Walid Phares
<youtube size="tiny" align="right" caption="Walid Phares featured on Pat Robertson's the Christian Broadcasting Network">888lWMFaVCA</youtube> Walid Phares is an Lebanese-American right-wing "terrorism expert"[1] who is closely allied with various neoconservative individuals and institutions which regularly cite Phares's comments as evidence for their claims. Phares has also been interviewed as an "expert" on TV news shows. When it was still in operation, Phares was represented by Benador Associates, a public relations firm that also represented many of the neoconservatives that pushed for the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, including Richard Perle and Meyrav Wurmser.[1]
Contents
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.[2] 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.[3]
On "Academic Elite" in the US
Phares restates a common neoconservative idea[4] 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.[3]
Support for 'Moderate Muslims'
In the introduction to a 2006 NPR interview[5] 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...
Contact
Website: http://www.walidphares.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/walidphares
Affiliations
- American Congress for Truth - Featured Blog[6]
- Ariel Center for Policy Research (Israel) - Author & Associate[7]
- Benador Associates - Featured speaker[1]
- Campus Watch - Reprints some of his articles[8]
- Canadian Lebanese Human Rights Federation (A frontg roup dedicated to removing Syrian influence from Lebanon, and pursuing the "jihadists") - Featured Expert[9]
- Counterterrorism Blog - Contributing Expert[10]
- David Project – Featured speaker. NB: this group produced a smearing film aimed at undermining the MEALAC professors at Columbia Univ. They have targeted Josheph Massad and Rashid Khalidi among others
- Foundation for the Defense of Democracies
- European Foundation for Democracy
- FrontPage columnist
- Guardians of the Cedars
- Israel on Campus Coalition – featured speaker.
- JihadWatch – Frequent contributor
- Middle East Forum / Middle East Quarterly
- National Review – columnist
- United States Committee for a Free Lebanon – listed as expert
Contributed US$1,000 to the Bush-Cheney ticket in 2004. [11]
Notes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Benador Associates, "Walid Phares Bio", Benador Associates (web archive), accessed on 11 November 2010
- ↑ Tariq Ramadan, "The call to jihad", Tariq Ramadan website, 28 September 2004
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Walid Phares, "CBN-700-Club-April-24-2008-Walid-Phares", Google Video, 24 April 2008, accessed on 11 November 2010
- ↑ Frank Gaffney, "Saudi Friends and Foes", Townhall, 3 November 2010, accessed on 11 November 2010
- ↑ Libby Lewis, "Hear More of Dubowitz's Story", NPR, 8 September 2006, accessed on 20 October 2010
- ↑ American Congress for Truth, "Links and Resources, American Congress for Truth website, accessed on 11 November 2010
- ↑ ACPR, "Authors and Associates, Ariel Center for Policy Research website, accessed on 11 November 2010
- ↑ Campus Watch, "Terrorism 101: Professor Walid Phares educates FAU and the world", Campus Watch website, 18 March 2004, accessed on 11 November 2010
- ↑ CLHRF, "Phares", Canadian Lebanese Human Rights Federation website, accessed on 11 November 2010
- ↑ Walid Phares, First Jihadi Cell of 2009 Busted In the United States — What Does It Mean?, Counterterrorismblog, accessed 1 June 2009
- ↑ Walid Phares,Campaign Contribution Search, newsmeat, Accessed 01-June-2009
