By Janis Siegel, JTNews Correspondent
The location of his hotel reservation in Seattle was kept secret.
Because of alleged threats on his life, Walid Shoebat lives in the United States under an assumed name in an unknown location, but travels around the world talking about his conversion from the ideology of Palestinian terrorism to hard-line support for the State of Israel and the Jewish people.
Born in Bethlehem to a prominent and influential Palestinian family, his grandfather, a Muslim mukhtar or chieftain, and his great grandfather both had close ties with Haj-Ameen Al-Husseni, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem appointed by the British in 1921. Husseni’s great hatred for the West was eclipsed only by his hatred for the Jews.
The Seattle Kollel sponsored Shoebat’s visit to Seattle in early February to tell his incredible story twice in one evening: to the Jewish student community at the University of Washington Hillel and to the general community at the Seattle Downtown Waterfront Marriott Hotel. The events were co-sponsored by Hillel, Chabad, the UW club Huskies for Israel and Hasbara Fellowships.
At the Marriott, organizers reported a crowd of nearly 250 people, some who were lined up at the door to listen to the former terrorist. Shoebat had been a guest earlier in the week with local radio talk show hosts Michael Medved and Mike Siegel.
The audience of 130 that gathered in the Bridge Family Auditorium at Hillel were held spellbound by this religiously educated former enemy of the Jewish State who made the shift to preaching for its survival.
“Without confession there is no peace,” said Shoebat, who became a member of the Palestinian Liberation Organization as a young man. “Zionism equals Nazism. I grew up that way. I was a Palestinian terrorist.”
The software engineer-turned-Israel advocate provided historical and dramatic personal, first-hand accounts of paradigm-shifting events in the Middle East. His views about his own culture and religion are rarely heard in the media or in religious circles, because they are in direct contradiction to the hard-line positions taken by many extremist Islamic clergy outside and inside the U.S.
“I remember the Six-Day War as if it was yesterday,” said Shoebat. “We considered ourselves fully Jordanians. There was never a hint of us being Palestinian. But after the Six-Day War erupted, we considered ourselves, overnight, as Palestinians. The Palestinian Charter itself did not even include what the Israelis call Judea and the Palestinians call the West Bank. Those were never included in the Palestinian Charter before 1967.”
Shoebat would be counted among the hundreds of Palestinians who threw stones at rabbis from the Temple Mount. He helped start riots almost on a daily basis. He was eventually initiated into the PLO by carrying out a bombing at an Israeli bank. An error in the timing and planting of the explosive kept him from becoming a successful suicide bomber and a martyr.
In 1993, in an effort to convert his Christian wife to Islam, he began studying the Jewish Bible. Shoebat came to believe that everything he had been taught about the Jewish people were lies. It radically changed the course of his life.
“Not everyone agreed with his views,” said Rabbi Avrohom David, director of the Seattle Kollel, “but because it came from a Palestinian, they respected his views. In general, the reactions and responses were very positive.”
The event was open to the public. Hillel did have Seattle Police in place as a security measure, but there were no disruptions.
The only challenge to Shoebat’s remarks came during the question and answer period, when a Palestinian student questioned him about the Israeli fence and the death of Rachel Correy, an American protestor from Washington State killed by an Israeli tank while protesting in the territories.
Shoebat maintained a pro-Israeli stand.
Downtown Melanie Pollak, the capital campaign director for the Seattle Kollel said there were only a few people in attendance who were Palestinian or Arab.
“Only a handful of people identified themselves as such,” said Pollak. “I’d say there were about 50 people outside the [Jewish] community.”
According to Joey Katz, president of UW Huskies for Israel, he contacted many student religious organizations, including the Muslim Student Association, but there was no response.
“They were tabling alongside us so they knew about it,” said Katz, referring to information tables organizations set up in the Husky Union Building on campus. “As president of the UW Huskies for Israel, I have to reach out to different constituencies. I contacted all the Christian and Islamic organizations on campus as well as the College Republicans. Several Christians did come and I got several e-mails from them saying that they were glad that Shoebat ‘saw the light.’”
Hillel also believes it was fulfilling its mission to the university’s Jewish student community by hosting Shoebat.
“I think it’s really important to have a diversity of opinion about Israel,” said Rabbi Will Berkovitz, assistant director at Hillel. “Hillel is a pluralistic organization and the interest for this program came from the students.”
Shoebat has written several books that are available online, including Dear Muslim, Let Me Tell You Why I Believed and The World’s Mock Trial, where Shoebat reveals the intense hatred for the Jews that exists in the Islamic, Christian and secular world.
His new book, Why I Left Jihad, is due out in March 2005.
The Muslim Student Association was contacted for this story but was not available for comment.