For self-proclaimed "former terrorists" Walid Shoebat, Kamal Saleem and Zachariah Anani, all with a history of alleged blood and murder, nothing even close to legal action has ever been taken against them. On the contrary, the trio has, for the past few years, actively been appearing on TV shows across the nation, speaking at conferences and fund-raisers in churches and synagogues and openly proclaiming their so-called bloody past to anyone who is willing to listen.
As recently as last month, the three, whose stories are riddled with lies and inconsistencies according to critics, were invited by the prestigious United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, which held its annual conference on terrorism, to speak about the dangers of "Islamic terrorism." The appearance of these individuals drew the ire of Muslims and religious freedom organizations alike. The former were incensed by the fact that the speakers were notorious Islamophobes cashing in on the post-9/11 Islam-bashing industry, and the latter worried by the increasing presence of evangelicals in the armed forces.
"It’s a puzzle as to why the Air Force would invite these three Muslim bashers," said Ibrahim Hooper, communications director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations. "We see a history, unfortunately, of proselytizing for particular faith groups and this seems to have been part of that whole effort."
Maj. Brett Ashworth, a spokesman for the academy, told the New York Times that the three would be paid a total of $13,000 for their appearance, some of it from private donors. Ashworth justified the invitation saying "they offered a unique perspective from inside terrorism." The findings of the conference will be compiled into a report on methods to combat terrorism that will be sent to the Pentagon, members of Congress and other influential officials, he added.
A group that calls itself the Military Religious Freedom Foundation is suing the federal government for what it calls "creeping evangelism in the armed forces." The group accused the Air Force Academy of constantly inviting born-again Christians, rather than experts, to address cadets on terrorism.
"This stuff going on at the academy today is part of the endemic evangelical infiltration that continues," David Antoon, a 1970 academy graduate and a foundation member, told the Times.
On his own web site, (www.shoebat.com) Shoebat claims to have belonged to the Palestinian Liberation Organization early in his life and to have committed "acts of violence and terrorism against Israel." In his bio, Anani, who now resides in Canada, claimed to have joined a militant group in Beirut, Lebanon, when he was a teenager and boasted to have killed 223 people at a tender age, most of them with a dagger. Saleem claims to have been recruited by the Muslim Brotherhood when he was just 7 years old, and then later as a teenager to have joined the PLO.
However, to most, the trio’s stories seem more fiction than fact.
"You have three people who are openly claiming to be former terrorists," said Hooper. "I don’t think that in any other case, law enforcement officials would look at the word ‘former’ and excuse people. If these three people are indeed former terrorists, why aren’t they in jail or at the very least deported?"
The Times further reported that at least one professor who has heard the three men speak in the United States and Canada said that their stories sounded too fantastical, particularly Saleem’s account of how as a child, he infiltrated Israel to plant bombs via a network of tunnels underneath the Golan Heights. The professor asserted that no such incidents ever took place.
Other critics also question how three middle-aged men, who claim they were recruited as teenagers or younger, could have been steeped in the violent religious ideology that only became prevalent in the late 1980s.
Moreover, academics have also expressed doubt on the real agenda of the three.
Douglas Howard, a professor of the history of the modern Middle East at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Mich., heard Saleem speak last November. He said after the talk at the college, he was left with the impression that the three were connected to several major Christian evangelical organizations.
"It was just an old time gospel hour — ‘Jesus can change your life, he changed mine,’ " Howard said. "That is mixed in with ‘Watch out America, wake up America, the danger of Islam is here.’ "
In fact, experts in other countries have dismissed the trio’s accounts, as well
On Jan. 20, 2007, "The Windsor Star," a Canada-based newspaper broke a story about Anani under the headline "Doubt cast on Anani’s terrorist claims," in which Tom Quiggin, Canada’s only court-qualified expert on global jihadism, reportedly said that Anani’s tales of terror and murder just don’t add up.
"Mr. Anani’s not an individual who rates the slightest degree of credibility, based on the stories that he has told," said Quiggin. "To have Mr. Anani described as a terrorist grants an impact to his words that simply is not rated. Whatever else he may have been, he was not a Muslim terrorist in Lebanon in the early 1970s."
Anani, now an evangelical Christian, calls himself an expert on the topic because he claims to have killed 223 people in Allah’s name, "two-thirds of them by daggers." He even asserts to have killed a man for waking him up at 3 a.m. to pray.
"I was trained to fight and kill Jews, and to hate Christians and Americans," Anani has said in varying versions of his story.
According to the same report in the Star, Anani claimed to have been physically attacked, and his house and car burned in Windsor for speaking out against Islam. However Staff. Sgt. Ed McNorton said Windsor police did not have a record of physical attacks against Anani, and his house was not burned.
"It appears to be that Mr. Anani is nothing more than an extremist who is trying to create an imaginative history from a contemporary set of fears and stories," said Quiggin. "Mr. Anani’s myths that he has built up around himself lack validity on a number of key points."
So, if the stories are not true, then why make them up? It is all about money, say critics.
"Shoebat, author of ‘Why We Want to Kill You,’ has built a lucrative speaking career by manipulating the fears and whipping up hatred between Jews and Muslims and he claims to be a former Islamic terrorist who has converted to Christianity," reported Eileen Fleming, senior editor of the pro-peace web site WeAreWideAwake.org, on her blog.
Fleming said that she spoke with one of Shoebat’s many Palestinian American relatives, Kamal Younis.
Younis had checked his facts with other relatives and every one of them agreed that, "Walid’s entire biography is a manufactured fabrication. His handlers have taken one point and have twisted it and built up a fictional story."
His biography can be read at http://www.shoebat.com/bio.php.
Fleming went on to say that the biggest act of ‘terror’ Shoebat ever committed was to glue Palestinian flags on street posts. "But, when he was in jail he met someone who invited him to join a group against Israel," she said.
"In 1977, Walid and his friends put packages behind a bank, but there were no explosives in it."
Fleming pointed out that Shoebat’s relatives aren’t the only ones doubting his integrity, Reverend Alex Awad, president of the Council of Evangelical Churches in Palestine, has denied large portions of Shoebat’s spin also.
In a letter answering allegations made by Shoebat, Awad questioned Shoebat’s knowledge of Christianity and Christian leaders in Palestine. He also warned people not to jump on Shoebat’s bandwagon.
Many in the Muslim community seem to be well aware of the exact motives of the likes of Shoebat, Saleem and Anani.
They say that these are among an increasing number of Islam-bashers who seem to be motivated by what they term as the "bash-and-cash" industry created in a post 9/11 world.
"It is shameful that there are groups who feel vindicated in reinforcing anti-Muslim hate to their members by inviting such frauds," said Hussam Ayloush, executive director of the Greater Los Angeles-area chapter of CAIR.
"They assume, wrongly, that spiteful language about Islam from Arabs or ‘former Muslims’ will not project them as bigots or promoters of bigotry."
Muslim leaders say that they raised the question of why these individuals were not arrested and interrogated about their criminal past with many law enforcement officials, but never received any answers.
"We’ve asked this question on a number of occasions and in a number of venues," said Hooper. "But we have never gotten an adequate answer."
Editor’s Note: In response to the wide criticism it received on the appearances of Shoebat, Saleem and Anani, the Air Force Academy has invited three counter speakers to give their vision of Islam at a forum on terrorism. Mikey Weinstein, head of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, former U.S. ambassador to Niger Joe Wilson, and Reza Aslan, a research associate at the University of Southern California’s Center on Public Diplomacy will speak to cadets on April 9.
