EASTERN MICHIGAN UNIVERSITY_
Tickets
To purchase tickets
call 734.487.2282, go to the EMU
Convocation Center Ticket Office
or purchase online at
m p uslife.
www .emich.edu/ca
Group discounts available.
Monday, Sept. 26
8 p.m., EMU Convocation Center
$15 and up, general public
My Chemical Romance
Former terrorist skeptical that Muslim hard-liners
will settle for peace.
Saturday, Sept. 17
730 p.m., EMU Convocation Center
Nickel Creek Saturday, Oct. 22
7 p.m., EMU Convocation Center
DON COHEN
Special to the Jewish News
•
Kinsey Sic s
Friday, Sept. 30
8 p.m., EMU Convocation Center
$32.50 and up, general public
ffleriCO'S FUVOrite
Quartet
DrOgOpella
Sunday, Oct. 9
7 p.m., Pease Auditor Um
$12 and up, general public
R
Co- sponsored
c:
by m U Hillel
Saturday, Oct. 1
8 p.m., Pease Auditorium
$2t5h and up, general public
An Evening wi
Lily Tomlin
Peace Pessimist
Wednesday, Nov. 9
7 p.m., Pease Auditoiium
$12 and up, general public
Morgan Spurlock
"Su ersize Me"
With New Products & Higher Quality
0
nce a Jew-hating, Israel-hating
Palestinian Muslim terrorist,
Walid Shoebat told more than
250 people at the Jewish Community
Center in West Bloomfield on Sept.
11 how and why be became a Jew-lov-
ing, Israel-loving, Palestinian Christian
activist.
Though his personal story is one of
optimism, Shoebat is decidedly pes-
simistic about the chances for peace in
the region. At the core of his pes-
simism are his experiences growing up
as a Palestinian
Muslim in
Bethlehem.
Shoebat spoke
about how much
his family and
community hates
Jews and now
hates him. He
told how his
Shoebat
father cursed the
Jewish doctor
who saved his
life and how a friend never wanted to
be reminded that a Jew had saved him
from drowning.
A cousin was killed. attacking Jews
and Shoebat himself bombed an Israeli
bank and ambushed and almost killed
an Israeli soldier.
"Why did he have to die?" asked
Shoebat, about his cousin. "The great-
est victim of Islamic fundamentalism
is not Jews and Christians; it is
Muslims. They are the ones that killed
first.
He sang a song from his childhood,
declaring 'Arabs are beloved, Jews are
dogs," and another asking God to turn
bones into weapons and bodies into
bombs.
He criticized the Palestinian national
anthem, " Biladi" (My Land), for the
words, "Palestine is my land, Palestine
is my vengeance."
"What is that about?" he asked,
knowingly.
He contrasted these by singing parts
of "Shalom Aleichem: (Peace Be Upon
You) and "Lo Yisa Goy," urging all
nations to study war no more," say-
ing how he looked for Israeli songs
"
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with the words "kill" and "war" and
could only find songs of peace.
"Every aspect of our [Palestinian]
society — going to school, going to
the mosque, going to the Temple
Mount or going to Jerusalem — is
connected to hatred of Jews," Shoebat
said, adding, "Something is wrong
with our way of thinking. Something
is sick. Don't compare us with you.
"You watch videos of bar mitzvahs;
we watch videos of the martyrdom of
our family members. You value life; we
value martyrdom.
He told about being taught a mes-
sianic vision where Muslims slaugh-
tered Jews and the rocks cried out to
Muslims to murder the Jews hiding
behind them.
"I don't want to criticize Islam; I
only want to criticize the Islam I was
taught," Shoebat explained. "I have
been told that Islam was hijacked and
I want to agree because I don't want a
violent Islam."
Shoebat is sensitive but unbowed by
charges that he, as a Zionist and as a
Muslim convert to evangelical
Christianity, is anti-Muslim.
"Islamic fundamentalism is like
Nazism with a religious twist on it,"
Shoebat charged. "It's very sensitive
because if you criticize it you are said
to be criticizing Islam. But it's not a
problem with Muslims; it's the jihad
philosophy which is the problem."
"Why the silence?" Shoebat asked
the largely Jewish audience. Answering
himself, he said, "I don't want to
offend their enemies and stand up for
their rights."
"Everyone wants to be left wing, he
said, but it take two wings to fly."
"Some Jews are concerned that I
would try to convert Jews," Shoebat
continued. "I proselytize. I proselytize.
I do. I convert Christians to love Jews.
I convert the media to love Israel."
The first question he usually gets
from a Jewish audience is, "What is
the solution?"
"What is important to know," he
responds, "is that anti-Semitism is still
alive and well all over the world. To
escape it, the victim went and hid in
his home, and now everyone wants to
go into the victim's house and kick
him out.
"