Former Palestinian Terrorist Finds Firm Ground in Jesus
by Fred Jackson
February 20, 2004
(AgapePress) - A former Palestinian terrorist who's now a born-again Christian says Israel is wrong to give in to demands that it give up more land for peace.Walid Shoebat grew up in a Palestinian home in Bethlehem. He says from the very beginning, his father and other Palestinian leaders taught him to hate the Jews. When he was still a teenager, he was recruited into the terrorism business and was given death missions to carry out on Israelis.
"I ended up being recruited to do my first operation to blow up [a bank] in Bethlehem. It failed; the bomb exploded, nobody was hurt," Shoebat says. "And my first attempted lynching of a Jewish soldier failed; we clubbed him. He was sitting there, he was bleeding profusely. I'm still looking for that soldier -- I'm looking to pay restitution."
Through a variety of circumstances, Shoebat eventually began to study the Bible, with the intent to prove it wrong. Instead, he was amazed at what it taught about Israel and how God has always preserved the Jewish people, no matter how strong the enemy. God touched his heart, he says, and he asked Christ to be his personal Savior.
"I did a simply prayer to the God of Abraham, asking Him to show me the truth -- and He showed me the truth," the former terrorist says. "[Thousands of] verses of prophetic nature in the Bible. I was in sinking sand, my friends. And every single Muslim in the world is in sinking sand if he thinks that they are going to destroy the State of Israel."
Shoebat is now touring the United States, telling audiences about his conversion from terrorism to Christianity. His mission is to tell the world that the real intent of terrorists like Yasser Arafat is to exterminate the Jews -- not to live side-by-side with them.
Shoebat made his comments earlier this week at the National Religious Broadcasters convention in Charlotte, North Carolina.
