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Alan Keyes is Making Sense
Alan KeyesJune 17, 2002
ALAN KEYES, HOST: Welcome to MAKING SENSE. I'm Alan Keyes.
Up front tonight, developments in the Mideast.
Senior administration officials are telling MSNBC that President Bush may outline his plan for Mideast peace as early as Wednesday. Under strong consideration, the idea of a so-called provisional Palestinian state. No borders would be outlined until certain reforms are put in place.
Both the Israelis and the Palestinians have rejected this idea.
Meanwhile, after his call on the president yesterday, Saudi Prince Abdullah said he hoped a Palestinian state would be in place by the end of the president's first term.
And while this is under consideration, Israel has officially begun work on a barrier meant to keep Palestinian attackers out. It will run for 215 miles, separating Israel from the West Bank.
Yasser Arafat calls it an act of racism and apartheid. The move has also drawn criticism from the Bush administration.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RICHARD BOUCHER, STATE DEPT. SPOKESMAN: We do remind the Israelis that offering hope to Palestinians, offering them a decent life and an end to the barriers is an important part of achieving security peace.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEYES: Now, of course, I think if one was going to be fair about it, it would be kind of hard to see what it is we're exactly saying to the Israelis. People get all upset with them when they move across into Palestinian areas to try to deal with the attacks and the murderous assaults against Israeli civilians. So, in the face of that kind of reaction, they think, well, why don't we put up a barrier to keep the attackers out?
And they say, well, that's terrible, you can't put up barriers.
Well, what do you do then? I guess it is now going to be considered a prerequisite of peace for Israelis to just sit there and die? That hardly seems like it's likely to lead to the end result, particularly when we reflect on the nature of the challenge that the Israelis face, which is a challenge I think, that as we'll see this evening, goes beyond particular individuals and episodes and really has to do with what may very well be an officially encouraged culture of terrorist violence on the Palestinian side.
Now, I'm well aware of the argument that Palestinians are living in a situation that causes anger and resentment and frustration, that this boils over into street demonstrations and violence and rock-throwing and so forth and so on. And that is quite possibly true in some cases.
Back when the intifada started in the fall of 2000, the airwaves all over the world were focused on this image: a 9-year-old boy dying in the arms of his father, both caught in an Israeli-Palestinian crossfire.
Soon afterwards, this commercial appeared on Palestinian TV. Actors, recreating the most famous image of the uprising, one that shocked the world; 12-year-old Muhammad Aldurra (ph) dying in his father's arms, caught in a hail of Israeli bullets.
The commercial shows Muhammad in paradise, urging other children to, quote, “follow him.”
Now, at one level again, one could look at that and say, well, that's just showing the grief and the solidarity with those who have been the tragic victims of the violence and events that have beset the lives of Palestinians. And these events naturally lead to the kind of expressions that we see in the street violence and the rock-throwing and things of this kind that have occurred in this intifada, that did occur in the last one.
Well, this next clip from 1994 was compiled by a French filmmaker and is being sold by the Internet site WorldNetDaily.com. In it, you see a young Palestinian man stabbing an Israeli driver in a car that has been stopped on the road in Ramallah. You can see the young man's arm going in and out of the window and you can clearly see the knife in his hand.
What that, of course, suggests is that the street violence directed in anger and supposed frustration against civilians and other targets of frustration and anger and hatred is the precursor and then includes the mind set that then feeds these terrible suicide bombings and terrorist attacks. The uplifted arm going out to kill the civilian target, not the kind of thing that one sees in warfare, going up against military on the other side, but instead choosing civilian targets.
Well, does that happen just as a matter of anger and frustration, or is there official encouragement for it?
I want you to take a look at this Palestinian TV broadcast, the sermons of Islamic prayer services in the occupied territories. Take a look and listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translation): Jews are Jews. Labour or Likud. Jews are Jews. Amongst them are no moderates, nor peace partisans. They are all liars. They must be massacred. They must be killed. Allah the almighty said fight them. That's what the Jews are. Have no pity for them. Wherever they are, in whatever country. Fight them wherever you are. Wherever you meet them, kill them. Wherever you are, kill these Jews and these Americans who are like them and support them. They fight together against the Arabs and Muslims.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEYES: Now, you have to remember that what you just heard, chilling as it must seem, I think, to many of our ears here, what you just heard was shown on Palestinian TV.
Now, that's not like American TV, where you have networks and they do what they please, and show what they want, and make their arrangements and so forth.
No, this is, as is true in many parts of the world, an official sponsored television — nothing is going to appear on it that hasn't been sanctioned and approved by folks in the Palestinian Authority.
As I understand it, even the folks who are speaking at these prayer services are people who are approved by the Palestinian authority.
Anyway, this then went out over the official airwaves. You heard what I think was the chilling call to massacre Jews. And not only that, perhaps some of you realize you ought to take it personally, because if you happen to be somebody who is sympathetic with the existence of Israel, you were the target.
Well, the other folks who are listening, though, will include the whole population of folks who are watching Palestinian television. Men, women, children.
And we are reminded in the next clip of the presence of these children, whose minds are then being formed in the light of these kinds of exaltations.
The next clip was provided to us by the Jerusalem Public Policy Center, a Mideast think tank based in Israel. Please note the child in attendance.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translation): Blessed those who do jihad in the Allah way. Bless those who fight under the name Allah. Bless those who wired themselves, putting the belt around his waist or his sons, and enter deeply in the Jewish community and say “Allah is great.”
And thank Allah and there's no God but Allah. Mohammad is the prophet of Allah. As the building collapsed on the head of the Jews and their sinning dancing court. I as the might Allah to see this oppressing Knesset to collapse on the heads of Jews.
Oh, Allah, forgive us our sins and cover our defects. Almighty Allah, show us a black day in the Jews as you showed us God. Make them as our spoils and all the Muslims, our almighty Allah. We ask you for a martyrhood.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEYES: Now, it certainly seems as if that was a direct reference to the kind of suicide bombing that we have seen in the course of the last weeks and months. It also would seem, as is included in the audience for these kinds of things, you're going to have young children, since over half the population now in the West Bank territories is going to be people 15 and under, as I understand it.
Well, it does have an impact. Consider, for example, a story in today's “Toronto Star” about another disturbing trend among Palestinian kids. They their collectors item of choice, apparently, necklaces with pictures of Palestinian martyrs. Children spend their allowances collecting and trading hundreds of them.
One 14-year-old says, quote, “I used to have plenty of Pokemons. I threw them all away. They're not important now. The pictures of martyrs are important. There are idols.”
Now, these include a lot of folks who were among the suicide bombers attacking people in Israel, and conducting that kind of violence against them.
I also want you to consider that this effect goes deeper and directly effects the way children see their own future and themselves in the future.
Consider this from what's considered to be a Palestinian version of “Sesame Street.”
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD (through translation): Each and every part of your soil I have drenched with all my blood and we shall march as warriors of jihad (holy war).
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD (through translation): On your life, I foresee my death. Am I afraid? For me, life has little value because I'm returning to my Lord and my people will know that I am a hero.
(APPLAUSE)
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD, SINGING (through translation): I will come at the time of drought with my best efforts I will bring a machine gun, violence, anger, anger, anger, anger.
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD (through translation): Never shall you be calm. I will return with the dawn of tomorrow. It is my heartfelt conviction to launch a jihad (holy war).
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD (through translation): When I wander into the entrance of Jerusalem, I'll turn into a suicide warrior. I'll turn into a suicide warrior. In battledress, in battledress, in battledress. Thank you.
UNIDENTIFIED CHILDREN (through translation): Bravo, bravo, bravo.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEYES: Now, I would ask you to consider, in the context of the discussions that occur about what can be done about the situation in the Middle East, how we can bring violence to an end, what needs to be done by the Palestinian Authority — I think you've got to understand that it goes well beyond just a few gestures and words, even the arrest of a few people who are organizing and masterminding.
If a culture of terroristic violence has been encouraged all the way down deep into the hearts of very young children, then obviously it's going to require a large effort to turn that around over the course of what could be many years.
I think that puts a different light on the Israeli proposal of offense, because after all, it may be that if you have that in the heart, where so many acts of violence begin, offense may be the only way to create the breathing space that is needed for real talks and discussions to take place without continual acts of violence.
Well, next, we get to the heart of the matter on whether this Palestinian television, and the sponsoring authority, are in fact teaching terrorism and reaching down into the young kids.
And, 30 years later, we'll also be talking to one former Nixon aide and we'll be seeing that there is life after Watergate. Tonight, Chuck Colson talks about his work in prisons, and whether they're a breeding ground for terrorists, here on America's news channel, MSNBC.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KEYES: Thirty years ago, he was special counsel to Richard Nixon, known during Watergate as his hatchetman. Today, Chuck Colson counsels prisoners past and present. Later, we'll talk to him about why he believes recruits for terrorism are found behind bars.
A reminder that the chat room is humming tonight, and you can join in right now at chat.msnbc.com.
Now, let's bet back to our discussion of what's being shown on Palestinian TV in the way of encouraging, officially, it seems, because this is television network under official sponsorship, the culture and mentality that leads to these awful terrorist attacks and suicide attacks, including attacks that involve young people, teenagers, possibly children.
Joining us to get to the heart of the matter, Cliff May, the president of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, and Hussein Ibish, the communications director for the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.
Welcome back to MAKING SENSE, both of you.
HUSSEIN IBISH, AMERICAN ARAB ANTI-DISCRIMINATION COMMITTEE: Thank you.
CLIFF MAY, FOUNDATION FOR THE DEFENSE OF DEMOCRACIES: Delighted to be with you.
KEYES: Thank you.
Hussein, I want to start with a question to you, because I've got to tell you, it breaks my heart to watch the things that I was showing to folks this evening.
IBISH: Yeah, they were pretty gruesome.
KEYES: What do you make of that? I'll just ask an open-ended question, because you must have a reaction to it as well.
IBISH: Yes. Absolutely. Thank you. Correct. Thank you.
IBISH: Yes, of course. I mean, obviously, if you want to cull from the last 10 years of Palestinian TV, can you find all kind of bloodcurdling stuff, and it is in there.
And what I want to say is, for instance, those preachers that you showed, they sound exactly like Rabbi Obedi Yosef (ph), the former chief rabbi of Israel and the head of Shaz (ph), who has given sermon after sermon calling for the annihilation of the Arabs and reign down missiles on them without mercy, and that they should be wiped off the face of the earth, and God condemns them. This is the guy who is the head of the Shaz party, former chief Rabbi of Israel.
And these kind of insightful statements, hateful comments, exist very much on both sides of this divide.
There was a story in (UNINTELLIGIBLE), one of the leading Israeli papers the other day about a group of soldier who, during the recent Israeli incursions into Jenin and elsewhere, received a bunch of letters written in school by Israeli schoolchildren, urging them to kill as many Arabs as possible.
They weren't saying terrorists or anything. They said just please kill an Arab for me, kill as many as you can. And the story came out because the soldiers were shocked at the level of anger and hatred that was there among Israelis as well.
So I think what is going on here is we can say — we can agree that a lot of the stuff that you have shown is deplorable, but I really think in all honesty it exists on both sides of this divide, and frankly, that the Israeli society is not innocent isn't by any means.
You listen to the incredible racism of people, including people like Ehud Barak, who says that the peace process failed because Arabs lie as a culture, or the president of Israel, Moshe Katsav, who says Arabs come from a different galaxy, they're not human beings, like us, or the leader of the Knesset, Abraham Burg (ph), who says Arabs are people you don't want your daughter to marry.
I mean, there is an extraordinary divide here. And I think we need to be careful not to make a basic logical error — not to confuse an effect for a cause. That's a classic error in logic and we can't do that.
KEYES: Well, the reason I think I wanted to focus on this today, though, had to do with the fact that the challenge that we are faced with in this whole process is a challenge that obviously is going to involve undoing years of this development of a culture of hatred and violence and so forth and so on, that can stoke the fires for the kinds of things that we have seen over the last weeks and months.
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: Let me finish. People talk sometimes as if it's just a matter of some individuals and arresting some folks and so forth and so on, but I don't think you're going to reverse this kind of cultural inculcation with just some gestures and a few words. Do you?
IBISH: No, I don't. I think that the process of reconciliation is going to be painful and difficult, but the political process — changing the relationship of dominance and subordination between Israelis and Palestinians is the necessary first step. I don't think you can make the one contingent on the other.
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: We'll get back to Hussein, we'll get back. I have to move to Cliff for a minute here.
IBISH: All right.
KEYES: And get the other perspective.
Cliff, it occurs to me as I listen to Hussein, that part of my reaction to all of this, however, is that even when you are oppressed, as black people were in America for the longest time, can you make a choice between the folks who want to go out and kill white people and the folks like Martin Luther King, who want to take a different kind of approach. It is always still a choice, how one responds to this kind of situation of perceived victimization.
And so I put the question to you. That moral equivalence that Hussein was making, do you buy that?
MAY: No, of course I don't buy. What you have to understand, and I know you do, Alan, what you're seeing there is what the Palestinian Authority has as its official policy. Palestinian TV, you don't have, as you point out, ABC, NBC, CBS and PBS. You have official TV. You have official clerics, you have official school books, and all of them are spouting the kind of racist hatred you just listened to, on a constant basis.
(CROSSTALK)
IBISH: Well, that's not true.
MAY: Hussein, you must let me finish, as I allowed you to.
On a constant basis, and this has been going on for a period of years.
A couple of things we need to recognize. One, this is a form of child abuse that the Palestinian leadership is inflecting upon its children. They are indoctrinating these kids to grow up to want to be human bombs, human torches, to want to kill themselves because to do so they will accede to heaven, as long as they manage to slaughter Jews in the process.
(CROSSTALK)
MAY: Are you going to let me finish, Hussein? Because I let you go on and on.
I think it's very important, also, I'm sorry, that we understand that when people like Hussein say that terrorism is a product of despair, it is not. As you see in these clips, terrorism is the product of hope, the hope to enter paradise, to be sure, but also the hope that they can destroy Israel and the hope that they can ethnically cleanse the middle east of Jews.
Again, in '93, what happened was the Israelis said to Arafat, we are going to make a deal with you. We're going to shake hands. We're going to give you land for peace. We'll put you in authority over the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. In exchange, we want peace.
Instead, you have had this kind of indoctrination, turning children into human bombs. And there is nothing like this on the Israeli side. And there is not the freedom on the Palestinian side to have anything against this, such as a peace movement on the Palestinian side. It doesn't exist.
IBISH: Cliff, there is everything like this on the Israeli side. Let me tell you what there it is on the Israeli side.
(CROSSTALK)
IBISH: Let me tell you what the Israelis do to the Palestinian children. The Israelis have been torturing, routinely torturing...
(CROSSTALK)
IBISH: Cliff, listen to me. I've told you I'm appalled.
(CROSSTALK)
IBISH: Look, Israel has been torturing Palestinian children on a routine base.
(CROSSTALK)
MAY: That is a lie.
IBISH: It is not. Read the report of the Israeli human rights group...
(CROSSTALK)
IBISH: Every single viewer can go to the Web site of B'tselam (ph) at dot org, and read about how the Israelis have been routinely torturing Palestinian children at (UNINTELLIGIBLE) police station.
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: Wait, wait. Can I interject here. Hussein?
IBISH: Yes, Alan, go ahead.
KEYES: Let me interject here for a second.
IBISH: Of course, Alan.
KEYES: Because as I listen to you going back and forth, there does seem to me to be a fundamental problem here. And I really want to pose this as a person who has come up — I came up in the United States at a time when black Americans had to face a lot of difficulties. When people were making choices, when I was a kid, teenager, and in college, people were offering the choice of violence and burning the place down and so forth and so on, to folks like myself, filled with anger, frustration, resentment of racism and segregation and injustice and so forth and so on.
But one has to take responsibility for one's response to that situation. And the Palestinian Authority has put this stuff on TV for the kids, has shown them basically saying, I want to go out and be the instrument of this kind of violence.
Doesn't one have to take responsibility for shaping the hearts of one's young people in a different mode than this kind of nihilistic commitment?
IBISH: Of course, Alan. I think you're right. And I think that the whole process has had a very corrosive effect, both on Palestinian society and on Israeli society, which if you look at the polls has become incredibly brutal and racist in its attitude towards Palestinians, and that's why 1,500 Palestinian civilians, including 300 of them children, have been killed by Israeli forces.
MAY: Allow me a point. Allow me to get in a point.
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: Go ahead, Cliff.
MAY: One, a majority of Israelis right now would like to live in peace with their Palestinian neighbors, according to all the polls. Right now, a majority of Palestinians want to seek the destruction of Israel. That's according to a Palestinian poll.
Secondly — those polls are out there. I can tell you the Web sites to see them.
(CROSSTALK)
MAY: Secondly, this sort of incitement is also going on, unfortunately, in places like Saudi Arabia and Egypt, two of our allies...
IBISH: And the United States...
MAY: ... which is very — which has got to be worrisome.
IBISH: Look, “USA Today” just published an article, and “The National Review” online also just published an article, urging Israel to ethnically cleanse all the Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza.
We publish that sort of stuff in our own media.
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: Let me interject here, because the one problem I see — there is going to be all kinds of stuff out there, noise in the environment of a free society. People will publish this and say that and say the other thing.
There is a difference between that which occurs as a result of that kind of freedom and that which occurs under the official sponsorship of the very authority that the Israelis are then supposed to trust somehow to enforce the peace.
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: How can you tell me that the Israelis should trust the Palestinian Authority to enforce the peace, to try to put an end to terroristic violence and so forth, when they are, through the culture of Palestinian Authority television, fomenting and inoculating the very attitudes that lead to this.
IBISH: You can ask exactly the same question of Palestinians. How can you expect them to trust an Israeli government which has seized their land — in which the leadership, every single one of them, has made outrageously racist statements, and is currently building a fence...
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: If a deal is made, I can tell the Palestinians very clearly why they should trust the Israelis. They should trust them, just as the Egyptians did. The Israelis made a deal with Egypt, they have kept the deal with Egypt. If they make a deal with the Palestinians, they will keep the deal with the Palestinians. The problem is...
(CROSSTALK)
HUSSEIN: And if the Israelis make a deal with the Palestinians, the Palestinians will keep that deal, absolutely. There is no doubt about it.
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: No, wait, wait, wait. I disagree with that, because...
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: Because folks, including Palestinians, have come on the show and have suggested that Arafat and anybody else can't control the violence on his side.
IBISH: In an event of an end of the occupation, or a serious process leading to the end of the occupation, it can be done, no problem.
The problem is, you've got a situation of open conflict.
(CROSSTALK)
MAY: Excuse me, Hussein?
KEYES: Let Cliff talk for a minute.
MAY: Hussein, you and I know that Arafat was committing acts against terrorism when the West Bank and the Gaza Strip were still in Arab hands. He was doing so because he wanted to destroy the state of Israel.
(CROSSTALK)
IBISH: That is absolutely false.
(CROSSTALK)
MAY: And they promised an end to the violence, and instead there has been nothing but terrorism for the past nine years, plus official indoctrination...
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: Hold on a second. Wait, wait, wait, wait. I want to quickly, quickly, before we run out of time, I want to get to one other point, which is relevant to all of this, because it does seem to me, and even, Hussein, if we were for a moment to countenance the argument that you're making about the equivalence on one side or the another...
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: Well, just say for the sake of argument — doesn't it then make sense, given the emotions and the culture that has been inculcated, contributing to this sort of violence, which may not be stoppable, as many people on the Palestinian side appear to argue, absent some political agreement. But you can't get to the political agreement without negotiations. Can't have negotiations without constant acts of violence...
IBISH: Oh, you can't?
KEYES: Let me finish. So you put up a barrier to keep attackers and those they are attacking apart, and that creates the respite that's necessary in order for negotiations to proceed. Why would one criticize this?
IBISH: The barrier that is required is an international border, so that people can live in two sovereign states as equal citizens of two equally sovereign states.
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: If you have people with their hearts filled with this kind of hate overflowing, how is a line on a map going to stop them from killing people?
(CROSSTALK)
IBISH: Alan...
KEYES: Go ahead.
IBISH: Thank you. Do you believe that if these videos weren't produced, that Palestinian children would suddenly love the bulldozers that come to break down their houses? That they would love the Israeli soldiers who shoot at them every day, who humiliate them, who beat their parents and grandparents? The whole experience of occupation incites against itself. No one...
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: Let Cliff respond.
MAY: Here's what you refuse to accept and refuse to understand: if the Palestinian would stop the violence tomorrow, that would lead to peace and negotiations and a two-state solution.
IBISH: We had seven years of that, Cliff.
MAY: Let me finish.
If the Israelis would stop the violence tomorrow, you know what would happen? Israel would be destroyed and be ethnically cleansed.
IBISH: Oh, that's absurd.
(CROSSTALK)
IBISH: That's so preposterous. Do you think the Palestinians have the ability to ethnically cleanse the Israelis from Israel? That's absurd.
MAY: That's what they are calling for.
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: Hold on a second. You asked a question. I think that the answer is pretty clear.
If the Israelis stopped defending themselves, I think that they would be slaughtered, to be quite frank about it.
IBISH: I think that's absurd.
KEYES: And the tidal wave of hatred that's being encouraged is one thing.
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: Hussein, let me cite an alternative. If you don't want the result of violence, if you don't want kids who have been distorted by the dialectic of injustice and oppression into people who kill and hate and destroy themselves with that hatred, then you must work actively against it as Martin Luther King did. You don't encourage it. You don't put it on TV.
IBISH: I agree. Alan, you're right.
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: You don't offer them the glories of paradise in response to this kind of hatred, and if you're not doing that work, Hussein, then you are irresponsible and you are not doing the work necessary for peace.
IBISH: Let me respond to that.
KEYES: Quickly, we have 30 seconds. One last comment, Hussein.
IBISH: I agree with you. Personally, I believe I am doing that work, and I think the Israeli society has to be equally concerned about the corrosion that its occupation and its brutalities are doing to its people.
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: One last word from Cliff, go ahead.
MAY: If you listen to those tapes, what you hear is that they're talking about not the occupation so-called of the West Bank and Gaza, but the occupation of any land in the Middle East by any Jews whatsoever. That's what they don't want. That's what they want to do away with.
(CROSSTALK)
IBISH: You're just making that up.
KEYES: Gentlemen, that's it for tonight. Thank you so much. I know that this is a controversial and difficult subject, but I think we have got to face it head on if we really care about peace. Thank you very much.
Are American prisons a breeding ground for al Qaeda? We'll talk to Chuck Colson about his special work counseling prisoners and about life 30 years after Watergate when he was an aide to President Nixon.
You're watching America's news channel, MSNBC.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KEYES: Welcome back to MAKING SENSE. I'm Alan Keyes.
Today marks the 30th anniversary of the break-in at the Watergate Hotel. And to mark it, MSNBC has been talking to the major players and has shown news footage from that dark period in American politics.
It started with a so-called third-rate burglary and ended two years later with the resignation of a president, the only time that has happened in American history, though perhaps not the only time it should have happened.
One of the players from that era was Chuck Colson, the special counsel for President Richard Nixon. He was known as Nixon's hatchetman, willing to do any dirty trick if it meant helping the president and his party. Colson served prison time for obstruction of justice stemming from his involvement in the Watergate scandal.
When he emerged seven months later, he was a changed man. He then started the Prison Fellowship Ministry, now the world's largest outreach to prisoners, ex-prisoners and crime victims and their family. He is also someone I have gotten to know well over the course of the years and greatly admire. I think both his life and his ministry are a testament to the enormous renewing power of the holy spirit. Welcome, Chuck Colson, to MAKING SENSE. Appreciate you being with us tonight.
CHUCK COLSON, FORMER SPECIAL COUNSEL TO PRESIDENT NIXON: Thank you, Alan. Nice to with be you always.
KEYES: Well, we are going to be talking about a number of things this evening. And we will get to a little retrospective on Watergate, but I obviously am enormously interested in the work that you have been doing for the course of the last several years with the prison and the prison ministries, work that I think is now even more relevant than ever in terms of the challenge we face with terrorism, learning as we did that Padilla was introduced to Islam in prison and then recruited to terrorism and so forth and so on.
Do you think given the work that you have done over the course of years, that American — America's prisons provide fertile opportunities for these dangerous recruitment efforts?
COLSON: If I was sitting in the Islamist high command today figuring out how I could breed terrorism in America, the place I would start working is inside the prisons. You have got 2 million people in prison. Islam feeds on disaffection, alienation, people who are resentful toward society.
And so, you go in and two-thirds of people of color inside the prisons. And so you go in and you can get angry, resentful people seething with anger. I have walked through some prison cells where a lot of those inmates just — you can see it in their eyes. I walked into one prison. I started to put my hand on a guy's shoulder, and he slammed it off. There is a lot of places where there's just bitterness, and that's the place you recruit radical Islamists who want to be terrorists against the United States.
Richard Reid, remember, the shoe-bomber, converted by Islam in a British prison. And now, of course, Padilla converted to Islam in a prison in America. And we have run into it for years. We've seen this growing. The Islamic movement has something called the prison project, National Prison Foundation — Muslim Prison Foundation. And they have, we know, funding from the Saudis, and we know exactly it's a Wahabbi movement behind it. We know exactly what they are preaching.
I did a radio program some time ago, Alan, on “BreakPoint,” which you know, and talked about Islam in the prisons, and had calls from moderate Muslim leaders saying, right on, please, talk about this because we realize that the radicals are moving into the prisons. This is a very dangerous field.
KEYES: But what is your sense, as you have observed over the years, of why Islam is appealing to folks in the prisons? Is it the discipline that it provides in the midst of sort of the anarchy of their lives or what are they looking for?
COLSON: Part of it is discipline. They come in and say the brotherhood will take care of you. Now, they don't, as a matter of fact. Point of fact, they fail to do that, but that's an appealing thing.
But it's largely anger. You know, Islam moves not on love, as the gospel of Jesus Christ does. It doesn't advance God's love. It's God's will, and it's a demanding, authoritarian religion. And people are drawn to it because it does have some certainties to it, and it also plays against their anger. A lot of people in prison today are angry against society. They feel like victims. It's a mindset we have given them through the '60s and '70s and '80s and still have it. But that's why Islam has great appeal. Islam is a religion which breeds hatred. Islamic people hate the Christians and they hate the Jews.
KEYES: Now, do you think that we are likely unhappily to see more examples of the sort that we've seen with Mr. Padilla in terms of folks who are recruited out of that prison culture and who turn up in various ways as part of this active terrorist network? Are we going to have to deal with this problem in the future?
COLSON: Well, I think we are going to have to deal with it all through our society. I think this battle against terrorism is here for decades yet to come. Jim Woolsey recently called it — the former CIA head — called it the fourth world war. And I think we're going to see a lot of it, and I think a lot of it is going to come right out of the prisons. We are going to work as hard as we possibly can to share the gospel with inmates because that's the gospel of love as opposed to a religion of hatred.
KEYES: Now, I was going to ask that, because it seems to me that if we are faced with that kind of a challenge, it's not going to be enough to point it out and throw up your hands and so forth and so on. What do you think are the kinds of things that need to be done to kind of drain the swamp in terms of the fertile ground that the prisons represent for this kind of recruitment?
COLSON: As you know, Alan, we run four prisons in the United States, actually Christian prisons. The first one was George Bush, when he was governor of Texas, gave us permission to take over a prison in Sugarland, Texas. And we run that now, several hundred inmates in it. And we've had a 14-percent recidivism rate.
Muslims come into that prison because we can't determine the population. We can't preselect. And most of them are converted to Christ. When a Muslim sees the love of God and when he sees that his sins can be forgiven, he is drawn to it. This is a wonderful time for Christian evangelization because Muslims can see that this is something far superior, but we have got to be there and we've got to be able to do that.
I think our prison officials have to be very careful the kinds of people now that are let into the prisons for this kind of activity. And I think as people come out of prison, if they show signs of being radicalized by radical Islam inside that prison, then those are the people you have got to be watching.
KEYES: Well, we are going to be talking a little bit in the course of the next segment about the way in which your own life was changed and affected by both prison experience and the gospel. And — but you think that that is the sort of alternative that can provide a positive path, as it were, away from these kinds of temptations to violence?
COLSON: In the broader issue, this is a time in which you see two world views radically different, Islam and Christianity. And no place is it more important for people to see that than in the prisons, which are breeding grounds for radical terrorists right now.
KEYES: Well, we are going to be back talking with Chuck Colson because I think he is one of the best examples I have known in the course of my lifetime of the renewing power of the gospel. He just has lived it and has shared it with so many people.
And later, we'll get to my “Outrage of the Day” unfortunately relating to another crisis in the church, the one that we have been following over the course of the weekend with the bishops conference.
But first, does this make sense? As you've been hearing, a U.S. Forest Service technician accused of starting the wild fire that has blackened nearly 103 acres and destroyed 22 homes appeared in court in handcuffs Monday and was ordered held without bail.
Prosecutors said Terry Barton, 38, started the fire June 8 while burning a letter from her estranged husband. Then she lied to investigators about it. I guess that's best proof that we can train people, we can bring them up, they can have all kinds of things where they are taking care of nature and so forth and so on.
But think about it. This fire that blackened 100,000 acres drove thousands of people from their homes, it didn't start when she burned that letter. This fire started in her heart. Now what's the best training to deal with that burning danger?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KEYES: We're back with former Nixon aide Chuck Colson.
And in that context, everybody has been talking in the course of the day, a little retrospective, about the Watergate situation. Here we sit now, 30 years later. You certainly are somebody whose life has completely reoriented itself since those times. But as you look back on it, what sort of lessons did you take from that period that kind of helped to lay the foundation for what you have done?
COLSON: Well, from my standpoint, Alan, that was the most important time in my life. I mean, I am one of those guys that says thank God for Watergate because I came face-to-face with myself, saw my own emptiness and my own sinfulness, turned my life over to Jesus Christ and went to prison, and saw in prison a great mission field, and God called me to work in the prisons.
The thing that was interesting about it, I was shattered when I went to prison because I was an idealist as a kid growing up in America, grandson of immigrants. And I thought if I could ever get into politics and get into power, I could do something about my own political idealism.
And now, I'm in prison. Everything is stripped away, public enemy No. 1. Those dreams are behind me. I'll never do anything significant again with my life. Well, that's underestimating the power of God. Never give up, because God will use those broken moments in your life to do the greatest things with you.
I have come out of prison, and now there's a ministry in 95 countries, hundreds of thousands of people reading my books, listening to the radio, and seeing the witness that we have of the redeeming power of Christ, the love of Christ. So, for me, it was a great thing because it turned my life around. It was part of the circumstances in which my life was turned around.
For the country, I don't think we've learned a whole lot. That wonderful little commentary you just did about the forest fire starting in the heart of that woman, of course. Sinful human behavior isn't changed by passing all the laws we passed in the wake of Watergate for cleaning up campaign finance. And everybody realized none of them worked. It was worse afterwards than before.
And then we said, well, we're setting up all of these barriers so this kind of thing won't happen again. Clinton outdid us. So, you don't change human nature by passing laws. And the lessons we didn't learn out of Watergate was that the problem is in here.
KEYES: Well, one of the things that I have to tell you struck me during the course of the whole Clinton business, was a favorable comparison between the Watergate era and the era we just passed through. Because I remember, I was in my early 20s then, and as things developed and facts were laid on the table and things came out, I remember that there started to be a kind of bipartisan willingness to just put things aside and say what have we got to do to get things back on track for this country.
That never happened during the course of the Clinton business. What do you think accounted for that willingness to kind of face the music during the whole Watergate era?
COLSON: Well, I think everybody, particularly the Republicans that I knew at the time in the Congress, felt that Nixon's betrayal had undercut the things that the Republican party and conservatives generally stand for more than anything else: character, tradition, longstanding values, religion, the pillars of conservatism.
That never occurred to the Democrats, because the Democrats are liberals, more accurately to say it, seek power because they think power is the end by which they can accomplish what they want to accomplish. So it's a completely different world view. In the Nixon era, I think people looked at it and said, this man has lost the moral authority to govern. In the Clinton era, I don't think it made any difference. If we can hold on to the levers of power, that's all that matters.
KEYES: It was almost as if there was the assumption you didn't need moral authority to govern then.
COLSON: Exactly.
KEYES: But I have been thinking lately, as we face the terrorism problem and so forth, that Nixon had enormous experience. He dealt with very complex national security challenges and so forth and so on. Wouldn't he be somebody who in some ways would be in his element as a leader facing a challenge such as the terror challenge we face right now?
COLSON: I happen to think George Bush is doing a tremendous job. I think he's being absolutely — his judgment is magnificent in this. But the guy that would give him a run for his money is Richard Nixon. If you could bring him back right now, this would be the moment for which he was born. He loved being tough. He loved playing power politics. He loved playing one side against the other.
He used to play the Chinese against the Soviets constantly. I saw him bring in Dilbreenan (ph) and read the Riot Act to him. He would love this. He would be tough as nails.
KEYES: This is one of the things, though, very quickly, because we're approaching the end. But why is it then that when one looks at the whole saga of Watergate and how we handled that particular crisis, it seemed to me that all toughness was out the window when it came to dealing with the problem, with his associates. Why?
COLSON: The great enigma, the great unanswerable question about Richard Nixon. Why didn't he burn the tapes? He didn't because his lawyers threatened — Len Garment (ph) had a temper tantrum in the hospital out of Bethesda. And he was paralyzed by a fear of turning on his own subordinates, his own friends, and he lost that steely resolve that was so great in the war. That was the paradox of Richard Nixon.
KEYES: So in the end, it seems like he had friendship as a fatal flaw.
COLSON: Yes. The Greek tragedy, the great strength brings him down.
KEYES: Chuck Colson, thank you so much. I really appreciate you joining us today.
COLSON: Alan, I had a wonderful evening. God bless.
KEYES: Next, my “Outrage of the Day.” Some comments by an American cardinal in the wake of this conference, in which he drove the press out of his church. You'll hear about it.
And if you want to make even more sense, you can sign up for our free daily newsletter at our Web site, KEYES.MSNBC.COM. Each day in your mailbox, you'll get show topics, my weekly column, and links to my favorite articles of the day.
I'll be right back with the “Outrage of the Day.” Please stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KEYES: And now for my “Outrage of the Day.”
A clearly frustrated Cardinal Francis George chastised the media Sunday during a public appearance, likening them to Communist spies that he encountered in Poland. He asked them to leave a morning worship service if they took notes.
I've got to tell you, I think the bishops made a good step in acknowledging their accountability. But if they are going to continue to try to blame the media, they're not going to get the job done.
That's my sense of it. Thanks. “THE NEWS WITH BRIAN WILLIAMS” is up next. I'll see you tomorrow.
Up front tonight, developments in the Mideast.
Senior administration officials are telling MSNBC that President Bush may outline his plan for Mideast peace as early as Wednesday. Under strong consideration, the idea of a so-called provisional Palestinian state. No borders would be outlined until certain reforms are put in place.
Both the Israelis and the Palestinians have rejected this idea.
Meanwhile, after his call on the president yesterday, Saudi Prince Abdullah said he hoped a Palestinian state would be in place by the end of the president's first term.
And while this is under consideration, Israel has officially begun work on a barrier meant to keep Palestinian attackers out. It will run for 215 miles, separating Israel from the West Bank.
Yasser Arafat calls it an act of racism and apartheid. The move has also drawn criticism from the Bush administration.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RICHARD BOUCHER, STATE DEPT. SPOKESMAN: We do remind the Israelis that offering hope to Palestinians, offering them a decent life and an end to the barriers is an important part of achieving security peace.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEYES: Now, of course, I think if one was going to be fair about it, it would be kind of hard to see what it is we're exactly saying to the Israelis. People get all upset with them when they move across into Palestinian areas to try to deal with the attacks and the murderous assaults against Israeli civilians. So, in the face of that kind of reaction, they think, well, why don't we put up a barrier to keep the attackers out?
And they say, well, that's terrible, you can't put up barriers.
Well, what do you do then? I guess it is now going to be considered a prerequisite of peace for Israelis to just sit there and die? That hardly seems like it's likely to lead to the end result, particularly when we reflect on the nature of the challenge that the Israelis face, which is a challenge I think, that as we'll see this evening, goes beyond particular individuals and episodes and really has to do with what may very well be an officially encouraged culture of terrorist violence on the Palestinian side.
Now, I'm well aware of the argument that Palestinians are living in a situation that causes anger and resentment and frustration, that this boils over into street demonstrations and violence and rock-throwing and so forth and so on. And that is quite possibly true in some cases.
Back when the intifada started in the fall of 2000, the airwaves all over the world were focused on this image: a 9-year-old boy dying in the arms of his father, both caught in an Israeli-Palestinian crossfire.
Soon afterwards, this commercial appeared on Palestinian TV. Actors, recreating the most famous image of the uprising, one that shocked the world; 12-year-old Muhammad Aldurra (ph) dying in his father's arms, caught in a hail of Israeli bullets.
The commercial shows Muhammad in paradise, urging other children to, quote, “follow him.”
Now, at one level again, one could look at that and say, well, that's just showing the grief and the solidarity with those who have been the tragic victims of the violence and events that have beset the lives of Palestinians. And these events naturally lead to the kind of expressions that we see in the street violence and the rock-throwing and things of this kind that have occurred in this intifada, that did occur in the last one.
Well, this next clip from 1994 was compiled by a French filmmaker and is being sold by the Internet site WorldNetDaily.com. In it, you see a young Palestinian man stabbing an Israeli driver in a car that has been stopped on the road in Ramallah. You can see the young man's arm going in and out of the window and you can clearly see the knife in his hand.
What that, of course, suggests is that the street violence directed in anger and supposed frustration against civilians and other targets of frustration and anger and hatred is the precursor and then includes the mind set that then feeds these terrible suicide bombings and terrorist attacks. The uplifted arm going out to kill the civilian target, not the kind of thing that one sees in warfare, going up against military on the other side, but instead choosing civilian targets.
Well, does that happen just as a matter of anger and frustration, or is there official encouragement for it?
I want you to take a look at this Palestinian TV broadcast, the sermons of Islamic prayer services in the occupied territories. Take a look and listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translation): Jews are Jews. Labour or Likud. Jews are Jews. Amongst them are no moderates, nor peace partisans. They are all liars. They must be massacred. They must be killed. Allah the almighty said fight them. That's what the Jews are. Have no pity for them. Wherever they are, in whatever country. Fight them wherever you are. Wherever you meet them, kill them. Wherever you are, kill these Jews and these Americans who are like them and support them. They fight together against the Arabs and Muslims.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEYES: Now, you have to remember that what you just heard, chilling as it must seem, I think, to many of our ears here, what you just heard was shown on Palestinian TV.
Now, that's not like American TV, where you have networks and they do what they please, and show what they want, and make their arrangements and so forth.
No, this is, as is true in many parts of the world, an official sponsored television — nothing is going to appear on it that hasn't been sanctioned and approved by folks in the Palestinian Authority.
As I understand it, even the folks who are speaking at these prayer services are people who are approved by the Palestinian authority.
Anyway, this then went out over the official airwaves. You heard what I think was the chilling call to massacre Jews. And not only that, perhaps some of you realize you ought to take it personally, because if you happen to be somebody who is sympathetic with the existence of Israel, you were the target.
Well, the other folks who are listening, though, will include the whole population of folks who are watching Palestinian television. Men, women, children.
And we are reminded in the next clip of the presence of these children, whose minds are then being formed in the light of these kinds of exaltations.
The next clip was provided to us by the Jerusalem Public Policy Center, a Mideast think tank based in Israel. Please note the child in attendance.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translation): Blessed those who do jihad in the Allah way. Bless those who fight under the name Allah. Bless those who wired themselves, putting the belt around his waist or his sons, and enter deeply in the Jewish community and say “Allah is great.”
And thank Allah and there's no God but Allah. Mohammad is the prophet of Allah. As the building collapsed on the head of the Jews and their sinning dancing court. I as the might Allah to see this oppressing Knesset to collapse on the heads of Jews.
Oh, Allah, forgive us our sins and cover our defects. Almighty Allah, show us a black day in the Jews as you showed us God. Make them as our spoils and all the Muslims, our almighty Allah. We ask you for a martyrhood.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEYES: Now, it certainly seems as if that was a direct reference to the kind of suicide bombing that we have seen in the course of the last weeks and months. It also would seem, as is included in the audience for these kinds of things, you're going to have young children, since over half the population now in the West Bank territories is going to be people 15 and under, as I understand it.
Well, it does have an impact. Consider, for example, a story in today's “Toronto Star” about another disturbing trend among Palestinian kids. They their collectors item of choice, apparently, necklaces with pictures of Palestinian martyrs. Children spend their allowances collecting and trading hundreds of them.
One 14-year-old says, quote, “I used to have plenty of Pokemons. I threw them all away. They're not important now. The pictures of martyrs are important. There are idols.”
Now, these include a lot of folks who were among the suicide bombers attacking people in Israel, and conducting that kind of violence against them.
I also want you to consider that this effect goes deeper and directly effects the way children see their own future and themselves in the future.
Consider this from what's considered to be a Palestinian version of “Sesame Street.”
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD (through translation): Each and every part of your soil I have drenched with all my blood and we shall march as warriors of jihad (holy war).
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD (through translation): On your life, I foresee my death. Am I afraid? For me, life has little value because I'm returning to my Lord and my people will know that I am a hero.
(APPLAUSE)
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD, SINGING (through translation): I will come at the time of drought with my best efforts I will bring a machine gun, violence, anger, anger, anger, anger.
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD (through translation): Never shall you be calm. I will return with the dawn of tomorrow. It is my heartfelt conviction to launch a jihad (holy war).
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD (through translation): When I wander into the entrance of Jerusalem, I'll turn into a suicide warrior. I'll turn into a suicide warrior. In battledress, in battledress, in battledress. Thank you.
UNIDENTIFIED CHILDREN (through translation): Bravo, bravo, bravo.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEYES: Now, I would ask you to consider, in the context of the discussions that occur about what can be done about the situation in the Middle East, how we can bring violence to an end, what needs to be done by the Palestinian Authority — I think you've got to understand that it goes well beyond just a few gestures and words, even the arrest of a few people who are organizing and masterminding.
If a culture of terroristic violence has been encouraged all the way down deep into the hearts of very young children, then obviously it's going to require a large effort to turn that around over the course of what could be many years.
I think that puts a different light on the Israeli proposal of offense, because after all, it may be that if you have that in the heart, where so many acts of violence begin, offense may be the only way to create the breathing space that is needed for real talks and discussions to take place without continual acts of violence.
Well, next, we get to the heart of the matter on whether this Palestinian television, and the sponsoring authority, are in fact teaching terrorism and reaching down into the young kids.
And, 30 years later, we'll also be talking to one former Nixon aide and we'll be seeing that there is life after Watergate. Tonight, Chuck Colson talks about his work in prisons, and whether they're a breeding ground for terrorists, here on America's news channel, MSNBC.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KEYES: Thirty years ago, he was special counsel to Richard Nixon, known during Watergate as his hatchetman. Today, Chuck Colson counsels prisoners past and present. Later, we'll talk to him about why he believes recruits for terrorism are found behind bars.
A reminder that the chat room is humming tonight, and you can join in right now at chat.msnbc.com.
Now, let's bet back to our discussion of what's being shown on Palestinian TV in the way of encouraging, officially, it seems, because this is television network under official sponsorship, the culture and mentality that leads to these awful terrorist attacks and suicide attacks, including attacks that involve young people, teenagers, possibly children.
Joining us to get to the heart of the matter, Cliff May, the president of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, and Hussein Ibish, the communications director for the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.
Welcome back to MAKING SENSE, both of you.
HUSSEIN IBISH, AMERICAN ARAB ANTI-DISCRIMINATION COMMITTEE: Thank you.
CLIFF MAY, FOUNDATION FOR THE DEFENSE OF DEMOCRACIES: Delighted to be with you.
KEYES: Thank you.
Hussein, I want to start with a question to you, because I've got to tell you, it breaks my heart to watch the things that I was showing to folks this evening.
IBISH: Yeah, they were pretty gruesome.
KEYES: What do you make of that? I'll just ask an open-ended question, because you must have a reaction to it as well.
IBISH: Yes. Absolutely. Thank you. Correct. Thank you.
IBISH: Yes, of course. I mean, obviously, if you want to cull from the last 10 years of Palestinian TV, can you find all kind of bloodcurdling stuff, and it is in there.
And what I want to say is, for instance, those preachers that you showed, they sound exactly like Rabbi Obedi Yosef (ph), the former chief rabbi of Israel and the head of Shaz (ph), who has given sermon after sermon calling for the annihilation of the Arabs and reign down missiles on them without mercy, and that they should be wiped off the face of the earth, and God condemns them. This is the guy who is the head of the Shaz party, former chief Rabbi of Israel.
And these kind of insightful statements, hateful comments, exist very much on both sides of this divide.
There was a story in (UNINTELLIGIBLE), one of the leading Israeli papers the other day about a group of soldier who, during the recent Israeli incursions into Jenin and elsewhere, received a bunch of letters written in school by Israeli schoolchildren, urging them to kill as many Arabs as possible.
They weren't saying terrorists or anything. They said just please kill an Arab for me, kill as many as you can. And the story came out because the soldiers were shocked at the level of anger and hatred that was there among Israelis as well.
So I think what is going on here is we can say — we can agree that a lot of the stuff that you have shown is deplorable, but I really think in all honesty it exists on both sides of this divide, and frankly, that the Israeli society is not innocent isn't by any means.
You listen to the incredible racism of people, including people like Ehud Barak, who says that the peace process failed because Arabs lie as a culture, or the president of Israel, Moshe Katsav, who says Arabs come from a different galaxy, they're not human beings, like us, or the leader of the Knesset, Abraham Burg (ph), who says Arabs are people you don't want your daughter to marry.
I mean, there is an extraordinary divide here. And I think we need to be careful not to make a basic logical error — not to confuse an effect for a cause. That's a classic error in logic and we can't do that.
KEYES: Well, the reason I think I wanted to focus on this today, though, had to do with the fact that the challenge that we are faced with in this whole process is a challenge that obviously is going to involve undoing years of this development of a culture of hatred and violence and so forth and so on, that can stoke the fires for the kinds of things that we have seen over the last weeks and months.
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: Let me finish. People talk sometimes as if it's just a matter of some individuals and arresting some folks and so forth and so on, but I don't think you're going to reverse this kind of cultural inculcation with just some gestures and a few words. Do you?
IBISH: No, I don't. I think that the process of reconciliation is going to be painful and difficult, but the political process — changing the relationship of dominance and subordination between Israelis and Palestinians is the necessary first step. I don't think you can make the one contingent on the other.
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: We'll get back to Hussein, we'll get back. I have to move to Cliff for a minute here.
IBISH: All right.
KEYES: And get the other perspective.
Cliff, it occurs to me as I listen to Hussein, that part of my reaction to all of this, however, is that even when you are oppressed, as black people were in America for the longest time, can you make a choice between the folks who want to go out and kill white people and the folks like Martin Luther King, who want to take a different kind of approach. It is always still a choice, how one responds to this kind of situation of perceived victimization.
And so I put the question to you. That moral equivalence that Hussein was making, do you buy that?
MAY: No, of course I don't buy. What you have to understand, and I know you do, Alan, what you're seeing there is what the Palestinian Authority has as its official policy. Palestinian TV, you don't have, as you point out, ABC, NBC, CBS and PBS. You have official TV. You have official clerics, you have official school books, and all of them are spouting the kind of racist hatred you just listened to, on a constant basis.
(CROSSTALK)
IBISH: Well, that's not true.
MAY: Hussein, you must let me finish, as I allowed you to.
On a constant basis, and this has been going on for a period of years.
A couple of things we need to recognize. One, this is a form of child abuse that the Palestinian leadership is inflecting upon its children. They are indoctrinating these kids to grow up to want to be human bombs, human torches, to want to kill themselves because to do so they will accede to heaven, as long as they manage to slaughter Jews in the process.
(CROSSTALK)
MAY: Are you going to let me finish, Hussein? Because I let you go on and on.
I think it's very important, also, I'm sorry, that we understand that when people like Hussein say that terrorism is a product of despair, it is not. As you see in these clips, terrorism is the product of hope, the hope to enter paradise, to be sure, but also the hope that they can destroy Israel and the hope that they can ethnically cleanse the middle east of Jews.
Again, in '93, what happened was the Israelis said to Arafat, we are going to make a deal with you. We're going to shake hands. We're going to give you land for peace. We'll put you in authority over the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. In exchange, we want peace.
Instead, you have had this kind of indoctrination, turning children into human bombs. And there is nothing like this on the Israeli side. And there is not the freedom on the Palestinian side to have anything against this, such as a peace movement on the Palestinian side. It doesn't exist.
IBISH: Cliff, there is everything like this on the Israeli side. Let me tell you what there it is on the Israeli side.
(CROSSTALK)
IBISH: Let me tell you what the Israelis do to the Palestinian children. The Israelis have been torturing, routinely torturing...
(CROSSTALK)
IBISH: Cliff, listen to me. I've told you I'm appalled.
(CROSSTALK)
IBISH: Look, Israel has been torturing Palestinian children on a routine base.
(CROSSTALK)
MAY: That is a lie.
IBISH: It is not. Read the report of the Israeli human rights group...
(CROSSTALK)
IBISH: Every single viewer can go to the Web site of B'tselam (ph) at dot org, and read about how the Israelis have been routinely torturing Palestinian children at (UNINTELLIGIBLE) police station.
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: Wait, wait. Can I interject here. Hussein?
IBISH: Yes, Alan, go ahead.
KEYES: Let me interject here for a second.
IBISH: Of course, Alan.
KEYES: Because as I listen to you going back and forth, there does seem to me to be a fundamental problem here. And I really want to pose this as a person who has come up — I came up in the United States at a time when black Americans had to face a lot of difficulties. When people were making choices, when I was a kid, teenager, and in college, people were offering the choice of violence and burning the place down and so forth and so on, to folks like myself, filled with anger, frustration, resentment of racism and segregation and injustice and so forth and so on.
But one has to take responsibility for one's response to that situation. And the Palestinian Authority has put this stuff on TV for the kids, has shown them basically saying, I want to go out and be the instrument of this kind of violence.
Doesn't one have to take responsibility for shaping the hearts of one's young people in a different mode than this kind of nihilistic commitment?
IBISH: Of course, Alan. I think you're right. And I think that the whole process has had a very corrosive effect, both on Palestinian society and on Israeli society, which if you look at the polls has become incredibly brutal and racist in its attitude towards Palestinians, and that's why 1,500 Palestinian civilians, including 300 of them children, have been killed by Israeli forces.
MAY: Allow me a point. Allow me to get in a point.
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: Go ahead, Cliff.
MAY: One, a majority of Israelis right now would like to live in peace with their Palestinian neighbors, according to all the polls. Right now, a majority of Palestinians want to seek the destruction of Israel. That's according to a Palestinian poll.
Secondly — those polls are out there. I can tell you the Web sites to see them.
(CROSSTALK)
MAY: Secondly, this sort of incitement is also going on, unfortunately, in places like Saudi Arabia and Egypt, two of our allies...
IBISH: And the United States...
MAY: ... which is very — which has got to be worrisome.
IBISH: Look, “USA Today” just published an article, and “The National Review” online also just published an article, urging Israel to ethnically cleanse all the Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza.
We publish that sort of stuff in our own media.
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: Let me interject here, because the one problem I see — there is going to be all kinds of stuff out there, noise in the environment of a free society. People will publish this and say that and say the other thing.
There is a difference between that which occurs as a result of that kind of freedom and that which occurs under the official sponsorship of the very authority that the Israelis are then supposed to trust somehow to enforce the peace.
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: How can you tell me that the Israelis should trust the Palestinian Authority to enforce the peace, to try to put an end to terroristic violence and so forth, when they are, through the culture of Palestinian Authority television, fomenting and inoculating the very attitudes that lead to this.
IBISH: You can ask exactly the same question of Palestinians. How can you expect them to trust an Israeli government which has seized their land — in which the leadership, every single one of them, has made outrageously racist statements, and is currently building a fence...
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: If a deal is made, I can tell the Palestinians very clearly why they should trust the Israelis. They should trust them, just as the Egyptians did. The Israelis made a deal with Egypt, they have kept the deal with Egypt. If they make a deal with the Palestinians, they will keep the deal with the Palestinians. The problem is...
(CROSSTALK)
HUSSEIN: And if the Israelis make a deal with the Palestinians, the Palestinians will keep that deal, absolutely. There is no doubt about it.
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: No, wait, wait, wait. I disagree with that, because...
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: Because folks, including Palestinians, have come on the show and have suggested that Arafat and anybody else can't control the violence on his side.
IBISH: In an event of an end of the occupation, or a serious process leading to the end of the occupation, it can be done, no problem.
The problem is, you've got a situation of open conflict.
(CROSSTALK)
MAY: Excuse me, Hussein?
KEYES: Let Cliff talk for a minute.
MAY: Hussein, you and I know that Arafat was committing acts against terrorism when the West Bank and the Gaza Strip were still in Arab hands. He was doing so because he wanted to destroy the state of Israel.
(CROSSTALK)
IBISH: That is absolutely false.
(CROSSTALK)
MAY: And they promised an end to the violence, and instead there has been nothing but terrorism for the past nine years, plus official indoctrination...
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: Hold on a second. Wait, wait, wait, wait. I want to quickly, quickly, before we run out of time, I want to get to one other point, which is relevant to all of this, because it does seem to me, and even, Hussein, if we were for a moment to countenance the argument that you're making about the equivalence on one side or the another...
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: Well, just say for the sake of argument — doesn't it then make sense, given the emotions and the culture that has been inculcated, contributing to this sort of violence, which may not be stoppable, as many people on the Palestinian side appear to argue, absent some political agreement. But you can't get to the political agreement without negotiations. Can't have negotiations without constant acts of violence...
IBISH: Oh, you can't?
KEYES: Let me finish. So you put up a barrier to keep attackers and those they are attacking apart, and that creates the respite that's necessary in order for negotiations to proceed. Why would one criticize this?
IBISH: The barrier that is required is an international border, so that people can live in two sovereign states as equal citizens of two equally sovereign states.
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: If you have people with their hearts filled with this kind of hate overflowing, how is a line on a map going to stop them from killing people?
(CROSSTALK)
IBISH: Alan...
KEYES: Go ahead.
IBISH: Thank you. Do you believe that if these videos weren't produced, that Palestinian children would suddenly love the bulldozers that come to break down their houses? That they would love the Israeli soldiers who shoot at them every day, who humiliate them, who beat their parents and grandparents? The whole experience of occupation incites against itself. No one...
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: Let Cliff respond.
MAY: Here's what you refuse to accept and refuse to understand: if the Palestinian would stop the violence tomorrow, that would lead to peace and negotiations and a two-state solution.
IBISH: We had seven years of that, Cliff.
MAY: Let me finish.
If the Israelis would stop the violence tomorrow, you know what would happen? Israel would be destroyed and be ethnically cleansed.
IBISH: Oh, that's absurd.
(CROSSTALK)
IBISH: That's so preposterous. Do you think the Palestinians have the ability to ethnically cleanse the Israelis from Israel? That's absurd.
MAY: That's what they are calling for.
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: Hold on a second. You asked a question. I think that the answer is pretty clear.
If the Israelis stopped defending themselves, I think that they would be slaughtered, to be quite frank about it.
IBISH: I think that's absurd.
KEYES: And the tidal wave of hatred that's being encouraged is one thing.
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: Hussein, let me cite an alternative. If you don't want the result of violence, if you don't want kids who have been distorted by the dialectic of injustice and oppression into people who kill and hate and destroy themselves with that hatred, then you must work actively against it as Martin Luther King did. You don't encourage it. You don't put it on TV.
IBISH: I agree. Alan, you're right.
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: You don't offer them the glories of paradise in response to this kind of hatred, and if you're not doing that work, Hussein, then you are irresponsible and you are not doing the work necessary for peace.
IBISH: Let me respond to that.
KEYES: Quickly, we have 30 seconds. One last comment, Hussein.
IBISH: I agree with you. Personally, I believe I am doing that work, and I think the Israeli society has to be equally concerned about the corrosion that its occupation and its brutalities are doing to its people.
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: One last word from Cliff, go ahead.
MAY: If you listen to those tapes, what you hear is that they're talking about not the occupation so-called of the West Bank and Gaza, but the occupation of any land in the Middle East by any Jews whatsoever. That's what they don't want. That's what they want to do away with.
(CROSSTALK)
IBISH: You're just making that up.
KEYES: Gentlemen, that's it for tonight. Thank you so much. I know that this is a controversial and difficult subject, but I think we have got to face it head on if we really care about peace. Thank you very much.
Are American prisons a breeding ground for al Qaeda? We'll talk to Chuck Colson about his special work counseling prisoners and about life 30 years after Watergate when he was an aide to President Nixon.
You're watching America's news channel, MSNBC.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KEYES: Welcome back to MAKING SENSE. I'm Alan Keyes.
Today marks the 30th anniversary of the break-in at the Watergate Hotel. And to mark it, MSNBC has been talking to the major players and has shown news footage from that dark period in American politics.
It started with a so-called third-rate burglary and ended two years later with the resignation of a president, the only time that has happened in American history, though perhaps not the only time it should have happened.
One of the players from that era was Chuck Colson, the special counsel for President Richard Nixon. He was known as Nixon's hatchetman, willing to do any dirty trick if it meant helping the president and his party. Colson served prison time for obstruction of justice stemming from his involvement in the Watergate scandal.
When he emerged seven months later, he was a changed man. He then started the Prison Fellowship Ministry, now the world's largest outreach to prisoners, ex-prisoners and crime victims and their family. He is also someone I have gotten to know well over the course of the years and greatly admire. I think both his life and his ministry are a testament to the enormous renewing power of the holy spirit. Welcome, Chuck Colson, to MAKING SENSE. Appreciate you being with us tonight.
CHUCK COLSON, FORMER SPECIAL COUNSEL TO PRESIDENT NIXON: Thank you, Alan. Nice to with be you always.
KEYES: Well, we are going to be talking about a number of things this evening. And we will get to a little retrospective on Watergate, but I obviously am enormously interested in the work that you have been doing for the course of the last several years with the prison and the prison ministries, work that I think is now even more relevant than ever in terms of the challenge we face with terrorism, learning as we did that Padilla was introduced to Islam in prison and then recruited to terrorism and so forth and so on.
Do you think given the work that you have done over the course of years, that American — America's prisons provide fertile opportunities for these dangerous recruitment efforts?
COLSON: If I was sitting in the Islamist high command today figuring out how I could breed terrorism in America, the place I would start working is inside the prisons. You have got 2 million people in prison. Islam feeds on disaffection, alienation, people who are resentful toward society.
And so, you go in and two-thirds of people of color inside the prisons. And so you go in and you can get angry, resentful people seething with anger. I have walked through some prison cells where a lot of those inmates just — you can see it in their eyes. I walked into one prison. I started to put my hand on a guy's shoulder, and he slammed it off. There is a lot of places where there's just bitterness, and that's the place you recruit radical Islamists who want to be terrorists against the United States.
Richard Reid, remember, the shoe-bomber, converted by Islam in a British prison. And now, of course, Padilla converted to Islam in a prison in America. And we have run into it for years. We've seen this growing. The Islamic movement has something called the prison project, National Prison Foundation — Muslim Prison Foundation. And they have, we know, funding from the Saudis, and we know exactly it's a Wahabbi movement behind it. We know exactly what they are preaching.
I did a radio program some time ago, Alan, on “BreakPoint,” which you know, and talked about Islam in the prisons, and had calls from moderate Muslim leaders saying, right on, please, talk about this because we realize that the radicals are moving into the prisons. This is a very dangerous field.
KEYES: But what is your sense, as you have observed over the years, of why Islam is appealing to folks in the prisons? Is it the discipline that it provides in the midst of sort of the anarchy of their lives or what are they looking for?
COLSON: Part of it is discipline. They come in and say the brotherhood will take care of you. Now, they don't, as a matter of fact. Point of fact, they fail to do that, but that's an appealing thing.
But it's largely anger. You know, Islam moves not on love, as the gospel of Jesus Christ does. It doesn't advance God's love. It's God's will, and it's a demanding, authoritarian religion. And people are drawn to it because it does have some certainties to it, and it also plays against their anger. A lot of people in prison today are angry against society. They feel like victims. It's a mindset we have given them through the '60s and '70s and '80s and still have it. But that's why Islam has great appeal. Islam is a religion which breeds hatred. Islamic people hate the Christians and they hate the Jews.
KEYES: Now, do you think that we are likely unhappily to see more examples of the sort that we've seen with Mr. Padilla in terms of folks who are recruited out of that prison culture and who turn up in various ways as part of this active terrorist network? Are we going to have to deal with this problem in the future?
COLSON: Well, I think we are going to have to deal with it all through our society. I think this battle against terrorism is here for decades yet to come. Jim Woolsey recently called it — the former CIA head — called it the fourth world war. And I think we're going to see a lot of it, and I think a lot of it is going to come right out of the prisons. We are going to work as hard as we possibly can to share the gospel with inmates because that's the gospel of love as opposed to a religion of hatred.
KEYES: Now, I was going to ask that, because it seems to me that if we are faced with that kind of a challenge, it's not going to be enough to point it out and throw up your hands and so forth and so on. What do you think are the kinds of things that need to be done to kind of drain the swamp in terms of the fertile ground that the prisons represent for this kind of recruitment?
COLSON: As you know, Alan, we run four prisons in the United States, actually Christian prisons. The first one was George Bush, when he was governor of Texas, gave us permission to take over a prison in Sugarland, Texas. And we run that now, several hundred inmates in it. And we've had a 14-percent recidivism rate.
Muslims come into that prison because we can't determine the population. We can't preselect. And most of them are converted to Christ. When a Muslim sees the love of God and when he sees that his sins can be forgiven, he is drawn to it. This is a wonderful time for Christian evangelization because Muslims can see that this is something far superior, but we have got to be there and we've got to be able to do that.
I think our prison officials have to be very careful the kinds of people now that are let into the prisons for this kind of activity. And I think as people come out of prison, if they show signs of being radicalized by radical Islam inside that prison, then those are the people you have got to be watching.
KEYES: Well, we are going to be talking a little bit in the course of the next segment about the way in which your own life was changed and affected by both prison experience and the gospel. And — but you think that that is the sort of alternative that can provide a positive path, as it were, away from these kinds of temptations to violence?
COLSON: In the broader issue, this is a time in which you see two world views radically different, Islam and Christianity. And no place is it more important for people to see that than in the prisons, which are breeding grounds for radical terrorists right now.
KEYES: Well, we are going to be back talking with Chuck Colson because I think he is one of the best examples I have known in the course of my lifetime of the renewing power of the gospel. He just has lived it and has shared it with so many people.
And later, we'll get to my “Outrage of the Day” unfortunately relating to another crisis in the church, the one that we have been following over the course of the weekend with the bishops conference.
But first, does this make sense? As you've been hearing, a U.S. Forest Service technician accused of starting the wild fire that has blackened nearly 103 acres and destroyed 22 homes appeared in court in handcuffs Monday and was ordered held without bail.
Prosecutors said Terry Barton, 38, started the fire June 8 while burning a letter from her estranged husband. Then she lied to investigators about it. I guess that's best proof that we can train people, we can bring them up, they can have all kinds of things where they are taking care of nature and so forth and so on.
But think about it. This fire that blackened 100,000 acres drove thousands of people from their homes, it didn't start when she burned that letter. This fire started in her heart. Now what's the best training to deal with that burning danger?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KEYES: We're back with former Nixon aide Chuck Colson.
And in that context, everybody has been talking in the course of the day, a little retrospective, about the Watergate situation. Here we sit now, 30 years later. You certainly are somebody whose life has completely reoriented itself since those times. But as you look back on it, what sort of lessons did you take from that period that kind of helped to lay the foundation for what you have done?
COLSON: Well, from my standpoint, Alan, that was the most important time in my life. I mean, I am one of those guys that says thank God for Watergate because I came face-to-face with myself, saw my own emptiness and my own sinfulness, turned my life over to Jesus Christ and went to prison, and saw in prison a great mission field, and God called me to work in the prisons.
The thing that was interesting about it, I was shattered when I went to prison because I was an idealist as a kid growing up in America, grandson of immigrants. And I thought if I could ever get into politics and get into power, I could do something about my own political idealism.
And now, I'm in prison. Everything is stripped away, public enemy No. 1. Those dreams are behind me. I'll never do anything significant again with my life. Well, that's underestimating the power of God. Never give up, because God will use those broken moments in your life to do the greatest things with you.
I have come out of prison, and now there's a ministry in 95 countries, hundreds of thousands of people reading my books, listening to the radio, and seeing the witness that we have of the redeeming power of Christ, the love of Christ. So, for me, it was a great thing because it turned my life around. It was part of the circumstances in which my life was turned around.
For the country, I don't think we've learned a whole lot. That wonderful little commentary you just did about the forest fire starting in the heart of that woman, of course. Sinful human behavior isn't changed by passing all the laws we passed in the wake of Watergate for cleaning up campaign finance. And everybody realized none of them worked. It was worse afterwards than before.
And then we said, well, we're setting up all of these barriers so this kind of thing won't happen again. Clinton outdid us. So, you don't change human nature by passing laws. And the lessons we didn't learn out of Watergate was that the problem is in here.
KEYES: Well, one of the things that I have to tell you struck me during the course of the whole Clinton business, was a favorable comparison between the Watergate era and the era we just passed through. Because I remember, I was in my early 20s then, and as things developed and facts were laid on the table and things came out, I remember that there started to be a kind of bipartisan willingness to just put things aside and say what have we got to do to get things back on track for this country.
That never happened during the course of the Clinton business. What do you think accounted for that willingness to kind of face the music during the whole Watergate era?
COLSON: Well, I think everybody, particularly the Republicans that I knew at the time in the Congress, felt that Nixon's betrayal had undercut the things that the Republican party and conservatives generally stand for more than anything else: character, tradition, longstanding values, religion, the pillars of conservatism.
That never occurred to the Democrats, because the Democrats are liberals, more accurately to say it, seek power because they think power is the end by which they can accomplish what they want to accomplish. So it's a completely different world view. In the Nixon era, I think people looked at it and said, this man has lost the moral authority to govern. In the Clinton era, I don't think it made any difference. If we can hold on to the levers of power, that's all that matters.
KEYES: It was almost as if there was the assumption you didn't need moral authority to govern then.
COLSON: Exactly.
KEYES: But I have been thinking lately, as we face the terrorism problem and so forth, that Nixon had enormous experience. He dealt with very complex national security challenges and so forth and so on. Wouldn't he be somebody who in some ways would be in his element as a leader facing a challenge such as the terror challenge we face right now?
COLSON: I happen to think George Bush is doing a tremendous job. I think he's being absolutely — his judgment is magnificent in this. But the guy that would give him a run for his money is Richard Nixon. If you could bring him back right now, this would be the moment for which he was born. He loved being tough. He loved playing power politics. He loved playing one side against the other.
He used to play the Chinese against the Soviets constantly. I saw him bring in Dilbreenan (ph) and read the Riot Act to him. He would love this. He would be tough as nails.
KEYES: This is one of the things, though, very quickly, because we're approaching the end. But why is it then that when one looks at the whole saga of Watergate and how we handled that particular crisis, it seemed to me that all toughness was out the window when it came to dealing with the problem, with his associates. Why?
COLSON: The great enigma, the great unanswerable question about Richard Nixon. Why didn't he burn the tapes? He didn't because his lawyers threatened — Len Garment (ph) had a temper tantrum in the hospital out of Bethesda. And he was paralyzed by a fear of turning on his own subordinates, his own friends, and he lost that steely resolve that was so great in the war. That was the paradox of Richard Nixon.
KEYES: So in the end, it seems like he had friendship as a fatal flaw.
COLSON: Yes. The Greek tragedy, the great strength brings him down.
KEYES: Chuck Colson, thank you so much. I really appreciate you joining us today.
COLSON: Alan, I had a wonderful evening. God bless.
KEYES: Next, my “Outrage of the Day.” Some comments by an American cardinal in the wake of this conference, in which he drove the press out of his church. You'll hear about it.
And if you want to make even more sense, you can sign up for our free daily newsletter at our Web site, KEYES.MSNBC.COM. Each day in your mailbox, you'll get show topics, my weekly column, and links to my favorite articles of the day.
I'll be right back with the “Outrage of the Day.” Please stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KEYES: And now for my “Outrage of the Day.”
A clearly frustrated Cardinal Francis George chastised the media Sunday during a public appearance, likening them to Communist spies that he encountered in Poland. He asked them to leave a morning worship service if they took notes.
I've got to tell you, I think the bishops made a good step in acknowledging their accountability. But if they are going to continue to try to blame the media, they're not going to get the job done.
That's my sense of it. Thanks. “THE NEWS WITH BRIAN WILLIAMS” is up next. I'll see you tomorrow.