Alan Keyes
April 23, 2002

ALAN KEYES, HOST: Welcome to MAKING SENSE. I‘m Alan Keyes.

Today, day one of the much-awaited meeting between the Pope and U.S. Cardinals. They gathered together in Rome to look at the crisis that is besetting the church. And, of course, the Pope had some interesting words to say.

But first of all, I want to take a look at what happened in the New York Archdiocese. It will give us a sense of what may be the problems that await the Holy Father as he tries to get past what may be the grave misunderstanding on the part of some folks in the U.S. hierarchy.

This past Sunday, for instance, Monsignor Eugene Clark filled in for New York‘s Cardinal Edward Egan. Monsignor Clark said this in his sermon: Practicing homosexuality is truly sinful because it is a disorder, and as a disorder should prevent a person from being ordained a priest. He went on to say — quote — “We are probably the most immoral country in the western hemisphere because of the entertainment we suffer and what‘s done to our country‘s morals.”

Now, obviously Eugene Clark was taking the point of view that this isn‘t just about the abuse of children, it reflects the deeper moral crisis of society. Well, the spokesman for the New York Archdiocese came forward and said that Monsignor Clark was, quote, “speaking for himself.” They obviously wanted to distance themselves a little bit from what he had to say.

Well, consider what happened today at the Vatican, however, because even though it appears that Monsignor Clark was, quote, “speaking for himself,” what he had to say seems to reflect the very understanding that the Holy Father articulated at the Vatican in the course of today.

At the Vatican today, the Pope did address this issue. He came down hard on priests who commit pedophilia, but he also said that, quote, “The abuse of the young is a great symptom of a crisis affecting not only the church, but society as a whole. It is a deep-seated crisis of sexual morality, even of human relationships. And its prime victims are the family and the young. In addressing the problem of abuse with clarity and determination, the church will help society to understand and deal with the crisis in its midst.”

Well, apparently, Monsignor Clark was right in his understanding, at least as far as the Holy Father is concerned, when he pointed to the larger moral crisis in our society as a whole, when he saw the crisis having to do with the abuse of children in the context of a larger crisis of sexual morality, as it is misportrayed, misrepresented in our entertainment media and other respects in our society. The interesting thing, of course, is that when Monsignor Clark pointed to the context of the larger moral crisis, defined the problem in those terms, the New York Archdiocese distanced itself from his words.

Well, does this mean that they‘re going to distance themselves from the Holy Father‘s understanding? I raise this issue because there is, I think, a real question as to whether or not the mistakes, the misjudgments as they are called by prelates, the cardinals, the bishops who sadly were involved in judgments that covered up these problems, that allowed abuses to continue, were they just a matter of a particular instance of bad judgment? Or, did they reflect a deep and sadly corrupted understanding of the gravity of the moral issues that were involved?

That would, by the way, be a natural consequence of embracing the current secular understanding of sexual matters in which those matters are treated as if they‘re no different than, I don‘t know, going to the bathroom or having a drink of water. The understanding of sexual morality is something that involves and reflects the deep connection with God almighty, that it‘s therefore to be understood as a sacred trust that has at its heart something that speaks to the deepest and most important and powerful issues of human moral character and spirituality.

That‘s not what‘s reflected in our entertainment media, in the way in which these things are approached in music and other respects, and in the way they are approached by modern psychiatry and psychology. Insofar as we have heard from the prelates in the American Catholic Church, that they relied on the judgments of psychiatrists and psychologists and others who reflect the secular understanding to guide their judgment, does this mean that they were not looking at these matters with the eyes of Catholic doctrine, with the eyes of faith, with the heart of Christian and scriptural belief?

That, unfortunately, is very likely to be the case. And therefore, I have a feeling they‘re even stunned and surprised at the fact that all of a sudden a society that takes all these sexual things so lightly is coming down so hard on them, because in this particular instance they treated something that was from a spiritual point of view deeply grave as if instead it were simply a part of the sort of ongoing likeness of being that is reflected in the secular attitude in America towards sexual matters.

Now, of course, you could say, “But, Alan, what was involved here was the abuse of children.” Well, sadly one of the things than being embraced in our society at large, homosexuality, is being embraced on the basis of a doctrine that wants us to believe that homosexuality, human sexual passion, are things that are beyond the control of individuals.

I heard many people compare it to race as if sexual inclination is like race, a matter beyond the control of the individual. Well, if it‘s a matter beyond the control of the individual, then in a sense, adults are no different than children when it comes to human sexuality.

Maturity usually means that you have more control, more discipline, that your reason and understanding can guide your judgment more effectively than when you‘re young. But if all of us are without real control over our sexual inclinations, then in a way we‘re all children. It effaces the difference between children and adults to embrace this misunderstanding, this corrupted understanding, of human sexuality.

Insofar as prelates and others moved toward this worldly understanding and away from the Catholic Church‘s doctrine, which sees it in light of the relationship with God, his plan for procreation, his spiritual plan for the destiny of humankind, they did not appreciate the deep and serious gravity of the spiritual scandal that was given to the young.

Instead, they were concerned with the public scandal, the worldly scandal, when in point of fact the most important scandal given here was given long before the newspapers or anybody else knew about it. It was given when a young heart, a young soul, a young mind was seduced away from the right understanding of human sexuality that ought to have connected that young heart to God. That is the problem. And insofar as the prelates and bishops don‘t see it that way, they‘re not willing to understand that they themselves are a big part of this problem.

Well, we‘re going to be talking this in the course of the next half-hour. On the “Heart of the Matter,” we‘re going to be looking into the heart of the church crisis on whether the American cardinals are going to get it right and get back to a right moral understanding of human sexuality and apply that understanding in accordance with the church‘s teaching to all their actions and judgments.

That‘s what we‘ll be discussing in the panel that‘s upcoming. You‘re watching America‘s news channel, MSNBC.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEYES: Late word from the Mid-East tonight. Israel is delaying a U.N. fact-finding mission to the Jenin refugee camp. We‘ll debate what it means to Israel in the battle for international opinion in our next half-hour.

Also a reminder, the chat room is hotter than a Texas barbecue tonight. You‘ll want to join in. You can do so right now at chat.msnbc.com. Of course, you‘re wondering why has Alan have Texas barbecues on your mind? Well, as you can tell, no Capitol in the background tonight. I‘m coming from Dallas, Texas, where I‘ll be speaking at a prayer breakfast tomorrow morning.

But right now, let‘s get back to the crisis in the Catholic Church. Joining us to get to the “Heart of the Matter,” Sister Maureen Fiedler, national coordinator of Catholics Speak Out, a program of the Quixote Center, which promotes faith-based social justice. She‘s also the host of “Interfaith Voices,” a public radio news talk show. Louise Cervone, the national president of Dignity USA, the nation‘s largest gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender Catholic organization. And, William Donahue, the president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights. Welcome everybody to MAKING SENSE.

SISTER MAUREEN FIEDLER, NATIONAL COORDINATOR, CATHOLICS SPEAK OUT: Good to be here.

KEYES: I‘m going to start — thank you for coming. I‘m going to start this evening with Bill Donahue.

Bill, in looking at the meeting and what the Pope had to say today, I think he pretty much put it squarely front and center that we‘re not just dealing with episodes of pedophilia, we‘re dealing with a crisis of sexual morality that has to be addressed in line with Catholic doctrine. Do you think that the American prelates are going to receive and apply that message?

BILL DONOHUE, PRESIDENT, CATHOLIC LEAGUE FOR RELIGIOUS AND CIVIL RIGHTS: Well, I hope so because certainly there are two issues here at the very least. One is the way the church has handled the situation internally, which has not been very good.

But the other one is the way we have to look at it culturally. You know, sexual misconduct in the Catholic Church is not something which occurred in a vacuum. It‘s a function of the sexual libertinism, which has gripped our culture since the 1960s.

Indeed, if you take a look at the work of Michael Rose (ph) in his latest book on the seminaries, in the 1970s and into the early 1980s, our seminaries resembled more of an orgy house of gay sexual active people than it did a sacred place.

You know, it‘s really astounding to me that we‘re going to talk about how we‘re going to fix the problem when you have as one of your guests here tonight somebody from Dignity. Indeed, it was the biggest pervert in Boston, Reverend Paul Shandley (ph), who was a chaplain to Dignity. He‘s the guy who was the member of the North American Man-Boy Love Association, who argued that the kid was the predator. He gave speeches at Dignity. How can people who contributed to the problem culturally have anything to do with fixing it? I don‘t understand that.

KEYES: Well, let me ask that question of Louise Cervone, because it would seem to me to be a quite obvious question. The Pope is making it clear that at the heart of this matter there is a willingness to accept the understanding of sexual morality that departs from the church‘s teaching. You seem to be promoting that understanding. Are you, in fact, one of the sources of the problem?

MARY LOUISE CERVONE, PRESIDENT, DIGNITY USA: No, absolutely not. And I want to be very clear that Dignity is a membership organization much like any other membership organization. And we do not screen our members.

Yes, one of the accused was a member of Dignity some number of years ago. I believe that Dignity USA has been very clear that we believe that justice should be done in our church, that the victims should be treated with compassion, with love, and there should be restitution. And we have also been very clear in stating that perpetrators of crimes of sexual abuse should be brought to justice in accordance with laws.

KEYES: Louise...

CERVONE: It‘s Mary Louise.

KEYES: Mary Louise, you‘re not addressing the question, though, because at the heart of the matter today, the pope identified a crisis of sexual morality, basically, departing from the church‘s understanding that human sexual morality is part of God‘s plan for procreation, and that outside of that plan it is sinful to engage in sexual activities. Now, when you talk about transgender and bisexual and so forth, all those things are departures from the church‘s doctrine. Aren‘t you promoting the very problem that the Pope is identifying?

CERVONE: No. In fact, Dignity USA has been on record for many years that, in fact, there are ethical standards and ethical norms. And we believe that gay and lesbian relationships, bisexual and transgendered relations can be loving and life affirming and consonant with Christ‘s teaching. We believe that lesbian and gay relationships are whole and holy. And we would also condemn any relationship that is based on abuse of power, abuse of trust, and not consenting between two adults.

KEYES: Well, see, but the great problem I have here, and Maureen Fiedler, maybe you can help me out.

FIEDLER: Yes.

KEYES: Mary Louise is telling me about what she believes and what she believes. But what we‘re talking about here is what the Catholic Church teaches, what its doctrine is. People are free to believe what they want. But if you‘re going to be a Catholic you live according to the Catholic doctrine and understanding, and you accept the authority of the Pope.

I don‘t understand. The Pope is saying one thing. She‘s saying something else. And yet she says she‘s not part of the problem. I don‘t get it, Maureen.

FIEDLER: Well, I don‘t think she‘s part of the problem either. And I want to disagree here very strongly with your assessment of the problem.

The issue is not just one of sexual abuse. In fact, the issue is primarily one of the abuse of power in the church. And it‘s primarily one of hypocrisy.

The bishops have not let this problem go because they are unfamiliar with Catholic morality. They make pronouncements on that subject every other day of the week. They‘ve let this go because there is a closed all-male clerical club that has sought to protect its own and what they thought — quite mistakenly, I believe — was the best interest of the church, and have not taken sufficient care of the welfare of children in these cases.

And you couple that with what I believe are very unhealthy attitudes towards sexuality and our inability as a church to celebrate the beautiful go-given gift of sexuality, whether it‘s homosexual, whether it‘s heterosexual, whatever it is. That‘s the heart. And that actually is Catholic teaching.

KEYES: Again, Maureen...

FIEDLER: So, this is a crisis of...

KEYES: ... Maureen, it is not. I‘m sorry....

FIEDLER: ... power primarily, Alan, not primarily a crisis of sex.

KEYES: ... stop there, please. Don‘t talk over me. Don‘t talk over me.

We‘ll cut your mike off if you don‘t stop when I start. Now, listen, here‘s what the Pope had to say. You‘re saying that this is Catholic doctrine. Here is what the Pope said to the cardinals today: “People need to know that there is no place in the priesthood and religious life for those who would harm the young. They must know that bishops and priests are totally committed to the fullness of Catholic truth on matters of sexual morality, a truth as essential to the renewal of the priesthood and the episcopate as it is to the renewal of marriage and family life.”

He puts it at the hart. The other day, he said celibacy. He strictly — put sex in the context of procreation. All the things you‘re talking about are rejected by Catholic doctrine.

Bill Donahue, I don‘t quite get it. Can these folks actually be in the context of what the Pope is saying?

FIEDLER: Alan, I‘m not talking...

DONOHUE: I got the question. I got the question, lady. Hey, you with the earrings, hold up. I‘m going to tell you right now, both these women are pro-abortion, pro-homosexuality. Their girlfriend Francis Kisling (ph) hangs with them. Anybody who wants to just do a Lexus Nexus search on them. You don‘t have to take my word for it. And if they were honest, they would admit it right now. They‘re in favor of abortion and homosexuality...

FIEDLER: No, Donahue, we‘re talking about the sexual abuse of children.

DONOHUE: Why don‘t you join another religion?

(CROSSTALK)

FIEDLER: We‘re talking about children who have suffered unbelievable pain...

DONOHUE: Because of some of the stuff you have promoted.

FIEDLER: ... and unbelievable trauma in their lives at the hands of the Catholic clergy...

(CROSSTALK)

FIEDLER: ... let go by the hierarchy of this church because they are part of a power structure that does not allow them to deal with their own other than try to protect their own.

(CROSSTALK)

KEYES: One second.

CERVONE: Maureen, If I could interrupt...

KEYES: Go ahead.

CERVONE: ... I think clearly this discussion is indicative of the complexities of the sexual abuse crisis. Now, let‘s see if we can just break it down.

There‘s criminal behavior, criminal activity. Children have been sexually molested by priests. And Catholics — the very foundation of Catholicism has been shaken by this. If the crime were not shocking enough, the revelation of decades of cover-up by church leaders...

FIEDLER: That‘s right.

DONOHUE: ... now brings a different dynamic. Not only is our faith shaken because of this activity...

KEYES: If you don‘t mind my saying so...

DONOHUE: ... but that the cardinals have placed themselves on a pinnacle of self-righteousness and are more interested in preservation (INAUDIBLE)...

KEYES: ... If you don‘t mind my saying so — now, if you let me get a word in edgewise, if you don‘t mind my saying so, every word you have just said describes the actual event that is the crisis. The reason for it, however, is where we deeply disagree.

I think the reason for this crisis, the reason for the failure of the cardinals and the bishops to appreciate the gravity of the wickedness and evil that was involved here was not the law or the criminality or anything else, it was their failure to respect the Catholic doctrine of human sexuality that they are supposed to represent, their failure to give priority to spiritual as opposed to secular and materialistic understandings of human sexuality.

The very understanding you represent, that you promote, is the understanding that corrupted their judgment and that made them think that somehow or another they could deal with sexual matters apart from the church‘s grave judgment of sin against the things that were going on here. And that‘s where I disagree with you.

FIEDLER: (INAUDIBLE) bishops, you would soon discover they don‘t disagree with you on many of these things. Many of them do not.

KEYES: Of course they do.

FIEDLER: That‘s not the problem.

KEYES: Of course they do. Yes it is.

FIEDLER: The problem is a power structure of which they are a part.

KEYES: Not true.

(CROSSTALK)

KEYES: I have, hold up. I have sat down...

FIEDLER: ... church is for that power structure to open...

KEYES: Excuse me. I have sat down — we don‘t need to hear more voices...

(CROSSTALK)

KEYES: ... excuse me, Maureen, we don‘t need to hear...

FIEDLER: ... We need to hear the (INAUDIBLE) experiences of those who have been silenced.

KEYES: ... Maureen, we don‘t need to hear more voices encouraging the bishops to believe that homosexual behavior is somehow compatible with Catholic doctrine when it is not. We don‘t need more voices that are going to somehow get them to believe that all kinds of sex outside of marriage and apart from God‘s plan of procreation are to be regarded as joyful and wonderful and somehow consistent with Catholic teachings. It is those corrupting voices that exactly kept them from understanding the gravity of what they were tolerating.

FIEDLER: Mr. Keyes, that is wrong. That is just wrong.

(CROSSTALK)

FIEDLER: Mr. Keyes, that is just wrong.

DONOHUE: No, he‘s right. He‘s absolutely right. And you‘re so concerned about children, how come you people support partial birth abortion? I mean, come on. You‘re living a lie.

FIEDLER: Mr. Donohue, I am not going to engage...

(CROSSTALK)

DONOHUE: ... The biggest hypocrisy is (INAUDIBLE) you‘re a woman.

FIEDLER: ... in that kind of discussion. There is a crisis in the church. Are the cardinals in denial? That‘s what‘s on the screen. The answer is yes.

DONOHUE: You‘re in denial.

FIEDLER: The cardinals are denial of the realities of...

DONOHUE: Shandley is your boy.

FIEDLER: ... (INAUDIBLE) experiences of all Catholics.

DONOHUE: Shandley is your boy. He‘s not my boy. That‘s your boy. You‘re concerned about children, but you‘re in favor of partial birth abortion. Tell it to somebody you can sell the Brooklyn Bridge to. Don‘t tell it to me, lady.

(CROSSTALK)

FIEDLER: I just think Mr. Donahue and you, Mr. Keyes, are way off in your analysis. We‘re talking about...

KEYES: OK, but the great problem — hold on, please. The one problem we have here is that you are acting as if what your opinion, we take a vote on it or something in the church. That‘s not what truth is about, especially not according to Christian and Catholic teaching.

FIEDLER: According to Christian and Catholic teaching there is...

KEYES: ... let me finish, please. Let me finish then. If there is, as we deeply believe, an absolute supreme being who has by his will determined the difference between right and wrong, then it doesn‘t matter what your opinion is. What matters is what his will and law are.

And, according to Catholic teaching, that will and law exclude sexual activity outside of God‘s plan of procreation. You want to include it? Catholic doctrine says God excludes it. We don‘t take a vote on that because you can‘t vote on God‘s law. He makes it. We don‘t.

DONOHUE: Way to go, Alan.

FIEDLER: My understanding of human sexuality and how it‘s applied to one‘s life has evolved and changed over the centuries of the church. I did a whole book on this called “Rome Has Spoken” looking at major issues in the history of church and how, in fact, major changes have occurred over time. And this includes teachings on sexuality.

And I think that the failure of the church to listen to the experiences of married couples, the experience of women, the experience of gay and lesbian people, that‘s at the heart of the problem in the church right now. We have a sickness at the heart of the church that‘s in this...

DONOHUE: You forgot about those who like bestiality and incest. Throw them in too.

FIEDLER: ... (INAUDIBLE). And it‘s an unhealthy attitude towards sexuality. And it‘s an unhealthy attitude toward the power structure.

DONOHUE: Don‘t forget the pro-incest and pro-bestiality people, Sister. I think you left them out of it.

FIEDLER: Mr. Donohue...

DONOHUE: You have to be inclusive here, right?

FIEDLER: Mr. Donahue, that is just not fair.

DONOHUE: No it isn‘t because I got a book on you. You‘re the ones who sponsored guys like Shandley. And now you‘re running from him.

FIEDLER: No. No one sponsors...

(CROSSTALK)

DONOHUE: You can‘t have it both ways, lady. No way.

FIEDLER: No one sponsors no one.

DONOHUE: He was a member...

(CROSSTALK)

FIEDLER: It was a criminal behavior.

(CROSSTALK)

FIEDLER: Mr. Donahue, it has been the cardinals who have...

DONOHUE: Oh, the cardinals.

FIEDLER: ... who have engaged in a conspiracy of cover-up and lies and have disgraced the institution of Catholicism.

KEYES: Now, we have come to the end of our time. I want to thank all of you for being with me today. And I have to say to you, ladies, I deeply believe you illustrate the problem perfectly. And one of the thing that the cardinals and the bishops have been covering up — and I have sat down with some of them and come away quite unhappy with their willingness to lend an ear to the secular, worldly, materialistic understanding you represent. It is incompatible with Catholic teaching.

And unless we are willing, as the Pope has said, consistently to apply that teaching, we‘re not going to get out of this crisis. And you are, in my opinion, a great symptom of that crisis. And sad to say, I think the time has come to tell folks with your view you‘ve got to go elsewhere. It‘s a free country. You don‘t have to be Catholics. But you can‘t be allowed to corrupt the practice and doctrine of the Catholic Church.

Next, Israel puts the brakes on a U.N. fact-finding team in Jenin. We‘ll debate what that means. You‘re watching America‘s news channel, MSNBC.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEYES: Live from Dallas, Texas, tonight, I am Alan Keyes, and this is MAKING SENSE.

Tonight, the U.N. Security Council held emergency consultations after Israel delayed a U.N. fact-finding mission to the Jenin refugee camp. The reason: Israeli officials say the fact-finding team chosen by Secretary General Kofi Annan did not reflect the consultations with Israel, that its members were political and did not include the military and counterterrorism experts that Israel had requested.

We get late word that, in fact, the team‘s visit has been postponed, and it looks like, according to the U.N., they are going to be adding some experts to that team to reflect Israeli desires. That‘s the latest breaking word that we have gotten.

Joining us now to discuss this development, Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder and dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, an international human rights organization in Los Angeles.

Also with us, Christopher Hitchens, contributing editor for “Vanity Fair” magazine and a frequent commentator on Middle East issues.

Gentlemen, welcome to MAKING SENSE.

Let me start with Rabbi Marvin Hier.

Rabbi Hier, a development like this in the context of all the charges and countercharges that are floating back and forth — I am sure that we‘re going to have Palestinian representatives saying that Israel is trying to delay things so that they can cover something up. What do you think is at the heart of the Israeli objection to this visit and the composition of the team?

RABBI MARVIN HIER, SIMON WIESENTHAL CENTER: Well, first of all, Alan, most of the representatives of the U.N. have already declared themselves on the issue before they‘ve ever seen the Jenin camp.

Right here from New York and from places in Europe, they‘ve already criticized Israel, saying it‘s horrible, it‘s close to a massacre, without even knowing the facts, and appointing people on a commission that have no military background, when this was a military incursion against terrorists, is preposterous.

So, of course, now the United Nations, stung with the Israeli refusal, is now trying to put some military people on. But I think that Israel was right to do that because the United Nations has a long history of a double standard when it comes to Israel and Israel does not want to place its future in the hands of the United Nations.

KEYES: Now, Christopher Hitchens, I have to go along with Rabbi Hier in terms of my sense of the U.N. on these issues. I worked there for a long time. There‘s a tremendous bias against Israel, in the resolutions, in the bureaucracy. One has to be very careful dealing with it.

A U.N. spokesman shot off his mouth earlier in the week without really taking account of the facts. We heard last night from forensic pathologists, forensic anthropologists who say that there is a scientific methods for determining if atrocities and massacre have taken place but that you can‘t tell just by looking, you really have to examine the evidence.

Why are they jumping the gun in terms of their judgments, and why did we see no scientific experts on Kofi Annan‘s team?

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS, “VANITY FAIR”: Well, perhaps in rather the same way as you were just telling me rather than asking me, if I can put it like that.

We‘re not flying completely blind here, you know, and that — the United Nations doesn‘t need to be our fountain of wisdom. We have a lot of independent testimony from reporters and human rights people and lawyers in the area, and — as well as from the residents.

We also have the record of General Sharon in the past where he‘s been demoted by Israeli generals and fired from an Israeli Cabinet for his carelessness, to put it no higher, about civilian casualties, and we have the judgment of the Israeli high court, which is now some days old, requesting — or requiring of the Israeli army the idea that it not try and remove, as it was beginning to do, any bodies from the area until a proper investigation could take place, and we have some reason to doubt that that order was fully observed.

So it‘s silly to refer — and I‘m surprised that Rabbi Hier is actually referring it just to (INAUDIBLE) not the (INAUDIBLE) but to the idea that the U.N. is anti-Israeli or anti-Jewish. It‘s much more serious than this.

I think you, Rabbi, and perhaps you, Mr. Keyes, would in your hearts not deny that the — you have the fear that something very ghastly happened to the people of Jenin.

HIER: Oh...

KEYES: Oh, no. I would have to say, as a matter of sort of personal privilege, I do deny it. I don‘t have this fear in my heart at all. The fear that I have is that we will not see the kind of scientifically based investigation that is, in fact, required, that has been conducted in other instances in Bosnia and elsewhere, before people reached conclusion such as those that are being...

HITCHENS: Yes. Well, then let us...

KEYES: ... obscenely drawn on the...

HITCHENS: Then let us...

KEYES: Let me finish, sir. I didn‘t interrupt you.

HITCHENS: Oh, I‘m sorry. I thought you had...

KEYES: ... that are being obscenely drawn on the basis of pictures and other anecdotal evidence that hasn‘t been evaluated.

Rabbi Hier, you have the right to respond as well.

HIER: Yeah.

KEYES: Go ahead.

HIER: Let me say this, Alan, to what Christopher just said. First of all, the Israelis went into Jenin because Jenin was a hot bed of terrorism. There were suicide — there were — the suicide bombers had their factories there.

They were using human beings as shields deliberately, as we have testimony this morning from one of the Palestinian terrorists that is — that was made public in the “Al Haram (ph)” newspaper as to exactly what he said took place in Jenin.

Now, under these conditions, any army in the world — let‘s see the members of the United Nations who would get up and say that if they faced similar circumstances and had to go into a city like Jenin that they would conduct the operations any differently than the Israeli Defense Forces. It would be the height of hypocrisy.

Britain would do the same. Canada would do the same.

HITCHENS: With respect...

HIER: France would do the same.

HITCHENS: With respect...

HIER: Exactly the same.

HITCHENS: With respect, look, it seems that we could all — we could all — I hope we all have converged on the view that there must be the most minute forensic examination, but there does seem to be only one force at the moment that‘s preventing such an examination.

I think it‘s insulting to the United States and to Great Britain, if it comes to that — and I‘m not a defender of Great Britain‘s policy, say, in Northern Ireland — to the contrary — to say that any army would have acted the same.

We‘ve had the recent example of separating from the population some very deadly and determined suicide killers in Afghanistan. It wasn‘t necessary for the coalition forces in Afghanistan to level whole camps of people, who, by the way, Rabbi Hier, you have to admit, are already living in a refugee camp.

Why is that? Why is there the preexisting state of utter misery within the borders of Israeli jurisdiction where people are already starting from a position of utter destitution?

HIER: Well...

HITCHENS: But wait. Just a second.

HIER: Well...

HITCHENS: Now the question is this. Why is it, therefore, comparable to say that the 9/11 — the first 9/11 operations undertaken by the coalitions in Afghanistan, the British army in Northern Ireland, which has never even on its worst days leveled whole districts of Belfast and Derry, even though all the same allegations were made, why is this to be said by you now?

HIER: Well...

HITCHENS: Don‘t — wouldn‘t you rather...

KEYES: Mr. Hitchens...

HITCHENS: Since I am going to quarrel and have quarreled publicly with my Palestinian friends and said that the suicide bombing is not just tactically wrong, it‘s morally, absolutely disgusting, and that the people of Jenin did not ask to be used as a hinterland for this kind of thing, and, yes, the guilt of that partly falls on the suicide bombers.

You, Rabbi, have influence with Israel and with American Jews, and you could say surely there‘s the possibility that we‘ve been badly shamed here.

HIER: Excuse me.

KEYES: But wait a minute. No. Now, Rabbi Hier, I want to say a word to this because, first of all, I think you would have to, Christopher, go a little more carefully into what happened in Afghanistan because I have asked many people how many civilian casualties there were in Afghanistan. Americans don‘t know, and the reason we don‘t know is because we did not keep close and careful track of that, and, right now, there‘s a cont...

HITCHENS: Oh, come on.

KEYES: Let — it is the truth. There‘s a controversy going...

HITCHENS: Come on.

KEYES: ... on in Afghanistan — let me finish, sir.

HITCHENS: Blaming America first?

KEYES: There‘s a controversy going on — let me finish, sir.

HITCHENS: Blaming America first?

KEYES: Now there‘s a controversy going on right now — I read about it in the papers today — where the Afghan civilians are coming — they‘re saying hundreds of civilian casualties, that we should help them deal with the consequences for the families.

I believe in humanitarian efforts, but I also know that war is an ugly business, that civilians sadly get killed, and that they did, in fact, die by the hundreds in Afghanistan, and that that is one of the things — we didn‘t consciously mean for it to happen, we didn‘t target those civilian live, but war is a nasty business. It happens.

The Israelis, by the way, from my understanding, contrary to what you say, they didn‘t use bombs. They didn‘t go in and blow up buildings indiscriminately. They went house to house in an intense and terrible battle...

HITCHENS: Bulldozer by bulldozer.

KEYES: ... in which they took greater risks precisely...

HITCHENS: Bulldozer by bulldozer.

KEYES: ... in which they took greater risks precisely in order to avoid the massive casualties you‘re talking about.

Rabbi Hier?

HIER: And, Alan, let me just add all the homes were booby trapped, and it‘s nonsense to say that the people of Jenin did not know that there were bombing factories in their refugee camps.

First of all, they knew, they supported it, and they‘ve kept the secrets. They knew exactly where the booby traps were. And, also, let us remember far — the entire Arab world — before anyone knew anything, there was going to be 500 people killed.

Where are the 500 people killed in Jenin? Where are the 500 bodies? What happened to the...

(CROSSTALK)

HIER: What happened to the press reports about the 500 bodies?

KEYES: Gentlemen, are...

HITCHENS: ... without hypocrisy, there is nothing that bad, but it was — Sabra and Shatilla was even worse, and it was the same commander, and some of the same excuses were made, and I don‘t want to hear them ever again.

Israel is in a position that it‘s fighting two wars. One, it can say, is in favor of its own citizens, but one is in favor of governing a whole population that doesn‘t want it.

HIER: Christopher, I‘m not here as a defender of Ariel Sharon, but I will you one thing...

HITCHENS: That‘s good.

HIER: ... that the members of the press have to look themselves in the eye when they keep reminding us about Sabra and Shatilla going back to 1981. Should we go back to 1981 about what Yasser Arafat was up to and about what the PLO — all of the PLO leaders were up to?

I‘ll tell you what they were up to. Terrorism is what they were up to. Denial of the holocaust. The second in command to Yasser Arafat in 1981 wrote a book that — saying that no more than one-million people died in the holocaust.

How many times have you written stories about what they were doing in 1981?

HITCHENS: Well, more than...

HIER: But every day, you tell us about Sabra and Shatilla.

HITCHENS: More than you might suppose, Rabbi, since you inquire.

But I think you‘re still faced with the question: Which war is Israel fighting — to defend its own civilians or to keep control over another population that has decisively repudiated its rule?

If it fights one war in the name of the other, it will probably lose both, and that would be more than just a shame to the Jewish and Israeli leadership in both...

KEYES: But, Mr...

HITCHENS: ... in this country and in Israel. It would be a disaster for all concerned.

KEYES: Mr. Hitchens, I think it‘s pretty clear...

(CROSSTALK)

KEYES: I think it‘s pretty clear...

(CROSSTALK)

KEYES: Excuse me. Excuse me.

Christopher Hitchens, I think it‘s pretty clear which war Israel is fighting, and the fact that, in the wake of the Wye River accords, in the wake of Oslo, developments led to the establishment of the Palestinian Authority, the basic withdrawal of Israeli forces, the willingness to cooperate with Palestinian security —

When Yasser Arafat turned his back on those negotiations and decided to implement a strategy of violence to try to get more of what we wanted, we saw this process break down and begin to turn toward terrorism, suicide bombing, and the inevitable and necessary Israeli response.

Now it seems to me that, before we act as if that Israeli response is the culpable thing, we need to start looking at whether or not that blowing up of the negotiating process by violence and ultimately terrorism and suicide bombers was in any sense justified.

If every time you don‘t get what you want, you resort to violence and then start killing people in such a way as to provoke this kind of response, it seems to me you have to at least share the blame for the result.

HITCHENS: Well, I just said that about the leader of the Al-Aqsa Brigades, as they call themselves. There was a question in “The New York Times” today, a contemptible figure who now looks at the ruin he‘s brought on his own people and on others and says, “Well, maybe this suicide stuff is a mistake.” My God, I mean...

KEYES: Well, perhaps...

(CROSSTALK)

KEYES: Mr. Hitchens, one second.

HITCHENS: ... he has, but, look, here‘s the question.

KEYES: We‘re going to have to go. We‘re going to have to go for a second. We‘ll be — we‘ll be right back. We‘re coming right back. You‘re going to have to hold on for a second.

We‘ve got to take a break. We‘re going to have more with our guests. We‘ll get back to Christopher Hitchens and Rabbi Marvin Hier right after this.

And later, my outrage of the day in which we have a Bush administration acting at the U.N., well, in a little bit of the fashion I would have expected the Clintons to do. Wow. Stay tuned for that.

But, first, does this make sense?

Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge is pushing for a trusted fliers program where certain people would pay a fee and they‘d have background checks and do other things in return for a special card designed to speed them through checkpoints.

Well, now think about this. We‘d be creating a category of people with special privileges who would have less scrutiny than other people. You don‘t think that a terrorist is going to sit down with that list looking for targets of opportunity, people they could turn to their purposes? Do you think all the people who hate America are known to us already and have splotches on their background?

Don‘t believe it. I think this would create a vulnerability that the terrorists would surely exploit. Does that make sense?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEYES: We‘re back talking about developments with respect to the controversy over what happened in Jenin with Rabbi Marvin Hier of the Simon Wiesenthal Center and Christopher Hitchens who is editor at “Vanity Fair” magazine.

Let me get back to Christopher Hitchens because we had to interrupt you when we were going to the break.

HITCHENS: Well, that‘s nice of you.

I‘d simply repeat — it was actually best put by (INAUDIBLE) the other day in a piece in “The London Observer.” He said, “Which war is Israel fighting? Is it fighting to keep control of territories that do not belong to it?”

And we should remember that General Sharon‘s party says that both sides of the River Jordan belong to Israel, were given to them by God, Arabs don‘t really have any rights to there — or no rights that the Jewish leadership is bound to respect. General Sharon has been engaged in collective punishment of civilians for a long, long time, since at least 1951. He‘s been disciplined by Israeli military and civil courts for his actions. This predates suicide bombing.

Rabbi Hier knows this very well, and he‘s an honest man. He should say — is he of the party that thinks that there should be a Jewish state or that — or of the party that believes there should be a (INAUDIBLE), Israel, Greater Israel, the expansion, settlements, colonies, and brutality?

That‘s the question everyone has to answer. I‘ve answered it already. I faced it quite clearly. I‘m of the first party. I think we can‘t just start every argument anew each time there‘s a new bomb or a new atrocity, a new murder, a new ghastliness in the name of God. There‘s a massive principle involved here, and everyone should say what they think it is.

KEYES: Yes, there is. But I think that there is a limit to what we can tolerate, if these kinds of processes are to survive.

I have thought for — or believed for a long time that there has to be a recognition of Palestinian national aspirations, that Israel cannot hold on to the bulk of the West Bank territories, that it would be suicide for the country to try to dominate a Palestinian population, and so forth and so on.

But sitting down at the negotiating table, working out, in a painful, difficult way, those details, sometimes agreeing, sometimes not, that‘s one thing — even stalking away from the table and trying to influence international opinion and bring pressure to bear — but Yasser Arafat has continually practiced one ugly tactic.

When he doesn‘t get what he wants at the negotiating table, he unleashes terrorism and violence. We must tell him that that‘s absolutely unacceptable, especially in the wake of the World Trade Center bombing. We can‘t tolerate terrorism as a negotiating tactic, and that‘s what‘s going on here.

Rabbi Hier?

HIER: Let me just say, Alan — let me add to that. First of all, Israel now has a national unity government. Shimon Peres is in the government as well.

So laying this trip on Ariel Sharon — 75 percent of the Israeli public is in back of this fight against terrorism. What Israel is doing now is fighting for — not only for itself, for all mankind.

If we don‘t defeat the terrorists in the Middle East and the suicide bombers, they‘re going to come to Washington, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, blow themselves up and, God forbid, unleash anthrax.

That‘s what‘s at stake here, Christopher...

HITCHENS: Since you mentioned that...

HIER: ... and the most important thing is — now he doesn‘t like Sharon, but when he — but when Barak offered him a state, he didn‘t like Barak. Who does he like?

HITCHENS: So what...

HIER: The truth is that the Palestinians could have had their state. By now, they would have been in the midst of an economic boom. They didn‘t want it.

HITCHENS: Rabbi Hier...

HIER: They didn‘t want it.

HITCHENS: Rabbi Hier, I beseech you here. You know better. You know better. You know very well that Sharon was opposed to all those negotiations even more than Arafat was, and you know furthermore that Mr. Peres is not the only other member of the Sharon government.

He has invited into this government a man, (INAUDIBLE), who is openly in favor of the mass expulsion of the remaining Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza. He‘s an open racist.

He‘s made his newest minister of public security Mr. Uzi Landau, a man who says that Israel should treat the Palestinians as Saddam Hussein treats the Kurds.

These are people...

KEYES: That...

HITCHENS: ... who General Sharon invited into his own government...

KEYES: Mr. Hitchens, that‘s going to have to be...

HITCHENS: ... and this government...

KEYES: That‘s going to have to be the last word.

HITCHENS: ... and for this government...

KEYES: That‘s going to have — sorry. That‘s going to have to be the last word. We are — that‘s going to have to be the last word. Even for me.

We will have lots of opportunities to continue this discussion. I want to thank you both.

Next, we get to my outrage of the day in which the U.N. is in the process of destroying the understanding of family life, and, surprisingly, the Bush administration seems ready to join in.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEYES: Now it‘s time for my outrage of the day.

The first part of it is not very surprising. The U.N. wants to redefine family so that it includes cohabitation, everything under the sun, homosexual marriage, everything you want.

That has been going on for a long time. As a U.N. ambassador to the Economic and Social Council, I fought it when I was part of the Reagan administration. Other people have dealt with it. So that the U.N. is pushing for this kind of garbage is not surprising.

What‘s surprising is that the Bush administration has joined European delegates to an upcoming U.N. summit on children in moving to recognize this destruction of the concept of family life, moving it toward cohabiting couples, homosexual partners. You name it. Anything goes.

I think the constituency that put G.W. Bush in office would be shocked and surprised to see this abandonment of the values he‘s supposed to represent. I hope they‘ll think better of it.

That‘s my sense of it. “THE NEWS WITH BRIAN WILLIAMS” is next. Thanks for being with me.