Walid Shoebat (, born 1960) is a Palestinian American speaker, author and a critic of Islam. He was born in the West Bank to an American mother, and converted to Christianity from Islam. Shoebat has claimed to be an ex-PLO terrorist in a CNN television interview.
Early life
According to the biography on his official website, Shoebat was born in Bethlehem, the grandson of the Mukhtar of Beit Sahour, whom Shoebat describes as an associate of Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Mohammad Amin al-Husayni. Shoebat said that he joined the Palestine Liberation Organization in his youth, and also says he was involved in an attack against an Israeli bank. There was no evidence for Shoebat's claims when investigated by journalists. Shortly afterwards Shoebat worked as a software engineer and became a US citizen. Shoebat says he converted to Christianity in 1993.
Showbat was a frequent, if controversial, public speaker on terrorism and Islam in the 2000s.
Shoebat has been introduced as a terrorism expert on several television programs, including appearances on CNN and its sister network HLN in 2006 and 2007. However, CNN points out that Shoebat makes errors in his presentation, including his assertion that the Transportation Security Administration could have prevented the September 11 attacks, even though the TSA was not created until after the attacks. According to The Washington Post, "When Shoebat spoke to the first annual South Dakota Fusion Center Conference in Sioux Falls ... he told them to monitor Muslim student groups and local mosques and, if possible, tap their phones. 'You can find out a lot of information that way,' he said."
Criticism
On April 9, 2008, Shoebat responded to the earlier Jerusalem Posts report on that paper's op-ed page. He wrote that the Jerusalem Post had been duped. According to him, the sources who disputed his own account of his upbringing (including his relatives) were themselves involved in terrorism. He said they want to see him discredited, probably because of his conversion to Christianity. He also states that reputable witnesses who could confirm the bombing operation of Bank Leumi were not interviewed.
On July 13, 2011, CNN's Anderson Cooper 360° reported an investigative piece into Walid Shoebat's claim to authority based on being a former terrorist. The report found that according to Israeli government officials, the bank that Walid Shoebat claimed to have attacked, and his own relatives, no record of his supposed terrorist history existed. Another of Shoebat's claims, that of a two-week term in an Israeli jail, was also unsubstantiated, with Israel having no record he was ever jailed. His cousin, interviewed in the report, stated that he had never known Shoebat to have ties to any movement, and that his claims of being a former terrorist were "for his own personal reasons". According to CNN, their reporters in the United States, Israel and the Palestinian territories found no evidence to support Shoebat's claims and "neither Shoebat nor his business partner provided any proof of Shoebat's involvement in terrorism". The article also reports that skeptics have questioned how Shoebat and others have been able to retain US citizenship if their stories of terrorist activities are true.
See also
- Criticism of Islam
- List of former Muslims