- Walid Shoebat
Walid Shoebat ( _ar. وليد شويبات) is an American citizen, born to a
Palestinian father and American mother. Shoebat claims to be a formerPLO terrorist, although these claims have been called into question. Shoebat came to public attention by becoming an ardent critic ofIslam and supporter ofIsrael . Shoebat has been criticized for alleged falsehoods and inconsistencies in his self-representation.hoebat's account of his life
According to the biography on his official website, Shoebat was born in
Bethlehem , the grandson of theMukhtar ofBeit Sahour , whom Shoebat describes as an associate ofGrand Mufti of Jerusalem Mohammad Amin al-Husayni . Shoebat's great grandfather, Abdullah Ali Awad-Allah, was also a fighter and close associate of both Abdul Qader and Haj Amin Al-Husseini.Fact|date=June 2008 Shoebat claims to have joined thePalestine Liberation Organization in his youth and to have been involved in terrorist attacks against Israel.In interviews, he claimed to have been involved in a bombing at Bank Leumi in Bethlehem.
Upon his release, Shoebat continued his anti-Israeli activism until he emigrated to the
United States , where he became involved with the Arab Student Organization atLoop College inChicago .Fact|date=June 2008 Shortly afterwards Walid worked as asoftware engineer and became a US citizen. In 1993, Walid converted toChristianity after studying the Jewish Bible for 6 months in response to a challenge from his wife, initially trying to persuade her into converting to Islam.Fact|date=June 2008Activism
After the September 11 terrorist attacks in
2001 , Shoebat became an active advocate againstIslamism and a fervent supporter of the State of Israel. He has appeared on mainstream media around the world and has been portrayed as an expert witness on a number of documentaries onIslamism [http://www.shoebat.com/bio.php?PHPSESSID=61e4c5139507437e903da869d8a6a4cc Shoebat's autobiography] on Shoebat.com] .Shoebat argues that parallels exist between radical Islam and
Nazism . He says, "Secular dogma like Nazism is less dangerous thanIslamofascism that we see today ... because Islamofascism has a religious twist to it; it says 'God the Almighty ordered you to do this'.... It is trying to grow itself in fifty-five Muslim states. So potentially, you could have a success rate of several Nazi Germanys, if these people get their way." [cite video| people = Wayne Kopping &Raphael Shore | year = 2005 | title = Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West | url = http://www.obsessionthemovie.com/12min.htm | medium = | location = | publisher =]Shoebat believes that Jesus will descend from the heavens and lead a "defensive" battle to protect Israel from attacking enemies. [Marquette Warrior Blog, [http://mu-warrior.blogspot.com/2007/12/live-blogging-walid-shoebatmuslim.html Live Blogging Walid Shoebat] .]
He is the founder of the [http://www.shoebat.com/ Walid Shoebat Foundation] , an organization that claims to combat
anti-semitism .Inconsistencies and criticism
On February 8th, 2008 the New York Times published an article describing Muslim condemnation of the
United States Air Force Academy for hosting a presentation of 3 individuals, including Shoebat, on the subject of Islamic terrorism. The three were paid a total of $13,000, some of it by private donors, for their participation in a week-long conference on Islamic terrorism. Critics claimed that these three were actually Evangelical Christians pretending to be Ex-Muslims and former terrorists. The Times also reported that academic professors who had heard the men speak said some of their stories "border on the fantastic". Also questioned was how a middle-aged man could have been recruited for Islamic terror as a teenager when such things didn't become common until the 1980s.cite news | last = MacFarquhar | first = Neil | coauthors = | title = Speakers at Academy Said to Make False Claims | work = | pages = | language = | publisher =New York Times | date = 2008-02-07 | url = http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/07/us/07muslim.html?_r=1&sq=Walid%20Shoebat&st=nyt&oref=slogin&scp=1&pagewanted=print | accessdate = 2008-07-10]The
Jerusalem Post also disputed the authenticity of Shoebat's account of his terrorist history. According to the article, Shoebat claimed to have bombed the Bank Leumi, but that claim has been rejected both by Bank Leumi, which stated no such attack took place, and by relatives of Shoebat. The Post also reported that Shoebat was unable to pinpoint the date on which he had committed the attack. The article repeatedly refers to Shoebat's financial benefit from his claim of being an former terrorist, of having been Muslim, and now having rejected Islam for Christianity. While Shoebat claimed to have been pressured by teachers to adopt an extreme Islamic philosophy, and he and his classmates had been "indoctrinated as children to believe that the fires of hell were an ever-present reality" and that his only salvation was to "die in a martyrdom operation - to die for Islam", the Jerusalem Post article reveals that his uncle, who still lives in Bethlehem, recalled he received an ideologically "mild" education in which religion played little part. The article also reports that Shoebat's relatives share the name "Shoebat" despite his claim that it is an assumed name, that Shoebat has contradicted himself (telling the Post that he didn't know whether the Bank Leumi bombing was reported in the media despite stating four years earlier that it had been), that the Walid Shobat Foundation is not registered as a charity in Pennsylvania, as Shobat claimed it was (Shobat countered that it "was registered under a different name, but that he was not aware of the details, which are handled by his manager"), etc.cite news | last = Luyken | first = Jorg | coauthors = | title = The Palestinian 'terrorist' turned Zionist | work = | pages = | language = | publisher =Jerusalem Post | date = 2008-03-30 | url = http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1206632362598&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull | accessdate = 2008-07-10]
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