Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily reported on May 26 that it was offering publishers in the Middle East an opportunity to publish its anti-Islam book, "Why We Left Islam," without charging for publication rights. The stated reason is "to propel this fast-growing religion into the sort of self-examination that it desperately needs," with a purported goal "of sparking an honest discussion about Islam, freedom of speech and human rights in the very lands where Muslims predominate."
That's mostly window-dressing, of course. As we've noted, WND has centered its promotion of the book around the fact that it's "the first U.S. book ever to feature an image of Muhammad on the cover," with an apparent hope, if not an actual goal, to spark riots like the ones that greeted publication of cartoons of Muhammad in Europe and elsewhere a couple years back.
The article continues WND's silence on Walid Shoebat, one of the key anti-Islam activists featured in the book. As we've detailed, numerous questions have been raised about the veracity of Shoebat's claims to have once been a Palestinian terrorist. Shoebat has not appeared in any WND publicity for the book -- which suggests there's an awareness on WND's part that Shoebat is a problem -- but neither WND nor book compiler/editors Susan Crimp and Joel Richardson have publicly addressed the issue of Shoebat's veracity. Indeed, Richardson is currently co-authoring a book with Shoebat, making him especially disinclined to bring up the controversy.
UPDATE: Richard Bartholomew has posted a video from Shoebat's website promoting a book by his teenage son, Theodore, that "expresses Theodore’s virulent hatred of Islam and science, and his belief that militarized Christian fundamentalism is the answer to both." Somehow we suspect that this is another thing Richardson won't be discussing anytime soon.
