Talk:Walid Phares

absolutely terrible writing
This wiki currently contains language like this: "The Daily Beast piece was an attack on Phares during the Presidential election campaign as The Daily beast opposed Romney. Phares has never made any statement on "Sharia Law and Muslims in the US." Not one evidence cited." The article isn't the place for arguing about stupid shit and adopting this kind of tone. Phares was the target of several hit pieces after he was appointed by Romney in 2011 and a second wave of hit pieces after he was appointed by Trump in 2016. His critics use Wikipedia to discredit him. The management must intervene to stop the smear on Wikipedia. There should be a section on controversial items but not insert across the page, one sided attacks, particularly that they are all from one political and ideological camp

Initial comments
We're watching the Jihadi cyber subversion

I an avid reader of Wikipedia and follow the war on terror closely. I have noted that the same group of cyber militants keep changing the entries about Professor Walid Phares on Wikipedia and insert insults to him and to his exertise. Instead of writing comments and his analysis, these Cyber-bandits keep trying to insert stupid sentences such as "deputy commander of a militia, and ally of Ariel Sharon etc., and all that nonsense." Not only they fool no one who knows about this author worldwide, but they perform their piracy with absolute idiocy. They could simply state that they do not agree with particular or all points. Instead, as retarded teen agers online, they insert these adjectives, only found among the members of Jihadi groups and gangs. And by the way, since they've posted similar stuff on other web sites and attacked other prominent scholars, they should know that their identities are now known and linked to Terrorism.

For example, the "pen" that started on internet the idiocy that Phares, an author, lawyer and writer, was a "deputy comander of a militia," was finally revealed: Al Qaida linked member Ismael Royer, convicted on charges of terrorism in the Virginia Paint Ball network. He is serving a sentence in jail for "forming a Terror cell in the US." Ismael Royer, a former member of the Wahabi lobby, Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), has specialized in attacking and bashing the reputation of US experts such as Daniel Pipes, Steve Emerson, etc. He was behind a series of articles he posted on line attacking Phares with gross lies such as "deputy commander" (gosh) and neocon ally of the Likud, and all that crap. Guess what, A US court found Royer guilty of Terrorism.

There are many Jihadis like Ismael Royer who are roaming the net to demonize those experts who are exposing Jihadism and its derivatives. One of their preferred place is Wikipedia. But they need to watch for themselves, for they are too under watch by concerned citizens

Jad Abdallah Jihad Watch Volunteer —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jihadwatch (talk • contribs) 09:28, June 10, 2006

POV
I've never edited a Wikipedia article before, but I thought the blatant POV in this article needed attention. The whole last section of the biography, starting with "He is well-known for" should probably be removed, but I'm reticent to do so myself as this is my first time actually using the edit feature.

I think it is probably self-explanatory as to why that section should be removed. The statement "an advocate of Nazi-esque policies of Genocide towards Muslim Arabs" is obviously over the top and propagandistic. Likewise with "some have called him...". Who has called him? My guess is the last editor himself, as it is not attributed to anyone. Certainly there are legitimate criticisms of Mr. Phares, but shouldn't these be raised in a new section of the article, such as under a Criticism heading, and attributed to real people? I don't know enough about the man to do so myself, but I think this article could use some expansion in that vein. 24.11.123.68 02:07, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

I removed the NPOV boilerplate now that the offending section has been redacted. I still think this article could use some expansion, however. 24.11.123.68 13:44, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Ahem...that should be POV boilerplate. 24.11.123.68 13:46, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

"During the Lebanese Civil War, Phares was the deputy commander of the Lebanese Forces right-wing sectarian Christian militia which allied itself with Israel and was responsible, along with Ariel Sharon, for the Sabra and Shatila massacre."

This really needs sourcing, and the bit about Ariel Sharon is gratuitous. --guanubian 02:46, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

The October 2006 copy of the Atlantic Monthly has an article that is quite critical of Mr. Phares' expertise (Prophetic Justice pg. 82-93 by Amy Waldman). Specifically, the writer claims that "much of his knowledge of Salafism had come from the Internet. He testified that he had never been to Saudi Arabia, Yemen, or Egypt; had never taken a course in the Koran or hadith; and had never been to a Salafi mosque. ... He and the defense experts disagreed about whether taqiya--religiously sanctioned dissimulation--would be practiced by Sunnis ... To prove his point, Phares brandished an article from USA Today about Pakistani men at the Karachi mosque preparing to come to America to blend in as a "sleeper cell". The article, he said, was an example of modern Sunnis practicing taqiya" (86). Further the author of this article claims the article Mr. Phares cited had been discredited as falsified by the author of that article (the reporter, Jack Kelley apparently was let go from USA Today after it was discovered that he falsified accounts, apparently including the article Mr. Phares cites). The damaging point is that the author claims that Mr. Phares was still citing this discredited article this year to support his claims (over a year after this source was discovered to be faulty). I do not know how this could be integrated into the Wikipedia article on Mr. Phares, but I sense it may be important.--152.2.62.69 19:51, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

I KNOW HIM!!!! I CAN'T BELIEVE HE'S GOT AN ARTICLE!!!!!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.11.220.60 (talk • contribs) 22:12, December 29, 2006


 * Nine years later, you are proven to have been wrong. -- AstroU (talk) 16:49, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

Showing slant
Phares appears to be a mouthpiece for anti-Islamic elements, some might even consider anti-Arab sentiments. Many Palestinian Christians are slanted against Israel (an example would be the Arab Christian initiated divestment policy in the Anglican Church) yet he remains vehemently pro-Israel (even some Israelis are not as pro-Israeli as he is). I think the article should make Phares' stance clear on major issues so people don't swallow his tripe which is everywhere, on all the major networks. He is critical of the more liberal Arab media, Al Jazirah, but he doesn't apply the same criteria towards American media. I'm surprised he teaches religion and Middle Eastern studies. 69.199.85.72 08:19, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

10/13/11 I understand there has been an edit war over the Walid Phares biographic entry, I was the one trying to update the piece with relevant information concerning Phares' views on Islam and past associations with the 1980's Lebanon Civil War. A simple check of the references provided will demonstrate that these updates were not slander, but clarification to a heavily scripted entry. Phares is a public figure which has gone on the record numerous times denouncing Muslim Americans, promoting the Sharia Conspiracy, and is an advisor to the Romney Campaign. If you can provide or edit a more fair and balanced entry please be my guest, but I would ask that you also not let those with an interest to promote Phares' hateful views have their way.

Libel and Defamation to serve a political agenda
I might have engaged in an edit war and I apologize for that. Nevertheless, I am appalled by the stubbornness of certain editors in adding irrelevant, controversial facts on Professor Phares' page just because he was appointed as a foreign policy adviser in a presidential campaign. Disagreeing with someone does not entitle you to disfigure his life's work and disrespect his academic and professional achievements by copy-pasting cheap propaganda accusations. Those accusations are factually inaccurate and could be considered libel.

First, Professor Phares’ personal ancestry and ethnic religious affiliation cannot be targeted in the context of political disagreement with his views. The so-called “Lebanese civil conflict” started in 1975 and became a Lebanese-Syrian conflict in 1978. Following Israel's invasion in 1982, it became a regional conflict in Lebanon. There were Christians in different political camps and Muslims in different political camps, as historians and research clearly shows. Dr. Phares started his public activities in 1979 by publishing a well-known book “Pluralism in Lebanon,” in which he called for a multiethnic society and federal solution where Christians and Muslims would have their rights recognized by a new secular and federal constitution. Dr. Phares published several books since, including “Democratic Dialogue” (1981), calling for debates among all ideological factions in the country and the “Iranian Islamic Revolution” (1987), projecting future strategies of the Khomeinist regime. Dr. Phares’ public lectures, statements and other booklets, as well as his representation of NGOs and political parties and coalitions, including a social democratic group he founded in 1987, have demonstrated his unwavering commitment to pluralism, federalism and to counter-terrorism. Such a volume of publications and activities can hardly be described as “on the Christian side of the brutal Lebanese civil conflict.” Such statements can lead readers to false conclusions.

Secondly, the edits claim that Dr. Phares is a mouthpiece of Islamophobia in America. This statement is baseless. If anything, Dr. Phares is known to have been the scholar who carefully made the distinction between Islam and Islamism and Islam and Jihadism - a distinction well established in the Arab media debates - where Dr. Phares appears regularly, in addition to his appearances in Western media. One can read Dr. Phares’ books since 1979, and particularly after 9/11, including his famous book “Future Jihad: Terrorist Strategies against America” (2005), as well as “The War of Ideas: Jihadism against Democracy” (2007) and listen to his interviews and read his articles, and yet find not a single attack on or criticism of the religion of Islam. Furthermore, Dr. Phares is the leading scholar who has been calling for the support of reformers and democrats in the Middle East and Muslim world. His book “The Coming Revolution: Struggle for Freedom in the Middle East” (2010) was the only book that predicted the Arab Spring and called for helping Arab and Muslim peoples to free themselves from authoritarian regimes and fundamentalists.

In fact, Dr. Phares, aside from having been a promoter of social democratic change in the region for decades, has been at the forefront of supporting the regions’ liberals, as recognized by dozens of NGOs representing democracy groups and ethnic minorities.

It is unfortunate that some editors may have based their judgments on press releases initially issued by lobby groups who are opposed to Dr. Phares’ views on the region. I wished they have reached out to Dr. Phares to compare notes prior to engage in vandalism against his WikiPage, which is an integral part of his academic standing.

I urge you to learn more about Dr. Phares’ research by reading his books. I also ask you to please reach a compromise on this article and keep the slander/propaganda out of WikiPedia - the internet is already full of low credibility sites where these claims belong. JD (talk) 06:40, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Page protection
I have reverted the page to a version from 17th September (before this broke out) and locked it for a week. Please ensure that all contentious claims have very good sources, and there is no synthesis - content relating to something as serious as war crimes allegations needs ONE SOURCE that ties the chap to the war crimes, not statements created from multiple sources that only support half a sentence each.--Elen of the Roads (talk) 12:41, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Criticism of the subject of this article
I have tagged the page for lacking in coverage of all significant viewpoints. With the greatest respect to the drive by IPs madly deleting all critical content, it is verifiable that significant people have said this. However, I get the feeling there is more to be said on 'the other side' about this chap, and they would be better served by adding that, rather than removing this.--Elen of the Roads (talk) 19:42, 29 October 2011 (UTC)


 * The reference to Mr. Fares as "this chap" sounds like a condescending familiarity, to me. For me, person is much more neutrally-sounding. WillNess (talk) 15:35, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

New NEWS today, for future editing
Mr Walid Phares explains President Obama's stance. Headline-1: Walid Phares Explains Obama's Strategy QUOTE: "RUSH: I want you to listen to his answer again. Walid Phares on Fox News an hour and a half ago, he was asked the question everybody's asking, but everybody was intensely asking it after this embarrassment of an Obama press conference this morning.  Walid Phares answering, "Why can't we take 'em out?"  That was the question he's asked.  Why can't we take 'em out?  Why don't we take 'em out?  What in the world, why doesn't Obama even act like they're the enemy?
 * http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2015/11/16/walid_phares_explains_obama_s_strategy

PHARES: Actually we can and actually we should, but the president has a different strategy. He's getting a lot of pressure by the Iranians. Otherwise he should have long time ago allied himself, partnered with Arab moderate forces such as Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, UAE, they are fighting terrorism very much and very well in Yemen, in Sinai, in Libya, elsewhere, but the reason that he's not going to these moderate Arab forces and asking them on the ground to be boots on the ground is because the Iranians are pressuring him because the Syrian Regime is pressuring him. They don't want those areas, those Sunni areas to be liberated by Sunni moderates because they won't have access to them. That's the bottom line of it." -- AstroU (talk) 16:54, 17 November 2015 (UTC) -- PS: FYI for future editing.


 * FYI, Rush Limbaugh just mentioned that Walid Phares is a professor at National Defense University and a contributor on FoxNews. -- AstroU (talk) 20:27, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

Donald Trump
It should be noted, in light of the Brussels attacks, that commentators on Fox and Friends that Tuesday morning invited Walid Phares on and then noted that he is going to be working with Donald Trump's campaign for president as a foreign policy advisor. — Preceding unsigned comment added by LaPorting4Duty (talk • contribs) 11:51, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

Not sure if his opinion on the Ukrainian crisis belongs here....
..... but he believed that the role that the United States had been playing in the Donbas peace process, should be taken over by Germany. Read more on UNIAN here —  Yulia Romero  • Talk to me!  16:04, 10 November 2016 (UTC)

NPOV
The neutrality of this article has been disputed over the last decade and it is clear it remains the subject of editorializing. This would only be acceptable if this was a well-supported assertion by reputable sources. The citation to back this up is from an opinion piece in the Jerusalem Post and an editor's note makes clear the author of this piece is a former Israeli intelligence officer. This is not an acceptable source. Cjmithli (talk) 20:55, 1 December 2016 (UTC)
 * The quote that "He is 'considered as one of the best strategic minds in the world on US national security... He was proven right in every single prediction he made for America in his book Future Jihad.'" is clearly an example of puffery, an "unprovable proclamation about a subject's importance," a violation of WP: Peacock.

New Edit War
–It seems there has been a recent Edit War on this page. It is very unfortunate that a Wikipedia biography has turned into a propaganda battlefield. The Wikipedia community and the people visiting this page expect and deserve a neutral and factually correct representation of Walid Phares' life work, not a sourcing of second and third rate online articles written against Dr Phares during American presidential campaigns to score political points against the presidential candidates he advised,i.e Mitt Romney and Donald Trump. I respectfully call on all active editors to refrain from applying any political agenda while editing Dr Phares' page because they are abusing the people's trust in the Wikipedia project. A consensus must be reached and I will be happy to collaborate with other editors to put together a neutral and informative version of this article. Judge1975 (talk) 23:55, 17 August 2017 (UTC)

Agree. Have pretty much resigned wikipedia as an opinion site. --Wikipietime (talk) 13:20, 31 October 2017 (UTC)