March 26, 2004
CBN

Walid Shoebat was once a Palestinian Muslim terrorist, but his spiritual journey led him to become a Christian and a supporter of Israel. Shoebat grew up near Bethlehem, and was recruited by Yassar Arafat's faction. He once was given a bomb on Jerusalem's Temple Mount, to explode in a Bethlehem bank. Shoebat said, that for Palestinian Muslims like himself, the hatred of Jews starts from birth, and he said it has a Nazi parallel that cannot be imagined by people living in free societies. In part one of this two part interview, Pat Robertson recently spoke with Shoebat to discuss his incredible testimony.


ROBERTSON: What did you believe about Islam? What does Islam teach? We've been told by our President that Islam is a peaceful religion, and there are people around who think that the Jihadists, the followers of Osama bin Laden, that these are the bad guys, but the real good Muslims don't believe any of that. Is that true?

SHOEBAT: Well, to some point it is true. There are peaceful Muslims. The Afghan community in America basically are peaceful Muslims. They run away from the Islamists. But generally speaking, I think Islam is not a peaceful religion, it's my point of view, because there are peaceful verses in the Koran, and there are peaceful hadiths [oral Moslem traditional legends], but the verse of the sword has made null and void all the peaceful verses, according to most of the Islamic jurisprudence.

ROBERTSON: You read them in Arabic? You know . . . .

SHOEBAT: I memorized most of the Koran.

ROBERTSON: You memorized - most of the Koran you memorized?

SHOEBAT: Yes, sir. Yes, sir.

ROBERTSON: Good grief.

SHOEBAT: It was mandatory that we memorize Koranic memorization. You have to understand, we lived in Jerusalem and Bethlehem. This is a hub for Islamic fundamentalism. My Father was an educator in Islam, my uncles, my family.

ROBERTSON: How many verses are there declaring jihad by the sword?

SHOEBAT: There are many, many verses that declare jihad by the sword. It's just all over.

ROBERTSON: A hundred? More than a hundred?

SHOEBAT: The Hadith alone has over a hundred hadiths regarding the sword.

ROBERTSON: What happens if somebody is a Muslim, and he decides he doesn't want to be a Muslim anymore, he converts to another religion or he forsakes the faith? What happens to him?

SHOEBAT: The punishment is death by beheading.

ROBERTSON: Death by beheading?

SHOEBAT: Yes, sir.

ROBERTSON: That's it?

SHOEBAT: That's it.

ROBERTSON: There is no reprieve?

SHOEBAT: That's it. No reprieve. As a matter of fact, if you see scriptures now it says, "And I saw the martyrs who were beheaded in the name of Jesus." And I believe this is talking about what the Islamic fundamentalists will do to Christians.

ROBERTSON: Well, what about this business about jihad being an inner experience? It's a struggle against the warfare in your soul. Does any of that appear in the Koran?

SHOEBAT: Well, over 100 hadiths was jihad by the sword. And when the jihad was all completed and the prophet rested, then he said, "Now I retreat to the jihad of the self." So it was after the combats were over.

ROBERTSON: After the combat is over. And that's for Saudi Arabia. He's going to rest back in the desert. But that's not for the rest of the people.

SHOEBAT: No.

ROBERTSON: Well, what about the West? We live in a free society, democratic. Does this Muslim incursion against us - is there truly a war, in your opinion, between the forces of Islam and the forces of - we say Judeo Christian or democracy?

SHOEBAT: Yes. The war has already begun. We should treat it like Pearl Harbor. We've been attacked on September 11th, and Christians are being killed all over the place. Let's not forget Sudan. There were over one million Christians butchered.

ROBERTSON: Yes.

SHOEBAT: Butchering of Christians has been increasing more than any other time in history. The war is on. It is obvious. Just turn on the TV. The problem is that the media does not show us all the events of what goes on. And thank God for your program that you show all these things.

ROBERTSON: What's the end game? If the Islamic people had their way, what would they want?

SHOEBAT: They want the Saturday people first and the Sunday people next. And that's what they preach in all demonstrations.

ROBERTSON: Saturday - the Saturday is the Jews, Sunday is the Christians.

SHOEBAT: That's right. And that's what . . . .

ROBERTSON: They want them all?

SHOEBAT: They want them all.

ROBERTSON: All killed?

SHOEBAT: All killed. That's why you have to understand their eschatology. It states the day of judgment shall not come to pass until the tribes of Islam defeat the tribes of Israel, in Jerusalem and the surrounding nations. And every tree will cry out, every stone will cry out, "There is a Jew hiding behind me. Come oh Muslim, come oh slave of Allah, come and kill him." So it's basically there is no more taxation of Christians and Jews. This is eschatology. When the Jews come back to that land, it is time to annihilate the Jews and declare Islam. And as a matter of fact, the Jesus that Christians believe in is the anti-Christ of the Muslim. And what the Muslims believe Jesus is, is the anti-Christ of what the Christians believe. And this is in the Islam of the Hadith.

ROBERTSON: What percentage of the Muslim people - if they say there are a billion, two hundred million Muslims, give or take, what percentage believe what you just finished saying?

SHOEBAT: Well, you would see mostly the Arab Muslims, and in Pakistan it's very high. In Iran it's almost all. So it's a very high percentage. And the problem is with the nominal Muslims, they are easy targets for the fundamentalists to come and recruit them. So that's the problem that we have. They buy into the ideology of the fundamentalists.

ROBERTSON: What turned the light on for you? You were a terrorist. You wanted to blow up Jews. You had a bomb that you were taking to a bank in Bethlehem. What changed your mind?

SHOEBAT: I made the best mistake I've ever made in my life. I bought a ten-dollar Bible to convert my wife to Islam.

ROBERTSON: She was Catholic.

SHOEBAT: Because I was going to show her the problems there with a Bible. So I start from Genesis, ended to Revelations, six months extensive study. And it was one word, Pat, that caused me to believe in the Bible and the God of Israel, and that word was Israel. Looking at Psalm 83, the Arab Israeli war was right there by King David, written down, documented by King David. And I lived that Six Days War. I lived that Six Day War, Pat, and I've witnessed it. And I've seen Arab armies run without a bullet being fired. The Arab armies all ran away without a bullet being fired. The news media was calling for the Arabs to leave. And I've seen it. Nobody can deny this. And it says right there, it names the nations that come against Israel. The Ishmaelites, the Hagerites, the Edomites. Assyria comes to assist them. And in past history, Israel never won against Assyria or Babylonia. This battle, God declared that He will win against all these armies. And in verse 16 it says, "Fill their faces with shame, that they may seek Your name, O Lord." And that was to me - "Pursue them with Your tempest and frighten them with Your storm." And that's how Israel won the battle, by fear. And God caused that fear, planted it in their heart, in the soldiers. And I remember the Jordanian soldiers took their uniforms off, running in their underwear, fleeing from these so-called Israelites that are coming. And it was the Six Days War, Pat. Six days war, just like Joshua. Joshua had a six days war and on the seventh, went seven times around the wall of Jericho and declared the state of Israel. Jerusalem was conquered and won and was liberated. And Rabbi Goren blew the trumpet on the Wailing Wall. That was amazing.

ROBERTSON: What you are saying, if Islam was a force that could not be stopped, obviously it was stopped by God, and they fled. So that demolished the myth of . . . .

SHOEBAT: That's right. If God was on our side, what happened in that battle? What happened in our fights? How can God be on the side of the evil Jews? I started thinking in that fashion. And then I find out 8,352 verses in the Bible in prophetic form, that God declared the future in the past, that when we see it happen that we know that this is God speaking.

ROBERTSON: One last thing. What would you tell the Jews to do, or the Israelis to do with the situation? Our government is talking about a road map, a state of Palestine, two-state solution, et cetera.

SHOEBAT: God will judge the world, Pat. He will judge the world according to Joel chapter two and three for dividing Israel and scattering the Jewish people. We cannot allow as Christians the division of the land of Israel. We cannot allow the creation of a Palestinian state. How can a Jew live without Judea? Judea is the heart of the Jewish people. We can't give up Judea. We have to stand with Israel.

ROBERTSON: Well, as a former Palestinian terrorist, what do you tell the Jews? What do you say to them?

SHOEBAT: Unite.

ROBERTSON: Unite?

SHOEBAT: Unite. Stop differing and don't allow this wedge that was created by the Palestinians, called the Palestinian state, to put a wedge in the Israeli people, to cause a division in the Israeli people. As Muslim Arabs, you always accuse the West and Israel of dividing and conquering, when in reality we were doing the dividing and the conquering. We divided Israel. We're guilty of it. Now it's time for me to speak to the world. And I have a Jewish manager, and just like Balfour and just like Chaim Weizmann, the God chose a Jew and a Christian to preserve Israel.

ROBERTSON: Well, power to you. Thank you. That was tremendous.

SHOEBAT: God bless you, Pat.

ROBERTSON: God bless you. Walid Shoebat, ladies and gentlemen. A tremendous testimony. Amazing, simply amazing.

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