Walid has reported extensively on the Innocence of Muslims video that has been in the news since September 11th. The media narrative is that the film was produced by a Coptic Christian. He has repeatedly challenged this assertion and has produced plenty of evidence that indicates Nakoula Basseley Nakoula (Mark Bacile Yousef) is not a Christian at all.

In fact, Nakoula has a long history of working with Eiad Salameh, a Muslim fundamentalist who hates Copts. How do we know? Because Eiad is Walid’s first cousin and Walid knows his background quite well. Walid has also produced evidence that Salameh, who was a partner in crime with Nakoula for many years, was offered to the Feds in 2011 by the Canadian Peel Police but the Feds declined to pick him up.

According to court documents, Nakoula had been given a lighter sentence in order to help the Feds catch Salameh, so the Feds’ reticence to do so when the Canadians offered up Salameh is quite perplexing.

Quite frankly, the evidence Walid has collected points to Nakoula being someone completely different from his portrayal by both the left and right wing media. That evidence calls into question his being a Coptic Christian at all.

This has been where we’ve run into some resistance because accepting this new premise would mean it is indeed possible that Nakoula is actually part of a Muslim plot that includes intentionally producing an anti-Muhammad video to further an Islamic agenda.

Despite the evidence, this possibility has been a tough sell.

One of the reasons very well may be that many consider it a stretch that Muslims (or Muslim operatives) would make an anti-Muhammad video and blame its production on non-Muslims, in this case, Coptic Christians.

Ladies and gentlemen, may we present some anecdotal evidence that such a scenario should not be dismissed out of hand?

Claims made by Palestinians – that Jewish settlers have been destroying holy Palestinian olive trees – have been rebutted by news reports dating back to at least 2010. So who’s destroying these ‘holy’ trees?

Via Anne’s Opinions (h/t BNI):

Every year we hear the same story – the dastardly evil Jewish settlers cut down holy Palestinian olive trees in the middle of the olive harvest in order to steal their land*/starve them out*/destroy them economically*/etc.* (* delete where and if applicable).

And every year the Israelis bring videos and photos as evidence that the Palestinians are harming their own property purely to slander Israel and blacken its name.

Thanks to algemeiner, we have video accompanied with commentary at the end that has been translated by Anne’s Opinions.

First the video:

Here is the translated commentary given by the man at the end of that video (his name is Benny Katzover):

“The olive harvest season has begun, and with it the season of incitement. We called on the public to equip themselves with cameras, and already today we’ve seen near Elon Moreh cutting down of really big tree branches, which in the next round will be presented as “uprooting of trees”. They might be planning the next libel here.

In order to be prepared for the worst, this time we filmed the tree-cutters. They want to light a fire, either for their ovens or for their libels against the Jewish residents [of Judea & Samaria], and we caught them red-handed. The scale of the tree-cutting and its proximity to the settlement is very suspicious, also because it can be used for reconnaissance and then for security-related incidents.

I call once again on all the public to equip themselves with cameras, to follow these incidents, to document them and most importantly to film them. This is the most useful weapon against them, both to counter the libel and conversely, to take the offensive to the Arabs who take advantage of the naivete, not to mention the malice, of the world, to blacken the name of Israel and its residents.”

Arutz Sheva also reported on the incident caught on video.

While differing only in matters of degree, such tactics are not only straight out of Hitler’s Nazi Germany (Reichtag Fire and Kristallnacht) but, if true, they demonstrate a willingness on the part of these Palestinians to desecrate, deface, or otherwise defame “holy” objects in order to bear false witness against the Jews.

With this as a premise, it is indeed plausible that Innocence of Muslims was made for a similar purpose and shouldn’t be dismissed out of hand.

Based on the evidence Walid has uncovered, perhaps plausibility should be set as a baseline.

Another question that needs to be continually asked is…

Where is Eiad?

Ben Barrack is a talk show host and author of the book, Unsung Davids, which features a chapter on Walid Shoebat