Social media influencer Loay Alshareef: a former antisemite who is now a strong supporter of Israel and the Jews. He explained how this came to be at an April 7 Iranian-American Jewish Federation event held at a private residence.
Alshareef, who is from Saudi Arabia, told the more than 100 attendees that growing up he believed that God wanted him to hate Jews and Christians This was because “we have some texts that are misinterpreted” or written in a way that can lead to that interpretation, he added. Fourteen years ago, Alshareef wanted to learn French, so he enrolled in a program where he was placed with a family in France.
As it turned out, the family that housed him in France was Jewish.
Alshareef initially sent an email to the program asking them for a transfer, stating that he “didn’t feel comfortable. How dare you put me with Jews.” “This is what I thought was right, but my experience with that family really changed my life,” he said.
Alshareef told The Journal in an interview after his speech was over that he learned more about Jewish and Biblical history from the family and after spending so many Shabbats with the family he learned more about that as well as Passover and Hanukkah. “Every festival I learned the history behind it, and this is how I got to know the knowledge,” he said, adding that the family he stayed with was a Yemeni family.
Alshareef told those attending the evening that when he returned home to Saudi Arabia, he told his mother about this life-changing event, his mother predicted that he would revert back to hating Jews in two-to-three months, but it’s been 14 years and he hasn’t.
“I learned Judaism from the source, and I found lots of commonalities between Judaism and Islam,” Alshareef said, adding that he connected dots that “that lots of Muslims unfortunately cannot connect.”
He explained that the Arab media is good at spreading propaganda that there is no evidence that the temple in Jerusalem was ever Jewish, even though Jesus prayed at the temple before it was destroyed.
Alshareef pointed out that many Muslims are named after prophets, but they don’t realize that those prophets were “Zionist Israelites.” For instance, he recounted a Palestinian named Daoud declaring that Al Quds is the eternal capital of Palestine, but Daoud doesn’t realize that he’s named after King David; King David proclaimed Jerusalem as the capital of the Jewish people.
“Why is this concealed from us?” Alshareef asked.
He contended that if you truly study biblical history, you realize that the word “Jew” derives from “the part of the land of Israel that when Joshua entered.” The land was partitioned based on the 12 sons of Jacob; the part of the land that Jews are from was named after Judah, the fourth son of Jacob.
“This kind of detail would lead you to the facts that would make you stand with the truth,” Alshareef said, adding that Jews, Muslims and Christians “have our commonalities” and that Father Abraham “would love to see his children” focus on their commonalities rather than their differences and would want the bloodshed to end.
Regarding those “who view Jews as foreign colonialists in the land of Israel” or “Palestine” — Alshareef said that he does believe in the “rights of Palestinians, but Muslim prophets, as well as Jesus, referred to the land as Israel. He also said that a lot of people believe that Zionism is a colonialist movement, but it’s really just the right of the Jewish people’s self-determination in their ancestral homeland.
Alshareef argued that the Arabic translation of the Bible “is not that bright enough for people to understand the similarities between Muslims and Jews” and that it’s his “mission” to educate people about the commonalities between Jews and Muslims.
Additionally, he believes that there are “great improvements happening in the Arab world in terms of education” but hopes that there can be a “deradicalizing program” once the ongoing Israel-Hamas war is over. Alshareef pointed out that a Hamas spokesman says “O child of a Jew” — meaning that they view “Jew” as an insult — which Alshareef said is the result of education in the Arab world. He proclaimed that “social media content creators” like himself have a rolein fighting back against this kind of indoctrination.
Alshareef also highlighted the fact that the Bible museum in Egypt is where “first time Israel [is] mentioned as a nation” since it’s written in stone there; this, Alshareef contended, shows that the people of Israel were still there in Egypt. But no one will talk about it because that’s the kind of fact that the Arab world doesn’t want you to know, he added.
He proceeded to discuss how Islam “is the youngest of Abrahamic faiths” and all the faiths before Islam “went through some sort of reform.” “We have texts in Islam that if you take them as is, the results will be disastrous,” argued Alshareef. As for the issue of global Sharia law, he said that is the “interpretations of scholars … because they thought the world was the Arabian Peninsula or the Levant” before knowing about the existence America and Europe.
Turning to the pro-Palestinian protests in America, Alshareef said that if the average American white person knew what the “from the river to the sea” phrase actually meant, they would know that they’re next. He also claimed that when he asked protesters about if they’ve read the Hamas charter, they say they’ve read the watered down 2017 version of it; Alshareef tells them that they haven’t read the original 1988 charter in Arabic. Alshareef contended that the people who brought down the Twin Towers on 9/11 are “part of the same pathological creed that Hamas wants.”
Alshareef expressed hope in his speech that one day, the message of truth prevails, there will be “a great Middle East” in which Israelis, Muslims and Arabs all work together. “It would be a new Europe.”
He told The Journal that reform for Islam would involve telling “the Muslims these texts should be read in their historical context without being applied today. Simple. If we can do this, we would solve a great problem in the mindsets of so many Muslims who believe that these texts are applicable anytime and anywhere.”
