A disabled jewish new yorker at the hands of the palestinian terrorists an incident that shocked the world and continues to reverberate through the culture at large and to the lives of the families affected by the initial murder and the senseless reprisal. It in an innocent bystander the killing of Leon Klinghoffer Julie Salamon offers a train and 60degree view of the ruinous neverending cycle of the murder of innocents. Initially a longtime banking reporter and film critic for the wall street journal and a tv critic and our reporter at the New York Times ms. Solomon has written notable nonfiction books about show business philanthropy the holocaust the insanity defense and modern medical care. For 10 previous works include several bestsellers into novels for children. Its a pleasure to have her return. Please welcome Julie Salamon to the free library of philadelphia. [applause] im a good evening. Thank you for coming out on this hot summer night. You are not on vacation but i will try to make it seem like fun. I have a very brief film clip that im going to show you a couple of minutes just to take you back to this moment in time to 1985. A time that we now think of as. Terrorism but anybody who has a long memory can remember in the 60s and 70s there were a lot of plane hijackings and a lot of terrible things going on in the world is there today. In the summer of 1985 leon and maryland klinghoffer a couple from new york were about to embark on a trip that was really going to be a leon had a couple of strokes and he was in a wheelchair in maryland his wife was about to celebrate her 59th birthday but she was in remission from cancer. With a group of their friends on the jersey shore they book tickets on the ship called the Achille Lauro. It was what we did know called wheelchair accessible. She made sure the doors are wide enough and there is an interior elevator that leon could have a nice vacation. They left on this trip on october 3, 1985 thinking he was going to be this great voyage with their friends and on the third day for young palestinians hijacked it. They had been passengers on the ship. The hijacking was not meant to take place. That was the story that i had heard at the time and the story that i knew. Its a true story though its a much more complicated story which most stories are when you start taking into them. Four years ago i went to an event at the center for jewish history in new york presented by elsa klinghoffer who are the daughters of leon in Marilyn Klinghoffer and they had given us archives. I go to the same synagogue as they do. We werent friends but we were friends of acquaintances at this time and soot to this event to show support. It was riveting because the two sisters have been trained by theater producer from the moss Theatre Company in new york. They told the story almost like theater. The two sisters talking about what it was like to be here in new york finding out about this event going on that eventually resulted in their father being killed and thrown overboard in his wheelchair. At that time they became the center of a Huge International this storm media. This as well before 9 11 so this was a rare event. As they talked they invited onto the stage the reporter sara rimer who had covered their family stories at the New York Times on the front page. Then they brought in, he had been a young man at the time enable pilot who had been one of the four pilots of these f. 47 super jets that were stationed on the giant Aircraft Carrier in the mediterranean fluid bring down the civilian airplane that was carrying the four hijackers and lead them to safety. As he and i heard all the stories none of which i was very familiar with at that time. It was so exciting. Turned to my husband and i said do you think this could be my next book and he had the same thought. I approached the klinghoffer sister sometime afterwards and asked them if they would participate in this and it would be a deep dive into the story. My thought at that time was to do a book called klinghoffers daughters which would focus on the klinghoffer family and what it meant to be a victim of terrorism and is there a way to turn that into something useful and good for society . It was going to be more philosophical work. Surely into the research i discovered a part of the story i knew nothing about. Three days after Leon Klinghoffer was killed on the Achille Lauro a palestinianamerican who was a peace advocate, he worked for an Arab Antidiscrimination Committee which modeled itself on the jewish antidefamation league. Promoting the idea of positive presentations in the media. At that time there were all the pictures of sheikh sprang up carpet in new york. It was all of those things. Islamic fundamentalism. This organization was started to counterbalance those negative portraits. He spent most of his time in synagogues writing letters to the editor trying to reach across the aisle for the negotiations. When Leon Klinghoffer was killed the local abc affiliate in los angeles interviewed him for his comments speaking on behalf of palestinians. With the condolence he said it was an outrage and it shouldnt have happened and i asked him if he thought the Yasser Arafat was the reason for in the prevailing wisdom at that moment time was arafat had nothing to do with it. Arafat at that time was the head of the Palestinian Liberation Organization in the 1985 at the beginning of peace talks that would eventually lead to oslo and then the breakdown of the oslo but arafat is presenting himself to the world as a man of peace. The world didnt know at that time he also had authorizations like the palestinian liberation front doing deeds to keep up his status as a man of action as well. He said no arafat is the man of peace. The only piece that aired wednesday arafat is a man of peace and not the condolences and the condemnation of the hijacking. The next morning alex who was in his 40s and they had three young children, went to his office open the front door and a bomb went off and he was killed. The people who were believed to be responsible the case is still a cool case but the fbi investigating the case has always believed that the organization responsible for it was the Jewish Defense league which was the far right jewish terrorist organization. All of a sudden we are talking about domestic terrorism in talking International Terrorism and its feeling like a very current story. I thought my scope is going to broaden. Googling around one day i will tell you in my 30 page proposal called klinghoffers daughters i have two paragraphs dedicated to the hijackers. I didnt know much about them. I figured id find out about them later. I saw them is somewhat subsidiary characters are caricatures i might say. One day as googling around idly up pops a book called the Achille Lauro by his second wife i ordered the book on amazon. I read it, its fascinating. If the counternarrative to the story not justifying the Achille Lauro not saying its a good thing to do but explaining the politics and the history to lead to it and what it was like to be married to this person in charge of it. I said this is interesting so i looked it up on facebook. Reporting has gotten a lot easier than it used to be. She pops up and i send her a message on messenger thinking she will never respond to me. However she is a writer and im a writer and i knew if i said i want to talk to you she might she dot to be she got back to me and began talking to me. He began a series of skype interviews the one on for hours and hours and hours for long period of time. Now we have three families involved, three pieces of the story and it was only the beginning. I thought is a short little clip we could show just to take you back into how this is reported in real time, 1985. I always want to say this, could we roll the film clip . Thank you. The rescue mission would be dangerous for possible or british commandos parachuted onto the Queen Elizabeth two and 1972 when there is a bomb scare in the middle of the atlantic. Perhaps 12 palestinian pirates see the Achille Lauro. This newsbreak is brought to you by kroger. Warships are shadowing the italian crews ship hijacker palestinian terrorists. Born june 20 are aboard and in unconfirmed reports as to americans have been killed to the murder of a the 69yearold disabled passenger from new york city anger is america. After 72 of hour proceed to see negotiations among the plo italy and egypt succeed in getting the Achille Lauro back to egypt. There, the four terrorists surrender the ship. At first the world is led to believe that no one is harmed so the palestinians are promised safe passage out of egypt but the next day the troop has learned in the u. S. Ambassador to egypt makes the announcement. Leon klinghoffer is dead. The murder of a 69yearold disabled passenger from new york city angers america. People are outraged when the terrorists are allowed to escape on an egyptian plane to save territory in tunisia. This time reagan takes action. What we want is justice done. And a flawless execution u. S. Navy f14 fighter Jets Intercept the egyptian airliner in midair and force it to land at the u. S. Base in sicily. These Young Americans sent a message to terrorists everywhere , and message you can run but you cant hide. Italian courts convict the palestinian hijackers but again the Reagan Administration in the public are left dismayed when italian authorities granted freedom to the man believed to be the brains behind the hijacking. Italian courts have found no direct evidence of his involvement. The hijacking of the italian crews ship the Achille Lauro evidence that these men killed Leon Klinghoffer was fabricated by the United States and syria. International terrorism may be here, the man who was killed by that blast alex married daughter of everywhere the wall blown out windows blown out combat zone. Today at Western Medical Center where he dieded his brother sammy told them numerous Death Threats received by his brother. People who are defendants and as investigators search through the rubble for clues, away a grieved family in a home where there is more the phone and signs. Alexs family is in mourning. Looks like steve, five odeay describes his brother as a loving man who fled the middle east for a better life than america. A fact he says that makes his death even more bitter. One country where freedom of speech is very much president reagan calling the stint heinous ordered federal bomb experts to assist in the investigation. Militant testifies league denied responsibility in the bombings, but its director told cno on two different occasion he sheds no tears. So as you can see i ended up in the middle of the story that was far more complicated than i expected, and i hope youll read the book im not going to go through the 400 pages of the book and it will you everything thats in. But i will tell you a little bit about the journey to writing the book because ultimately what i discovered was this stories of the three families with, the abbas family, odess family brought together by the Israeli Palestinian consulate, and through who lives you find out an awful lot about hirings of that region but also the common humanity in some ways that the families shared. And the reporting of this book was fascinating. It took me to many archives reagan has thousands of documents in california about the loro, and when asked that the story that it didnt expect to find were the sort of political and how important the began to reagan politically because he came into office in 1980 promising to end terrorism because jimmy carte aer had iranian hospice situation which lost the presidency for him in 1980. And then within the first three years of the ragen presidency we have biggest number of american casualties in a war in a nonwar since vietnam, and this constant inability to keep up with terrorism. Then you could see how the constant militancy on all sides sort of eventually led to 911 and what happened there. In the center of the story is all over north who i found this incredible document, it was just when the iran if you remember that scandal that eventually envelope Reagan Administration all over north was just he was in a counterterrorism unit in the middle of the white house. And he wrote on a document to his boss we have to make the lara work because we have to divert attention. Never write thinks on documentses that may become declassified to one . Eepy report per years down the line who will find it. So i had many lines of stories going on. I had the family stories, the go political story, and then the legal story. How do you deal legally with people accused of terrorism and italian shift and victim, and so the more reporting i did, the more material i started amassing and question was how do you turn this into a story. How do you turn this into a book . Luckily, in terms amassing the information, i interviewed 80 people for this story a great number of people were still alive. So ambassador vote there, spoke about learning that leon clin copper died causing a little bit of scandal and how very interesting man. Married to a sort of rock n roll artist, and so he spoke to me and what he said that didnt show on the video clip he said and he spoke on unclassified radio broadcast which youre not supposed to do when he made his announcement he said were going to get he said some son of a bitch killed leon copper, and this went out into the arab world that was not received very well. And so all of these diplomatic gaps all of these kinds of things that were usually kept sub rosa became very public at this moment in time. And to the question for me became how do you tell this story that involves three family tragedieses that involve ongoing conflict to which there is no resolution the Israeli Palestinian conflict and then the politics going on in the Reagan Administration and the trial in italy. And so eventually my reporting took me to israel to lebanon to california all over the United States to tell all of the different places because there were people and many players. And eventually i decided i wanted to focus on the three families and the other material weave into is this story. And but the actual construction of the book which has been licensed to a spice ruler which really felt like when i was writing like whats going to happen next and i knew that it was very exciting to put the pieces together. I spoke to max warren max warren the son of copper one of the daughters of leon so this was a boy who i had never met his grandfather. He died was killed four years before max was born. And i said to max what do you want to know about about your grandfather . What do you know . And he said you know i know remarkably little, i know the outline of this story. I know the boat was head jacked i know he was killed. But i dont know much else. He says what i want to know is the the ticktock, what happened minute by minute . What what were the events that led to this . What happened . And what did it mean . And so i thought when i was going through all of my notes i thought oh, my god youve given me outline for how to write this book and i really kept that in mind throughout the entire book comma is the ticktock and so the book really goes through this story in a kind of crinology but what we have in life sew first half of the book goes very slowly like if life tends to do so the first half of the book takes place in two weeks. The next quarter of the speeds pup a little bit so it takes place in a year. And the last quarter of the book zooms by, takes place in 20 years. Because its sort of the aftermath of all of this. And in the quick of doing this i spoke to both wives of first wife was a Christian Palestinian his second wife was some muslim but a secular muslim family. His wives both from prominent families and fascinating women and he had five sons. Between the two blended families, i interviewed all of the children, grandchildren of leon clin copper and then all of the ancillary players and through these stories, i startedded to see the difference between the way history is presented to us in textbooks and in some times documentaries and certainly on the news and the way he unfolds in real time for real people, and i hope thats one of the values of this book somebody had asked me at another talk i gave way of value of this of this narrative to people who werent born yet. To People Living today and i have found many of my i have children and their 20s and they in their sons are reading this book and it has been really gratifying to me how interesting they say theyre finding i didnt tell them to go buy it my children had to read it but they didnt have to and i think for them the whole notion that a, there was terrorism before him just mind blowings to them they thought everything happened in 2001. But also, i think for a lot of them it gave them a different perspective on the Israeli Palestinian conflict because what i try to show there is not that you know, this is not say that the palestinianss were justified in hijacking the ship and certainly not justified in murdering a man. And certainly not justified in murdering man in a wheelchair. But to try to understand the historic causes that led to that moment. And then just to see all of the different ways because the behind the scene political imagination and the deon all level the italian Prime Minister cracks both trying to appease arafat because he doesnt have to have poo afnght in italy but he has to appease United States because we have the big gun in the region. And i had access to right hand man during this and tony abidini who was his chief diplomatic advisory throughout all of this and he spent many, many hours in conversation discussing this. And so you start to see things that happen under the surface, and so i think for me this story on the one hand was just a great story. Flearn how these different families start with this and constituencily it has been unbelievable to see their reaction to the book which they said the book just calm out three or four weeks ago, and my biggest fear quite honestly was having lisa and elsa clin hopper read the book. Because they had been so open to me and so forthcoming and then about literally at the beginning of the project, i told them oh, well it is no longer clin hopper daughter now a completely different book. Not completely different. But quite different, and they stuck with it. They kept meeting with me and talking with me, and not only that, but sharing the names of all of the people on who are accompany their parents on this ship most of them are no longer alive but their children are. To interview them, and i didnt want them to read the book until it was almost time for publication because ive written many books and when youre writing nonfiction it is never good to have people who are in the book read the too early especially in the days with facebook and twitter because if they like it or theyre upset something it can go into the universe before the book does. So finally about three weeks before the book came out if i gave them a copy of the book. To read, and their reaction has been unbelievable to me. How moved they were about all of the things they didnt know about about their parents. It was so much they didnt know about their parents experience on this ship. I was able to reach the general who was in charge of the rescue mission who was with marilyn clin copper when she went to identify that hijackers in dust and he recreated conversation that they had as they went one by one to see these young men and identify them. And they were also i think they were also fascinated and moved really to hear this story except palestinian and outside and certainly the story of alex odin and his family and been supportive of the book as a huge relief as a person, but also as an author. And then the next hurdle to clear was the abbas family, and ream hasnt read the book yet i just got a note from her that shes just starting to read, but omara one of the sons of obala read the book and hes gotten out of that line of the familys business he does advertise in dubai now, and hes a couple of years oldering than max thorn, mack and i think they would probably like each other very much if they were meet each other, and omar reaction to the book was he said you havent justified anything my father did you havent you know, you havent youve been very respectful to this story which is the story ive always read about of the clin hoppers he said but what i felt you did was tell the story with respect that youre treating people as people. Youre looking at a political leader who made a lot of really stupid choices. I think in his life that youre not condemning him youre trying to understand where youre condemning the axe and youre condemning the strategy that youre trying to understand where it came from. So that also was very interesting and waiting to hear from the family. And im going to give away the ending of the book, but only because i think its such a i think it is such a Beautiful Image worth thinking about. So in santa ana, california, where alex odin and family lived and where one of his daughter and his wife still live, and part of this is a story of of all of these women who had to continue on in one case because of the thing their husbands, their husband did, and the other two because of the at the time that their husband suffered. Their part of the story is something im proud of because of the story of people who dont get written about not the wear, politicians but the people who have to deal request the fallout of the stupidity of the politicians and the warriors, and so this is the end of the book. I was trying to, i was talking to the daughter and she was saying it was very hurtful to them that when clin hopper was killed president rage began met with the clin hopper family until person, and you know had had a public announcement about them and with their father he said the one that this was an act of terrorism and that wasnt acceptable. But he never called them he didnt sending a note toll them. They got, they didnt get any kind of personal reach out from the white house. And they always wondered well why didnt we get that same kind of sympathy or empathy from leader of our country, and so what they arrested huge statue of alex in front of the library appropriately enough since were speaking at a library tonight. And he was a scholar he was a poet. He was a teacher that was his profession in addition to the political activism he did, and statute in front of the library was desecrated many times with graffiti, with insult upon it. But a few years ago, they cleaned it up and rededicated it and i got down the young man who had had was the sculpture of the statue, and he had been a student of alex, and when it was time to design the statue he really wanted to do it as an act of friendship for this man to identify very important to them, and had said one of the things that he couldnt stop thinking about when he was designing the sculpture of designing the sculpture was a cartoon that ran shortly after alex oda and the copper murders that the Los Angeles Times that was a cartoon by paul conrad who was a Pulitzer Prize winning political cartoonist. And the cartoon and i couldnt find it because he didnt remember what date it was. It is hard to find cartoon online finally i went into the archive of the Los Angeles Times through pages and pages of micromeaning many, many advertisements for sales at macys or whatever but finally i found the cartoon. And its a very simply drawn cartoon it is a picture of leon clin hopper in wheelchair and he seems to be incline heaven because hes writing on clouds, and alex is pushing his wheelchair. And the caption is very simple. It just says, small world, wasnt it . And to me that was really in a way what this book ultimately is about from all of this haboob, murder, international intrigue, family story, it is that it is ultimately a very small world. And yet somehow we havent quite figured it out, that maybe it would be easier not to be fighting so much it be. And so im a clock and a watch so if you would like i would love to hear questions and i have questions incase you dont have any and young women here with microphones so please if you could, want to start right there . Yeah. How does palestinians choose leon to a mover, and you know you, obviously, think of an old man in a wheelchair doing that. It is a fright opinion everybody to show how appraised they were and somehow . That is a great question, and it is probably the most unanswerable question because just to give you a a little brief background to answer that question, so the lara like any hip is huge, crown, and the four young men were not supposed to hijack it because it is ludicrous four people hijacking a giant ship it is not like airplane where it is a very finite body this is huge and whapgd was these four young guys ages 17 23 got on this ship dressed as tourists. I have this great scene where they go shopping, the day before the rose they would look like tourist. It was a stupid plan. So they got sent to italy for a few weeks before hand to pick up italian none of them spoke italian italian ship, they had Fake Passports the 17yearold had a passport that said he was 35, and i think he was supposed to be from south america one of the most supposed to be norwegian it was really and security needless to say was lax because they were allowed to bring their ak47 and their suitcases. On the ship and their plan was to say plain should say plans was the ship was going from italy to egypt making twos in jipght and final destination was ash a fort in israel. And at that time just to give you a little context this is before the end this was the for when israel seemed inpregnable by the palestinians nobody had ever invaded israel and this abbas became obsessed came up with one scheme after another. He sent boats up from the shore trying to and they all ended up in disaster where this one the idea was that these four young guys stay on ship until they got to ash toad and then get off and start is shooting. And their idea was to murder a lot of israelis. Not a noble plan. But in their minds an act of war. They were never supposed to hijack the ship. What happened was because they didnt speak italian only one of them that spoke english was the youngest one by some, and so they get on the ship, and by this third day theyre getting more and more nervous because somebody cleans cab and a spy and these were young guys brought up in a refugee camp never been on a cruise ship before and didnt realize somebody comes many to clean cabins they were getting more and more his tear kl and more and more worked up. But that their mission wasnt going to work. On third day the cleaning guy came in and zipper on one of their suitcases was jammed and gun was sticking out and they worked themselves up and decided they had been caught, and they decided to hijack the ship. Now, most of the passengers were off the ship. Because the ship had stopped in jipght most of the passengers got off to go on a day trip to the permed only passengers they were about 75 passengers left on ship and it was mostly people who were either sick or not feeling well pl leon lived in the wheelchair. And so still self hundred cruise members retick louse but they decided to hijack the ship and once they do it try to land in syria they try to get passage to other ports by then the u. S. Warning has gone out but ship has been hijacked and u. S. Sengdz out messages to all of the port, dont let the ship land there. Ironically, the ship has been able to land in syria and hijackers have been allowed to get off the ship and go free nobody would have been killed. So what happened was they had these passengers in the big dining room which is where theyre keeping them captive. And they go back and forth you know between being really nice they serve them sandwicheses they bring drinks out for people, and then they get his hysterical start shooting at the ceiling and dont know what to do and theyre divided themselves one of them is spending whole time up in the captain bow to make sure they dont try any funny business and he speaks a Little English the captain speaks a Little English so theyre kind of speaking tblish to each other. Two of them are down there with the passengers, and then the 23yearold leader is kind of running back and forth, and hes starting to panic. So by second day of the hijacking looks like it is going to be resolved to get off in syria and then the u. S. Says you cant land there. Because they dont want to give haven understandably they dont want to give haven to hijackers now theyre back at sea. And theyre really they dont know what to do. And they decide to separate the american passengers and the british most of the passengers were not american or british. So they decide to separate them as collaborators of israel and theyre going to they will worry that a helicopter might land there was a top deck, and so they make them go up on to this top deck which was not for passengers. There was no guardrailinging. It was dangerous. And leon couldnt go. Because leon could only go as far as elevators went. To get to that top deck you have to go up one of the narrow little ladder stairses and so he was left behind and all of a sudden he doesnt have his support group a few of his friends from the beach group, and his wife went up on top deck and leon is left there and then nobody exactly knows what happened. I have read pages and pages of interrogatories, you guys were interrogated by the fbi, by lawyers from the department of justice by the italians and three of them have consistent stories. And nobody had been killed who killed cron copper kept changing his story i killed them for reason you said. To show that we were ruthless qowld tell anybody. I killed him because he started hitting me with a cane. I killed them because whatever, i didnt kill them there was no such person on this ship. And what happened was he took leon clin copper away from everybody else on a remote part of the ship. Remember, all of the passengers of crew are being kept in a one central place. He takes him to this remote place he shoots him. And then he cant throw him overboard because hes too heavy with the the wheelchair he goes back, he finds a waitering and hairdresser who worked for the shipping company. He makes them cool with them. And they find this site the murdered man in the chair, and then they have to throw him in his overboard. But he tells them that if they if they tell anybody, theyll be killed too. And so then abu shows up on scene as negotiator for arafat now nobody knows that leon clin copper has been killed expect for mulky other hijackers dont know yet and two workers who through the body overboard and so shows up in a motor boat as emissary and they make negotiation ultimately they agree that hell take the four hijackers support in egypt but only if no passengers have been harmed. And so theres all of this discussion going on, theyre trying to figure out no they decide nobody has been harmed, and the cap tan at this point does know, and he lies. Nobody has been harmed because he wants the hijackers off the ship. And so when you ask why is he killed . I would say he was killed because he was an american. He was killed because he was in a wheelchair and he was killed because he was cause something to go off and this guy that was had had had really gone way behind his skill level. And so thats what i really think happened. Yes. Question . Is there somebody . Sorry youre what was the result of the trial in italy for the and what became also what became of aba i kind of remember that israeli went after him and got him but i may be wrong. Of course you are wrong but close youre in the right ballpark so four hijackers went on trial in italy. And that in and of itself is an amazing story. To see how u. S. Brought them, they brought them down and then the whole negotiation on whether they should stay in italy or come here in the lives and manipulation that was going on with just pretty crazy. And how they led abla without a lot of this whole thing with the hijackers and it was a hot potato going on nobody wanted them in their krpght because it was going to cause trouble. And so everybody was trying to like the egyptians slipped them out of jipght because they didnt want them there and italian let them get away but four hijackers underwent trial and i was very welcomey that i was able to interview both of the defense attorney who sadly just died a couple of weeks ago. But i was able to interview one of the Defense Attorneys and the prosecutor and read the volumes of documents that were filed with that case. Documents but interesting thing in the trial was that four hijackers all received lengthy jail sentences abla mulky ultimately convicted of murder. Others aiding abetting and hijacking and bunch of different but were not convicted of terrorism thats when one of the most important parts of the Court Documents because in italy it is called are you part of a bond and i dont speak italian so it is a specific charge and theres a long philosophical discussion that the judge offers on whether they were a band of terrorists or just criminals. And italy opted for criminal. They said that they were that they had a political movement, that they believed in and that they considered themselveses a nation and therefore, they werent terrorists they werent just randomly committing acts of terror. And it was a very interesting thing theyve all ended up spending three of them spent maximum amount of time in prison actually two of them spent the maximum amount of prison, and two of them ended up escaping because italy has a very different system of justice after youre in jail for a few year youre allowed to get furloughs it is like youre in the army and you can go away from the weekend. And tourism went away and they didnt come back. And a side note one of the most interesting people i interview i shouldnt say most interesting most surprising to me because i written a book but this was first International Terrorism book so i not expect o find myself who was International Arm dealer who shows up in the middle of this story and one of the guys who escape hang out with one for a few days who sold chemical weapon. It is now in jail in illinois for selling arms to south america. And he also sold to Oliver Morris for a band of contrast so it is a small world. Thank you. What about assad. Sorry ended up living, he was evicted from tunisia where he was living and he and his Family Moving to iraq because Saddam Hussein was very welcoming of the palestinian chfers not the case in most of the neighbors arab countries even today i interviewed the youngests terrorist or hijacker, and hes still refugee camp and hes not a citizen and he was living in iraq pretty nicely for many years. And then in 2000 2003 when the u. S. Invaded iraq, even though israel had given him amnesty and he was back to gaza for a meeting of the plo because israel part of that to give amnesty to a lot of people committed crimes before he was remember the terrorist card that they have he got picked up by the americans in 2003 and he ended up dying in an american jail at camp cropper with no notorious death report it was if 60 pages long. I do think he had a heart attack. I dont think he was murdered. But who knows. For those of you dont know there was opera made out of the killing of leon clin copper in 1991 it was called death of clin copper and when it came out, in 1991, it created a huge fire storm as only opera can do. A lot of people were offended because the opera did voice to the palestinian and it did contain a scene which was later taken out. That wasnt today it seems kind of benign but it was a little care caricature and not to the jewish friends and it was trite and after showing of Brooklyn Academy music they did take that scene out. I had not seen opera in 1991, but in 2014 opera was revived in new york at the metropolitan museum, and i became offended because there were people protesting in front of Lincoln Center who hngt seen it. And i hate when people protest thingses that they havent seen. If they sigh fair game but before they see it no good and at that time i was kind of interested and i actually went to see it. Im not an opera expert by any stretch of the imagination. I found parts of it incredibly effecting. This scene that had been in the earlier versions was no longer there. It was quite beautiful. Ultimately the story seen very mellow dramatic but two best areas went to marilyn and to leon no question about it. There was no way to walk out of the opera feel sympathetic to the people who killed leeingon clint hopper but might feel sympathetic to the palestinian polite which was a different story, and so at that time i had actually thought of doing something on this story. Just that the whole complexity of it seemed to interesting so i did have a long discussion and there was a chapter in the book, because it is in real time that deals with the opera. You know with opera it was so interesting when she heard they were making opera out of this in 1991, she was so excited that peter who was this opera was going to be involved in this that she tried to get in touch with him to talk to him about it, and she did give his number somehow in San Francisco and they spoke. And he was pretty dismissive by her not really mean just saying well i dont need to talk to you because this is a work of art. I think he made a mistake and he should have respected sisters and i talk to him about that and he did say he felt bad i like them a lot i met him a real character. I mean hes in a has his own world view in different way of looking at things. But the on itself has a lot of interesting music in it. And not feel quite moved by it i think in some ways. So thank you. What one of the things that didnt seem to come through in your narrative just now, i mean i know this is kind of odd question to ask because ultimately at the core of the story it is about the palestinian and israeli conflict. But one of the things i didnt hear it was as an event, it seems to be americans were big reactors certainly you mention italy, the place of jurisdiction. What was israeli on the whole incident . You come from so great youre asking me all exactly the questions. [laughter] so the israeli so throughout the hijacking the israelis are always there. For example a moment when egypt is lying right, right just without shame to the american saying hijackers arent here anymore. They already left when they were actually right there. Right outside of cairo, and the israelis had his office bug and so they were able to report to u. S. Intelligence and actually, you know, what theyre still there. And so the israeli sort of in the course of the hijacking provided a lot of intelligence to the u. S. That the u. S. Relied on quite heavily. To israel i met with a former head of shin bakes. Who had the unfortunate responsibilitying being the head when he was assassinated. And i asked him about the lara to put it in context of what did this mean to israel . He said you know it was a big deal for americans. He said because american was killed. For us he said, it was a a few days of interest to us that to us it was one of many in a long line of incidents and running through the book is this con refrain of, you know were going to kill ten of you and the back and forth that endless had back and forth, and the other back drop of the book is the other violence going on here in the u. S. That as the world is rivetted new york is rivetted by death of leon in new york city, 1800 people are being killed a year. Because it was the middle of this terrible crime wave and i said so what about abula abbas here he was regarded he was on the front on the cover of time and newsweek most notorious terrorist and said what was he he goes well just another terrorist. And so i think for the israelis, this was an incidents that was an american story. They were involved in it very much so from an intelligence gathering situation but they too did not want to get involved in militarily at all. They said you guys this one is on you. And so thats another piece that was so interesting was watching this, intricate dance between everybody is lying to everybody, everybody is, you know, one thing i kopght put in the book because i really couldnt nail it down but oh 99 sure it was true and one thing trying to reel in abbas to figure out what to do and where the hijackers should go and shouldnt go. Italy or u. S. And reagan needed to talk directly to about nobody could find him. Where was he . He was at his mistresses apartment and so he wasnt taking phone calls. For 20 years so all of the time in conflict is there in the background all of the time. But for them this was not a big thing. Recently on program afterwards followed joe about a new book conservative sensibility in the portion of the program, mr. Will offers his thoughts on nationalism. Theres patriotism, and then theres nationalism. Patriotism is a love of country american patriots that are italian patriots theyre danish patriots not too many danish nationalist who say because a nationalist says not only that i love my country thats patriotism but my country is superior. Now i have to believe our country is superior so to that extent im a nationalist superior in the sense that it embodies Margaret Thatcher said made by a philosophy that is right. And that not suitable for all people at all times but everyone ought to aspire to it. Cinema nationalist i dont to exfort export it at the point but i want to make it available to people. I want to help them where we can and we have a lot of experience with the Civil Society of a democratic society. So im a mild nationalist. To watch the rest of george wills interview visit our website, at booktv. Org and click on the afterwards tab. Good evening everyone. Welcome or welcome back to barnes noble Upper West Side thank you all so much for coming out today. I know it is about 95 million degrees out. So were pleased that you made the trek here and are in our aircondition event space. So as many of you might