Walid Shoebat

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For a shit apple that didn't fall far from this shit tree, see our article on Theodore Shoebat

Walid Shoebat (Arabic: وليد شعيبات) is an anti-Muslim activist and self-proclaimed "Former Muslim Brotherhood Member Now Peace Activist", ex-terrorist and terrorism expert. He's also a pretty obvious fraud and nutcase. Shoebat makes his living as a high-priced touring lecturer and co-author of sensationalist books such as The Case FOR Islamophobia: Jihad by the Word; America's Final Warning. He also pops up on Fox News a few times a year and runs the website shoebat.com which mixes his crazy crap with a few accurate reports of Christians being discriminated against or attacked by radicals or oppressive theocrats in Muslim countries.

He is also the father of Theodore Shoebat, whose batshit-insane-over-the-top preaching videos have been getting some attention on the web lately. Such colossal absurdities may provoke anger...or humor instead.

The Walid Shoebat story

Walid Shoebat was born to an American mother and Palestinian father. He was pushed into radical revolutionary Islam during his childhood. In his youth he joined the PLO and firebombed the Bank Leumi near Bethlehem Square. He was arrested, but not charged (since he was an American citizen by way of his mother's nationality, which allows you to commit felonies without repercussion, apparently). He moved to the USA, joined some radical Islamist groups in college, became a computer programmer, then a Christian, then a "peace activist" who charges $5000 a day to lecture people about how to be more suspicious of Muslims.

The real Walid Shoebat story

There are more than a few holes in Shoebat's back story, many discovered in an expose by the Jerusalem Post and a follow-up by CNN.

There is no record in the local news, the Israeli government or at the Bank Leumi of a bombing attempt in the time period which Shoebat claimed to have made his attack.

Walid's website claims Walid is an American citizen and lives in the USA with his wife and children, under this assumed name.. But he also claims to be related to deceased terrorists Arin Ahmed Shoebat and Raed Khaleel Awadallah Shoebat (Shu’aybat). The Jerusalem Post was able to track down Walid's uncle in Beit Sahur, who said that his nephew was never a Muslim radical, much less a terrorist bomber. This is different from the expected response of "Who the fuck is Walid?" that one would get when inquiring about an ex-pat with an "assumed name".

But why? Why would someone do this?

Walid has plenty of reason to make up a terrorist past because the "testimonial of delivery" is something of an art form among conservative Christians. Like Mike Warnke, Lauren Stratford and John Todd in previous decades, Shoebat made a career from a particularly scandalous and phony story of moving from involvement with horrible criminals to a life dedicated to Jesus and America. Though Shoebat's mid-level terrorist organization is more plausible than Warnke's tale of a multinational Satanic super-conspiracy, it is just the same song and dance routine reheated for the post 9/11 audience.

Of course, this guy is a birther

Unsurprisingly Walid Shoebat makes weird, off-topic criticisms of Barack Obama at any opportunity. Along with the normal chaff and PRATT talking-points you hear from birthers, Walid has some gems like "No one is called Hussein unless he is Muslim. So it is very clear that Barack Hussein Obama is definitely a Muslim."

Because that's totally how reality and names work. You'd think someone named "Walid" would know better than to make statements like that.

The wacky wild world of Walid's words

• He accused Glenn Beck and David Barton of attempting to bring about "Islamo-Mormon deistic universalism" because Islam and the Church of Latter Day Saints are basically two sides of the same coin.

• The reality is that Buddhism is just as violent, just as tyrannical, just as dangerous, and just as demonic, as Islam. Anyone who thinks otherwise is dictated by the now and the present, and not by prudence. The reason why Buddhists have, for a long time now, given an aura of peace, is because Buddhism is not in a position of power from which to commence violence and war. Buddhism has the concept of the use of false peace to deceive one's enemy, just as in Islam there is the use of false peace, or hudna (temporary truce), in order to trick the opponent to buy time and regain strength.

• He believes that the 9/11 attacks could have been stopped if the TSA looked for "zabibah", a sort of small callus on the forehead caused by repeated prostration, despite the fact that the zabibah is sort of rare and the TSA wasn't founded until a month after the 9/11 attack. Whoops!

• In spite of his usual anti-Muslim bigotry, Shoebat believes the 2016 Brussels attacks were deserved due to people in the city criticizing Donald Trump for calling the city a hellhole. He also refused to condemn the Charlie Hebdo attacks due to Charlie Hebdo insulting the Virgin Mary and he praised 'the Muslim world' for both attacks. Because violent extremism is okay when it's on your side of an issue.

• In the aftermath of the Orlando Shooting, Walid seemed to be ambiguous over the fact that more people died than in any other mass shooting and refused to offer sympathy for the people murdered, due to their sexuality, saying 'The only ones moaning over fifty gays slaughtered are liberals, idiots and gay lovers', as well as 'I don’t care about gays who are Muslim loving anti-gun liberals. Stupid people who hate life die. Stupid people who hate life always die'. Really sounds like a "counter terrorism" expert doesn't it?

• Walid is a proud Islamophobe and homophobe and was ecstatic about the fact that his website was voted as one of the 33 most Islamophobic websites on the Internet as well as the third most homophobic website, even extending his thanks to the LGBT community.

• Walid believes the zika virus is God's punishment for promiscuity. The justice of punishing innocent children born disabled due to zika before they are old enough to have any kind of sex is unclear.

• The world will 100% end on the 31st of October 2016. Spoiler alert: it didn't.

Like father, like crank

See the main article on this topic: Theodore Shoebat

Shoebat's son, Theodore, takes his father's bigotry and turns the knob up to 11. The most common theme of his vlogs is that the non-Christians and Christians he disagrees with should all be put to death. Some of his gems include:

• Jesus would personally beat homosexuals to death.
• The hope that Donald Trump would turn the US into a "Christian Supremacist" society and execute Muslims.
• Those killed in the November, 2015 Bataclan Massacre deserved to die for being Satanists.
• Every employee of Chick-fil-A deserves to be burned at the stake. This came after the fried chicken chain walked back on some of the anti-gay marriage stances of its owner and sponsored an LGBT film festival.
• Theo calls himself a "proud fascist" and admires Francisco Franco.
• He openly opposes democracy and calls for the establishment of a global Christian superstate with an "inquisition" to put gays to death.

Several anti-gay Christian wingnuts (like Matt Barber and Peter LaBarbera) condemned Theodore's statements as too over the top, even for them (these were guys who advocated for and helped write Uganda's anti-gay death penalty laws). Walid defended his son by stating that it was actually Jesus who destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, and therefore his son was correct in stating that Jesus would personally beat homosexuals to death, if given the chance. Walid also called LaBarbera a "filthy pig" and a "traitor".