Walid Shoebat was born and raised in Bethlehem, Israel to an Arab father and an American mother. He was raised a Muslim and grew up a terrorist, but when he married a Christian woman, he was challenged to examine the Bible. Today he is the founder of the Walid Shoebat Foundation. His life mission and driving passion is to bring the truth of the Bible, and contrast the persecution of Israel and Christians by Islam. Walid has spoken at many prestigious universities including Harvard, Columbia, and Stanford. He has also addressed Homeland Security, Capitol Hill, Boeing, the FBI and the Air Force Academy. (Inside cover)

Shoebat attempts to integrate Bible prophecy with the rise of Isalm. He sees a symmetry between the return of Christ and the coming of the Isalmic Mahdi. But Shoebat who is a believing Christian equates the Mahdi with the antichrist. He develops several parallels between the Mahdi and the antichrist. For example, both the Mahdi of Islam and the antichrist blaspheme by denying Jesus as the Son of God.

The warfare mentality of Islam is explored including a feigned moderation that would turn radical at the appropriate time. The warfare theme is incorporated into the antichrist’s war with God as portrayed in the Book of Revelation. Shoebat draws on his many years as a PLO terrorist.

A novel take on the beasts of Daniel chapter 7 is presented. Shoebat believes that the fourth beast is not Rome as is the prevalent view. He believes that Rome was just an extension of Greece and that the beast that follows is Islam and its ruling caliphate.
The beast that receives a head wound so as to be killed is the Ottoman empire that expired in 1924. This empire is now near a miraculous revival.

Shoebat writes that Babylon the Great of Revelation chapters 17 and 18 is the Saudi Arabian peninsula. He also applies prophecy regarding Edom to Saudi Arabia because Edom extended to the south for an undetermined distance.

The most compelling approach presented in the book is with regard to Gog and the nations with him in Ezekiel chapters 38 and 39. Shoebat sees Magog, Meshech, Tubal, Gomer, and Beth Togarmah as located in modern Turkey and Syria. Persia, Cush, and Put are identified as Iran, Sudan-Somalia, and North Africa respectively. To him the significance of all these places is that they are Muslim. He rules out Russia because of the weak translation of “Rosh” to “Russia” and because Russia is not currently Muslim.

The weakest part of the book was Appendix C, The Three Woe Trumpets. Shoebat thinks that the star that falls from Heaven unto the Earth (in Revelation 9:1) and is given the key to the bottomless pit is a heretical minister of religion. He cites the stars in Revelation 1:20. According to Shoebat this star is Mohammed. The explanation of the Three Woes falls apart from there.

One of the benefits of the book is its Middle Eastern centric framework and its recognition of Jerusalem as the center for Bible prophecy. At times it drifts rather far afield by too confidently assigning Biblical symbols to modern people, places, etc. Still, for students of prophecy I found the book an interesting read.

Author Robert Chandler is a strategist who has worked for the United States Air Force, the White House, the Departments of State, Defense, Energy, and Justice, and the Central Intelligence Agency. A retired Air Force colonel and Vietnam veteran, he holds a Ph.D. in political science from George Washington University. He is the author of numerous articles and four previous books, and is a much sought-after speaker. (Inside cover)

The book attempts to show the reader the difference between what is seen and what is reality. Chandler identifies four competitors in the race for geopolitical dominance similar to Malachi Martin’s book, The Keys of this Blood, and gives an expose on identifying the competitors, their tactics, and their goals. Chandler cites an array of primary and secondary sources.

The revelations of the book identify the competing centers of gravity in relation to their opposition to the United States or the Capitalist West. Resurgent Russia includes such players as China, North Korea, Iran, and Latin America. The global New Left is made up of “networks of networks” and “constellations of constellations” of NGO’s (non-governmental organizations) or “civil society organizations.” Radical Islam is comprised of Salafist/Wahhabist ideology and fueled by Saudi money. While these three opponents of the West are not identical they do work in concert when it serves their goals which is world socialist governance or in the case of Radical Islam a world caliphate.

Chandler speaks extensively of two pivotal men in history. The first, Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937), an Italian Communist, advocated societal revolution through nonviolent, persistent, “quiet” transformation. The major obstacles to transformation are the “Christian mind and Christian culture” and the nuclear family which transmits that “mind and culture.” Whereas Lenin saw victory through military might, aggression, and war; Gramsci saw deception, infiltration, and co-option. Gramsci wanted to “Marxize the inner man.”

The second, Samuel Rubin (1901-1978), was born in Bialystok, Poland, then a part of Czarist Russia. His parents migrated to Brooklyn, New York when Samuel was four. Rubin was active in the Spanish Civil War in the late 1930’s. By means of war-profiteering Rubin acquired a large stock of ambergris, a key raw ingredient in perfumes. He eventually established “A. C. Faberge” and turned it into a multi-million dollar business. His fortune went to establish the Institute for Policy Studies and the Samuel Rubin Foundation. The Institute for Policy Studies eventually became the shining star in a constellation of NGO’s employing Gramsci’s formula for cultural transformation.

Chandler introduces the reader to the Soviet Union’s Andropov Plan, a long-range, global deception strategy. First revealed by KGB Major Anatoliy Golitsyn who defected to the West in 1961, the Andropov Plan took the Russian quest for hegemony underground. The plan was implemented by Mikhail Gorbachev and the Soviet Union was dissolved on December 31, 1991. Through glasnost and perestroika began the deception, infiltration, and co-option prescribed by Gramsci. Chandler predicts the re-emergence of a confident, chauvinistic Russian nationalism and its attendant consequences.

The reader will come away from the book with a better understanding of the non-governmental organization. Chandler provides a laundry list of NGO’s both domestic and international. NGO’s, according to Chandler, have co-opted the UN and work to circumvent national borders and weaken national sovereignty. These organizations seek to educate, but that education equals propaganda in that it seeks to influence attitudes and ultimately control actions. NGO’s shape cultural thinking by creating issues, conflicts, and controversy. An example is the Cloward-Piven strategy which “seeks to hasten the fall of capitalism by overloading the government bureaucracy with a flood of impossible demands, thus pushing society into crisis and economic collapse.”

Finally, Chandler explores the Gramscian techniques of radical Islam. He quotes Michael Barone who flatly states, “the Saudis are our enemies.” The Islamists use our concept of “multiculturalism” against us. Ex-Muslim Abdul Kasem calls it “Kafir multiculturalism.” (Kafir is the Islamic term for non-Muslim) Indeed the idea of multiculturalism does not exist for Muslims. But the radical Muslims fight with a two edged sword. War is the sharp edge and immigration as cultural infiltration the other. The ideology and the money to propel it flow out of Saudi Arabia.

Chandler writes from a secular point of view. He is not a Christian apologist. So why is this book of any profit to believing Christians? If read in the light of Psalm 2 the book becomes illuminating. The first three verses of Psalm 2 speak of nations, peoples, kings and rulers taking a stand against the LORD and his Anointed One. To take this stand against the LORD and his Christ, nations conspire and the peoples plot in vain to break the chains and throw off the fetters of the LORD and his Christ. The plotting and conspiring is what occurs in the shadows. An excerpt from page 38 is as follows:

“Gramsci’s blueprint for action, Martin (Malachi Martin) explained, called for a stealthy attack on Christianity, one that ‘…had to be pursued by means of quiet and anonymous revolution… everything must be done in the name of man’s dignity and rights, and in the name of autonomy and freedom from outside constraint. From the claims and constraints of Christianity, above all.’”

Martin uses the word “constraints.” Autonomy, freedom from outside constraint, is the goal. The first three verses of Psalm 2 speak of “chains and fetters” (NIV), “bonds and cords” (ESV), and “fetters and cords” (NASB). “Constraints” serve to impose limits, restrictions, and prohibitions. Likewise “chains,” “fetters,” “bonds,” and “cords.” The goal of the nations, peoples, kings, and rulers of Psalm 2 is also freedom and autonomy from the constraints of God because they want to “break the chains” and “throw off the fetters.”

Psalm 2 also speaks of a “gathering together.” Chandler documents this world unification impulse that drives the efforts in the shadows. The words “world,” “global,” “earth,” “peace,” and “united” abound in NGO titles. The objectives of resurgent Russia, the global New Left, and radical Islam are world governance, and though their visions are not identical, the obstacle to their objectives is.

Shadow World is a timely book that illuminates current American domestic and international trends by exposing the forces at work in the shadows. It reflects Chandler’s extensive experience in intelligence and knowledge of politics. Its broad scope connects the proverbial “dots” and provides a backdrop for an informed reading of Psalm 2.