Walid Phares

{{#ev:youtube|https://youtu.be/s7ZeFk2N5YI%7C450%7Cright%7CWalid Phares and Raphael Shore discuss Iranium on Fox News}} Walid Phares is a Lebanese-American "terrorism expert" closely allied with various neoconservative institutions. Between 1975 and 1990, he was associated with the right-wing Christian militia implicated in the Sabra and Chatilla massacres. When it was still in operation, Phares was represented by Benador Associates, a public relations firm that also represented many of the neoconservatives who pushed for the 2003 US invasion of Iraq.

Phares, who espouses the theory that Islam is an ideological movement which wants to take over the world, has acted as a 'Middle East adviser' to US president Donald Trump. He has links to two high profile US counterjihad groups, the Clarion Project and ACT! For America. He was also a senior fellow at Washington-based Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and a visiting scholar at the European Foundation for Democracy.

Disparaging the Arab Spring

In various media appearances, Phares has cautioned against enthusiasm for the Arab Spring, drawing parallels with the Iranian revolution. He has promoted the view that the Arab Spring will lead to the strengthening of Islamists.

Views on Islam

In 2008 Phares was featured on Christian televangelist Pat Robertson's the Christian Broadcasting Network (where he has been interviewed and quoted several times) as an expert on terrorism and Islam. During the interview, Phares reiterated claims he makes in his book The Confrontation which the CBN advertised throughout the interview.

On the notion of Jihad as War

Phares argues that Jihad in Islam should not be interpreted as anything other than a call to violence and war even though leading scholars have refuted this idea repeatedly. Phares also states that the West has not done enough in supporting the "weak" and "moderate" Muslims who defy his interpretation of Jihad:

Unfortunately in the Muslim world the forces that contend that basically oppose this are weak and unfortunately we haven't been successful in supporting those moderates.

Advising US Governments on how to deal with Radical Islam

Phares tells Pat Robertson that one of the main points of his book is to "educate" the US public and advise the US government about how radical Islam is simply an ideological movement that wants to take over the world. Phares argues against scholars and experts that state that much of radical Islam is comprised of reactionary groups that have come about through political disenfranchisement and major discontent with aggressive and exploitative US foreign policy in the Middle East.

Pat it is very important especially 7 years after 9/11...that this is not just a collection of military confrontation on the ground in Iraq or Afghanistan, this is a global Jihad, this is a global confrontation and the first thing that this government and the United States, this White House and the next White House...it's very important for them to educate the American public exactly as we are doing right now in this segment because most Americans do not understand that this not just an issue of foreign policy reaction...or economic disenfranchisement. This is an issue of an ideological movement which wants to bring down 21 Arab countries, 52 Muslim states, recreate the Caliphate with all the resources you can imagine and then continue, continue with that struggle against the West.

On the "Academic Elite" in the US

Phares restates a common neoconservative idea that the institutions and individuals that dispute their claims about Islam and the Middle East do so because they are funded by Saudi Wahabists:

This is not the problem of governments only, our academic elite in this country which was funded for many, many years by Wahabi funds has been the one that did us a bad advice in the 80s and 90s by telling us that Jihad is just Yoga, so don't worry about it.

Support for 'Moderate Muslims'

In the introduction to a 2006 NPR interview with Mark Dubowitz, Phares (who is described as a "Lebanese-American terrorism expert") is being advised by Dubowitz on how to use dissidents from Muslim countries to combat groups and individuals that the US has labelled as terror threats:

Let's put out backgrounders, productize this, identify the names of these dissidents whether they be in Europe, North America or the Middle East, give them the key talking points...

Foreign policy adviser to 2016 presidential candidate Donald Trump

In March 2016, Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump announced that Phares was advising his campaign. Trump had previously provoked outrage by calling for a temporary complete ban on Muslim immigration to the USA.

Contact

Website: http://www.walidphares.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/walidphares
MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/walidphares

Affiliations

• ACT! For America - serves on the board with Robert Spencer
• American Congress for Truth - Featured Blog
• Ariel Center for Policy Research (Israel) - Author & Associate
• Benador Associates - Featured speaker
• Campus Watch - 'recommended professor'
• Canadian Lebanese Human Rights Federation (A front group dedicated to removing Syrian influence from Lebanon, and pursuing the "jihadists") - Featured Expert
• Clarion Fund - advisory board
• Counterterrorism Blog - Contributing Expert
• David Project - Featured speaker
• Foundation for the Defense of Democracies - Senior Fellow, Director of FDD's Future of Terrorism Project
• European Foundation for Democracy - Visiting Scholar
• FrontPage - Columnist
• Israel on Campus Coalition - Featured Speaker
• Jihad Watch - Phares reports are regularly posted there by Robert Spencer
• Middle East Forum / Middle East Quarterly - Contributor
• National Review - Columnist
• Contributed US$1,000 to the Bush-Cheney ticket in 2004
• The Cutting Edge - contributor
• Democracy & Security International Conference - participant
• Fox News - Middle East and terrorism expert

Film appearances

Walid Phares has appeared in at least two films produced by Rabbi Raphael Shore of Aish HaTorah, a rightwing Israeli settler group, through its US offshoot, the Clarion Fund.

• The Third Jihad: Radical Islam's Vision for America - Interviewee
• Iranium

Publications

• The Coming Revolution: Struggle for Freedom in the Middle East (Simon & Schuster, 2010)
• The Confrontation: Winning the War Against Future Jihad (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008)
• The War of Ideas: Jihadism against Democracy (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007)
• Future Jihad: Terrorist Strategies Against America (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005)