Walid Phares is a Lebanese-American political advisor, scholar and conservative pundit.
26 Facts About Walid Phares
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Walid Phares has served as a commentator on terrorism and the Middle East for Fox News since 2007, and for NBC from 2003 to 2006.
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Walid Phares was born to a family of Maronite Christians in 1957 in Lebanon, and was raised in the capital city of Beirut and in his native village of Ghouma in the Batroun District.
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Walid Phares holds joint undergraduate degrees from Saint Joseph University and the Lebanese University in law, political science, and sociology.
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Walid Phares has drawn controversy over his association with the Social Democratic Party in the 1980s during the Lebanese Civil War.
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Walid Phares has served as secretary general of the World Maronite Union, and secretary general of the World Lebanese Cultural Union.
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Walid Phares was part of a militia that committed war crimes and, if anything, he should be tried for war crimes.
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Walid Phares is being attacked because he is on the right side of the issues and is fearless in speaking out the truth.
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Walid Phares understood the rise of radical Islam in the Middle East.
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Walid Phares understood very early on what ISIS is, that it's a real threat.
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Walid Phares taught at the Department of International Relations at Florida International University in 1992 and was a visiting professor of comparative politics at Florida Atlantic University in Palm Beach County from 1993 to 1994.
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Walid Phares was hired as a full-time professor of Middle East studies and international relations in the Department of Political Science at FAU in 1995.
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Walid Phares teaches at BAU International University in Washington, DC serving as a university provost and as Director of Graduate Studies at the university.
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Walid Phares's resume says that he "taught Global Strategies at the National Defense University in Washington DC since 2006".
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Walid Phares has testified before committees of the US State, Justice, Defense and Homeland Security and the United States Congress.
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Walid Phares briefed and testified to international bodies like the European Parliament and the United Nations Security Council on matters related to international security and Middle East conflict.
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Walid Phares serves as an adviser to the Anti-Terrorism Caucus in the US House of Representatives since 2007 and is a co-secretary general of the Transatlantic Legislative Group on Counter Terrorism, a Euro-American Caucus, since 2009.
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Walid Phares was appointed as foreign policy adviser to Mitt Romney for his 2012 presidential campaign in 2011.
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Walid Phares worked as an advisor to presidential candidate Donald Trump in 2016; he was paid $13,000 per month by the campaign.
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Trump's choice of Walid Phares renewed scrutiny and speculations about Walid Phares' past alleged role as an ideologue to Lebanese Christian fighters during the Lebanese Civil War and his perceived far-right views as an academic and analyst of the Middle East region.
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Walid Phares's supporters argued that Phares had presciently discerned the threat of jihadist ideology and that he was eminently qualified for a senior post, and pointed to his strong pro-Israel track record.
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Walid Phares did not have a government post in the Trump administration.
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Walid Phares has asserted that jihadists are posing as civil rights advocates.
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Walid Phares has been described as a part of the counter-jihad movement.
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Walid Phares has asserted that the Barack Obama administration supported the Muslim Brotherhood.
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In March 2017 Walid Phares attracted attention in the UK when he implied in a tweet that London had "shut down" in the wake of the terrorist attack in Westminster, despite most roads and tube stations remaining open as normal, and the fact that only the immediate crime scene was cordoned off: many Londoners replied to Walid Phares to refute his claim.