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Former PLO terrorist Walid Shoebat is in San Diego to give a presentation to San Diego State 7 p.m. today in Montezuma Hall. The Daily Aztec had an opportunity to conduct a phone interview with him on Saturday in which his views on Islam, the Palestinian Authority and Ariel Sharon's disengagement from Gaza, among other issues, were discussed.
Daily Aztec: Why have you decided to give speeches about this issue?
Walid Shoebat : Well, it's one thing to say, "OK, I guess we have done wrong toward the Israelis and Palestinians over the eons of time" and take a different route and move on. And it's another thing to do something about it and correct the errors that we made. I've learned from Jewish thinking that to do a 'mid-thought' is to undo the wrong that you've done and to correct what you've done. So, it's one thing to say, "Yeah, we were wrong," but what about correcting it? It's our actions that count in life. And I feel empty without doing an action. My life feels empty just by sitting idle and saying, "That was wrong, but I'm not going to do anything about it, I'm just going to disappear into oblivion." Then I will struggle with myself, with all my soul and say, "You know what, I have to do what's right."
DA : On your Web site, you have a phrase in which you're stating that the 1400-year history of Islam proves that the religion is about hating Jews. Don't you find it a little harsh to label more than 1 billion people as anti-Semitic?
WS : No, I think that sentence is being misconstrued, and I think I want to take that sentence out of the Web site and rewrite it, because I think it is not correct to say that in every single period in Islamic history Jews were mistreated. The Jewish treatment in the Muslim world was a zigzag, depending on the whims of the Sultan at that time. So there is evidence for both cases. But I think what happens is that some professors (view) the good times that the Jews survived in the Muslim world to an extreme - that they lived all these years in relative peace and harmony. Well, that's not true, even if you look at the writings of Maimonedes. Maimonedes was a Jewish writer and he said, "No one has ever mistreated us as much as the Muslims mistreated us." He was living in the Muslim world. He was talking about forced conversions of Jews in the Muslim area. And he says, "We'll recite the formula and live." Basically, convert to Islam and live just to recite the formula, but continue on with Jewish lives. The question is: Was Maimonedes lying when he was writing his essays? I don't think so. There was tremendous amount of persecution (in) the Muslim world, and I accept that. There was also tremendous amount of persecution in the Christian world toward Jews. But there has never been any (time) in history where Muslims and Christians lived amongst Jews when they were persecuted by Jews. There were no Jewish pogroms against Christians and Muslims. But there are pogroms against Jews in both Christendom and Islam in these eras. So, this sentence that I have in the Web site is being taken way out of proportion. The 1400 years of Islam proves that there was persecution of Jews. Can anybody deny that?
DA : Also on the Web site, you refer to the current situation in the Middle East as the "so-called Israeli occupation." Why did you decide to label it as such?
WS : Well, I don't look at the Israeli occupation as any other occupation that you see in history, (such as) aggressive occupation when the Nazis aggressively tried to conquer Europe. Not all occupations are bad. The word "occupation" became coined as something that's bad and as something that's evil. We have an occupation of Iraq, and we have occupied Afghanistan. Those are not bad occupations. I think that in Afghanistan, the occupation has been good, because all the Afghans I talk to in America seem to be happy about the Americans occupying Afghanistan and making corrections in Afghanistan - getting rid of the Taliban. I see the occupation of Israelis (in Palestine) as a good thing. The Palestinians complain about the wall, the fence. Well, the Israelis removed that fence when they occupied the Holy Land. There was a fence dividing Jerusalem; they took it away. The Israelis didn't want this. The Israelis developed several universities in the West Bank. The Israelis brought up a great era of tourism in that land, which is now diminished as a result of the pullout of Israelis and putting in the PA (Palestinian Authority). I think the PA is an occupation; the PA doesn't give freedom or liberty to the people to think. Under the Israeli occupation, people were allowed to express their fears. A person was allowed to go to drink a beer in a bar. The freedom of thinking is gone, after the occupation is gone - the Israelis brought liberty to that land: liberty of thinking, democracy. The Israelis brought for the first time the freedom for women to vote. Now, women are able to vote for the first time in the history of that country. So how is it that this is an oppressive occupation when the Palestinians, on the other side, with the PA system, think that Sharia law must be the state religion? Where are women's rights? Where is anybody's rights? There are no rights. You are not supposed to condemn terrorism; you are supposed to say that you condemn terrorism, but in reality, support it at the same time.
DA : What are your hopes for Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas and the coming elections this summer?
WS : I think we need a clean house. I think the PA needs to be removed. The Palestinian Authority is the PLO and has to be removed totally. I think the problem is that we have a huge influx of Hamas activism in the area. Gaza is predominantly Hamas. So, I don't think Mahmoud Abbas is really going to do anything about dismantling Hamas. Mahmoud Abbas made a clear statement. He said, "I dedicate this peace process to the soul of Yasser Arafat, to the Palestinian prisoners and to the Palestinian martyrs." What does that say? This sentence in itself is loaded. It's saying that we dedicate this peace process where we're going to get land to the martyrs, to the suicide bombers and to the Palestinian prisoners - to the terrorists. So nothing has changed, really. It is an era of silence, keep it down; keep it quiet. We will get concessions: We will get Gaza, first, and when Gaza is obtained, guess who is going to be the victor? Hamas, because Gaza is Hamas territory. You see, Hamas is the one that won getting land from Israel. We have had this happen in Oslo before. We have not learned. My issue with this peace process is that, first, we must insist on the good. We must see the good plain side proved to the whole world. Here it is: no more terrorism; we're firing these Islamist preachers from the mosques, and we're putting moderate Muslims to teach in the mosques. Then we will see some results. But we're not seeing that. Nothing has changed. The news media is still the same, the sermons in the mosques are still the same. Even the most extreme in Hamas would approve of a peace negotiation because, when you are the weaker element, you would negotiate even in the Islamist view. Hamas now has a hard time buying bullets, it used to be 5 cents per bullet, now it's $3 dollars per bullet, because Israel has been successful in eliminating the smuggling process to Hamas factions. So, since they have the noose around their necks, they're willing to negotiate. So, I think that we should be very careful. I don't think we have learned from Oslo.
DA : What do you hope to accomplish with your speech today? What would you like to see in the students and individuals who come hear your speech?
WS : What I hope to accomplish is to reach out to my fellow Palestinians in my writings, etc. I finally realized you couldn't to plant a seed on stone. You've got to take it to soft soil. The Palestinians have not, in maturity, have not gotten the "crip" that Israel has that right to exist. They say it, but they don't mean it. It's still a call for the destruction of the state of Israel. My hope is to make the American people, who understand the nature of terrorism because they have experienced it, understand the plight of Israel and the Jewish people worldwide. My hope is to make those who come out really understand the true nature of terrorism and what it's about, because I experienced it myself.
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