Following are excerpts from an interview with former Saudi minister Ali Bin Ibrahim Al-Namla, which aired on Al-Majd TV on April 6, 2008.

Ali Bin Ibrahim Al-Namla: The American interest lies with the Arab and Islamic countries in the Middle East more than with a Zionist entity in occupied Palestine.

Interviewer: That's strange. So how do you explain the current American policy?

Ali Bin Ibrahim Al-Namla: There are many possible explanations for this. One explanation is the pressure exerted by the Zionist lobby, and so on. It may come as a surprise to some of the viewers, but one explanation is their desire to get rid of the Jews.

Interviewer: Get rid of whom?

Ali Bin Ibrahim Al-Namla: The Jews. They gather the Jews in a certain [distant] place, because they present a cultural and economic challenge. So they gather and support them, and this way, they fend off their evil. It is not me who says this. Benjamin Franklin said so over 200 years ago.