Page "Sami Al-Arian" Paragraph 21

On September 26, 2001, he appeared on The O ' Reilly Factor talk show, and Bill O ' Reilly asked him about his connections to PIJ head Ramadan Abdullah Shallah and to Tarik Hamdi, a former manager of WISE who was linked to al-Qaeda during the trial of four men convicted in the 1998 bombings of U. S. embassies in East Africa, and who set up an interview for Osama bin Laden with ABC.

Al-Arian said as to Shallah, he was " shocked like everyone else in the world ... he became the leader of the jihad movement.

" He also said he would be shocked that Hamdi is on a list of suspected terrorists.

Asked about his having said " Jihad is our path.

Victory to Islam.

Death to Israel.

" in a 1988 speaking engagement in Cleveland, he said: " Let me just put it into context ...

When you say ' Death to Israel ,' you mean death to occupation, death to apartheid, death to oppression, death to ... absolutely not to any human being.

" He also said that it came as a shock to him that his brother-in-law was being deported.

O ' Reilly closed by saying: Well, Doctor, you know, with all due respect ... if I the CIA, I'd follow you wherever you went.

I'd follow you 24 hours ...

I'd be your shadow, Doctor ...

I'd go to Denny's with you, and I'd go everywhere you went.