a disgrace that no self-respecting writer will tolerate. Please join us, and let the editor there know he will no longer be a venue for your writing."
The only problem with Plaut's claim of a huge posse of "self-respecting" writers standing up for censorship is that it is not true. Koret, reached in his underground lair, claims that beyond the four brave Freedom Fighters cited, no one else has joined what he called "the childish defamation and flaccid intimidation campaign." On the contrary, he said, the campaign has brought letters of support from many of the writers on Plaut's and Pipes' mailing lists, some of whom ridicule the censorship attempt, and has increased the popularity and prestige of a publication that publishes controversial views, from all sides.
The "half-wit" editor added that Israel Insider will continue to publish diverse opinions and controversial writers, including those with whom he personally disagrees. "I don't hold a brief for Chamish or anyone else, but neither do I suppress interesting articles. The beauty of the Internet is that little men on power trips can no longer squelch the truth or limit what people can read or write. We respect our readers' intelligence and well as the intellectual property of the writers we cite. But no one is immune to the scrutiny of the public domain, including the right to quote from and link to their publications. That is the essence of freedom of expression and fair use, concepts with which the "self-respecting" Pipes and Plaut "appear not only to disrespect, but flout."
Koret said the "quiet pressure campaign" of Plaut and Pipes provided "great comic material" and "great publicity." He mused that the two either " have an awful lot of extra time on their hands," "no more pressing issues to worry about," or else seem to be in "panicked frenzy" that Chamish's views about their funding and agenda are gaining a wider hearing. "Why else would they be obsessing on this if they didn't have something to hide?"
Responding to Plaut's claim that his publication did not honor the Eighth and Tenth Commandment, the Israel Insider publisher called attention to the Ninth, which the criminal prosecutor did not mention, but should have: "Thou shalt not bear false witness."
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