This has been linked by lots of people, but I was away and didn't catch it til today:

When I read that Daniel Pipes had been nominated to the board of the United States Institute of Peace (a federally funded body whose members are proposed by the president and confirmed by the Senate), my first reaction was one of bafflement. Why did Pipes want the nomination? After all, USIP, a somewhat mild organization, is devoted to the peaceful resolution of conflict. For Pipes, this notion is a contradiction in terms.

I am not myself a pacifist, and I believe that Islamic nihilism has to be combated with every weapon, intellectual and moral as well as military, which we possess or can acquire. But that is a position shared by a very wide spectrum of people. Pipes, however, uses this consensus to take a position somewhat to the right of Ariel Sharon, concerning a matter (the Israel-Palestine dispute) that actually can be settled by negotiation. And he employs the fears and insecurities created by Islamic extremism to slander or misrepresent those who disagree with him.

Hitchens has some salient points. Would Pipes be a good nominee for that role? He is to the Israeli side what Said is to the Arab side. The entire blogosphere would be screaming bloody murder is Said was nominated.