He claims he was imprisoned in the Russian Compound, Jerusalem's central prison for incitement and violence against Israel. Officials at the Israeli consulate said they did not have immediate comment on Shoebat's claims. Shoebat says he discovered Christianity when he was 18-years-old when he arrived in the US. The outcry from the Muslim community over the screening of "Obsession" led to a hastily arranged community meeting last week in Tallahassee, Florida with state and national Islamic leaders and McCollom and members of his staff.
During the meeting with representatives of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), the ACLU of Florida, and the Florida Muslim Bar Association, McCollum also agreed to offer educational programs on Islam and Muslims to his staff and to help build better relations between the Muslim community and law enforcement agencies.
"The challenge for all state and federal law enforcement agencies is to treat Muslim Americans as partners in keeping our country safe," said MPAC Executive Director Salam al-Marayati, who attended the meeting last week. "Reliance on propagandistic films like "Obsession" is an obstacle to that objective."
Rabbi Steven Jacobs, who works with the Los Angeles County Sherriff's Department on hate crimes, traveled to Tallahassee specifically for the meeting.
"We ought to be obsessed with the truth, not distortions that lead to demonization and hatred of any group," Jacobs said.
Separately, while some members of the Muslim community met with McCollom and his staff, Brigitte Gabriel, who says she is a Lebanese Christian, was in Palm Beach County speaking to the Women's division of the Jewish Federation speaking critically about Muslims and Islam. Gabriel and Shoebat have appeared together at various events and Gabriel was once a guest speaker for an event sponsored by Shoebat's foundation.
Gabriel founded the American Congress for Truth (ACT), an organization that says it is dedicated to motivating Americans to take action against terrorism. Her biography on the website for ACT says she worked in the Middle East as news anchor for “World News,” an evening Arabic news broadcast, and covered the Israeli security zone in Lebanon and the Palestinian uprising in the West Bank. She immigrated to the United States in 1989 and started a television production and advertising company.
Her website contains a recommended reading list which includes the book "The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam" underscoring what appears to be her deep disdain for the Islamic faith.
In June 2007, Gabriel was invited to speak to the Joint Forces Staff College (JFSC) as part of the school's Islam elective studies program. According to its website, the JFSC "educates military officers and other national security leaders in joint, multinational, and interagency operational-level planning and war fighting."
Her appearance at the prestigious military college was carried by C-Span. Her lecture was controversial to say the least. International, allied officers were not permitted to participate in Gabriel's lecture.
During a question and answer session, Gabriel said that Muslims should be prohibited from holding political office in the U.S.
"If a Muslim who has -- who is -- a practicing Muslim who believes the word of the Koran to be the word of Allah, who abides by Islam, who goes to mosque and prays every Friday, who prays five times a day -- this practicing Muslim, who believes in the teachings of the Koran, cannot be a loyal citizen to the United States of America," she said.
Gabriel added that because Muslim's are permitted to lie "under any situation to make Islam, or for the benefit of Islam in the long run" their promise to uphold US laws while holding public office is meaningless.
"A Muslm sworn to office can lay his hand on the Koran and say 'I swear that I'm telling the truth and nothing but the truth,' fully knowing that he is lying because the same Koran that he is swearing on justifies his lying in order to advance the cause of Islam," she told students last year. "What is worrisome about that is when we are faced with war and a Muslim political official in office has to make a decision either in the interest of the United States, which is considered infidel according to the teachings of Islam, and our Constitution is uncompatible [sic] with Islam -- not compatible -- that Muslim in office will always have his loyalty to Islam."
Weinstein said he was familiar with Gabriel's "bigoted work." He said the Military Religious Freedom Foundation intended to take legal action against the Pentagon because Gabriel's invitation to speak at high-level military events is "yet another example of the pernicious and pervasive pattern and practice of unconstitutional rape being visited upon our military members by the draconian specter of overwhelming fundamentalist Christian command influence."
