Interview: Walid Shoebat

Walid Shoebat was trained from his youth to become a Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) terrorist and suicide bomber, but he converted to Christianity in his 20's. During an interview with Pastor John Hagee of Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, Texas he addressed such issues as the true number of terrorists among the Muslim population, making covenants between Muslims and non-Muslims, what Muslims believe about Christians and Jews, his training to become a terrorist, the things he saw as a terrorist, and his thoughts on the nuclear issue. This interview can be found in Hagee's revised and updated version of his book Jerusalem Countdown.

Concerning the number of terrorists among Muslims he said, "We can say over 73% of the Arab world supports the jihad ideology...for many years they have been saying 15%. That's not accurate. It's almost over 73%." If he is correct and 73% of the Islamic population is committed to using terrorism to take over the world, that number would equal almost a billion people or three Muslim terrorists for every one American. If the more conservative estimate is correct at 15%, that's still about 200 million terrorists.

Shoebat went on to explain why making covenants with Muslims is not a trustworthy way to ensure peace. "Covenant-breaking is the major issue in Islam. You don't want to break covenant because Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, in the Hudaybiyya treaty with Quraysh, broke the covenant. He was critiqued by his Muslim followers, and he said, 'There is no covenant with unbelievers.' So it doesn't matter what covenant you sign; they don't have to honor the covenant. So what's the use of having all these peace treaties? All Christians must look at the word "Hudna." Hudna in Islam is the process of establishing covenant or a peace treaty with an enemy. And it's done solely for two purposes: one is to gain possessions as the Palestinians did, and the other is to regain strength. This is why Hezbollah accepts Hudna with Israel. It's not the Oslo Peace Accord, as we think. It's the Oslo Hudna Accord in the mind of all Islamics. Gentiles and Jews look at the Oslo Peace Accord and believe it is a valid document, but in the Middle East, we call it the Oslo Hudna Accord, and we never intend to keep the document. The treaty is just an absolute waste of time to even pursue it. If they sign it, they simply are not going to honor it, and anybody who believes it is becoming deceived, just like Chamberlain of England."

Shoebat said that the Islamic view of Christians is very clear. "This is the war against the Saturday people first, and the Sunday people next. Islam solely has one purpose and one purpose alone as a religion. It came to correct the Jews and to correct the Christians, to correct the Judeo-Christian world that God is not our Father. God is not a Father...Jesus is not a Son of God...because God has no Son. God is not the Holy Spirit, and Jesus was never crucified." When asked about jihad by Pastor Hagee he said, "Jihad comes in several stages: by the pen, by finances, and by the sword, as well. So Islam came to establish jihad. And if you look at every single Muslim demonstration, the war is with the Christian world. They don't differentiate between Presbyterian, Pentecostal, or Catholic. They are all the Christian world. That's how they view America."

Shoebat then talked a little bit about his terrorist training as a child. "Americans need to understand that anti-Semitism starts like milk you feed to a baby. When I was six years old going to kindergarten, just before the Six-Day War erupted, we were singing a song. [The song contained the words] 'Arabs are beloved, and the Jews are dogs.' I continued my education by entering an Anglican Lutheran school, third and fourth grade, which was supposedly a Christian school. There the Bible was taught to us as Moses was a Palestinian revolutionist...Jesus was a Palestinian revolutionist. In fact, prominent figures, all Christian Palestinian prominent figures, say that the biblical characters were all Palestinian revolutionists. Going to the government schools, things took on a much different nature. Now we were learning the Koran. Now we were learning the hadith. Terrorism was being taught as part of the religion. I was in high school, about fourteen, fifteen, or sixteen, those ages. And we memorized most of the Koran. Our educators were graduates of Al Azhar University. Most Americans don't know what that really entails. Al Azhar University is the number one university that serves all the Sunni Muslim world with graduates and scholars. All these graduates, almost all of them, teach the jihadist movement. And the Islamic brotherhood coming out of Egypt was very influential in our area. Jihadiya will teach us martyrdom, that in order to establish salvation, we must die ourselves in order to go to Heaven, and not just to receive seventy virgins-there's 72 rooms with 72 beds, and on each bed or sheet, 72 virgins. In fact, we memorized it:' Do not think that the ones who die in jihad in the cause of Allah are dead, but are alive with Allah, receiving his blessings.' And we learned also the Islamic hadith. The Islamic hadiths, regarding jihad...There's about a hundred hadiths talking about jihad. And it talks about eschatology regarding the end of days. And what Muhammad the Prophet of Islam said was very clear: 'The day of judgment shall not come to pass until the tribes of Islam defeat the tribes of Israel in Jerusalem and the surrounding nations. The trees will cry out and the stones will cry out [saying] here is a Jew hiding being me. Come, O Muslim. Come, O Allah. Come and kill him.' So terrorism was inculcated in the religious perspective, in social perspective, in the graffiti all around the walls. You wouldn't find a square meter in the Palestinian areas that didn't have graffiti...things like, 'We knock on the gates of Heaven with the skulls of Jews. So in order to enter Paradise, you must kill Jews. You must die as a Shahid or a martyr.' That was part of the entire social structure. Even going to the local zoo you would see monkeys, and the teacher would say, 'These are the descendants of the Jews.' We were given the Koranic verse regarding this, which means, 'We have converted these Sabbath breakers, the Jews, to becoming detestable monkeys.' Then you see all the Palestinian clergies saying these things. It was very parallel to what you say in Nazi Germany. Although we denied the Holocaust even ever existed...and that the Holocaust was a fabrication to establish the Zionist entity...and that we had nothing to do with Hitler. That wasn't true."

Shoebat's explanation of what he was eyewitness to as a boy is very, very graphic so if you have a weak stomach I suggest skipping this paragraph. "I remember when I was doing my research....going to Hebron. I saw a bus [owned by Jews] being stolen by the Palestinians with bars of iron and wire mesh. And I asked myself, 'Why are the Jews not allowed to live amongst us?' My friend was pounding a nail in the head of a Jew who was in the bus. You see in Ramallah Square, in the capital of Palestine, which the Americans helped create, you see thousands and thousands of men in the square of Ramallah carrying body parts of a so-called collaborator. Somebody maybe was sympathizing with Israel. They cut his guts out, cut his heart out, and his kidneys, and put them on a platter. And you see the men and the children carrying the body parts through the streets, shouting, 'Allah Akbar' in a frenzied fashion, in a euphoric fashion. My country...has become the night of the living dead-literally, not allegorically. What we accuse the Jews of, the blood ritual, we carried out literally. If you think in reverse, what we [Muslims] accuse America of...they carry out literally."

Finally Shoebat commented on the seriousness of the threat to America and Israel posed by the Islamic hordes that want to destroy us. "I see Hezbollah accepting a cessation of hostilities as Condoleeza Rice states it. Yet as I mentioned before, this is what Islam calls "Hudna." The Palestinians will sign peace treaties with Israel. That's not a problem. It is permissible to sign a peace treaty with the enemy because the terrorists have no intention of keeping it. They are regaining strength for the next fight. The United Nations clearly says they will not disarm Hezbollah, so Hezbollah is going to continue to be being re-armed by Iran through Syria. They will have more powerful missiles. It won't be Katusha rockets next time; it will be laser-guided missiles that will be accurate enough to hit the Israeli Knesset. Hezbollah is collaborating with Iran. They are acting under the control of the Iranian government. Israel is not at war with Hezbollah. Israel is at war with Iran. Iran is the source of the war. Iran is taking over Iraq. The Shiite government there is very clear they are pro-Iran. Iran is controlling Syria. So as I see it happening, Iran will take over Iraq. And eventually we'll see Islamic fundamentalism growing all the way to Turkey. Turkey will turn Muslim fundamentalist. This is the second largest army in NATO. When this happens, America will not be able to fight on all these fronts. America will be forced to use its nuclear missiles...Another problem for America is a country like Pakistan and its leader, Musharraf. I know he's an ally of the United States, but he plays both sides of the fence. If he's ousted, they already have nuclear weapons. So the nuclear crisis in the Middle East is a far greater problem than Americans think. It's not just a war in Iraq. It's a war in Iraq, a war in Iran, a war in Sudan, and potentially a war in Pakistan-and possibly in Israel.