Chasing Evil: Judge for Yourself

Friday, March 16, 2007

Judge for Yourself - a Fake?

We have seen thousands of fully legitimate Muslim political and religious leaders condemn terrorism, and call for an end to violence.

It's great when Muslim leaders call for reform in the extremist segment, condemn the extremists' violence, and clearly state that the violence, the terrorism, is not true to Islam. If anything, it is based on a perverted interpretation of Islam, and is condemned as such.

But in order to reach out and inform people about the evils of Islamist extremists, there must be some legitimacy to the person giving the lesson, making the speech, writing the column, etc. When that same person turns to condemning all of Islam, then their legitimacy must be scrutinized to see if they really believe what they are saying, or if there is another reason, some other not-so-pure motivation, to their condemnations.

We've seen phony "former terrorists" calling for changes in the religion of Islam, traveling around the country in a college campus tour. (Okay, first clue: "former terrorists" flying from one location to another to give speeches.) These particular phonies were paid by the Walid Shoebat Foundation, which identifies itself as a Christian Zionist Organization.

We know now that this "former terrorist" (meaning he's the only one who gives himself that title), maintains his own website at www.shoebat.com . We know he is a contributing writer for townhall.com, where he tells us all about "evil Islam" based on his experience as a "former terrorist".

On his website, there is an interesting note on the page where he asks for donations saying they will show up on credit cards as "Top Executive Media", (it says this is for security reasons). This seemed odd enough that I did some research.

It turns out that Shoebat's website claims to have been designed by "Top Executive Media", and the WhoIs registry shows that the website is actually owned by Top Executive Media, using the domain name of Top Executive Greetings, at an address of a company called Top Executive Greetings. Top Executive Greetings is a small greeting card company out of Newton, Pennsylvania, founded and owned by Keith Davies. There is, in fact, no "Top Executive Media", according to the Pennsylvania Secretary of State's Office.

So what is the connection here between Walid Shoebat and Keith Davies? We know that Shoebat has a "highly questionable" background, and has admitted to not using his real name as he travels around the country, picking up a small mountain of cash at speaking engagements, through his writing books and columns, where he tells us how Islam is evil, and how he was a big, bad former terrorist. Yet he freely flies around the country, not being on anyone's watchlist or the no-fly list. (Picking up on this yet?) In September 2003, the Consolidated Terrorist Watchlist (informally known as the TIPOFF list) went online, combining (but not replacing, as individual agencies are allowed to still maintain their own classified lists) the 12 terrorist, ex-terrorist, suspected terrorist, potential terrorist, active felony warrants, Consular watchlist, and Interpol flagged watch lists into one massive database maintained by the new Terrorist Screening Center, under the authority of the FBI. The new list is used by a number of federal and state agencies, including the Transportation and Security Agency, and Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, which screen passengers at airports. See: http://www.usdoj.gov/oig/reports/FBI/a0527/chapter3.htm

Why is Shoebat's website designed and owned by Davies? Why are donations to the Walid Shoebat Foundation showing up as "Top Executive Media?" (BTW, that's called "money laundering".) Why is there no record of any "Walid Shoebat Foundation" in the IRS database of non-profit organizations?

Judge for yourself. Here is a photo of Shoebat from 2006, here is a photo of Davies from 2002. Some hair dye, a suntan, and an amazing resemblance? Separated at birth? Brothers? Twins? The same person?

Aside from this, what is Shoebat's/Davies' motivation? Remember the account of Armagedonites, who are extremist evangelical Christians actively seeking to bring about the battle of Armagedon through nuclear war in the Middle East? It seems one of Shoebat's motivations is that he is an Armagedonite.

As an evangelical Christian, Shoebat has a vision that goes beyond annexing the entire West Bank–a vision that he avoids mentioning to his Jewish audiences. In private, though, Shoebat explained that he believes there will be “a great battle at the end…the children of Ishmael versus the Jewish community. Christians believe [the Jews] will…recognize that Jesus is the Messiah in the end.” Then he added, “but that is beside the point, this is not my agenda in the universities.”

Many Jews believe that evangelicals work toward ends–or more accurately, end-times – that are fundamentally anti-Semitic. Rabbi David Leipziger, Wesleyan’s Jewish chaplain, explains that “AIPAC loves evangelical Christians because to them, everyone who speaks up for Israel is an ally.” Leipziger is not so trusting: “Is there some kind of hidden agenda in the evangelical community,” he asks, “which is, yes, we will politically support Israel on [Capitol] Hill and we will side with AIPAC, but that’s only a short-term goal, because we want to make sure that there’s a second conversion of them?” (Armagedonites believe that at the battle of Armegedon, all Jews will convert to Christianity.)

Why does Shoebat not reveal this in his public speeches? Shoebat does not consider it dishonest to avoid discussing these issues in his speeches on college campuses. “I’m a Christian Zionist,” he says. “I don’t hide this fact. I’m not going to hide who I am.” His faith “wasn’t the title of discussion. If they do want me to come and talk about my faith, I have no problem. I do, when I’m invited to speak on such a topic…I have to respect who’s bringing me over. If I’m being invited in a synagogue, do you think I’m going to be talking about my Christian faith? That would be offensive! I don’t want to offend these people.”

An important note: There is a major difference between Christians who are Zionists, supporting the modern state of Israel (I myself am one); and those who call themselves "Christian Zionists" but who are in reality Armagedonites (also known as Christian Identity and numerous other terms.)

I contacted Davies, who claims to be an Irish Jew living in Pennsylvania and acting as Shoebat's tour manager and agent. (Shoebat receives $13,500 at each speaking engagement.) Davies claims that if Shoebat's Christian Armagedonite agenda is mentioned, it would immediately hurt his credibility. Davies admits that Shoebat is a very effective "anti-Muslim propaganda tool." Then Davies asked me not to repeat anything he said, claiming it would be "destructive for the US and Israel."

So what is Shoebat's motive? Money? Fraud? War profiteering? Bringing about the conversion of Jews to Christianity? One motive that is glaringly absent is Truth. You be the judge.