 Ex-PLO member Walid Shoebat on Fox News |
Walid Shoebat, the former PLO terrorist and member of the Muslim Brotherhood who now warns the free world of the impending threat from Islamic terrorism, has been denied entry into Canada for a speaking engagement at a Simon Wiesenthal Center.
Keith Davies, the director of the Walid Shoebat Foundation, told WND Shoebat is a well-known voice “speaking against radical Islam. Obviously they want to have his voice silenced.”
The rejection came yesterday from immigration officials at the Toronto airport, even though Shoebat was carrying with him letters showing his good standing with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security as well as an invitation letter from the Wiesenthal centers in Ottawa and Montreal, said Davies.
When he arrived at the Toronto airport, he was told he would not be allowed into Canada, and after waiting for several hours, flew back to the U.S., Davies said, even though Shoebat had been admitted to Canada just a few weeks earlier.
“What’s most ironic is that he was replaced by another speaker, who happens to be a Canadian citizen (by naturalization) who has admitted to killing (hundreds) of Arabs in gang warfare (during his youth),” Davies said.
That replacement speaker is Zachariah Anani, who often works with Shoebat, Davies said.
“Certainly it was a political move,” Davies said, citing a similar incident a few years back when Shoebat was to speak in Vancouver, but “active supporters of terrorism” wanted to have his voice stopped so they made complaints to the border police.
The official reasoning given for the travel permission denial, Davies said, was that Shoebat “might be a security risk.”
But Shoebat is the author of several books, a prominent speaker and has appeared on CNN, FOX News, NBC, CBS, and ABC. He has also been featured on the BBC.
Davies said Shoebat’s message is critical to today’s world. The majority of Americans probably can feel that something is wrong, he said, but remain in “denial” about the reason, because they don’t want to recognize that there’s a part of the world population that hates America.
“Americans need to know the terrorist mindset and understand why terrorists want to destroy the West,” Shoebat said in a commentary. “Disaster will surely come to America if she continues to misunderstand her enemies, because the ideologies of the Middle East are very different.”
He described how in his own youth he would attack Jewish security forces, endangering his own life, because he sought the death of a martyr. That’s what he was taught, he said.
Davies said different groups of people in the United States have different perspectives on taxes, abortion, the media and other issues.
“But we need to be united as a nation on the security and the defense and Western values of the free world,” he said. That’s a large part of Shoebat’s message, Davies said.
What American should be paying attention to is the problem of Islamic teachings in schools, in mosques and other places, to find the source of the radical Muslim teachings and training.
“We’re putting fires out. We’re catching terrorists but we’re ignoring the root cause of terrorism,” Davies said.
“We’re not addressing that, just like we’re choosing to say Islam is a peaceful religion when anyone with half a brain can see that’s not the case,” Davies said.
He also noted that just a few weeks ago, on Sept. 20, 2006, Shoebat was allowed to enter Canada, via ground transport, and was invited to speak on Canadian National TV.
During a previous appearance in Canada, he was a keynote speaker for the Asper Foundation in Winnipeg, officials said.
Walid’s grandfather was the Muslim mukhtar (chieftain) of Beit Sahour-Bethlehem and friend of Haj-Ammen Al-Husseni, the notorious friend of Adolf Hitler. As a young man, Walid joined the Palestinian Liberation Organization and pursued a terror campaign against Israel, for which he was jailed.
After his release, he continued pursuing violence by rioting in Bethlehem and the Temple Mount, and after his parents sent him to the United States for college, he worked for the Arab Student Organization at Loop College in Chicago.
It was in 1993 when he started studying the Tanach (the Jewish portion of the Holy Bible) in a challenge issued by his wife. He wanted her to convert to Islam and she challenged him to find any mistakes in the Bible. He soon became an advocate for the Jews and Israel, speaking to churches, synagogues, civic groups, government leaders and media.
He now lives in the U.S. with his wife and children, but uses an assumed name and keeps his location secret for protection.
He’s spoken at Harvard, Columbia, Concordia, UCLA, USC, the University of Georgia, Washington University, Penn State and others. Print media outlets worldwide have reported on his life’s work.
His new book, “Why I left Jihad,” is a look at the prophecy in the Tanach.
“Walid Shoebat’s commitment to the pursuit of truth and his courageous efforts to combat hatred are awe inspiring,” said Rabbi Paul Silton, of Temple Israel in Albany.
On his website, he notes that the Israeli Arab conflict isn’t about geography, but “Jew hatred; throughout the Islamic as well as Christendom’s history Jews have been persecuted, the persecution of Israel is just the same as the old anti-Semitism.”
The centers to which he was going in Canada are the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies, a Canadian human rights group.
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WND Staff