After Princeton tiff, 3 tell of turnaround from terrorism
Trenton Times

The three speakers, Walid Shoebat, Zak Anani and Ibrahim Abdallah, said they had been indoctrinated in childhood to hate Jews.

Shoebat, who dominated the conversation, said when he was in kindergarten in Jordan he was taught "Arabs are beloved and Jews are dogs." He said it wasn't until 1993 that he overcame that prejudice, after he married a Catholic woman and could not convert her to Islam.

He said it was during a conversation with a Jewish woman on an airplane that he began to question what he had been taught.

He asked her how she would feel if her daughter killed Arabs. He said he expected her to endorse killing Arabs because she was a Jew, but instead she began sobbing and said she didn't want her daughter to kill anyone.

Asked how many people he killed as a terrorist, he said, "I never killed anyone," but later said he "seriously injured many people."

His for-profit organization, the Walid Shoebat Foundation, has identified Shoebat as a former member of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) who took part in bombing a bank and other violent acts against Israel.

Abdallah, born and raised in Dearborn, Mich., said growing up in the Islamic community there indoctrinated him to hate Jews. It was, he said, "no different than the Middle East."

IRIS Blog attended the press conference: Reporting Live from the Princeton Ex-Terrorist Event

just asked a question to the panel about the recent reports of the Palestinian election of a Fatah member named "Hitler" in Jenin and the fact that at least 25 PLO members go by the name of Hitler or Abu Hitler. Could any of them comment personally about how Nazism was perceived?

Walid Shoebat: "Mein Kampf has been a best-seller throughout the Muslim world. Haj Amin Husseini, who was a guest in my family's home, was nicknamed the Fuhrer of the Muslim World."

"There was never any excuse given for Nazis for their hatred of Jews. When it comes to Islamic terrorists, we make all the excuses in the world"

Ibrahim Abadallah: "Most Arabs consider Hitler a hero precisely because he killed 6 million Jews."

Other coverage:
Daily Princetonian Ex-terrorists' campus visit cancelled

Chad Groening of Agape Press (scroll down for item) quotes Walid Shoebat Foundation director Keith Davis,

Davies believes the real reason is clear. He says his group is currently investigating Princeton and hopes next week to release information regarding "anti-American activity on that campus as well as anti-Israel activity." The Foundation has evidence, the executive director asserts, that a person connected with the school's Middle Eastern Studies Department "was a former spokesman for the PLO and still advocates violence in Israel against the Jewish people and against the [Israel Defense Forces]."

Newsday quotes

Deborah Arotsky, a Princeton senior and the president of the pro-Israel student group, said in an e-mail that the group would like to hold the event in the spring when it can take on such a large event.

I certainly hope that's the case. I wasn't able to make it to the press conference last night.