MSNBC show
Alan Keyes is Making Sense
Alan KeyesJune 18, 2002
ALAN KEYES, HOST: Welcome to MAKING SENSE. I'm Alan Keyes. Up front tonight, painful and ominous developments in the Middle East. Tonight the Israeli government has issued a statement saying it will retake parts of the West Bank and hold them as long as terror attacks continue.
And the AP is reporting that large numbers of Israeli tanks and troops have entered the West Bank city of Nablus. This is a direct response to the latest Palestinian suicide bombing in Jerusalem that killed 19 passengers and gruesomely assaulted over 50 more.
Meanwhile, the bombing has set back but not derailed President Bush's announcement of a road map for Mideast peace now scheduled for later this week. He is also considering sending Secretary of State Colin Powell back to the region.
In a moment we'll go live to the West Bank, but first this report on the bombing from MSNBC's Martin Fletcher.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MARTIN FLETCHER, MSNBC CORRESPONDENT: Alan, Israeli police have specific warnings at least four suicide bombers were loose in Israel about to strike. They even have the name of one of them. But in the end, all the tight security couldn't stop today's bomber from getting through.
(voice-over): The terrorists call this the bus war — 8:00 this morning the suicide bomber carrying a bomb packed with nails boards a Jerusalem bus crowded with office workers and school children and blows himself up. At least 19 Israelis are killed, more than 50 wounded.
Then the Islamic militants of Hamas issue a leaflet warning this is their new plan to attack buses in Israeli towns. This 13-year old's life was saved because he was late for school and missed the bus and now...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm very scared. I'm afraid to go on the bus. I'm afraid to go on my home. I'm afraid to go to the city.
FLETCHER: The bus driver was killed at the wheel. In a cruel twist of fate this wasn't his usual route. Rami Sitkuahi (ph) swapped shifts today. He wanted to get off early to watch the World Cup soccer games.
“Daddy, daddy,” his son cries.
The bomber was a 22-year old university student. His father says he's proud.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): He's a martyr. We have only to ask our God to be merciful with him.
FLETCHER: Then there's this Israeli father, Ariel Yuggin (ph) is desperately calling the hospitals for news of his 22-year old daughter who was on the bus, but they have no record of her. The conclusion, she may be among the dead, some still unidentified, and the immediate danger may not be over.
(on camera): Israel's three major towns, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and Haifa are all on top alert. Israeli police say there are at least three more suicide bombers about to strike inside Israel. To stop the terrorists Israel started to build a fence around parts of Jerusalem, but on the streets here today, there's a sense of helplessness. Police are everywhere, but anyone could be a suicide bomber.
Israelis are living in fear, waiting for the next suicide bomber to strike. Tonight Israeli leaders met and so did the Palestinians separately. Yasser Arafat condemned the suicide attack today saying it harmed the Palestinian cause, but nobody, not the Palestinians or the Israeli leaders, have yet found a way to stop the Islamic terrorists — Alan.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KEYES: Martin Fletcher, thank you.
Obviously this suicide bombing raises serious questions about what the future is going to hold in this region. We have shown you in the past some of the terrible damage that is done by these suicide bombers — not only the 19 people who are killed, remember, but the folks who are injured and maimed by the shrapnel that is contained and packed around these bombs, the nails that will become embedded in the flesh and rip it apart, ball bearings, apparently also rat poison included in these bombs.
Now, I'm not dwelling on these horrible features just in order to inflame passion or drive home the point of the terrible nature of these attacks. No, there's more than that. And I think we've got to think about the mentality that goes into this kind of an attack — not just a suicide bombing itself, we've talked about that many times — but the mentality that packs the shrapnel, that aims to kill and deeply maim civilians and children on buses.
I want you to think for a moment about how you would feel if, in your town, this kind of thing were being done to people that you knew, to children, possibly your own. I want to ask you, given the feelings and reactions that all of us had to the World Trade Center bombing, what passions do you think would be aroused in your heart?
Do you think that those passions would be easily banked again because somebody told you the peace process required it? Or do you think it might be possible that as time after time, step after step, the cold-blooded effort to kill even your innocent children would eventually put you in a mind-set that would not be easily persuaded to talk peace ever again with those who had directed such an assault against your own?
I think we need to reflect on this natural human emotion, because sometimes I listen to all the jabber that's coming from people who think they're contributing to a diplomatic process, and they're just not taking account of reality. This violence creates realities, especially realities in the human heart, because they reflect deep and dark and ugly realities in the human heart.
And once that heart is set, once those passions are aroused and inflamed, they can't be shut off like a spigot. Can yours? Has the anger of the American people been that easily assuaged in the wake of the World Trade Center bombing?
You know it hasn't, so why do we expect the impossible of people in other parts of the world, and particularly from people, say, in Israel?
I hope this is going to be on the minds of some of our policymakers. But what I want to pose to you is the fact that violence like this raises clear and real obstacles to peace. That, I think, is the main reason why it has to end. We sometimes have people come on this program, they'll jabber forth about how you have to address this political issue and talk about that negotiation. I'm sure we'll hear it again tonight. But I think we need to be realistic.
When acts like this occur, the response of the human heart is one that can't be turned on and off like the water faucet in your kitchen. And as a result, that flowing anger and frustration and resentment starts to look for an outlet that will bring the matter to an end once and for all, whatever it takes. And that can shut the door to any kind of peace, to any kind of negotiations.
I think that's the key reason why violence of this kind has to stop, because it comes from a place that bespeaks not just the desire to make a point or strike a blow in the battle, no. When you have the nails and the shrapnel and the rat poison, you are coming from a place that seeks to exterminate your enemy, that says to that enemy, I have no regard for your humanity whatsoever, I just want you gone.
And when you're up against somebody who just wants to exterminate you, where do you think the war stops? See, I think that this may be the most tremendous barrier to peace there is, and in that context it casts perhaps a new light on the Israeli government's proposal to put a physical barrier between the two sides that might slow down and inhibit the continuing flow of this kind of violence. It could be that unless one finds a way, physically, to stymie this expression of exterminating hatred, this barrier to peace will destroy all prospects.
It could very well be that a wall, a physical barrier, will help to prevent the consolidation of these barriers in the heart.
Well, that's what we're going to be talking about in the next block of ALAN KEYES IS MAKING SENSE. We're going to get to the heart of the matter on whether the Israeli proposal for a physical barrier between the two sides might help to deal with the barriers to peace that are being erected by this continuing and gruesome violence.
We'll talk to Israeli embassy spokesman Mark Regev, Clovis Maksoud, former Arab League ambassador to the United Nations here on America's News Channel, MSNBC.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KEYES: Later this month FBI Director Robert Mueller will speak to the American Muslim Council because as his spokesman put it, it's the most mainstream Muslim group in the U.S. Later in the show, we'll ask why this high-ranking official would meet with a group one expert says is a supporter of terrorism.
A reminder that the chat room is cooking tonight and you can join in right now at chat.msnbc.com. But first, let's get back to this issue of dealing with the violence in the Middle East, the obstacles that it poses to the possibility of peace and the possible answers that there might be to create some breathing space in which talks and negotiations might eventually take place.
Joining us to get to the heart of the matter, Israeli embassy spokesman Mark Regev and Clovis Maksoud the former Arab League Ambassador to the United Nations. Gentlemen, welcome to MAKING SENSE.
MARK REGEV, ISRAELI EMBASSY SPOKESMAN: Thank you.
KEYES: I want to thank you both for joining me tonight. I want to start, Ambassador Maksoud, with a question that's been kind of aching in my heart as I have watched the developments in this bombing today, particularly because of the gruesome nature of the bomb, the shrapnel, the children that were involved, the terrible wounds inflicted even on those who are wounded. One of the problems that I see with this kind of violence is that it engenders deep-seeded responses in the people who are attacked that because it seems to be saying to the people of Israel this kind of violence, you are not human beings.
We do not respect you in any way. We want you so dead that you will be utterly exterminated in the most painful fashion possible. If that is the mind-set coming against the people of Israel, doesn't that naturally lead to enormous barriers to peace, that it's going to be difficult to bring down. Doesn't this violence cause a problem that it's going to be hard for a peace process ever to overcome?
CLOVIS MAKSOUD, FMR. ARAB LEAGUE AMBASSADOR TO THE U.N.: Mr. Alan Keyes, I — the way you framed the situation seems to apply to both sides. I think that the sporadic suicide bombings, which have caused despicable casualties among the people of Israel and which has been denounced and continues to be denounced is matched exactly, if you frame the same language, the same discourse that you have applied to Israel, it seems that you have been oblivious to the fact that far more Palestinians have been subject to violence —women, men, fighters, children of the Palestinian camps, the Palestinian villages and towns for so many years.
And as if they don't exist in the conscience of the discourse that you have so well articulated and therefore, that you find that as if violence is a mainstream Palestinian or Arab trait while the attacks that the Israeli army has doing — has been doing for the last several years, but particularly in the last few months with the tanks, with the helicopters, with the airplanes, with all the arsenal of the most powerful army in the region, that doesn't seem to even interrupt the sequence of your — of your outrage, moral outrage about the civilians who have been killed in Israel.
In fact, if you can apply the same standards of what you have applied to the Israeli victims, which...
KEYES: Well let me...
MAKSOUD: ... I sympathize with you, but on the other hand...
KEYES: Let me explain that.
MAKSOUD: If you — if you — if you apply them to the sustained victimization of...
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: Let me — let me explain that.
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: Ambassador Maksoud...
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: Yes, absolutely, I'm about to lose patience with this response, but...
MAKSOUD: I'm sorry that you...
KEYES: No. No. No. I want to demonstrate...
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: Just hold on a second please.
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: Mr. Ambassador, — Mr. Ambassador, I have the floor now. Hold on a second.
MAKSOUD: OK, you've always had the floor.
KEYES: Because you've asked me — you asked me a question. I want to answer it and I think Mark Regev, can I ask your help here, because it seems to me I always hear this response from folks, that somehow there's this equivalence, and I would like to ask a question that — serious a question, very simple. Has the Israeli army employed ordnance against civilian targets that uses the kind of devastating shrapnel that we saw employed in this bomb today? Has that been done by the Israeli defense forces?
REGEV: Alan, very clearly we do not.
KEYES: You do not employ such things. Now, Ambassador Maksoud, I am going to have some patience with all the junk I hear all the time when folks can stop talking in generalities, I can see what was done today. I have seen it as many have over and over again. All I hear when folks come on the program to say that there's some moral equivalence here is talk because you can't show me...
MAKSOUD: Alan...
KEYES: ... these terroristic acts from the Israelis.
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: And when — and no, I will finish. I gave you time, sir.
MAKSOUD: You did not give me time.
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: I will finish what I am saying. I gave you plenty of time.
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: You'll just hold on. I gave you plenty of time.
MAKSOUD: Maybe you did...
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: I listened to all of the garbage that was put out there about Jenin and the so-called massacre...
MAKSOUD: That was about Jenin...
(CROSSTALK)
MAKSOUD: No, wait a minute — wait a minute...
(CROSSTALK)
MAKSOUD: I will not allow it.
(CROSSTALK)
MAKSOUD: I will not allow you to say garbage about Jenin.
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: When it didn't materialize...
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: ... when it didn't materialize...
MAKSOUD: Don't say that.
KEYES: Don't say that? Not one...
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: ... shred...
(CROSSTALK)
MAKSOUD: I'm sorry...
KEYES: ... not one shred of truth.
MAKSOUD: You should not say garbage about Jenin.
KEYES: ... and the claim of hundreds of casualties...
MAKSOUD: No, you...
KEYES: Not one shred of truth in the claim...
MAKSOUD: I'm very sorry...
KEYES: ... of Israeli defense...
MAKSOUD: I'm very sorry...
KEYES: ... forces committing conscious atrocities...
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: I am sick to death, sir...
MAKSOUD: Well...
KEYES: ... of people coming on this program thinking that I should have patience with this kind...
(CROSSTALK)
MAKSOUD: If you're sick to death...
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: ... of falsehood.
MAKSOUD: I don't — I want you to live, so I'm leaving.
KEYES: But Mr. Regev, Mr. Regev, I've got to tell you, I look at what happened in Israel today, and I just wonder how a people subjected to this kind — it's not just the physical harm. There is a mentality involved in this that seems to bespeak an utter cold-blooded disregard for all humanity in the way that one approaches this problem.
How can one negotiate with this? I don't understand. Where does it come from in the people of Israel to go on with the peace process that involves folks who seem to have this kind of enmity toward you?
REGEV: Well, I think we have to face a cruel reality, and that is that groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad are not interested in peace. They share that bin Laden vision of some Islamic extreme ideology.
Can I say something personal Alan? I have an 8-month child, a baby at home, and for these people, such a — such a baby is a legitimate target. We're dealing with people who have a different sense of values and extremist ideology that sees children, babies, as legitimate targets.
And I think what we have to say to the Arab world, to the Muslim world, is surely these people don't represent you. Surely you have to exercise. You have to throw these people out from within. You have to say that these people don't represent you. And I'm, of course, very concerned when I hear Arab spokesmen justifying these sort of attacks.
KEYES: Well I am more than concerned. I am so outraged that I'm sick to death of it. Ambassador Maksoud has walked off the set. He doesn't want to talk any more. And frankly, if I was in his position, I'd walk out too, because having to continually repeat this kind of garbage in the face of the realities that are out there, I think would get tiresome for anybody. It gets tiresome for me to hear it. I'm sure it gets tiresome for folks like the ambassador to do it.
But I want to take a minute here. We have Bob Arnot who is out in Israel right now, and I want to talk to him for a second. He's on the telephone in Ramallah and I want to talk to him for a second because folks out there, you all might not understand why I am so upset right now, and why it has been difficult all day as we've prepared for this program for me to contain myself.
But in talking to Bob Arnot, I'd like you to get a sense of exactly what happens, because you read about it in the paper and you'll hear 19 dead, 50 wounded, 55 wounded, 57 wounded. I don't think we get any sense at all of what's really going on.
Bob, are you there?
BOB ARNOT, MSNBC CORRESPONDENT: Yes Alan, you're right. You know, you get no sense from just hearing it. And I heard the sirens first thing in the morning in Jerusalem, and I made my way out to the site and the first thing I saw looking through the window of this bus is this beautiful arm of this young woman, and I could see her blouse, but she had been decapitated.
I came around the side to where the body bags are — one, two, three, four, all the way up to 19, and tragically on the front of the bags you see the picture of a young student the same age as my kids who did nothing but get up to go to school in the morning. And then the technicians would come over and bring a foot or hand over a piece of hair and put it into the bag.
Parents crying hysterically at the line unable to come and to find out whether that was their children or not. Two young boys who came up to me said, we were on the bus behind this. We were going to go to school. We don't know what to do. We're so scared. Do we go to school? Do we stay here? Where are my parents? I don't know what to do.
And the thing is you look down at these body bags, and these are not long body bags. They're short body bags because these are children — children going to a school that's about a half-a-mile away.
The bus itself looked like someone had taken a can opener and taken the top off it. We talked to the hospital. When these kids came in, it wasn't just a matter of a bomb, but they had nails, and now they have ball bearings in it. So when the orthopedic surgeons looked on the X-ray, they saw nails and screws.
And what they've done, is they've doubled the impact. They've been able to double the fatalities in these recent attacks using not just mega-bombs with more explosives, but by having all of the shrapnel that goes into them.
And most grevious of all, they've actually used, in past attacks, rat poisoning, which means you're going to bleed more than you otherwise would. And now the surgeons at the hospital tell us they're trying to use, or about to use chemical warfare agents within these.
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: Now that means — a lot of these things mean that the shrapnel gets into you, and if you don't die right away, the effect of the shrapnel can cause your death later on, right?
ARNOT: It can. We interviewed three boys from the last bombing, 15-year olds, 14-year old, 13-year old boy. One boy I saw as he woke up from a coma with his mother hugging him, crying as his eyes finally opened. He had stones in him that they used in one bone; stones that had dirt and muck on it where they had to take every single one out that would cause rejection and infection as time went out, that this isn't a military advice (ph), there's no air force or army in the world that's designed something like this. This is something that's meant to humiliate and destroy the lives of these children.
You know 17 dead, but 50 injured and these are — each one of these 50 injured, there are hundreds of lives that are ruined where these children are going to be in rehabilitation centers, where they're going to be walking around with an arm — or without an arm or a leg. I mean, it's the greatest tragedy. I mean, as you say it's not a number. It's not a number, because you look at the face...
KEYES: Well...
ARNOT: ... of these parents.
KEYES: ... tell me something. In terms of what you have seen, what is the mentality that would go into to designing a bomb like this?
This is what I don't understand. Ordinarily you're dealing with folks that want to achieve a military result. Weapons are intended to try to inflict damage on an enemy so that you can bring the battle to an end. This doesn't seem to have anything to do with that.
What is going on with this...
ARNOT: Well I'm here in Ramallah now on the West Bank. I've spoken to students here. I've spoken to students in Saudi Arabia.
And what they say, when I challenge them and say, what does it do to you? Doesn't it break your heart to see these children in the streets of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem who've been blown up by bombs?
And they turn very cold-heartedly and they say, you know, we don't have jet airplanes. We don't have Howitzers, we don't have tanks. All we have is our bodies. We hurt inside, and we're going to go and we're going to use our bodies.
Now the chilling thing that's changed, Alan, is that it used to be we heard they did this out of desperation. Now we hear they do this because of hope — hope that they're finally going to have an impact and that their side is going to win.
And when I talk to kids here the same age as the children on that bus, Palestinian kids here, they will tell me, they'll say you know what, we think we're finally winning, and we think we're going to push them into the ocean. We're not talking about a settlement for just the West Bank. We believe we can push them into the ocean.
And when you challenge them on that...
KEYES: Well but that...
ARNOT: ... they say...
KEYES: If I may interrupt for one second, though — because it seems to me that “push them into the ocean” is a euphemism. What I detect in this kind of a weapon is a will to exterminate, a will utterly to obliterate the humanity in its manifestation in the body of the person that you're dealing with.
That's why it chills me to the very core of my soul. And it is something that I just think it's so horrifying that I can't imagine the kind of mentality that produces it.
ARNOT: It is. I mean, you listen to both sides, and you hear both sides. You hear them say that they hurt and that they've been humiliated and that they've had all of these deaths, and that their children have been shot too.
But it's only when you walk on a scene like this and you see the body bags and you see the pictures of these pretty little children who are dead and the parents cry inconsolably wondering whether it's their child or not.
It's only when you come on that scene and you don't see a number and you don't (UNINTELLIGIBLE). If you look there at the body bag on the floor and you see the reality, what the vision is of these suicide bombers.
KEYES: Yes. Bob, thank you so much. I appreciate...
ARNOT: You're welcome Alan.
KEYES: ... that insight, which I think is so necessary to folks in our audience.
I want to go back for a moment to Mark Regev.
Mark, I look at a scene like this and I think of the Israeli government's proposal to place a physical barrier that might inhibit the ability of people to come across and do this kind of damage. I will confess I was a little skeptical the first time I heard of that some months back. But as I look at the depth of annihilating hatred that seems to be expressed in the instrument used here.
Bob was talking about the results — and yes, there have been children killed on the Palestinian side. There have been deaths on the Palestinian side.
But deaths that result from what soldiers do in war don't bespeak, in my opinion, the same mind that has designed a bomb in order to produce these gruesome and long-lasting effects. That is a depth of nihilistic hatred that wants to annihilate the foe, not just defeat the foe in a way that would leave nothing after except that annihilation.
In the face of that, is there any recourse that's going to contain the violence that results from such a heart, if a physical barrier isn't put in place?
REGEV: Well, I think the idea of a physical barrier is just to make it that much more difficult for these suicide bombers, for these terrorists to come into the population centers in Israel.
Is it a perfect solution? It obviously is not. Is it a practical way to make their life more difficult and to safeguard Israelis? Of course it is. If it's that much more difficult for them to come in, it'll be — it will be saving lives.
It's not a perfect solution. A perfect solution will require some more fundamental political changes. We have to have Palestinian society and Muslim society that's not going to tolerate these murderers. That's the real solution. And for people...
(CROSSTALK)
REGEV: ... to stand up immorally and say this is disgusting and we're not going to tolerate this anymore. And...
KEYES: But one of the proposals that I had heard, and I've heard repeatedly, involved possibly putting international forces in as opposed to a physical barrier like this.
I guess the one question that occurs to me, though — and it's not entirely fair to put it to you, but I'll just throw it out there anyway — is if hearts are filled with this kind of annihilating hatred, why wouldn't they turn against anybody who stood between them and the object of their hatred, including peacekeepers and everybody else with the same kind of forceful attacks to annihilate them?
I — that's why I'm more and more thinking that something like a physical barrier may be the only way to create a space in which some reduction of this violence allows passion to subside enough for talks to go on.
REGEV: I think you're right Alan. I mean those people who think that international forces and of course the assumption is the American forces offer some sort of magical solution, I think it's very wrong. The same fanatics, those same people, those groups with hatred like Hamas, like Hezbollah, like Islamic Jihad, the first they're going to do is they'll target the Americans, and they've done it in the past.
They killed those Marines in Lebanon and then what will the United States (UNINTELLIGIBLE) with our problem? How do you respond? They'll be in the middle of cities. They'll be in the middle of towns. Will you go house-to-house in Ramallah and find the bad guys? I mean, there is no quick fix. There is no speedy solution.
What we have to say, is we have to say to the Arab world, to the Muslim world, to the Palestinian people: There are political options. We want to live in peace.
But Hamas doesn't want peace. Islamic Jihad doesn't want peace. These groups want murder. They are extremists. They share bin Laden's fundamental theology and ideology of hatred.
You have to throw these people out of your midst. It's incumbent upon you, if you want to be accepted as members of civilized humanity, not to tolerate these sort of extremists, who are a bunch of bloodthirsty murderers.
KEYES: Well I have to say that what you have just said there has, as you probably realize, been a position I've expressed on this show since it came on the air.
I think that's the only message, in fact, that we should be sending to those who aid, abet and facilitate terrorism all over the world, and especially in the context of the Middle East. And anything that muddles that is actually facilitating their murderous path.
And I guess I just seriously demonstrated it, too, because I'm not going to pull my punches in the hope that folks will keep coming on my program just in order to make the same excuses for death that are contributing, in my opinion, to this terrible situation.
Thank you Mark, for being with us tonight.
And I will have to say, I know we'll get a lot of calls and letters, I make no apology for Ambassador Maksoud's departure. It was his decision.
But I'll tell you something, I understand it perfectly. I do. And I will not, any more than I would recommend that the world now have patience with those making excuses for this annihilating, hateful and absolutely unacceptable approach. This isn't making war. They lost that a long time ago. And people need, everybody needs to stop making excuses for it. Thanks.
Still to come, the FBI says the American Muslim Council is mainstream and the FBI director is going to speak at its convention. We'll debate that coming up next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KEYES: Welcome back to MAKING SENSE. I'm Alan Keyes.
Later this month, FBI Director Robert Mueller will address the annual convention of the American Muslim Council. The reason? Well, according to his spokesman, the bureau believes that the AMC is, quote, “the most mainstream Muslim group in the United States.”
Not so, says one of our guests. MSNBC terrorism analyst Steve Emerson wrote about the group in his book, “American Jihad: The Terrorists Living Among Us.” Also with us, representing the other side of this debate, Eric Vickers, the executive director of the American Muslim Council. Gentlemen, welcome both of you to MAKING SENSE. And thanks for being with me tonight.
I want to start with you, Steve, because there have been a couple of articles in the press today, one by Frank Gaffney, whom my audience is very familiar with, another by Dan Pipes, someone I also know, that raise serious issues about FBI director Mueller addressing the American Muslim Council. And they alluded in both instances to information that you developed and presented in your book.
Based on the kind of work that you've done, do you think that it is a proper judgment for FBI Director Mueller to be addressing the American Muslim Council or do you agree with these articles that have raised questions about it?
STEVE EMERSON, MSNBC TERRORISM ANALYST: I think given the fact that the FBI spokesperson already declared the AMC to be a mainstream group, I think it's very troubling that the FBI director would extend legitimacy to an organization that has defended the Sudan, that has defended — whose officials have defended Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, have refused to condemn suicide bombings by the perpetrators, have called — whose officials have called for support for militant Islamic fundamentalist action against American allies.
I think this all betrays a whole radical line by an organization that should not be receiving legitimacy by the head of the FBI. In fact, the Web site of the American Muslim Council, until 9/11, had a special section that said don't talk to the FBI. They're your enemy. So, I think it's rather curious and especially in the light of the fact that you can obtain a lot of this information on the Web. So I don't know why the FBI's office didn't do the due diligence it was supposed to do.
KEYES: Now, when you talk — allude to these kinds of contacts and links with different terrorist groups, what exactly are you talking about? What kind of relationship are we dealing with here?
EMERSON: OK, well, first of all, let's be very specific here. Abdel Rahman Alamudi (ph), who is currently the secretary of the board of directors and who was its president, has openly stated in rallies and conferences that he supports Hamas and Hezbollah. No. 2, the organization itself has defended Musef Marzouk (ph), the head of the political bureau of Hamas.
No. 3, it's condemned the incarceration of the blind sheik behind the World Trade Center bombing in 1993 as being somehow linked to the fact that he was Muslim as opposed to the fact that he was a terrorist. No. 4, the current head, president Mr. Vickers himself, is on the articles of incorporation for the Islamic African Relief Agency. That's a group that the state department delisted last year or the year before because of its known unsavory ties and suspected ties to potential terrorist groups.
So I think we have a real problem here. It's a litany. I have a paper here with about 15 pages that is just page after page of ties to terrorist groups or support for terrorist groups. And I think it betrays the real interest of moderate Muslims around the world and it discredits genuine moderate Muslim leaders in the U.S. for the FBI director to be giving his blessing to this group.
KEYES: Now, Eric Vickers, what do you say to those who look at some of these past actions and activities and see a group that's far from being the moderate group you claim is, in fact, a group that has a lot of sympathy for and gives support to the very terrorist groups that seem to be involved in attacks against us?
ERIC VICKERS, AMERICAN MUSLIM COUNCIL: If the issue were not so serious, it would almost be laughable to be characterizing the American Muslim Council as a terrorist or semi-terrorist organization. It is, in fact, a very mainstream organization that has existed since 1990.
What the AMC stands for is to help the 7 million Muslims who live in this country as citizens, to effectively participate in this country's civic and political life. It also seeks to educate this country about Islam.
Just recently, the AMC mailed out several thousand pamphlets to elected leaders, state, local and federal, to acquaint them with Islam. So what the AMC has attempted to do, as most of the Muslim organizations here, is to give America a good sense of Islam and to have Muslims participate in the government.
Now, what always happens when we attempt to do that is we have Mr. Emerson and those who steadily try to attack the organization, who try to characterize and paint it as some sort of terrorist group, just as during the civil rights movement, the government tried to paint the SCLC and the civil right organizations as subversive groups, when in fact what we are attempting to do is very American.
KEYES: But, but...
VICKERS: And actually — actually...
KEYES: Is it — let me ask you a question.
VICKERS: Actually — yes.
KEYES: Are you saying, then, that the facts that have been cited where individuals have expressed their support, like Mr. Alamudi (ph), for Hezbollah, for instance, and have said that that in fact represents what they believe is the right course for Muslims, and have had associations with other groups that have been clearly identified as terroristic in nature.
Are you denying all of those things? Those facts are untrue?
VICKERS: Well, the tactic that is clearly being used is guilt by association. Mr. Alamudi made statements and he clarified those in an article in the “Washington Post.” And what he said very clearly is that he does not condone terrorism. He condemns it. The AMC has consistently condemned acts of terrorism, has consistently condemned suicide violence. But what he has said is that he supports the Palestinian movement. He supports having a Palestinian state.
EMERSON: No, he said he supports Hamas.
VICKERS: He supports the Palestinian movement.
EMERSON: He didn't say — he said he supports Hamas and he said he supports Hezbollah, No. 1. No. 2, an organization can only...
VICKERS: In his article — may I speak, please?
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: Eric, just a second.
VICKERS: May I speak, please?
KEYES: No. Let Steve finish what he's saying and then I'll get back to you.
EMERSON: I'm just going to say, an organization can only be judged by the actions it takes. The American Muslim Council openly stated that the decision to close down the Holy Land Foundation, which was designated as a terrorist front for Hamas, specifically by the president last November, it defended the Holy Land Foundation and claimed that the closing down of the Holy Land Foundation was an act of racism against the Muslim community.
That's ridiculous. In fact, what I find here, what is emblematic of the problem is that since 9/11, people have asked why did 9/11 occur? It's because of the deception by radical Islamic groups posing under the veneer of false, moderate images that try to project a disingenuous image of moderation when, in fact, every single fact that I'm stating here can be supported by a footnote, a video, an audio file. I mean, I don't understand...
KEYES: Let me raise a question though for our guest, because you say that this is all about guilt by association. But in terms of things like terrorism, if one attends a meeting that involves a whole lot of folks who come from these destructive organizations. As I understand, Mr. Alamudi at one stage did. That's not guilt by association because you're sitting down with a bunch of people who have been shown to mean America no good. Doesn't one have to be careful about associations with those who are out to kill your fellow citizens?
VICKERS: Well, what I'm saying is several things. One, if you want to get an accurate picture of AMC, then one should really read the book of former congressman Paul Finley (ph), “Silence No More,” when he talks about the role the AMC has played, the very positive role it has played in this country in terms of bringing Islam to light.
As far as guilt by association, what Mr. Emerson and others continue to try to do is to attribute to AMC statements made by others. The President Bush is bosom buddies with the president of Enron, but that doesn't make George Bush a crook. Just because Alamudi has made some statements, which he has clarified, that should not be attributed to AMC.
KEYES: Well, we're running out of time in this segment. I'll be right back, however, with both of you to explore a little further some of the facts and allegations that have been brought forward.
And later, my “Outrage of the Day,” where we see a problem we've been talking about in the Catholic church that possibly exists sadly in our educational system at large.
But first, does this make sense? Ted Turner, the billionaire founder of CNN, accuses Israel today of being involved in terrorism against the Palestinians. In London's “Guardian” newspaper, he said, quote, “the Palestinians are fighting with human suicide bombers. That's all they have. The Israelis, they've got one of the most powerful military machines in the world. The Palestinians have nothing. So who are the terrorists? I would make a case that both sides are involved in terrorism.”
Now, with his usual logic, Mr. Turner has told us that if you are a powerful military, then you're a terrorist. Now, what is the most powerful military structure on the face of the planet? Why, it's the United States. By Mr. Turner's reasoning, the United States would then be the premier terrorist power in the world, which is exactly what Osama bin Laden has said about us.
So I suppose Mr. Turner agrees with Mr. Bin Laden and the bombing of the World Trade Center was all that he had left to him faced with the terrible terrorist power of the United States. I think that Ted Turner, he's one of the richest men in the world. He's bidding to be labeled as one of stupidest men in the world. Does that make sense?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KEYES: We're back with Eric Vickers and Steve Emerson.
We have a couple minutes left. I want to go quickly to Steve Emerson because the articles that were written today suggested that FBI Director Mueller should not be addressing and going to lunch with folks who the FBI may have to be investigating on account of these past and terroristic ties and their implications. Do you agree with that appraisal?
EMERSON: Unfortunately, yes. I think that this only anoints legitimacy. It's like speaking to the Ku Klux Klan. I mean, one would expect that the FBI director wouldn't speak to a radical group. And if they did, they would clearly state ahead of time we violently disagree with its agenda and demand that this group renounce terrorism not just in general, as Mr. Vickers said, buy specifically by name, Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, Islamic fundamentalism, Osama bin Laden, all by name, and as a price to the admission to the club of, quote, “mainstream groups.”
We haven't seen that. Instead, in the past, FBI officials have spoken to the American Muslim Council as if they were the equivalent of rotary clubs. I think that, essentially, it legitimizes militant Islam and it does a disservice to the vast majority of Muslims who don't believe in this.
KEYES: Eric Vickers, we have about a minute left. Do you think that that's a fair appraisal? And what is your response? Will you specifically condemn these groups that practice terrorism?
VICKERS: Mr. Emerson's thinking is more dangerous to America than terrorism. What he is seeking to do is to stifle the voices of 7 million American citizens, to tell them they do not have a right to meet with a public servant, the director of the FBI, when the FBI is impacting the Muslim community and Middle Easterners more than any other group in this country.
Mr. Emerson would deny American citizens a chance to have a dialogue with the director of the Justice Department. That is dangerous thinking. That is dangerous for America.
KEYES: Well, I have to say, Eric, and listening to both of you, I think we as citizens have a responsibility, though, especially in our present situation, to make sure that our groups, that our actions are not going to aid and abet those who have declared themselves to be and have acted outrageously as the mortal enemies of the United States of America. I think that that is a dangerous way to behave. And I think that...
VICKERS: Yes, but we have to make informed judgments.
KEYES: ... all of us to one — Eric, we owe it to one another.
VICKERS: We have to make informed judgments.
KEYES: We owe it to one another to step away from those activities, clearly condemn them so that we can all work together in the confidence that we are fighting together against this common enemy. And I think...
VICKERS: And we absolutely agree.
KEYES: ... that all of us have that obligation.
VICKERS: We absolutely agree.
KEYES: So, I want to thank you both. I really appreciate it.
VICKERS: Thank you very much.
KEYES: We've come to the end of our time, but I think it's fair to lay that before the American people. We all have to make our judgments.
Next, my “Outrage of the Day.” And if you want to make even more sense, 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 to talk about the problem that may be emerging amongst our schools now, reflecting the kind of difficulties we've seen in the Catholic church. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KEYES: Now time for my “Outrage of the Day.”
In the last little while, we know that the nation has been shocked and pained by the spectacle of priests who abuse their situation of confidence in order to assault the dignity of young children.
According to today's “New York Times,” Duane C. Johnson (ph) turned up in southern Nevada nine years ago to work with the most troubled students in Nevada. When a job opened at Child Haven, a shelter for neglected children, school administrators did not hesitate to send him over.
Within a year, however, a 13-year-old girl stepped forward to accuse Mr. Johnson of repeatedly exposing himself and groping her. Only then did local school administrators learn what really cost Mr. Johnson his last job in Utah, accusations by school officials that he had impregnated a student there in her senior year.
Clark County's experience is hardly unusual when teachers are accused of sexual abuse. Educators and law enforcement authorities say districts often rid themselves of the problem by agreeing to keep quiet if the teacher moves on, sometimes even offering them a financial settlement.
Well, this report in the “New York Times” is deeply disturbing. We've seen what terrible consequences have resulted for the Catholic church because of this kind of a policy of looking the other way instead of dealing with what is needed to protect our children. I think we better get on top of this in our schools and everywhere else.
That's my sense of it. Thanks. “THE NEWS WITH BRIAN WILLIAMS” is up next. I'll see you tomorrow.
And the AP is reporting that large numbers of Israeli tanks and troops have entered the West Bank city of Nablus. This is a direct response to the latest Palestinian suicide bombing in Jerusalem that killed 19 passengers and gruesomely assaulted over 50 more.
Meanwhile, the bombing has set back but not derailed President Bush's announcement of a road map for Mideast peace now scheduled for later this week. He is also considering sending Secretary of State Colin Powell back to the region.
In a moment we'll go live to the West Bank, but first this report on the bombing from MSNBC's Martin Fletcher.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MARTIN FLETCHER, MSNBC CORRESPONDENT: Alan, Israeli police have specific warnings at least four suicide bombers were loose in Israel about to strike. They even have the name of one of them. But in the end, all the tight security couldn't stop today's bomber from getting through.
(voice-over): The terrorists call this the bus war — 8:00 this morning the suicide bomber carrying a bomb packed with nails boards a Jerusalem bus crowded with office workers and school children and blows himself up. At least 19 Israelis are killed, more than 50 wounded.
Then the Islamic militants of Hamas issue a leaflet warning this is their new plan to attack buses in Israeli towns. This 13-year old's life was saved because he was late for school and missed the bus and now...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm very scared. I'm afraid to go on the bus. I'm afraid to go on my home. I'm afraid to go to the city.
FLETCHER: The bus driver was killed at the wheel. In a cruel twist of fate this wasn't his usual route. Rami Sitkuahi (ph) swapped shifts today. He wanted to get off early to watch the World Cup soccer games.
“Daddy, daddy,” his son cries.
The bomber was a 22-year old university student. His father says he's proud.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): He's a martyr. We have only to ask our God to be merciful with him.
FLETCHER: Then there's this Israeli father, Ariel Yuggin (ph) is desperately calling the hospitals for news of his 22-year old daughter who was on the bus, but they have no record of her. The conclusion, she may be among the dead, some still unidentified, and the immediate danger may not be over.
(on camera): Israel's three major towns, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and Haifa are all on top alert. Israeli police say there are at least three more suicide bombers about to strike inside Israel. To stop the terrorists Israel started to build a fence around parts of Jerusalem, but on the streets here today, there's a sense of helplessness. Police are everywhere, but anyone could be a suicide bomber.
Israelis are living in fear, waiting for the next suicide bomber to strike. Tonight Israeli leaders met and so did the Palestinians separately. Yasser Arafat condemned the suicide attack today saying it harmed the Palestinian cause, but nobody, not the Palestinians or the Israeli leaders, have yet found a way to stop the Islamic terrorists — Alan.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KEYES: Martin Fletcher, thank you.
Obviously this suicide bombing raises serious questions about what the future is going to hold in this region. We have shown you in the past some of the terrible damage that is done by these suicide bombers — not only the 19 people who are killed, remember, but the folks who are injured and maimed by the shrapnel that is contained and packed around these bombs, the nails that will become embedded in the flesh and rip it apart, ball bearings, apparently also rat poison included in these bombs.
Now, I'm not dwelling on these horrible features just in order to inflame passion or drive home the point of the terrible nature of these attacks. No, there's more than that. And I think we've got to think about the mentality that goes into this kind of an attack — not just a suicide bombing itself, we've talked about that many times — but the mentality that packs the shrapnel, that aims to kill and deeply maim civilians and children on buses.
I want you to think for a moment about how you would feel if, in your town, this kind of thing were being done to people that you knew, to children, possibly your own. I want to ask you, given the feelings and reactions that all of us had to the World Trade Center bombing, what passions do you think would be aroused in your heart?
Do you think that those passions would be easily banked again because somebody told you the peace process required it? Or do you think it might be possible that as time after time, step after step, the cold-blooded effort to kill even your innocent children would eventually put you in a mind-set that would not be easily persuaded to talk peace ever again with those who had directed such an assault against your own?
I think we need to reflect on this natural human emotion, because sometimes I listen to all the jabber that's coming from people who think they're contributing to a diplomatic process, and they're just not taking account of reality. This violence creates realities, especially realities in the human heart, because they reflect deep and dark and ugly realities in the human heart.
And once that heart is set, once those passions are aroused and inflamed, they can't be shut off like a spigot. Can yours? Has the anger of the American people been that easily assuaged in the wake of the World Trade Center bombing?
You know it hasn't, so why do we expect the impossible of people in other parts of the world, and particularly from people, say, in Israel?
I hope this is going to be on the minds of some of our policymakers. But what I want to pose to you is the fact that violence like this raises clear and real obstacles to peace. That, I think, is the main reason why it has to end. We sometimes have people come on this program, they'll jabber forth about how you have to address this political issue and talk about that negotiation. I'm sure we'll hear it again tonight. But I think we need to be realistic.
When acts like this occur, the response of the human heart is one that can't be turned on and off like the water faucet in your kitchen. And as a result, that flowing anger and frustration and resentment starts to look for an outlet that will bring the matter to an end once and for all, whatever it takes. And that can shut the door to any kind of peace, to any kind of negotiations.
I think that's the key reason why violence of this kind has to stop, because it comes from a place that bespeaks not just the desire to make a point or strike a blow in the battle, no. When you have the nails and the shrapnel and the rat poison, you are coming from a place that seeks to exterminate your enemy, that says to that enemy, I have no regard for your humanity whatsoever, I just want you gone.
And when you're up against somebody who just wants to exterminate you, where do you think the war stops? See, I think that this may be the most tremendous barrier to peace there is, and in that context it casts perhaps a new light on the Israeli government's proposal to put a physical barrier between the two sides that might slow down and inhibit the continuing flow of this kind of violence. It could be that unless one finds a way, physically, to stymie this expression of exterminating hatred, this barrier to peace will destroy all prospects.
It could very well be that a wall, a physical barrier, will help to prevent the consolidation of these barriers in the heart.
Well, that's what we're going to be talking about in the next block of ALAN KEYES IS MAKING SENSE. We're going to get to the heart of the matter on whether the Israeli proposal for a physical barrier between the two sides might help to deal with the barriers to peace that are being erected by this continuing and gruesome violence.
We'll talk to Israeli embassy spokesman Mark Regev, Clovis Maksoud, former Arab League ambassador to the United Nations here on America's News Channel, MSNBC.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KEYES: Later this month FBI Director Robert Mueller will speak to the American Muslim Council because as his spokesman put it, it's the most mainstream Muslim group in the U.S. Later in the show, we'll ask why this high-ranking official would meet with a group one expert says is a supporter of terrorism.
A reminder that the chat room is cooking tonight and you can join in right now at chat.msnbc.com. But first, let's get back to this issue of dealing with the violence in the Middle East, the obstacles that it poses to the possibility of peace and the possible answers that there might be to create some breathing space in which talks and negotiations might eventually take place.
Joining us to get to the heart of the matter, Israeli embassy spokesman Mark Regev and Clovis Maksoud the former Arab League Ambassador to the United Nations. Gentlemen, welcome to MAKING SENSE.
MARK REGEV, ISRAELI EMBASSY SPOKESMAN: Thank you.
KEYES: I want to thank you both for joining me tonight. I want to start, Ambassador Maksoud, with a question that's been kind of aching in my heart as I have watched the developments in this bombing today, particularly because of the gruesome nature of the bomb, the shrapnel, the children that were involved, the terrible wounds inflicted even on those who are wounded. One of the problems that I see with this kind of violence is that it engenders deep-seeded responses in the people who are attacked that because it seems to be saying to the people of Israel this kind of violence, you are not human beings.
We do not respect you in any way. We want you so dead that you will be utterly exterminated in the most painful fashion possible. If that is the mind-set coming against the people of Israel, doesn't that naturally lead to enormous barriers to peace, that it's going to be difficult to bring down. Doesn't this violence cause a problem that it's going to be hard for a peace process ever to overcome?
CLOVIS MAKSOUD, FMR. ARAB LEAGUE AMBASSADOR TO THE U.N.: Mr. Alan Keyes, I — the way you framed the situation seems to apply to both sides. I think that the sporadic suicide bombings, which have caused despicable casualties among the people of Israel and which has been denounced and continues to be denounced is matched exactly, if you frame the same language, the same discourse that you have applied to Israel, it seems that you have been oblivious to the fact that far more Palestinians have been subject to violence —women, men, fighters, children of the Palestinian camps, the Palestinian villages and towns for so many years.
And as if they don't exist in the conscience of the discourse that you have so well articulated and therefore, that you find that as if violence is a mainstream Palestinian or Arab trait while the attacks that the Israeli army has doing — has been doing for the last several years, but particularly in the last few months with the tanks, with the helicopters, with the airplanes, with all the arsenal of the most powerful army in the region, that doesn't seem to even interrupt the sequence of your — of your outrage, moral outrage about the civilians who have been killed in Israel.
In fact, if you can apply the same standards of what you have applied to the Israeli victims, which...
KEYES: Well let me...
MAKSOUD: ... I sympathize with you, but on the other hand...
KEYES: Let me explain that.
MAKSOUD: If you — if you — if you apply them to the sustained victimization of...
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: Let me — let me explain that.
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: Ambassador Maksoud...
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: Yes, absolutely, I'm about to lose patience with this response, but...
MAKSOUD: I'm sorry that you...
KEYES: No. No. No. I want to demonstrate...
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: Just hold on a second please.
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: Mr. Ambassador, — Mr. Ambassador, I have the floor now. Hold on a second.
MAKSOUD: OK, you've always had the floor.
KEYES: Because you've asked me — you asked me a question. I want to answer it and I think Mark Regev, can I ask your help here, because it seems to me I always hear this response from folks, that somehow there's this equivalence, and I would like to ask a question that — serious a question, very simple. Has the Israeli army employed ordnance against civilian targets that uses the kind of devastating shrapnel that we saw employed in this bomb today? Has that been done by the Israeli defense forces?
REGEV: Alan, very clearly we do not.
KEYES: You do not employ such things. Now, Ambassador Maksoud, I am going to have some patience with all the junk I hear all the time when folks can stop talking in generalities, I can see what was done today. I have seen it as many have over and over again. All I hear when folks come on the program to say that there's some moral equivalence here is talk because you can't show me...
MAKSOUD: Alan...
KEYES: ... these terroristic acts from the Israelis.
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: And when — and no, I will finish. I gave you time, sir.
MAKSOUD: You did not give me time.
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: I will finish what I am saying. I gave you plenty of time.
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: You'll just hold on. I gave you plenty of time.
MAKSOUD: Maybe you did...
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: I listened to all of the garbage that was put out there about Jenin and the so-called massacre...
MAKSOUD: That was about Jenin...
(CROSSTALK)
MAKSOUD: No, wait a minute — wait a minute...
(CROSSTALK)
MAKSOUD: I will not allow it.
(CROSSTALK)
MAKSOUD: I will not allow you to say garbage about Jenin.
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: When it didn't materialize...
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: ... when it didn't materialize...
MAKSOUD: Don't say that.
KEYES: Don't say that? Not one...
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: ... shred...
(CROSSTALK)
MAKSOUD: I'm sorry...
KEYES: ... not one shred of truth.
MAKSOUD: You should not say garbage about Jenin.
KEYES: ... and the claim of hundreds of casualties...
MAKSOUD: No, you...
KEYES: Not one shred of truth in the claim...
MAKSOUD: I'm very sorry...
KEYES: ... of Israeli defense...
MAKSOUD: I'm very sorry...
KEYES: ... forces committing conscious atrocities...
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: I am sick to death, sir...
MAKSOUD: Well...
KEYES: ... of people coming on this program thinking that I should have patience with this kind...
(CROSSTALK)
MAKSOUD: If you're sick to death...
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: ... of falsehood.
MAKSOUD: I don't — I want you to live, so I'm leaving.
KEYES: But Mr. Regev, Mr. Regev, I've got to tell you, I look at what happened in Israel today, and I just wonder how a people subjected to this kind — it's not just the physical harm. There is a mentality involved in this that seems to bespeak an utter cold-blooded disregard for all humanity in the way that one approaches this problem.
How can one negotiate with this? I don't understand. Where does it come from in the people of Israel to go on with the peace process that involves folks who seem to have this kind of enmity toward you?
REGEV: Well, I think we have to face a cruel reality, and that is that groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad are not interested in peace. They share that bin Laden vision of some Islamic extreme ideology.
Can I say something personal Alan? I have an 8-month child, a baby at home, and for these people, such a — such a baby is a legitimate target. We're dealing with people who have a different sense of values and extremist ideology that sees children, babies, as legitimate targets.
And I think what we have to say to the Arab world, to the Muslim world, is surely these people don't represent you. Surely you have to exercise. You have to throw these people out from within. You have to say that these people don't represent you. And I'm, of course, very concerned when I hear Arab spokesmen justifying these sort of attacks.
KEYES: Well I am more than concerned. I am so outraged that I'm sick to death of it. Ambassador Maksoud has walked off the set. He doesn't want to talk any more. And frankly, if I was in his position, I'd walk out too, because having to continually repeat this kind of garbage in the face of the realities that are out there, I think would get tiresome for anybody. It gets tiresome for me to hear it. I'm sure it gets tiresome for folks like the ambassador to do it.
But I want to take a minute here. We have Bob Arnot who is out in Israel right now, and I want to talk to him for a second. He's on the telephone in Ramallah and I want to talk to him for a second because folks out there, you all might not understand why I am so upset right now, and why it has been difficult all day as we've prepared for this program for me to contain myself.
But in talking to Bob Arnot, I'd like you to get a sense of exactly what happens, because you read about it in the paper and you'll hear 19 dead, 50 wounded, 55 wounded, 57 wounded. I don't think we get any sense at all of what's really going on.
Bob, are you there?
BOB ARNOT, MSNBC CORRESPONDENT: Yes Alan, you're right. You know, you get no sense from just hearing it. And I heard the sirens first thing in the morning in Jerusalem, and I made my way out to the site and the first thing I saw looking through the window of this bus is this beautiful arm of this young woman, and I could see her blouse, but she had been decapitated.
I came around the side to where the body bags are — one, two, three, four, all the way up to 19, and tragically on the front of the bags you see the picture of a young student the same age as my kids who did nothing but get up to go to school in the morning. And then the technicians would come over and bring a foot or hand over a piece of hair and put it into the bag.
Parents crying hysterically at the line unable to come and to find out whether that was their children or not. Two young boys who came up to me said, we were on the bus behind this. We were going to go to school. We don't know what to do. We're so scared. Do we go to school? Do we stay here? Where are my parents? I don't know what to do.
And the thing is you look down at these body bags, and these are not long body bags. They're short body bags because these are children — children going to a school that's about a half-a-mile away.
The bus itself looked like someone had taken a can opener and taken the top off it. We talked to the hospital. When these kids came in, it wasn't just a matter of a bomb, but they had nails, and now they have ball bearings in it. So when the orthopedic surgeons looked on the X-ray, they saw nails and screws.
And what they've done, is they've doubled the impact. They've been able to double the fatalities in these recent attacks using not just mega-bombs with more explosives, but by having all of the shrapnel that goes into them.
And most grevious of all, they've actually used, in past attacks, rat poisoning, which means you're going to bleed more than you otherwise would. And now the surgeons at the hospital tell us they're trying to use, or about to use chemical warfare agents within these.
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: Now that means — a lot of these things mean that the shrapnel gets into you, and if you don't die right away, the effect of the shrapnel can cause your death later on, right?
ARNOT: It can. We interviewed three boys from the last bombing, 15-year olds, 14-year old, 13-year old boy. One boy I saw as he woke up from a coma with his mother hugging him, crying as his eyes finally opened. He had stones in him that they used in one bone; stones that had dirt and muck on it where they had to take every single one out that would cause rejection and infection as time went out, that this isn't a military advice (ph), there's no air force or army in the world that's designed something like this. This is something that's meant to humiliate and destroy the lives of these children.
You know 17 dead, but 50 injured and these are — each one of these 50 injured, there are hundreds of lives that are ruined where these children are going to be in rehabilitation centers, where they're going to be walking around with an arm — or without an arm or a leg. I mean, it's the greatest tragedy. I mean, as you say it's not a number. It's not a number, because you look at the face...
KEYES: Well...
ARNOT: ... of these parents.
KEYES: ... tell me something. In terms of what you have seen, what is the mentality that would go into to designing a bomb like this?
This is what I don't understand. Ordinarily you're dealing with folks that want to achieve a military result. Weapons are intended to try to inflict damage on an enemy so that you can bring the battle to an end. This doesn't seem to have anything to do with that.
What is going on with this...
ARNOT: Well I'm here in Ramallah now on the West Bank. I've spoken to students here. I've spoken to students in Saudi Arabia.
And what they say, when I challenge them and say, what does it do to you? Doesn't it break your heart to see these children in the streets of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem who've been blown up by bombs?
And they turn very cold-heartedly and they say, you know, we don't have jet airplanes. We don't have Howitzers, we don't have tanks. All we have is our bodies. We hurt inside, and we're going to go and we're going to use our bodies.
Now the chilling thing that's changed, Alan, is that it used to be we heard they did this out of desperation. Now we hear they do this because of hope — hope that they're finally going to have an impact and that their side is going to win.
And when I talk to kids here the same age as the children on that bus, Palestinian kids here, they will tell me, they'll say you know what, we think we're finally winning, and we think we're going to push them into the ocean. We're not talking about a settlement for just the West Bank. We believe we can push them into the ocean.
And when you challenge them on that...
KEYES: Well but that...
ARNOT: ... they say...
KEYES: If I may interrupt for one second, though — because it seems to me that “push them into the ocean” is a euphemism. What I detect in this kind of a weapon is a will to exterminate, a will utterly to obliterate the humanity in its manifestation in the body of the person that you're dealing with.
That's why it chills me to the very core of my soul. And it is something that I just think it's so horrifying that I can't imagine the kind of mentality that produces it.
ARNOT: It is. I mean, you listen to both sides, and you hear both sides. You hear them say that they hurt and that they've been humiliated and that they've had all of these deaths, and that their children have been shot too.
But it's only when you walk on a scene like this and you see the body bags and you see the pictures of these pretty little children who are dead and the parents cry inconsolably wondering whether it's their child or not.
It's only when you come on that scene and you don't see a number and you don't (UNINTELLIGIBLE). If you look there at the body bag on the floor and you see the reality, what the vision is of these suicide bombers.
KEYES: Yes. Bob, thank you so much. I appreciate...
ARNOT: You're welcome Alan.
KEYES: ... that insight, which I think is so necessary to folks in our audience.
I want to go back for a moment to Mark Regev.
Mark, I look at a scene like this and I think of the Israeli government's proposal to place a physical barrier that might inhibit the ability of people to come across and do this kind of damage. I will confess I was a little skeptical the first time I heard of that some months back. But as I look at the depth of annihilating hatred that seems to be expressed in the instrument used here.
Bob was talking about the results — and yes, there have been children killed on the Palestinian side. There have been deaths on the Palestinian side.
But deaths that result from what soldiers do in war don't bespeak, in my opinion, the same mind that has designed a bomb in order to produce these gruesome and long-lasting effects. That is a depth of nihilistic hatred that wants to annihilate the foe, not just defeat the foe in a way that would leave nothing after except that annihilation.
In the face of that, is there any recourse that's going to contain the violence that results from such a heart, if a physical barrier isn't put in place?
REGEV: Well, I think the idea of a physical barrier is just to make it that much more difficult for these suicide bombers, for these terrorists to come into the population centers in Israel.
Is it a perfect solution? It obviously is not. Is it a practical way to make their life more difficult and to safeguard Israelis? Of course it is. If it's that much more difficult for them to come in, it'll be — it will be saving lives.
It's not a perfect solution. A perfect solution will require some more fundamental political changes. We have to have Palestinian society and Muslim society that's not going to tolerate these murderers. That's the real solution. And for people...
(CROSSTALK)
REGEV: ... to stand up immorally and say this is disgusting and we're not going to tolerate this anymore. And...
KEYES: But one of the proposals that I had heard, and I've heard repeatedly, involved possibly putting international forces in as opposed to a physical barrier like this.
I guess the one question that occurs to me, though — and it's not entirely fair to put it to you, but I'll just throw it out there anyway — is if hearts are filled with this kind of annihilating hatred, why wouldn't they turn against anybody who stood between them and the object of their hatred, including peacekeepers and everybody else with the same kind of forceful attacks to annihilate them?
I — that's why I'm more and more thinking that something like a physical barrier may be the only way to create a space in which some reduction of this violence allows passion to subside enough for talks to go on.
REGEV: I think you're right Alan. I mean those people who think that international forces and of course the assumption is the American forces offer some sort of magical solution, I think it's very wrong. The same fanatics, those same people, those groups with hatred like Hamas, like Hezbollah, like Islamic Jihad, the first they're going to do is they'll target the Americans, and they've done it in the past.
They killed those Marines in Lebanon and then what will the United States (UNINTELLIGIBLE) with our problem? How do you respond? They'll be in the middle of cities. They'll be in the middle of towns. Will you go house-to-house in Ramallah and find the bad guys? I mean, there is no quick fix. There is no speedy solution.
What we have to say, is we have to say to the Arab world, to the Muslim world, to the Palestinian people: There are political options. We want to live in peace.
But Hamas doesn't want peace. Islamic Jihad doesn't want peace. These groups want murder. They are extremists. They share bin Laden's fundamental theology and ideology of hatred.
You have to throw these people out of your midst. It's incumbent upon you, if you want to be accepted as members of civilized humanity, not to tolerate these sort of extremists, who are a bunch of bloodthirsty murderers.
KEYES: Well I have to say that what you have just said there has, as you probably realize, been a position I've expressed on this show since it came on the air.
I think that's the only message, in fact, that we should be sending to those who aid, abet and facilitate terrorism all over the world, and especially in the context of the Middle East. And anything that muddles that is actually facilitating their murderous path.
And I guess I just seriously demonstrated it, too, because I'm not going to pull my punches in the hope that folks will keep coming on my program just in order to make the same excuses for death that are contributing, in my opinion, to this terrible situation.
Thank you Mark, for being with us tonight.
And I will have to say, I know we'll get a lot of calls and letters, I make no apology for Ambassador Maksoud's departure. It was his decision.
But I'll tell you something, I understand it perfectly. I do. And I will not, any more than I would recommend that the world now have patience with those making excuses for this annihilating, hateful and absolutely unacceptable approach. This isn't making war. They lost that a long time ago. And people need, everybody needs to stop making excuses for it. Thanks.
Still to come, the FBI says the American Muslim Council is mainstream and the FBI director is going to speak at its convention. We'll debate that coming up next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KEYES: Welcome back to MAKING SENSE. I'm Alan Keyes.
Later this month, FBI Director Robert Mueller will address the annual convention of the American Muslim Council. The reason? Well, according to his spokesman, the bureau believes that the AMC is, quote, “the most mainstream Muslim group in the United States.”
Not so, says one of our guests. MSNBC terrorism analyst Steve Emerson wrote about the group in his book, “American Jihad: The Terrorists Living Among Us.” Also with us, representing the other side of this debate, Eric Vickers, the executive director of the American Muslim Council. Gentlemen, welcome both of you to MAKING SENSE. And thanks for being with me tonight.
I want to start with you, Steve, because there have been a couple of articles in the press today, one by Frank Gaffney, whom my audience is very familiar with, another by Dan Pipes, someone I also know, that raise serious issues about FBI director Mueller addressing the American Muslim Council. And they alluded in both instances to information that you developed and presented in your book.
Based on the kind of work that you've done, do you think that it is a proper judgment for FBI Director Mueller to be addressing the American Muslim Council or do you agree with these articles that have raised questions about it?
STEVE EMERSON, MSNBC TERRORISM ANALYST: I think given the fact that the FBI spokesperson already declared the AMC to be a mainstream group, I think it's very troubling that the FBI director would extend legitimacy to an organization that has defended the Sudan, that has defended — whose officials have defended Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, have refused to condemn suicide bombings by the perpetrators, have called — whose officials have called for support for militant Islamic fundamentalist action against American allies.
I think this all betrays a whole radical line by an organization that should not be receiving legitimacy by the head of the FBI. In fact, the Web site of the American Muslim Council, until 9/11, had a special section that said don't talk to the FBI. They're your enemy. So, I think it's rather curious and especially in the light of the fact that you can obtain a lot of this information on the Web. So I don't know why the FBI's office didn't do the due diligence it was supposed to do.
KEYES: Now, when you talk — allude to these kinds of contacts and links with different terrorist groups, what exactly are you talking about? What kind of relationship are we dealing with here?
EMERSON: OK, well, first of all, let's be very specific here. Abdel Rahman Alamudi (ph), who is currently the secretary of the board of directors and who was its president, has openly stated in rallies and conferences that he supports Hamas and Hezbollah. No. 2, the organization itself has defended Musef Marzouk (ph), the head of the political bureau of Hamas.
No. 3, it's condemned the incarceration of the blind sheik behind the World Trade Center bombing in 1993 as being somehow linked to the fact that he was Muslim as opposed to the fact that he was a terrorist. No. 4, the current head, president Mr. Vickers himself, is on the articles of incorporation for the Islamic African Relief Agency. That's a group that the state department delisted last year or the year before because of its known unsavory ties and suspected ties to potential terrorist groups.
So I think we have a real problem here. It's a litany. I have a paper here with about 15 pages that is just page after page of ties to terrorist groups or support for terrorist groups. And I think it betrays the real interest of moderate Muslims around the world and it discredits genuine moderate Muslim leaders in the U.S. for the FBI director to be giving his blessing to this group.
KEYES: Now, Eric Vickers, what do you say to those who look at some of these past actions and activities and see a group that's far from being the moderate group you claim is, in fact, a group that has a lot of sympathy for and gives support to the very terrorist groups that seem to be involved in attacks against us?
ERIC VICKERS, AMERICAN MUSLIM COUNCIL: If the issue were not so serious, it would almost be laughable to be characterizing the American Muslim Council as a terrorist or semi-terrorist organization. It is, in fact, a very mainstream organization that has existed since 1990.
What the AMC stands for is to help the 7 million Muslims who live in this country as citizens, to effectively participate in this country's civic and political life. It also seeks to educate this country about Islam.
Just recently, the AMC mailed out several thousand pamphlets to elected leaders, state, local and federal, to acquaint them with Islam. So what the AMC has attempted to do, as most of the Muslim organizations here, is to give America a good sense of Islam and to have Muslims participate in the government.
Now, what always happens when we attempt to do that is we have Mr. Emerson and those who steadily try to attack the organization, who try to characterize and paint it as some sort of terrorist group, just as during the civil rights movement, the government tried to paint the SCLC and the civil right organizations as subversive groups, when in fact what we are attempting to do is very American.
KEYES: But, but...
VICKERS: And actually — actually...
KEYES: Is it — let me ask you a question.
VICKERS: Actually — yes.
KEYES: Are you saying, then, that the facts that have been cited where individuals have expressed their support, like Mr. Alamudi (ph), for Hezbollah, for instance, and have said that that in fact represents what they believe is the right course for Muslims, and have had associations with other groups that have been clearly identified as terroristic in nature.
Are you denying all of those things? Those facts are untrue?
VICKERS: Well, the tactic that is clearly being used is guilt by association. Mr. Alamudi made statements and he clarified those in an article in the “Washington Post.” And what he said very clearly is that he does not condone terrorism. He condemns it. The AMC has consistently condemned acts of terrorism, has consistently condemned suicide violence. But what he has said is that he supports the Palestinian movement. He supports having a Palestinian state.
EMERSON: No, he said he supports Hamas.
VICKERS: He supports the Palestinian movement.
EMERSON: He didn't say — he said he supports Hamas and he said he supports Hezbollah, No. 1. No. 2, an organization can only...
VICKERS: In his article — may I speak, please?
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: Eric, just a second.
VICKERS: May I speak, please?
KEYES: No. Let Steve finish what he's saying and then I'll get back to you.
EMERSON: I'm just going to say, an organization can only be judged by the actions it takes. The American Muslim Council openly stated that the decision to close down the Holy Land Foundation, which was designated as a terrorist front for Hamas, specifically by the president last November, it defended the Holy Land Foundation and claimed that the closing down of the Holy Land Foundation was an act of racism against the Muslim community.
That's ridiculous. In fact, what I find here, what is emblematic of the problem is that since 9/11, people have asked why did 9/11 occur? It's because of the deception by radical Islamic groups posing under the veneer of false, moderate images that try to project a disingenuous image of moderation when, in fact, every single fact that I'm stating here can be supported by a footnote, a video, an audio file. I mean, I don't understand...
KEYES: Let me raise a question though for our guest, because you say that this is all about guilt by association. But in terms of things like terrorism, if one attends a meeting that involves a whole lot of folks who come from these destructive organizations. As I understand, Mr. Alamudi at one stage did. That's not guilt by association because you're sitting down with a bunch of people who have been shown to mean America no good. Doesn't one have to be careful about associations with those who are out to kill your fellow citizens?
VICKERS: Well, what I'm saying is several things. One, if you want to get an accurate picture of AMC, then one should really read the book of former congressman Paul Finley (ph), “Silence No More,” when he talks about the role the AMC has played, the very positive role it has played in this country in terms of bringing Islam to light.
As far as guilt by association, what Mr. Emerson and others continue to try to do is to attribute to AMC statements made by others. The President Bush is bosom buddies with the president of Enron, but that doesn't make George Bush a crook. Just because Alamudi has made some statements, which he has clarified, that should not be attributed to AMC.
KEYES: Well, we're running out of time in this segment. I'll be right back, however, with both of you to explore a little further some of the facts and allegations that have been brought forward.
And later, my “Outrage of the Day,” where we see a problem we've been talking about in the Catholic church that possibly exists sadly in our educational system at large.
But first, does this make sense? Ted Turner, the billionaire founder of CNN, accuses Israel today of being involved in terrorism against the Palestinians. In London's “Guardian” newspaper, he said, quote, “the Palestinians are fighting with human suicide bombers. That's all they have. The Israelis, they've got one of the most powerful military machines in the world. The Palestinians have nothing. So who are the terrorists? I would make a case that both sides are involved in terrorism.”
Now, with his usual logic, Mr. Turner has told us that if you are a powerful military, then you're a terrorist. Now, what is the most powerful military structure on the face of the planet? Why, it's the United States. By Mr. Turner's reasoning, the United States would then be the premier terrorist power in the world, which is exactly what Osama bin Laden has said about us.
So I suppose Mr. Turner agrees with Mr. Bin Laden and the bombing of the World Trade Center was all that he had left to him faced with the terrible terrorist power of the United States. I think that Ted Turner, he's one of the richest men in the world. He's bidding to be labeled as one of stupidest men in the world. Does that make sense?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KEYES: We're back with Eric Vickers and Steve Emerson.
We have a couple minutes left. I want to go quickly to Steve Emerson because the articles that were written today suggested that FBI Director Mueller should not be addressing and going to lunch with folks who the FBI may have to be investigating on account of these past and terroristic ties and their implications. Do you agree with that appraisal?
EMERSON: Unfortunately, yes. I think that this only anoints legitimacy. It's like speaking to the Ku Klux Klan. I mean, one would expect that the FBI director wouldn't speak to a radical group. And if they did, they would clearly state ahead of time we violently disagree with its agenda and demand that this group renounce terrorism not just in general, as Mr. Vickers said, buy specifically by name, Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, Islamic fundamentalism, Osama bin Laden, all by name, and as a price to the admission to the club of, quote, “mainstream groups.”
We haven't seen that. Instead, in the past, FBI officials have spoken to the American Muslim Council as if they were the equivalent of rotary clubs. I think that, essentially, it legitimizes militant Islam and it does a disservice to the vast majority of Muslims who don't believe in this.
KEYES: Eric Vickers, we have about a minute left. Do you think that that's a fair appraisal? And what is your response? Will you specifically condemn these groups that practice terrorism?
VICKERS: Mr. Emerson's thinking is more dangerous to America than terrorism. What he is seeking to do is to stifle the voices of 7 million American citizens, to tell them they do not have a right to meet with a public servant, the director of the FBI, when the FBI is impacting the Muslim community and Middle Easterners more than any other group in this country.
Mr. Emerson would deny American citizens a chance to have a dialogue with the director of the Justice Department. That is dangerous thinking. That is dangerous for America.
KEYES: Well, I have to say, Eric, and listening to both of you, I think we as citizens have a responsibility, though, especially in our present situation, to make sure that our groups, that our actions are not going to aid and abet those who have declared themselves to be and have acted outrageously as the mortal enemies of the United States of America. I think that that is a dangerous way to behave. And I think that...
VICKERS: Yes, but we have to make informed judgments.
KEYES: ... all of us to one — Eric, we owe it to one another.
VICKERS: We have to make informed judgments.
KEYES: We owe it to one another to step away from those activities, clearly condemn them so that we can all work together in the confidence that we are fighting together against this common enemy. And I think...
VICKERS: And we absolutely agree.
KEYES: ... that all of us have that obligation.
VICKERS: We absolutely agree.
KEYES: So, I want to thank you both. I really appreciate it.
VICKERS: Thank you very much.
KEYES: We've come to the end of our time, but I think it's fair to lay that before the American people. We all have to make our judgments.
Next, my “Outrage of the Day.” And if you want to make even more sense, 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 to talk about the problem that may be emerging amongst our schools now, reflecting the kind of difficulties we've seen in the Catholic church. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KEYES: Now time for my “Outrage of the Day.”
In the last little while, we know that the nation has been shocked and pained by the spectacle of priests who abuse their situation of confidence in order to assault the dignity of young children.
According to today's “New York Times,” Duane C. Johnson (ph) turned up in southern Nevada nine years ago to work with the most troubled students in Nevada. When a job opened at Child Haven, a shelter for neglected children, school administrators did not hesitate to send him over.
Within a year, however, a 13-year-old girl stepped forward to accuse Mr. Johnson of repeatedly exposing himself and groping her. Only then did local school administrators learn what really cost Mr. Johnson his last job in Utah, accusations by school officials that he had impregnated a student there in her senior year.
Clark County's experience is hardly unusual when teachers are accused of sexual abuse. Educators and law enforcement authorities say districts often rid themselves of the problem by agreeing to keep quiet if the teacher moves on, sometimes even offering them a financial settlement.
Well, this report in the “New York Times” is deeply disturbing. We've seen what terrible consequences have resulted for the Catholic church because of this kind of a policy of looking the other way instead of dealing with what is needed to protect our children. I think we better get on top of this in our schools and everywhere else.
That's my sense of it. Thanks. “THE NEWS WITH BRIAN WILLIAMS” is up next. I'll see you tomorrow.