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This interview with Walid Shoebat appeared on The David Pakman Show on January 12, 2012.
David Pakman: Walid Shoebat is joining us, back on the show. He’s a former member of the Palestinian Liberation Organization. He’s been on the program before. He’s also written several books, including “For God or For Tyranny” and “God’s War on Terror”. Pleasure to have you back on the show.
Walid Shoebat: You bet. Thank you for having me.
David: So we’ve been looking at what some are calling a coverup by politicians obeying the first commandment of playing politics, as you have said, as it comes to implicating Iran. This is a story that a lot of people just don’t have on their radar, so give me kind of a background for the allegation you’re making.
Shoebat: Well, you have Nouriel Malachi as a delegation to the Oval Office, to the United States, accompanied by the head of… the Minister of Transportation of Iraq, who’s Hadi Al-Amiri, many Americans began to object regarding Al-Amiri’s connection to the Khobar Towers terrorist attack. Although the United States government tried to squash the voices of victims and families, survivors, they… the government issued a release stating that there’s no evidence of Al-Amiri being involved in any act of violence against U.S. citizens.
Well, the first question I ask is, despite the argument that Al-Amiri… the claim that Al-Amiri didn’t have any connection to Khobar Towers, Al-Amiri’s well-known to have been involved with Iran to squash any opposition in Iraq. And that includes assassinations and terrorism in Iraq itself.
David: Yeah, no, let me just jump in here, because, so when… that I think gives us a good starting point at least. And what was interesting to me, and I don’t think you’ll mind me going down this path, because we’ve talked about this before, is that this idea that you say, you know, it is claimed that there is no evidence of links to terrorism, but you have found A, B, and C and you’re aware of it, it’s interesting, because that’s the same thing a lot of people have said about your story as well, right?
I mean, it’s fascinating, because you told the story previously on our show about you throwing the bomb at Bank Leumi, an Israeli bank in Bethlehem, and spending time in prison, and when we look at that, many people say well, there’s no evidence of that. The Israeli government has denied that that happened, the bank has denied that that happened, there’s no evidence he spent… that Walid Shoebat spent any time in jail. And you have contested that, so there is a similarity in the claim, is there not?
Shoebat: Yes, except it’s in reverse. The Iraqi government does not want to be associated or linked to any terrorist activity; I’m the only terrorist that is wanting to be convicted for my actions. In fact, you will never find any Israeli official or any Israeli government official or police official that would state that I was never in prison. You’ll never find that, it simply doesn’t exist.
It’s simply a claim, however, the claim is made by CNN. And of course, if everybody wants to believe a claim made by CNN, that’s up to them, however, I wasn’t hit with amnesia, basically, to be reminded that I was never a terrorist. I know who I was.
In fact, all the peripherals to my story can be proven beyond shadow of a doubt, the connections that I mentioned, the family members that were involved in terrorism, how did CNN find my home and my location and my family and brought false testimonies from Palestinians, some of my relative? However, there are people who I know who are willing to testify that they know who I am and they know the claims I make is true, from my own village.
David: Well, why do you think, I’m actually very curious, because I think you’re referring to the July 13th CNN Anderson Cooper report where they said… they claimed to have spoken to Israeli government officials and that they all said, we have no record of this person ever committing this attack, and we have no record of jailtime, and then they also interviewed your cousin, who said, I don’t know that Walid Shoebat has any ties to any kind of movement at all. So why would they… I mean, do you believe that they coerced your cousin into saying that? Does your cousin have reasons to claim not to know anything about it?
Shoebat: Well, my fourth cousin, by the way, it’s not my first cousin, he was with me in the Jeep with the military when I was arrested. He… the reason they brought him is because in town, he was known to have been a grunt worker working for the Israelis, because they need somebody to speak Arabic, so he spoke Arabic, he’s from the village, and he was, you know, working for the Israelis.
In fact, the translation on CNN regarding what my fourth cousin said is absolutely false. If you go to the Arabic language, in fact, I should be translating the Arabic language and showing it, this is not what he stated. He stated that he was experienced working for the military, and I haven’t heard anything come through my desk, but the translation itself was convoluted.
So obviously CNN wanted to repeat an old lie that was expressed by a journalist in “The Jerusalem Post”. And by the way, people can download my rebuttal in “The Jerusalem Post”, and why did “The Jerusalem Post” issue a rebuttal? Because “The Jerusalem Post” regretted the article have slipped under their eyes without scrutinizing it, and they wanted to rectify the mistake.
David: Yeah, you know, I mean, I have to be honest, when… the last time we had you on, I received so many emails, some saying this is all a fraud, and some saying it’s for real. And I’ve done a lot of research on this, and I have to say, I don’t really know what I think about it, because there is so much that you say which is accurate. These translations can become convoluted. You have issued a rebuttal.
And at the same time, there are conflicts, you know? I mean, in 2008, “The Jerusalem Post” asked you if there were news reports about your bombing, and you said, I don’t know, I didn’t read the papers, because I was hiding for three days. But in 2004, and correct me if I’m wrong, you told the Britain “Sunday Telegraph”, I was terribly relieved when I heard on the news later that evening that no one had been hurt or killed by the bomb; that’s a direct conflict, isn’t it?
Shoebat: Yes, it sounds as a direct conflict if you read it that way, but that’s not what I stated. I said when I heard the news that there was no one killed. Well, I mentioned in detail what the news was, when my father had Muhammad Muriel Al-Taraj in our house, and I asked him, was anybody killed? And he said no one was killed, so I was relieved at the news. So the word “news” got expanded to mean that I heard on the news. The bombing itself wasn’t on the news.
The near-lynching was on the news, in fact, I have a newspaper clipping, I’ve been researching in-depth into this, and I found a newspaper clipping with the lieutenant governor, or the military governor of Bethlehem, who has been injured. So there is a story that I mentioned in my history that I can prove beyond shadow of a doubt that existed.
David: See, I can understand that. I understand… that– I do understand that explanation. I mean, why do you think that there is this, if you use the word, I don’t know if you do, but why does this conspiracy exist to try to disprove that you participated in this? I mean, what’s the interest in saying you didn’t participate?
Shoebat: Well, look, I mean, if you look at the news, or internet, what circulates the internet, what circulates the news, I’m a fraud, Kamal Saleem is a fraud, Brigitte Gabriel is a fraud, you know, all of us are frauds. So you know, there is an interest by the left to squash the voices from the East, because these voices from the East are telling it as-is, and they are basically, you know, giving the news from the Middle East as is, translating the documents as I’m doing here.
David: Well, but hold on a second, you know, that may be true in some of the cases, but do you deny that this industry does exist among fundamentalist Christians of touting these former Muslims in the same way that the anti-gay community brings out these former gay people? Do you deny that that exists at all in the United States?
Shoebat: No, I can’t deny that at all. There is, you know, people are elated to hear somebody who’s an ex-terrorist, but I was the first one to come up in this industry, number one.
Number two, I, in fact, if you look at my record, from the moment that I began to go public until 2004, 2005, my books and my material were downloadable for free of charge. I didn’t collect a cent for many, many years. Does that make any sense, if I had special interest or material interest to promote myself? I simply got, you know, sold my first book, what was it, 2004; 1994 I was active, 10 years.
David: But you have now profited significantly from your story, there’s no denying that.
Shoebat: Well, I wouldn’t say “significantly”, you know, an author gets paid. However, the problem in America, what I’ve found out, is that people don’t read your material unless they paid for it. So once I started printing my book, in fact, “Israel and the World’s Mock Trial”, you can go back to 1995 and download this material, you know, for free of charge. Why would I for 10 years promote all the works that I’ve done free of charge? It doesn’t make any sense.
David: Well, like I’ve said, you know, and we really got off on a side story there, but I find this story so fascinating, and there just… there are so many sides and so many factors here, I’ve done so much research on it. We’ll continue to talk to you. We’re actually out of time. We’ll have to have you back and we can then delve more deeply into Iran, because it’s another fascinating story, but I do thank you for coming on, again, Walid Shoebat.
Shoebat: You bet. Take care.