By Alyssa A. Lappen and Jerry Gordon
FrontPageMagazine.com | April 2, 2004
On Thursday March 25, former PLO terrorist Walid Shoebat mesmerized a Wesleyan University audience. Nearly 200 students, faculty and Connecticut residents cleared ironclad security and packed room 107 in Shanklin Hall: According to Wesleyan Public Security and the Middletown police, an email from the Bank of Bahrain had placed a $10 million price on Shoebat’s head.
The crowd took no comfort from the technical deficiencies of this particular Islamic threat: It arrived unaccompanied by a fatwa (religious ruling)—and unsigned by a Muslim sheikh. Concern for Shoebat’s safety was nevertheless palpable: His rejection of Islam, to which he was born, his avowal of Christian faith and his support for Israel, all make Shoebat a potential target of his own Muslim family and other Islamic radicals. Shoebat’s peril is all the greater for his intimate acquaintance with many PLO terrorists and their operations, in which he once willingly participated.
Turnout at Wesleyan was bolstered by Shoebat’s 30 minute interview that morning on Hartford’s WTIC news talk radio, an Infinity broadcasting affiliate. After Jim Vicevich featured Shoebat on Connecticut Today, WTIC’s switchboard lit up. Eager listeners swamped the station with calls, says producer Mike Constantino, who immediately invited Shoebat to return to the show.
Jerry Gordon conceived of Shoebat’s Wesleyan appearance after the university hosted a radical February 7 “training day,” co-sponsored by Students for a Free Palestine (SFP) and Al Awda. The latter group seeks Israel’s political destruction through a supposed Arab “right of return.” Gordon connected with Shoebat and Irish Jewish publicist Keith Davies through New York playwright Glyn O’Malley, whose one-act drama Paradise concerns Islamic suicide bombing and earlier earned him Muslim ire. After reading of Shoebat, O’Malley contacted and spoke at length with him. He then emailed Gordon, extolling Shoebat’s message. Gordon contacted Davies and obtained a preview DvD.
Gordon had learned of Wesleyan’s plan to host radicals on February 7 in an urgent February 1 email from New York Jewish activist Janet Lehr: over Tu B’shevat weekend—the Jewish Arbor Day—the university would feature an Al Awda “training day” anchored by the group’s anti-Semitic chief, Yale Medical School geneticist Mazin Qumsiyeh. Coincidentally, Shoebat grew up with Qumsiyeh in the village of Beit Sahour near Bethlehem. Their families are well acquainted. Qumsiyeh participated in terrorist activities as a teenager in the 1970’s, according to Shoebat. Continue reading “Former Terrorist Speaks”
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