By Debbie Schlussel

He defends the Taliban, hangs out with Yasser Arafat, and urges a violent, armed struggle by Arab terrorists.

Yet Adam Shapiro, formerly of Brooklyn, New York, is the American media’s latest media darling.

Adam Shapiro & Huwaida Arraf

Shapiro, who was born to a Jewish family and grew up in the United States, is portrayed as an idealistic, nice guy who–like every Miss America candidate and Rodney King–wants us to all just get along. He supposedly demonstrated this by staying the night with buddy Yasser at the Arafat Terrorist Bed and Breakfast in Ramallah, recently. With his shaved head, bandanna-scarf babushka, and hoop earring, he’s a hip dude, too.

That’s the media version.

The New York Times, Associated Press, and The Detroit News use the terms “humanitarian,” “volunteer worker,” and “peacekeeper,” respectively. In a letter to the editor of The New York Times, Lisa Reynolds Wolfe, his former NYU student (where he was a teaching assistant) writes of Shapiro’s “global citizenship” as a “qualit[y] that led to New York’s emergence as a world city.” In a laudatory April 4th editorial, The New York Times describes “Adam Shapiro’s peaceful action.”

But the real Adam Shapiro makes these comments laughable, and his ample writings in the defense of terrorism and even the Taliban make these respected news operations seem like incompetent nitwit newsgatherers, at best.

Like his new slumber party pal Arafat, his real feelings, as expressed in the Arab media, put the lie to what he says in the Western media.

On April 1st, Shapiro claimed on New York’s WOR radio station, “I want peace, an end to all violence.” But Shapiro–and the press’ pandering coverage of him–is the April Fools Day prank that keeps on giving.

A little research and fact-checking by lazy reporters covering this American supporter of terrorism against Americans, Jews, and Israelis, would show that Adam Shapiro is hardly a peace activist of any kind.

On January 29th, Shapiro and his Palestinian American fiancee, Huwaida Arraf of Roseville, Michigan, praised suicide bombers’ missions and “martyrdom” in the Palestine Chronicle. “This is no less of a jihad. This is no less noble than carrying out a suicide operation. And we are certain that if these men were killed during such an action, they would be considered shaheed Allah [martyrdom].”

In the same article, Shapiro and Arraf wrote of their support for armed struggle. “The Palestinian resistance must take on a variety of characteristics, both nonviolent and violent. But most importantly it must develop a strategy involving both aspects . . . . Let us reiterate, we accept that Palestinians have a right to resist with arms.”

Shapiro’s brother, Noah, told the New York Times that Adam’s beliefs in the teachings of Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. motivated him to help the Palestinians. “He’s passionate about it, and wants to show there is a way to protest without suicide bombings.” Brother Noah, a New York lawyer, is apparently not too familiar with his brother’s “work”—or more likely, deliberately lying. While Adam and fiancee Arraf urged an armed struggle, they also praised “India militants” who attacked “while Gandhi conducted his campaign” and the violent cop-killer “Black Panther Movement” that “existed side-by-side with the Civil Rights Movement in the United States.”

The International Solidarity Movement (ISM), co-founded by Adam Shapiro, is constantly referred to as a “peace movement,” and by the New York Times as ”nonviolent.” Mary Arraf, sister of Shapiro’s fiancee Huwaida, told The Detroit News of ISM, “They don’t believe in violence.” But ISM’s views and activities, which can be seen at palsolidarity.org, are the epitome of violence, including, “We recognize the Palestinian right to resist Israeli violence and occupation via armed struggle.”

Critics have compared Shapiro to American Taliban terrorist, John Walker Lindh, a claim his family insists is unwarranted.

Really?

Like Lindh, Shapiro has a strong affinity with extremists in Afghanistan, asserting that the Taliban was unfairly displaced. “It seems to me that Palestine has become Afghanistan XP (as in expropriated),” he complained in the January 29th edition of The Jordan Times. “Like the Taliban in Afghanistan, the rightful and legitimate Palestinian leadership has been stripped of its standing in the international community and has been deemed irrelevant by its opponent.”

It’s no coincidence that the “Guerrilla News Network,” last week, picked Shapiro as its “Guerrilla of the Week,” last week. Ironically, Shapiro’s previous claim to fame was as a counselor at Seeds of Peace, a camp in Maine for Arab and Jewish youth that emphasizes tolerance. That’s why the camp is a joke.

Like his brother’s and future sister-in-law’s comments, you can’t believe anything Shapiro’s family says. His parents claim they had to suddenly leave their Brooklyn apartment due to death threats. But not before they spent time posing lovingly for and interviewing with the New York Times. It’s hard to feel sympathetic for them, though, when their son is associated with Hamas and Hezbollah tactics aimed at killing of Jews and Americans. After all, Adam’s parents are Jews and Americans.

The Shapiro family cast their garbage upon the waters, and it has revisited them. The fact that they were born of Jewish blood may be a novelty to the media. But it is really just an accident of birth.

That their son is a terrorist for Yasser Arafat and defends the Taliban is a matter of choice and improper parenting.

Shapiro says he will return to the U.S. in May for his wedding to Arraf. But not until he gets a security detail. Given his rhetoric and terrorist friends, it’s America that needs security from Adam Shapiro.