  Walid
Shoebat Speaks at Rambam Mesivta
“Don’t give back an inch of land.” “It’s
not about land.” “The Moslems killed
you in Hebron before there was a State of Israel
and you were always accorded inferior status in Moslem
society throughout the ages.” Are these the
words of a Kahane Chai activist??? No! These were
the admonitions of Walid Shoebat, a former member
of the P.L.O. who “reformed” about a
decade ago.
Shoebat, who admitted to being an active participant
in the Palestinian uprising in late 1980’s
early 1990’s, told students at the Mesivta
that he was brought up and blinded by hate. His father
told him that Jews were monkeys, prophet killers,
and that they “dipped their matzos in the blood
of Arabs.”
“I
did not have the luxury of learning in the proper
way,” he said plainly. Shoebat sang a song
that he was taught as a young child to demonstrate
the hate-filled education he and his fellow Palestinians
have been taught. “Sharpen my bones, make
me a Molotov cocktail,” went a lyric to
one of the children’s favorites.
 He mentioned many myths that the Palestinian people
are being taught including the falsehood that the
Palestinians are the original Philistines. “Myth
is being taught as fact,” he said. He compared
the education of the Palestinian youth to that of
the education of Nazi youth in Hitler’s Germany.
“Nazism is being given a rebirth but it is
worse today because it’s being taught in the
context of religion - Islamic fundamentalism.”
He shared details of his life as a young man, when
he was a terrorist fully devoted to the destruction
of Jews.
“We proudly reveled in the death of Jews,” he
told the awestruck crowd. “It was a holy thing.” Graffiti
became his specialty, he related, and he endeavored
to fill every empty space with hateful propaganda
against Israelis. “We knock on the gates
of heaven with the skulls of the Jews,” was
one slogan that he proudly scrawled as a young man.
“This is why I must pay the debt,” he
said humbly “And I must pay it in full.”
Shoebat boldly offered advice to the students. He
recommended that they be more pro-active in the media,
to tell their story loudly in the press.
“Why is your story so perfect, I have asked
myself? Yet it is not being told. Why is the Jew
always silent? Why are you silent, O Jew?”
“Why did you not raise your voices in protest
when the Palestinians destroyed Joseph’s Tomb
and desecrated your holy Torah scrolls? Imagine if
the Jews kicked the Arabs out of a holy site and
took it over for themselves- you know what would
have happened!”
Shoebat who characterized himself as an anomaly
said the Moslems want to kill him while Jews are
ambivalent towards him, feels very much alone. However,
he says he has “an obligation to speak the
truth and let the world know what they Palestinians
are all about and what their agenda is.” His
solution to the current Mid-East crisis is to resettle
all of the Arabs in Arab countries because “then
all Israel is a Jewish Land.” He said that
growing up he never even remembers hearing about “Palestine” rather
he was raised as a proud Jordanian Arab. It was only
later when the media took up the cause of Yassar
Arafat did the Palestinian movement gain legitimacy
in the eyes of the world. “Arafat is not even
a Palestinian – he’s an Egyptian.”
He said that the world’s media has been engaged
in deception on these issues.
“Mediocre minds are no match for professional
deception. The media has totally, professionally
deceived the world.”
“I too was brought up on lies,” he said.
He recalled that during the Six Day War his father
told him that all the Jews were killed and none were
left in Israel. “I awoke the next morning to
see two tanks with the Magen David outside my house.
People can learn to reject the lies they were taught
and change their ways. That is the only hope.”
Rambam's Rosh Mesivta Rabbi Friedman said, “We
cannot condone Walid Shoebat’s past. Nor does
he. But he has a very important message for the U.S.
government and Americans in general. When Jews speak
about Arab hate, people think we are biased, but
when Walid, who lived it and saw it first hand, exposes
the Palestinians for what they are, people stop and
take notice. We thank Rabbi Pesach Lerner and the
National Council of Young Israel for helping us coordinate
this event.”
Plans are under way to have Shoebat speak before
a congressional panel in an effort to cut off funds
to the Palestinian Authority.
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