A Terrorist Sees the Light

Walid Shoebat is an alias for a man who's changed careers:

[H]e was a terrorist, Shoebat said. He and friends tried to lynch an Israeli soldier. Once he was recruited to carry a bomb to destroy a Jewish bank and should have died when it exploded. His life was spared because he disobeyed his instructions, Shoebat said, explaining that he had seen Palestinian children playing in front of the institution and didn't want to harm them. Instead of putting the bomb in a wastebasket at the bank's entrance, as he had been ordered, he put it on the roof.

"It exploded at 6 p.m. exactly," Shoebat said, explaining that he had been told not to part with the bomb until that time.

As a college student in Chicago, he surreptitiously raised funds for the Palestinian Liberation Organization.

Shoebat's story is incredible. A Palestinian who came to America, he's become an evangelical Christian who speaks passionately on behalf of Israel and the Jewish people in the United States and Europe. The California resident was interviewed by the St. Petersburg, Florida Neighborhood Times hours before speaking at a Jewish synagogue in St. Petersburg (accompanied by "four Pinellas County sheriff's deputies for the evening, two in plain clothes and two in uniform."):

His goal is to fight anti-Semitism, "the second oldest profession," Shoebat said during an interview.

Asked to explain his motivation, he offered an analogy.

"First of all, a person who comes out of drugs is motivated by two reasons. One, his anger at the drug pushers. Second, he doesn't want to see his kids go through it. He sees all kids like his own kids. I saw my cousin get killed by the Israelis. It took me years to realize that it wasn't the Israelis who killed him. It was the hate pushers. It was the mosques in the local community over there," the father of two said.

Shoebat said it is important to reach out to universities, which harbor leftist and pro-terror groups.

"The universities are infested. We need to watch out for our universities. We need to strengthen the Christian communities and the Jewish communities to keep this country strong," he said.

"We have a lot of elements coming to this country via student visas, via immigration. I am not against Muslims coming to this country, but I'm against bringing students and immigrants from countries that harbor terrorism."

Though he is sounding an alarm, Shoebat said Americans should not become paranoid or Islamophobic.

"We need to be aware of how to identify the Islamist from a Muslim who really just wants to do his five daily prayers, do his good deeds once a year and bury his dead in the Muslim graveyard and eat Muslim Hallal (meat prepared in accordance with Muslim law)," he said.

On the other hand, Shoebat said, "Many of the jihadists are here. We need to look at the cultural centers. If you have a Muslim cultural center, if the community got together and built it together, most of the time it's okay. But if it has been funded by Wahabi from Saudi Arabia, then there's an Arabic proverb that says, You don't bite the hand that feeds you. I think it's an American proverb as well. . . . If it's a Muslim cultural center, track the money."

Shoebat, who would say only that he is in his mid 40s, was born near Bethlehem. His father is an Arab Muslim and his mother an American Christian. His parents met in the United States. His mother verbally converted to Islam "because she was in love," Shoebat said . . .

His change of heart came with his marriage to a Mexican-American woman. He tried unsuccessfully to convert his Catholic wife, but ended up studying the Bible instead. Today they are both evangelical Christians.

His Shoebat Foundation works to recruit other Arab speakers on behalf of Israel, he said.

"It's time that Arabs stand up and speak against anti-Semitism. It's time that Arab-Americans stand up and be good citizens of this nation and say, 'You know what? We hate anti-Semitism. We're not against Israel.' It's time that we carry out what we said in Oslo when we said we recognize Israel's right to exist, literally, not just by talking," Shoebat said.

It's good to know the Bible and one Christian woman can overpower 72 virgins.

(via Rightpundit)