The audience that filled Shanklin 107 was not a typical Wesleyan crowd. Sitting in large clumps alongside students and faculty in the small auditorium were members of traditional Jewish communities from across Connecticut. In yarmulkes and dark suits, they stood out like sore thumbs on a campus known for its green-haired student body.
These pilgrims had ventured far out of their element to hear the testimony of Walid Shoebat, the “reformed terrorist.” Such a moniker is enough to pique the interest of any American in the post-9/11 world. But when used to describe a Palestinian, its effect on a Jewish audience is stronger than the pull of “sword eater” on a kid at a circus.
Shoebat’s performance was virtuosic, and rarer than the dying art of carnival. He was at Wesleyan to tell his life story–the tale of how he, a Palestinian Muslim by birth, converted to evangelical Christianity in 1993 at the age of 33, turned his back on a lifetime as a Palestinian revolutionary, and became an ardent supporter of Israel. Now Shoebat travels the world, speaking to audiences like this one.
At the end of his presentation, Shoebat, a middle-aged Arab man with a receding hairline and a mild Middle Eastern accent, welcomed questions from the audience. Some offered thanks, compliments, and gentle requests for elaboration. But Jeremy Zwelling sat sweating.
Zwelling, an associate professor of religion at Wesleyan since 1967, was troubled by the lecture. He wanted to challenge Shoebat’s implication that the Palestinian people were united in their hatred for the Jews, that they uniformly rejected peace and sought Israel’s destruction.
Yet he was hesitant: the audience had eaten up every word of Shoebat’s speech. Most affected were the visitors from off-campus, but it was clear that many of the Wesleyan students were transfixed as well. Here was an irrefutable source, impervious to accusations of bias or racism, exonerating them of responsibility for the terrible situation in the Middle East–and dumping it on the other side. Shoebat had confirmed the deeply-rooted Jewish communal fear of destruction–in this case at the hands of the Palestinians–while absolving the Jews from blame in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
So Zwelling kept quiet. As he explained later, he didn’t think he could confront Shoebat without the “crowd getting so hostile that it would be counterproductive.”
Whether or not Shoebat intended to create such a mood, he is talented at stirring up strong feelings. “I think his story is so compelling,” says George Washington University sophomore Sharona Getz, who helped bring Shoebat to her campus last spring, “that it would move people who don’t know about the situation to become involved.” And this ability to evoke intense support is the reason he has been asked to speak at over a dozen universities in the U.S. and Canada–this fall, he boasts invitations to Harvard and Princeton, among other schools. He has also made numerous other appearances around the world–on the radio, on television, and at the 2004 National Religious Broadcaster’s conference. Each time, Shoebat uses his unusual life story to position himself as an insider in possession of “the truth” about the conflict. His tale allows him to make statements more extreme than other speakers might risk, and lends him the authority to preempt pro-Palestinian protest. Shoebat then uses this pulpit to paint a picture of the conflict that is completely devoid of nuance.
On campuses, in front of Jewish groups, Shoebat speaks of his past and of Palestinian transgression. Conspicuously absent from his presentation is advocacy for a specific solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict–or any discussion of a solution at all. And for good reason: Shoebat is a Christian Zionist. As such, his views may not line up with what many pro-Israel students would like to see in Israel’s future. Christian evangelicals interpret the Bible literally, believing that it is God’s will that the land of Israel–as its borders are laid out in the Bible –rightfully belongs to the Jews. They also believe that the second coming of Christ will be possible only when Jews control this entire land. As a result, their support for Israel means support for an expansionist Israel, and they advocate the most hard-line of Israeli tactics and policies, donating millions of dollars for the construction of settlements deep in the West Bank and Gaza. They resist any suggestion of compromise with the Palestinians and staunchly oppose the creation of a Palestinian state.
As an evangelical Christian, Shoebat has a vision that goes beyond annexing the entire West Bank–a vision that he avoids mentioning to his Jewish audiences. In private, though, Shoebat explained that he believes there will be “a great battle at the end…the children of Ishmael versus the Jewish community. Christians believe [the Jews] will…recognize that Jesus is the Messiah in the end.” Then he added, “but that is beside the point, this is not my agenda in the universities.”
Todd Stock was a junior at Wesleyan when, as a member of Kol Israel, Wesleyan’s pro-Israel student group, he played an instrumental role in bringing Shoebat to campus. Stock says he was aware that Shoebat was a Christian Zionist when he arranged the lecture. “At the end of the day,” he said, “we have no problem with [Shoebat’s Christian Zionism] whatsoever. It’s totally fine with us…everybody has his own reason for supporting Israel.”
But other students who attended the lecture had no idea about Shoebat’s faith until they were told afterwards. And Christian Zionism itself is a touchy issue in the Jewish community. Many, like Stock, appreciate the movement’s support for Israel, regardless of its motives. But other Jews believe that evangelicals work toward ends–or more accurately, end-times – that are fundamentally anti-Semitic. Rabbi David Leipziger, Wesleyan’s Jewish chaplain, explains that “AIPAC loves evangelical Christians because to them, everyone who speaks up for Israel is an ally.” Leipziger is not so trusting: “Is there some kind of hidden agenda in the evangelical community,” he asks, “which is, yes, we will politically support Israel on [Capitol] Hill and we will side with AIPAC, but that’s only a short-term goal, because we want to make sure that there’s a second conversion of them?”
Shoebat does not consider it dishonest to avoid discussing these issues in his speeches on college campuses. “I’m a Christian Zionist,” he says. “I don’t hide this fact. I’m not going to hide who I am.” His faith “wasn’t the title of discussion. If they do want me to come and talk about my faith, I have no problem. I do, when I’m invited to speak on such a topic…I have to respect who’s bringing me over. If I’m being invited in a synagogue, do you think I’m going to be talking about my Christian faith? That would be offensive! I don’t want to offend these people.”
Keith Davies, an Irish Jew now living in Pennsylvania, is Shoebat’s agent and tour manager. Davies has no qualms about sending Shoebat to speak to Jewish groups without mentioning his Christian Zionism: all that matters, Davies says, is Shoebat’s willingness to speak for Israel. But Davies clearly feels that if attention is called to his evangelism, Shoebat’s credibility may suffer: immediately after I interviewed Shoebat and asked about his religious beliefs–particularly pressing him on details of his Christian Zionism–I received a call from Davies instructing me not to mention those
beliefs in this article. If I did, Davies warned, it would “hurt Israel.” And Davies is protective of his own image as well; upon being emailed the quotes to be attributed to him in this article, Davies replied, “This is a disgusting article and I will [not] have anything further to do with you.”
Because “Walid Shoebat” is an assumed name that he uses only for his headlines–Shoebat says he fears reprisals from his former Palestinian associates–it is difficult to corroborate the life story he tells. But the scant biographical evidence that had been found at press time (not provided directly or indirectly by Shoebat) does support his story. Many are skeptical of Shoebat’s tale, believing it fits too neatly with his current agenda, but there is no reason to believe that it is not the truth.
Shoebat was born in 1960 in Beit Sahour, a Palestinian town near Bethlehem in the West Bank. After his father, a Palestinian Muslim, married his mother, an American Christian, he forced her to convert to Islam and, according to Shoebat, held her captive for years. Shoebat’s grandfather was the Mukhtar, or village leader, of Beit Sahour. He was friendly with Haj Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem during the Second World War, and, Shoebat is quick to point out, a Nazi sympathizer.
In school, Shoebat says, hatred for the Jews was as much a part of the day’s lesson as math or reading. “The hatred towards the Jewish people, right from the beginning, was fed to us like milk,” he explains in his promotional video. As a youth, Shoebat took part in protests, most of which involved throwing rocks at Israeli soldiers. At fifteen, participation in a riot landed him in jail, where he was recruited by a member of Fatah, the militant wing of the Palestinian Liberation Organization. Once released, members of Fatah sent Shoebat to blow up the Bethlehem branch of the Israeli Bank Leumi, armed with a bomb stuffed in a loaf of bread. At the last minute, seeing a group of children at play, he lost heart and abandoned his mission, throwing the bomb on the roof of the bank instead of inside. He was relieved, he later said, when he learned he’d caused no injuries.
Shoebat left for the United States at 18 to study at Loop College, now called Harold Washington College, in Chicago. He remembers spending the bulk of his college years raising money for Palestinian revolutionary activity. One strategy, he recalls, was to hold fundraising events that were advertised differently in English and in Arabic: his English sign would promote a Middle Eastern food festival, for instance, while Arabic lettering would identify the same event as a benefit for “the cause.”
In 1993, Shoebat decided to convert Maria–his third wife and a Mexican Catholic–to Islam. In the process, he set out to show her, through readings of the Bible and the Koran, that Jews had corrupted the Bible, falsifying their ancient claim to the land of Israel. Reading the Bible changed his mind–and in the process, shook his faith in the belief system that he had embraced for his entire life. Shoebat threw himself into an investigation of the history and culture of Israel and the Jewish people, an inquiry which, according to an interview with Front Page Magazine, included viewing the film Fiddler on the Roof over 350 times. Through his research, Shoebat says, he discovered that it was not the Jews who were evil, but the Islamic fundamentalists.
Today, Shoebat is a member of an evangelical church in the Bay Area, where he lives. He is “vehemently against a Palestinian state.” Even his jokes indicate how distant he is from the world that he came from. Riffing on Tevye’s famous prayer for the Tsar, Shoebat says: “There’s a prayer for the Muslims. May God bless the Muslims, and keep Islamic fundamentalism far away from us.”
Shoebat holds–and preaches–nothing but contempt for the Palestinians and for his culture of origin. “You hear about the society he talks about, you hear about what their children are taught,” said Sharona Getz, who said she waas greatful for his insider perspective, “but it’s different to have someone who’s from there tell you.” Rabbi Leipziger was disturbed by Shoebat’s speech, noting that he “had nothing positive to say about his culture, his religion of origin…no memories of food, no memories of holidays, there were no memories of anything positive about his childhood, about growing up in Beit Sahour. And when he looked at America, and when he looked at Israel, these things seemed to be sort of perfect.”
Shoebat plays heavily on the memory of the Holocaust throughout his speeches, making implicit comparisons between Islamic fundamentalism and Nazism. His main focus, however, is on Arab anti-Semitism, which in his mind is the root of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Davies hopes that in demonstrating that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is really about Arab anti-Semitism, Shoebat will expose “the great lie” that undermines Israel’s efforts at survival. “[Shoebat’s] main objective is to educate people as to what the real problem is,” says Davies. “The real issue is not about geography, and it’s not about land. It’s about Jew hatred.” According to Davies, most American Jews think that “our enemies are looking for a piece of land to live side by side in peace and harmony with the Jewish people.” “The truth,” he explains, “is that they hate our guts so much, and they aren’t interested in a state, and they’re only interested in destroying the Jewish people and destroying Israel. That is the truth, and it’s been proven time and time again, every time we’ve tried to compromise. The Arab speakers that we have are willing to confirm this for us.”
Despite Davies’ belief that Shoebat is delivering the truth to Jews, many students think instead that Shoebat’s presentation is calculated to stroke the egos of Jewish Zionists, while uniting them in fear and hatred of Palestinians. Jacob Goldin, a freshman at Wesleyan when Shoebat visited the school, felt that “the biggest purpose of his speech was to make the people in attendance [Jews] feel good about themselves, and to take the blame for the situation off of them.”
Goldin, unlike Zwelling, did challenge Shoebat: he wanted to know why Shoebat would make what he had thought was a divisive speech. And he got the reaction Zwelling had feared. Afterwards, “there were a bunch of people from the audience that came up to me,” he said. “One person came up to me, a Holocaust survivor, and pointed to the tattoo, the numbers tattooed on his arm, and asked me if he knew what that was. He just went on a tirade about how everyone’s trying to destroy the Jews.”
Indeed, the idea that anti-Semitism is the root issue in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a powerful message for many American Jews. Beyond planting paranoia, Shoebat absolves Jews of responsibility for the Middle East’s problems. He paints them as victims, and any violence they commit as pure self-defense. In Shoebat’s version of Middle-Eastern history, anti-Semitism is a timeless constant that has now taken root in the heart of the Arab world. To Shoebat, the Israeli occupation has nothing to do with it.
This fall, Shoebat and Davies will spearhead a drive called the University Initiative, bringing pro-Israel Arab speakers to campuses across North America. In conjunction with a fledgling organization called Arabs for Israel, they will offer a series of six presentations to run over the course of six to nine months, that colleges can purchase for a fee of $13,500. Three of the sessions will be speeches by Arabs on behalf of Israel: on
e by Shoebat, one by Brigitte Gabriele, a Lebanese Christian, and one by Nonie Darwish, a Christian who was born a Muslim and raised in Gaza and Cairo. The remaining presentations will be screenings of documentaries about the occupied territories by Pierre Rehov, a French filmmaker. Rehov’s most well-known film, “The Road to Jenin,” was characterized by the New York Times as “a strongly pro-Israeli account that portrays Israeli soldiers as humane warriors who track down terrorists and try to spare civilians, while Palestinians possess a single-minded commitment to war.”
Shoebat says he brings his message to the universities as a response to the strong pro-Palestinian presence on campuses across the country. “There’s so much propaganda being pushed on students [by the pro-Palestinian movement],” he says. “[The Palestinians have] an agenda: that we will make Islamism palatable to a student audience in America to win the next generation.” He says that Islamists are trying to gain support on campus by presenting “the history of Islam as nothing but a wonderful, golden age.” And, he claims, their portrayal of Islam on campus does not reconcile with what he saw and learned in the territories as a child. “What’s being taught in the Middle East is not the peaceful form of Islam at all…Islamic history was not peaceful. Islamic history was filled with blood. The Islamic religion, by its founders, was filled with blood.”
For all of his railing against pro-Palestinian propaganda, Shoebat himself preaches a gospel of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that is utterly black and white. Shireen Tawil, an American with a Lebanese-Palestinian background and a 2004 graduate of Wesleyan, was struck by Shoebat’s analysis. “He presented the Palestinian-Israeli conflict as a religious war, Muslims vs. Jews, which is a very dangerous oversimplification,” said Tawil. “He presented all Palestinians as Muslim terrorists, never delving into what living under occupation is like, the human rights abuses that occur, the psychological effects of living under occupation, or anything of the sort.”
Tawil is not alone: though most campuses have embraced Shoebat, he has attracted his share of anger. Four days before his appearance last spring at George Washington University, law student Fadi Kiblawi published a column in the GW Hatchet, George Washington University’s student newspaper, calling Shoebat “a certified kook and a racist” and accusing the group that arranged his speech of supporting racism. Two days later, Getz was informed by the Student Activities Center that due to security concerns raised by the column, attendees would need tickets to be admitted to the lecture that she had helped organize. The tickets were then distributed during a three-hour window in a remote part of campus.
Getz says that in the end, no vocal representatives of pro-Palestinian groups made it to the presentation. While Shoebat received one angry question, most of the GW audience was enthusiastic about his speech, and Getz recalls that long after the session had ended, a crowd lingered around Shoebat’s podium, eager to hear more.
Davies believes that Shoebat is an important asset for Israel because he will give the country the edge it needs in what Davies refers to as “the Hazbrah [public relations] war.” He is particularly attached to Shoebat’s value as a headline grabber. “Writing letters to the newspapers complaining about the bias in the press is a fruitless and pointless task,” says Davies. “The only way that you can make a difference is to create headlines and to create news…Walid is an extraordinary person because he’s willing to speak out. He’s an extremely brilliant orator. He also has the credentials of a terrorist. Not that he’s proud of it, but it adds to his authenticity…[and] it adds a lot of headline value.”
But is it headline value that’s needed? The tone of much campus activism around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is dramatic and divisive. Pro-Palestinian groups stage “die-ins.” Pro-Israel groups hurl accusations of anti-Semitism. It is a volatile mix. And on campus, by virtue of his ironclad claim to the truth, Shoebat’s statements trump those of student groups–and even scholars–from either side. “It’s a really firsthand experience,” explains Getz. “No matter how much research someone has done, no matter how much of an expert they are, when you hear someone who’s from there, it’s a whole different ball game.”
Maneuvering his biography like a Trojan horse, Shoebat gains the ear of liberal Jews. And his status as a “reformed sinner” gives him credence in the eyes of his target audience, overriding other Palestinian perspectives. At the very least, he has the power to lull Jewish audiences into complacency, absolving them of the need to examine their own history and politics. Beyond that, his authority fosters support, if only by implication, for hard-line, expansionist Israeli policies–those that happen to best serve his current religious and political agenda.
Shoebat’s long-term impact on the Israeli-Palestinian campus debate remains to be seen. His lecture might become a long-running hit–or a flash in the pan. But judging from his recent performances, he will be playing to sold-out houses for quite a while.
