Walid Phares, a Lebanese American scholar born in Beirut, is a right-wing professor and commentator on global terrorism and Middle Eastern affairs.
Phares has testified before committees of the U.S. State, Justice, Defense and Homeland Security Departments, the United States Congress, the European Parliament, the United Nations Security Council. He has been a Terrorism expert at NBC from 2003 to 2006 and has been a contributor at Fox News since 2007.
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Walid Phares was born in Lebanon, where he studied at the Lebanese and St Joseph Universities. After earning degrees in law, political science and sociology, he practiced law in Beirut. He then earned a Masters degree in International Law from the Université de Lyon in France and a Ph.D. in international relations and strategic studies from the University of Miami. He emigrated to the United States in 1990.
During the Lebanese Civil War of 1975-1990, Phares was active in the far-right, sectarian Christian Lebanese Force militia-cum-party which pioneered the use of indiscriminate car bombs sent into West Beirut to kill innocent Lebanese Muslims and Palestinians. Phares served as Deputy Commander of the Lebanese Forces amongst other roles. In the June 12th, 1987, publication of the Lebanese paper as-Safir, Phares is describes as follows: "Member of the Command Council of the Lebanese Forces, [and] head of the Lebanese Immigration Apparatus in the Lebanese Forces, Walid Phares..." and on August 27, 1991, in the same publication he is identified as the "Vice-Chair" of the Extraordinary Emergency Committee for the Lebanese Front, which was the political committee of the Forces.
In a recent memoir by a former fighter for the Lebanese Forces, Regina Snayfir, who left the organization in disgust after witnessing their massacres and torture; reports about how during her training the most militantly anti-Muslim speaker extolling Lebanese Christians to fight their Muslim peers was Walid Phares (See: Alqaytu as-Silah, pg. 119-122.)
Phares' role in the Lebanese Forces was during the period in which the organization was the recipient of support from Iraq's Saddam Hussein.
In the 1990s, Phares moved shortly to the state of Israel (which was welcoming ground for Lebanese right-wingers whom were its allies during the Civil War against the Palestinians in Lebanon) where he revived another far-right organization, Guardians of the Cedars, whose motto was: "You kill a Palestinian, you enter Heaven."
In his effort to present himself as an impartial "expert" on the Middle East in his new life and career as an academic and writer in the United States, Phares has conspicuously left this part of his life absent from his English-language resume.
As of 2008, Phares teaches Global Strategies at the National Defense University in Washington, D.C. He is a Senior Fellow and the Director of the Future Terrorism Project at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington, D.C., and a Visiting Fellow at the European Foundation for Democracy in Brussels. In 2008 he also became the Coordinator of the Trans-Atlantic Parliamentary Group on Counter Jihadi-Terrorism.[1]
Phares is an expert on Maronite history and affairs, and has served as the Secretary General of the World Maronite Union[2] and also the Secretary General of the World Lebanese Cultural Union[1], in which capacity he has been a delegate to the United Nations.[3] [4]
Phares taught at the Department of Political Science at Florida Atlantic University between 1993 and 2005. He has been a senior lecturer at the Lifelong Learning Society since 1994. His courses include Middle East Politics, Political History, Ethnic and Religious Conflict and International Terrorism. He has given lectures throughout North America and Europe.
| Year | Book | Publisher |
|---|---|---|
| 1979 | Pluralism in Lebanon | Kasleek University |
| 1980 | The Lebanese Thought and the Thesis of Arabization | Dar el-Sharq Press |
| 1981 | Democratic Dialogue | Manshurat el-Tagammoh |
| 1985 | Thirteen Centuries of Struggle | Mashreq Editions (Beirut) |
| 1986 | The Iranian Islamic Revolution | Dar el-Sharq Press |
| 1995 | Lebanese Christian Nationalism: The Rise and Fall of an Ethnic Resistance | L. Rienner Publishers |
| 1998, 2001 | History of the Middle East: Trends and Benchmarks | IRP University of Miami Press |
| 2005 | Future Jihad: Terrorist Strategies Against America | Palgrave Macmillan |
| 2007 | The War of Ideas: Jihadism against Democracy | Palgrave Macmillan |
| 2008 | The Confrontation: Winning the War against Future Jihad | Palgrave Macmillan |
Phares' articles have appeared in Middle East Quarterly, Global Affairs, Journal of Middle East, South Asian Studies, The Journal of International Security Affairs and other journals.
His columns have appeared in many publications including The Washington Times, The Wall Street Journal, World Defense Review, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Denver Post, The Indianapolis Star, The San Diego Union-Tribune, Oregon News, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Detroit Free Press, the Chicago Sun-Times, San Francisco Chronicle, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, La Razon (Spain), Le Matin (Montreal), al Siyassa (Kuwait), and al Nahar (Lebanon), The Jerusalem Post [5].
Phares is also a regular contributor to the right-wing political website Frontpage Magazine[6]
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