Transcripts For CSPAN2 Dan Ephron On Killing A King And Mike Kelly On The Bus On Jaffa Road 20160228

By cochair susan tourial and im pleased to welcome me to the book festival awardwinning afternoon featuring journalist dan ephron in conversation with nancy updike, producer for this American Life. And her second journalist, mike kelly, Senior Executive producer at georgia public broadcasting. We are also happy to welcome cspan booktv to a book festival programming this afternoon. On behalf of the book festival we are truly grateful for the support of barbara, this years presenting sponsors greenberg and wells fargo. In addition to our over 25 valued sponsors who support our book festival year after year. We are also a proud affiliate of the Jewish Federation of greater atlanta. Please check your playbill for the lineup of our calendar events for the rest of the book festival. Tickets for all book festival events are available in three different ways. You can purchase them online, by telephone or in person at our box office or any other Customer Service desks. The format for todays presentation is each of the week in conversation individually with the respected interviewers. Been it will be followed by solo q a. After the final q a dan ephron will be signing his book killing a king. And mike kelly will be signing his book, the bus on jaffa road on main street outside the theater both books are available from official bookseller of but a cappella books. At this time we would like to welcome up to the podium rabbi Michael Bernstein who offer a prayer for paris. The stories we gather here today are by using violence and cruelty to end what is best in humanity. As of friday night, another 127 lives were ripped away by this violence of terrorism. To join those of the victims i continue to happen in israel and beirut and throughout the world. In the song of songs it says so me as a seal upon your heart first love stronger than death. These are stories not of death but of life, the light refuses to be snuffed out even at the hands of care. Paris is a city of london life. May we learn how to have loved, triumphed over death, to of life triumph over terror. Me the people of paris and the people throughout the world be safe. Made those who lost their lives be remembered by their loved ones at all the touched and the entire world. And may we see the day when peace and love truly conquer terror and death. Thank you, rabbi. And that it gives us great pleasure to welcome our guests for this afternoon program. Our first interview this afternoon is nancy updike, what of the founding producers of this American Life. She has reported from egypt, israel, gaza and the west bank and the United States. Her iraq reporting one a Scripps Howard award, National Journalism award. She was executive producer of this American Life Second Television season which won an emmy for outstanding nonfiction series. Dan ephron, author, was a newsweek reporter for nearly 15 years serving as National Security correspondent, Deputy Washington Bureau chief, in jerusalem your chief. He has followed the middle east through much of his career and has covered many of the regions major defense since the mid 90s. Before joining newsweek he reported for the boston globe and reuters. His stories have appeared in esquire, the new republic, the village voice, and the washington monthly. He lives in new york with his wife, nancy updike. Please welcome them to our stage. [applause] so thanks everyone for coming. We are married. I think that was buried somewhere in the introduction. Sometimes we forget to say that and we have to say it halfway through. And so this is not so much the entity format. Its more like a chaotic Dinner Party Conversation with a lot of gesticulating. We are going to talk about the book, about killing a king and go how i came to write the book. How and why. And also the hourlong radio story that nancy updike collaborator on for this American Life, for the show that nancy has worked for since its founding 20 years ago. The radio story was based on some of the reporting that danny did for the book, and it was an hourlong documentary about the rabin assassination. How many people heard it . Okay. And so yeah, were going to talk a little bit about both things and how they came into existen existence. The book proceeded the radio show. The book really started for me in 2012. I was a Newsweek Bureau chief and israel. We lived in tel aviv together. Newsweek had asked me to move back to israel to be the bureau chief. I have been there in the past for chunks of time, and nancy had to get permission from ira glass. This American Life doesnt usually have foreign correspondents. He said yes. She came with me and we moved to tel aviv. Around 2012 about two years into the post thing, i was on deadline on a particular day. I was working on a magazine story for newsweek. It was a moment where youre on deadline and you have to be really effective and just get down to business and work. I did the thing i often do when i need to be that way which is i typed in youtube into the Search Engine in my computer and then spent the afternoon looking at animals and other exotic things. And eventually got to this clip of yitzhak rabin, it is a clip really of the aftermath of the shooting your rabin is shot on november 420 years ago at this november 4, 20 euros at this piece out to the shooter is this jewish israeli, a jewish extremist, 25 years old. Aunties pounced on right at the scene in the parking lot and taken to a Police Station in tel aviv a few blocks away. The video shows the interrogation. Its a very short clip i watched it and we will show it to you in a second. Its really, the quality is terrible. Its dark. He is kind of in the shadow. He is sitting opposite three or four policemen. Later when of the interrogators told us that they brought into the wrong room. They have a room with a camera is better and they wouldve seen him kind of in better quality but they were so rushed they just had lets put them in here. The video i found mesmerizing. I found a mesmerizing in part because i had reported in israel in the mid 90s, and had been sent to the rally, to that peace rally to write a story. I reported for reuters at the time. This story was supposed to be a very short three or four paragraphs but it was supposed to tell readers whether rabins Peace Process had the support of israelis or didnt. This was the oslo Peace Process that had begun two years earlier in 1993 and the support for rabin and for the oslo deal was asked and waned. It generated a lot of hope and in those moments of hope, many israeli supporters, most, but it also set off violence. This was the period where the suicide bombings of hamas began. When theres a lot of violence, rabins popularity and about 30 of the Peace Process goes down. The whole idea was go to this peace rally, see how many people show up and then write a story that says a lot of people came and that means one thing for the Peace Process, or not very many people showed up. And, of course, a lot of of course a lot of people were there. There were 100,000 people at the square, the square in tel aviv is about the size of i dont know, a few football fields. And amir waits and shoots rabin in the parking lot after the rally and it is taken to the Police Station. So lets see this first video, and ill show you what i mean. Its a bad quality but [inaudible] spirit so this is yigal amir on the left leaning forward. Can we turn up the volume a little bit . [inaudible] by the way, how many people understand some hebrew . On how many people have been to israel . So when i talk about the kings of israel square, the place where he was associate, most of you probably know what that is. Today it is called rabin square. What amir this thing is everything i did, i get out of a sense of religious obligation. Of course, you talk about having shot rabin. Rabin is not dead yet. This is a 15 or 20 minutes after the shooting but it takes about an hour and a half until doctors, surgeons are working on rabin and eventually pronounce him dead. I think t think the thing that t striking for me is just how calm amir is. Is kind of leaning forward every now and then. He says at some point are you taking us down, are you writing everything down . The interrogator on the right side, the guy in the white shirt, sort in the middle, i think there are for people around the table on the right side. The interrogator is writing of edward buyin. This is the way interrogations were conducted at the time. The interrogator asked some questions and then he tells the suspect slow down, let me, you can repeat the. At some point yigal amir so did you take that down . Did you what i said . That was striking because what i remember from that night was at the moment of the shooting israel was plunged into a state of trauma. Theres no tradition of assassinations in israel. Certainly the idea that in israeli leader wouldv would hae killed i think israelis about it would be a palestinian or arab who would espouse that an arab leader. Pretty quickly after the shooting it becomes clear on the media that the guy who shot rabin is a fellow israeli and a fellow jew. In some ways people talk about the assassination as the israeli kennedy assassination. In most ways its not like the kennedy assassination but in this one way it is. This idea that the country has plunged into drama and a real state of fear about what this means for the future. Hes very calm because he has defied the odds. He feels like what hes done has been inspired by god or god help him do it. We will explain later why he comes to the decision. We decided to do a radio story based on other reporting in the book. Partly because of this video and others like it because this is such a well documented event. Theres not only this one. Theres hours and hours of other interrogations of yigal amir where he is saying every beat of this is what happened, this is why i did it, this is when i started thinking about it, and also besides the fact that these videos exist, theres a video of the assassination itself which we will show later but this only happened 20 years ago and a lot of the people who were directly involved in responding to it, who were there that night are still alive including this guy in the white shirt, this Police Interrogator. When danny started watching the biggest we did know his name. You cant see it in the shop and in other parts of the video you can see hes smoking a pipe which we just hadnt really seen any other israelis smoking a pipe. Never met a single one. We started inquiring with people who worked in security at the time. Theres a guy interrogating yigal amir the night of the assassination smoking up by. Everyone says that is moti spirit let me just say, i mean, the pipe smoke is not evident on this video. But what happens when i watch the video it will occur to me if this 20 seconds of there must be hours because police are turning on the tape recorder or the video camera in the interrogation. They probably left it on for hours for the duration of interrogation. My thought was if i give you all a bit old but someone not of it it would tell me something about the psyche of yigal amir, this guy who killed the israeli leader. Eventually i got my hands on about 10 or 12 hours and but it all over a long weekend. It does say a lot. It did tell me quite a lot. Ill talk about that but one of the other things is this pipe Smoking Police interrogator moti. We found in every way to interview. We wanted to know what it was like to interrogate yigal amir and with the question is the country is falling apart all around you. Theres a state of trauma. How are you managing to compose yourself and what of the questions youre asking . When we talk to him about that he said its funny because the first time he saw himself in this video interrogating yigal amir is when he was preparing for the trial of yigal amir, the murder trial of which danny also covered. When you saw the video of himself he almost started getting mad at himself, how could you be so calm . How could you just sit there . Your city across the message is shot the Prime Minister. This is before either one of them knows rabin is dead. They just know he has been shot. So moti was telling us, and this is in the radio story for those of you who heard it, was telling us about how he was an experienced Police Interrogator by this point. He had done murder cases and seem really terrible things and he was used to talking to people who have killed someone. But even so he like the rest of the country was in turmoil facing this person who i just shot the Prime Minister. He talked to us about how difficult it was for him, even an experienced Police Interrogator, to be as calm, to keep doing his job, to be polite with this young man who was not only calm during the interrogation but actually gleeful and triumphant in different parts of the conversation. We had to skip a slide. You can your moti. [inaudible] i told him bring another one, please. He brought in a cup of tea. And he said, dont you have cookies . And i told him, you are pushing your luck. I remember his reaction when i told him, ma which i accuse him and i tell him [inaudible] you shot the Prime Minister and you caused his death. What . Ddi . Wow, and he jumped by 13 make ago. This moment you want to come and punch them in the face but you sit down. Would you like a cup of tea . Lets make a toast. To make a toast to life. To life that he took. So thats motti naftali. One of the things about reporting in israel, its a very informal country and people dont say no usually to interview requests. This event, nancy mentioned it was 20 years ago. People are still alive. It was easy to get people who are the main actors in this event. I think this is a turning point. The idea i think a bunch of video of yigal amir and understand something about it and get access to some of the key characters. I started thinking maybe not just a magazine story but maybe the start of a book at the start of the book with the least one protagonist, the assassin. By the way track is also a windsurfer. When we first called him a piece had come right over. He calle called us back in some, the wind has changed and its good as im going to go out and then you come back later in the week . Which we did. So what happened that night . Im going to tell you from my perspective but also from yigal amirs perspective. I lived in tel aviv at the time, a few blocks away. I mentioned it was a reuters story was going to write. I left my apartment a few blocks from the square, got to the square and saw this very large crowd entirely packing the square and people streaming in. I spent of the course of the rally into giving people on stage and than anything people in the square. And then it was over. Rallies in israel ar often political speeches and songs. They bring pop bands to play. Its a somber speeches and been very upbeat songs, and then they sang the National Anthem and then people started leaving. I left as well and i was a few blocks away from the square when i got a deeper message that said shots fired near rabin, had back now. Iran back to the state and people pointed to the parking lot. And then at the parking lot i spoke to witnesses who said it looks like rabin has been hit and has been taken to hospital. Now, amir had been stalking rabin for five years. He had opposed his peace deals, opposed the oslo Peace Process because he felt for one thing it posed a Security Threat to israel but more over for him he felt this was a betrayal of israel ended a trail of judaism. The peace deals involve you back a lease parts of of the west bank and gaza to the palestinians and for amir was a religious of judah, the idea of giving back land promised to the jews back in the bible, the jewish birthright, this was a betrayal. Stalking rabin meant look in the paper for Public Events were rabin might appear and then come into those events with his gun. He had a nine mm beretta they carry it everywhere he went. And waiting to see if, gets the entity can get close enough. On this particular day he makes a decision saturday morning is going to go to the rally saturday night. He comes to the rally. He takes off his skull cap and puts it in his pocket. The rally as a leftcenter relative israelis on the left tend to be secular, and amir worried if he wore his computer identified as someone from the right and it would be suspicious. He takes off, put it in his pocket, walks by the parking lot and sees rabins armored cadillac. Rabin had been driven around for the first couple of years of his premiership in a chevy caprice and he loved the chevy. It was fast and did everything it needed to do. But his bodyguards, the secret service in israel grew more and more concerned about these intelligence assessments that there were threats to rabin, threats against his life from the far right, people who oppose the Peace Process. They persuaded him to allow them to import thi this armored cadic prototype that was the kind of car that president clinton drove around it at the time spent they were not able to persuade him to wear body armor by the way. Because rabin feels like this is my country. This is the country i was born and. He was the head of the military for a period of time and the idea that h they would face threats efforts from fellow jews just dont unacceptable. Unfathomable to him. So he refused to wear body armor. Amir sees the cadillac and he says if the car is hit, this is where rabin will end up at the end of the rally. He manages to get into the parking lot but its an open air parking lot, and its supposed to be secured. Police and secret service are there, they are supposed to make sure that no one gets in who is not authorized by contacting manages to get income and so do others. He waits there for 40 minutes and no one approaches in the he says at some point in the interrogation if somebody wouldve approached me, if a policeman would just come over and asking for id i wouldve turned around and walked away but nobody does. He watches the rabin come down the stairs from the stage. As rabin gets close he sees the are about four or five bodyguards protecting rabin. Rabin passes by amir and then amir circles behind it and amir spots this gap between two bodyguards were trailing rabin and he gets close enough to reach out with his gun with his beretta he takes anywhere and issued at rabin from a distance of about a foot. Two bullets hit than once about, and then another bullet hits the bodyguard who is on rabins right to the bodyguard has his left hand draped over rabins shoulder and a bullet goes into the bodyguards arm. Then amir falls to the ground and is tackled and put into a police car and driven off to the Police Station. Hes a very calm because he feels that he is defied the odds, managed to do this thing that certainly could not have been easy to do, to get into the parking lot, spent 40 minutes without being approached, defined as a gap in security. Think of everything you know about israel and Israeli Security and a welltrained and well regarded the intelligence agencies are, the secret service is. And yet he has managed to kill rabin eddie is not dead. Nobody is pulled out a gun and shot them. People have pulled out of because the nobody shot amir. So he is absolutely certain that what he did god had intended for him to do. And god had helped them do it. You want to talk about the fingerprints . And just to say one thing before we get to it, which is if you go to rabin square anytime in the future part of the moral is these small breast circles embedded in the david wright with a should happened and you can see exactly how close yigal amir was. I think its a part of the memorial that gets overlooked but really is quite shocking to see right there. So this is one of the thousands of pages of documents. Again we were talking about how well documented this event was. Every time anybody in the Security Service interacted with yigal amir they took a no, put it in the file. This is part of the investigative file in the aftermath of the murder and this is one of the documents from that file. If you see the date up on the left hand corner, israelis refers among candidates of this is november 4. So its on the day that the shooting happened and this is the labtec who takes yigal amirs fingerprints and he says, yigal amir came to me and i told him to put his hands on the pads. And as he did he noticed that his watch was missing and he said to the lab tech, wow my watch is missing. I think it felt often when i was assassinating the Prime Minister. Unit, could you maybe radio back to the police who are still that if someone can pick it up because i like it . Its a good watch. So again this is part of evidence of a state of mind, his mind at the moment when the rest of the country is in incredible turmoil at what hes done. Amir plotted the murder along with his brother. Is 25, law student at his brother is 27. They spent time in the bedroom where they grew up, they live with their parents on a set of four of his home, about half hour north of tel aviv. A lot of time in american talking about how to kill rabin. They start summer after the oslo deal is signed. The two of them watch something of a television in the bedroom. They watch the signing, the scene where clinton is nudging arafat and rabin together. The brothers watch the sun and tell themselves right in the that if this plan comes to fruition, is a peace deal goes ahead there will be a need to stop it by killing rabin if necessary. The brother is convicted as a coconspirator katie doesnt go to the rally on that night by the health plan it and is convicted as a coconspirator and he spent 16 years in prison but he comes out of prisoner by the time of watching this Youtube Video and we are about this idea that maybe theres a book to write about the assassination. And so i asked for an end to the degree. I spent a lot of time with hagai. Hes a smart guy. They were smart young man, very thoughtful. They were students at some of the best schools, best orthodox or ultraorthodox schools in israel as High Schoolers and later in seminary. They are on that theme between orthodox and ultra orthodox. They both served in the army. And hagai showed me literacy wrote in prison, a diary he kept a prison. He shared some photographs along with his family. This is yigal amir as a kid. Yigal amir is the third man from the left. This is him in the brigade, an infantry brigade, this is where he learned how to handle a gun. This is another one of him on the right. So thats yigal amir. I by now but i wanted to write a book about the assassination and amir would be one of the two protagonists and, of course, the other would be rabin. This is not a policy book. I wanted to write about the cost of these two people. Rabin is trying to put together these peace deals between israel and the palestinians but really between israel and its neighbors. And amir is trying to stop rabin. Hes on a quest to stop rabin before rabin succeeds. In some ways writing about a politician whos been a public figure for most of his adult life and thats the case with the rabin. In some ways its easier because theres a record of his life. The other interviews hes given over the years, articles hes written and speakeasies me. Rabin wrote a memoir in the late 70s. In some ways its harder because the bar is higher for trying to understand something about the actor, this protagonists that other people dont understand. Thats what you want to do when youre writing a book. You want to get into his mind in a way others have it. Politicians are hard to penetrate. They will say things sometimes that they mean that sometimes they are saying that because its politically deficient to say. Part of the process of come to understand and will understand rabin, specifically his daughter and a keeper of the legacy. She runs a rabin center of which is a museum and educational center. Im not a museum guy but if any of you are in israel i would recommend it. Its a really terrific museum. So heres some photos of rabin. And we will scroll through this quickly but rabin is a military man for the first three decades of his adult life. He rises in the ranks of becomes the chief of staff, ahead of the entire army. In time to lead to the army in the 1967 war. This is that war where israel captured the west bank in gaza, sixday war, also assigned and the golan heights. Then he becomes a diplomat. He is ambassador to the United States. This is him on meet the press in 1970. He becomes quite close to nixon and kissinger. Nixon brings into the white house quite a lot to consult on the vietnam war. He goes back to israel and becomes the Prime Minister in the 70s. Hes Prime Minister for three years and its not a very successful term. He says this in his memoir i was young and inexperienced. He goes into the wilderness for a while and then becomes defense minister in the 80s. The 80s is a period, late 80s of the first palestinian uprising. This is the uprising of stonethrowing and petrol bombs and sit ins and mass demonstrations in the west bank. Rabins response to the uprising is very aggressive. He does not see himself as a leftist or a peacenik. Hes a military man in his been. His daughter told me to the last day of his life every morning he would sit on the corner of his bed and shine his own shoes. But two things happened to rabin during the course of his first uprising, first palestinian uprising. He comes to realize that palestinians are not going to accept this condition of israeli rule in the west bank and gaza. Over millions of palestinians in a situation where palestinians dont have those rights that Israeli Citizens do. That they will not accept it for any longterm. And the second conclusion he comes to is about israeli rule over palestinians without giving them rights is toxic for Israeli Society. He doesnt talk about the idea of, he doesnt frame the idea of coming to terms with the palestinians so much in humanitarian terms. He doesnt talk about palestinian rights, doesnt talk a lot about that he does talk about the impact of Israeli Military rule in the west bank, the impact it has on israel. When he becomes Prime Minister he embraces a plan, this oslo peace plan that he does an issue. Its initiated by his foreign minister but he embraces it and it involves the idea of handing back some parts of the west bank to the palestinians. This is president clinton and rabin and mrs. His chief of staff. When clinton and rabin first met they really did not hit it off. Can you imagine two more different people . Clinton is the sort of big tall gregarious charming expansive person, and rabin was rather taciturn, not a back slap her, not a smalltalk guy. He just didnt want to make a claim at all. But eventually they did become friends and became in fact quite close. This is rabin at a political function at the white house that requires black tie. Israel is pretty informal. He did not come in black tie and i think doesnt own a black tie. So when he walked in, clinton look at one of his bodyguards and said you take off your bow tie. Im going to give it to the Prime Minister. So he gets a bowtie but rabin doesnt know how to tie the bowtie, please time and once bowtie in this photo. Lets go back to the night of the assassination but we will show you a video and then we will finish up and take some questions. I talked about how amir came to the rally and made his way into the parking lot. The journalists had all left, as i did, all of my colleagues had left so theres no television footage or news footage of the assassination itself. But it was an amateur photographer. This is before the period where everyone who have a cell phone also had a video camera. This is the era of the camcorders and it was an amateur photographer, ronnie templer, who stood on kind of a balcony overlooking the parking lot. And liked filming important people. He stood up there and waited and actually as hes waiting for rabin to come to captures yigal amir also waiting. Will show you the video and to talk all of it about it. You seem in the middle of the screen. He is a to bodyguards in front of them. Hes in a white shirt. [shouting] rabin striver is right here. Driver. This is israels zapruder from. The film capped at the kennedy assassination. I dont know when you might have seen over the last time you saw the zapruder from. In some ways any sort of horrific what the zapruder film is a beautiful, very clear, daylight. Easy as it can be very clearly in the car and then getting shot. Easy jack eagen they climbed up onto the back of the car. This is not a very clear feel that its mostly dark but one point nancy made as were watching it in one of the first time this that whats interesting is you see the shooter and the victim in the same frame. Which in the zapruder film you dont. The shot comes out of nowhere, and here as we said hes so close is almost touching rabins back with his beretta. Let me finish by explaining what i called the book killing a king. Rabin was not making. He was the Prime Minister of israel, but in the weeks that followed the assassination the amir brothers are writing letters back home. Hagai is writing a letter at some point where hes trying to explain to family members why they did this thing. Why they killed rabin. And hagai and yigal amir are both steeped in scripture, in tora. They know it very well. And hagai put the assassination in the context of this law part of the jewish history, prophets and kings. And hagai says in his letter, according to judaism killing taking after valley significant. It affects the entire nation and alters its destiny. I read this about 17 years later and it struck me as almost chilling in its precedents. Thank you very much. Thats our talk. [applause] if you have questions please raise your hand. We will bring the microphone to you. Thank you for your comments. I havent read the book yet, looking forward to it. In your American Life interview you spoke of two of arming statistics and id like you to share them with the audience. That is the third in the 50. 30 of Israeli Society believes there was another shooter or a conspiracy, 50 of the right wing. Could you talk about that . Sure. Correct me if im getting this wrong, the radio peace for those who didnt hear it focus on the conspiracies about the assassination. I wont keep you in suspense. Its like the kennedy assassination where there are all kinds of theories and a lot adhered, people who dont believe that this is exactly what happened. The murder, theres just an overwhelming amount of evidence that it happened just the way we know. That amir was one guy who got to the square who killed rabin. For one thing he confesses right away. Then theres this video and all the forensic evidence lines up. Theres dozens of witnesses in the parking lot who see it. And the film. And theres the film. And yet these conspiracy theories have built up over the years and with things we did as we went to pollsters to ask them how many israelis have doubts about the main story, i do believe in a conspiracy theories or believe in some alternate version of events . They told us up to the third of israelis have doubts about what really happened. And among the right wing in israel gets up to 50 . Then what we did was we spent a lot of time for the sake of the radio story trying to understand that disconnect. How is it a crime for the evidence is so clear and so abundant still get some significant number of doubters . Theres no real tradition in israel of conspiracy this but its not like you we get conspiracy theories about every landmark event in the 20th century. Really i can only think of what event, the rabin assassination where israelis talk about these conspiracy ideas. So those are the numbers. I was also living in israel at the time that rabin was assassinated into the weeks afterwards when i was riding a bus or taking a train, i would turn to a religious person sitting beside and i would ask them, what do you think you should happen to yigal amir . Generally they would either change the subject or they didnt seem to harbor any ill feelings for him whatsoever. I was just wondering did you get a sense that israel could have slipped into a civil war between the secular and religious as a result of this assassination . For one thing, certainly its not the case that all religious israelis or even most religious israelis supported the assassination. Most felt it was a horrific event, including israelis who oppose the rabin and opposed his Peace Process. Some number of them, and disappears, shows up in polls, some number of the believe what amir did was right, good for the country. The way they view it, his Peace Process was fraught with violence. It have the potential to be destructive for israel, and in this idea of a trail, ma that it was a betrayal of the judaism. Israel was very polarized at the time, about 50 favored the oslo deal, 50 were against it. In the months leading up to the assassination, the protest became a very rowdy and ugly. Israelis holding up posters of rabin dressed in a nazi uniform on occasion, shouting rabin is a traitor. Rabin is a murderer. There certainly was a feeling that israel was polarized. I dont think there was ever a feeling in terms of construct of a civil war our website takes up arms against the other, but the potential for violence was a servitor and was picked up on by the intelligence agencies and i think they were right india because there was this violent act against the Prime Minister and it wasnt the only violent act. Certainly others by people on the extreme right, designed to undermine the oslo deal. Do we have time for one more . Talking about changing the countrys destiny, while its unknowable, do you have feelings for with the Peace Process would have been without this act . And it would be in a very different place today or if we would be where we are now. One of the questions, i have some number of questions going into the process of writing the book, questions i wanted to understand and get to the bottom up. We talked a lot about these questions even before we collaborated on this radio peace because were both a journalist we spent lot of time talking about our stories and our book. Or projects lets say. The question if rabin had not died would to be a two state agreement, was one of them. I have to say i think what i have come away with is sort of a feeling that to be honest as a journalist and as a historian we just cant do. Know. We get no because when an event kicks history off its course, theres so many variables, that the idea of figuring out exactly what wouldve happened had that it had not occurred is really impossible. I will say this. That period, and a member is vividly, was a very hopeful sign. It was a hopeful time in part because the process itself, the Peace Process had not been poisoned yet by just years and years of violence and settlement expansion. These things that really made both sides lose faith in the possibility of an agreement. It was a hopeful but because these two leaders, i would say oslo was not a slamdunk the oslo was troubled and all kinds of ways but it also could have worked and if the twostate solution could have worked as an agreement it was probably then it was probably these two leaders, the deciders of their generation who could have signed a deal and brought their people on both sides on board. Ive got a question for you. How could the government is so lax in protecting the chief executive . It was incredible in that scene. Coming almost to the back with nobody there to protect them and firing a bullet in him. I can understand informality. I can understand negligence is. This is something we also have talked about a lot, which is this is one of the things that has underpinned some of the conspiracy theories or that comes into play with some of the disputed theories about will come it cant just have happened the way it seems to have happened. Because i think for a lot of israelis, just like for you, its too hard to believe that it was that big a screw up. We actually, we interviewed a guy who was brought in. He was a secret service agent, brought in, the secret Service Basically like the u. S. Fbi and secret service will do what he was brought in after the assassination to fix the problems of the secret service, the Close Protection unit because clearly this was a disaster. When we went to interview him, i asked him, hey, when was the last time you watched the video we just saw of the assassination. This is a 20 year old event. Hes moved on in his life. He is 20 years on, and i suspected him to say i can ever remember. He said i watched it yesterday. I watch almost every day. We watched it with him, and as he was watching it and describing and pointing out, heres whats wrong and youre so drunk and his withdrawn, he was getting agitated as though he is seeing it for the first time. So that is not an answer to your question exactly, i didnt even see where the person was who space i would like to add the one thing that does some explaining. I think even, i think know what happened or no one internalize the idea that a jew would be the threat. Even though the intelligence assessments that maybe someone might from the far right might assessing rabin and people circulate the assessments about. Theres a chapter on this in the book all the intelligence that was out there that should have been gleaned and thing shouldve been done your i think people just did not internalize this idea. The face they were looking for when youre out there protecting the Prime Minister was the face of the palestinian. I was the enemy and the guy they were protecting rabin from. Motti naftali, the policeman who interrogated yigal amir said the exact same thing. He was coordinating the security at the event with a secretive and he said we never planned in all the weeks of planning the security for the rally, we never talked about the possibility of an israeli assassin or a jewish assassin. Thank you very much. Thank you. [applause] just to remind you, they will be signed the book at the conclusion of the program. The end of your Partners Program is no stranger to atlanta, mr. Bill nigut. Hills career as a journalist spans more than 30 years including 20 years as a national and state political reporter here in atlanta. In 2003 he left the News Business to become a startup ceo of the Metro Atlanta arts and culture coalition, and later served as the Southeast Regional director of the antidefamation league. He returned to broadcasting as the Senior Executive producer of georgia public broadcasting. He is also the host of two programs on the radio network. Our guest is mr. Mike kelly, a journalist for more than three decades. He is the author of two books and many prizewinning journalism projects and columns for the bergen record in northern new jersey. His assignments have taken him all over the world and he has devoted much of his time to covering terrorism. Please welcome mr. Kelley and bill nigut to our stage. [applause] hey, everybody. How are you all . Everybody okay without a break . Doesnt matter, we are going anyway. [laughter] while we get settled, im really looking forward to the conversation but i would love it, you would we did two shows. On friday afternoons at 3 00 a political show, and our roundtable show some of the best insiders intent but if youre paying attention to the campaign i encourage you to listen to luca rewind. Among the other so. What a pleasure to talk with you. I really enjoyed reading your book. Thank you so much. Its a pleasure being here with you. So lets, if we can tell i think the elephant in the room today certainly in a chilly way apropos of what were going to talk about with the bus on jaffa road, lets talk a bit about paris. You wrote a column that i read this morning, filed yesterday . Yet. I just briefly quote from it. This is from the bergen record where youve worked for 40 years. Man, you mustve started when you were 12. Thank you. Very briefly one paragraph. For u. S. Counters and officials the carnage had so many soft targets in the french capital underscores one of the most vexing dilemmas, its one thing to protect government buildings but Something Else entirely to protect thousands of cafes, bars and theaters. And then you quote a colonel with the new jersey state police, in an open society these things are always a challenge. Correct. So i thought about that because clearly thats exactly what happened on the number 18 bus on jaffa road back in 1996. But talk for a minute about your thoughts. Did you flashback when he heard the news from paris . Of course. I really started covering terrorism on the morning of 9 11. I literally left the newsroom of my newspaper, drove to the hudson river and jumped on a tugboat and crossed the hudson river and walked into ground zero about an hour after the towers fell. I kept chipping away at the story. Which eventually led me to this book. Whenever Something Like this happens and particularly paris, it just brings me back in a way that is deeply poignant i think because what we saw in paris was at the same thing we saw on the number 18 bus on a sunday morning in downtown jerusalem. And that was innocent people trying to go about their ordinary lives. Thathe bus was filled with peope come sometime to go to work. In the case of the two protagonists in my book, matthew and sarah, they were too love to get away for the weekend. That of other people on the bus going out to look for apartments, going to work, et cetera, and yet they all died going about their ordinary lives. And that i think is what is the most difficult aspect of life to protect when youre talking about counterterrorism. That is what i try to get you in the column i wrote about paris. Another parallel between your column of this week and the book, early in the book you say that when you did get on that ferry and go across to the World Trade Center site come one of the things youve started to do with mind thinking over was the impact on ordinary people. Why did their loved ones have to die . That question propelled a good portion of the research you did on this book. Sure. So much in journalism, heres how terrorism is covered. A bomb or an attack takes place somewhere in the world and then to resolve this with the terrorist attacks, although i think not as much of a fully. What happens is a bomb or an attack takes place some place in the world and then in the next paragraph we describe how many people were killed or wounded. Mac what Group Claims Responsibility and admit we get into the diplomatic and political implications of this particular act and would forget about something very central, and that is for the people who lost loved ones, for those families, their lives change forever. What he came to me out of 9 11 and maybe many of you as well, it was very personal, particularly in the new york area. So many people knew people who died. That propelled me to explore what i think was really the untold story of terrorism, and that is what you are very people do about it and how does it impact their lives spent fewer think about this after 9 11. You used to visit the new Jersey Library for gold and then you walk back from the library you would pass routinely a statue near a Municipal Building to what was this golf . Is called an unfinished life. Sarah duper had been killed on the number 18 bus. She was a resident of teaneck new jersey the town other than the aggregate about it when it happened and like so many people in my profession i moved on. That was 1996. After 9 11 and im covering terrorism and the newspapers send me all over the world, back and forth to the middle east, im talking israel, gaza, west bank, i was in Southeast Asia following this story. I was in and out of guantanamo bay. I was even in iraq. I think over time and starting to wear me down. I was feeling frustrated about it. As i said i wasnt getting deep enough into the story. I was writing a lot about terrorism but it wasnt getting to the death and that is not impacts order people. Im taking a walk through town and is often did really to blow off steam, and i pass this statute again and knew it was there. Its a beautiful statue, statue of a young woman leaning over a rose bush to spell it and its a statue to sara duker and all it says is an unfinished life. I said i want to tell the story of an unfinished lifes. Tell us more about sarah. Let me put it this way, martin ended the weather ambassador to israel at the time of these killings, martin indyk. He said these were americas best. Sara was a graduate of the Womens College from the university. She wanted to be a Research Scientist particularly and environmental scientist. At the time of her death she was working at Hebrew University in water research, how to clean water research. She was also struggle with something i find very, very interesting. Like so many of us i think we struggled where do we fit in with our faith . I am not jewish but i can relate to this other really wanted to tell the story in the book, his faith during the oath of center but also of matthew. What is she as a modern woman fit into her jewish traditions so to speak . This is the kind of woman she was at that time. Young woman early 20s wrestling with a professional for also wrestling with what kind of a tradition to wish you could fit extradition. Her boyfriend Matthew Eisenfeld by the way i must tell you that im not sure if i interpreted this correctly or not. You can tell me. There was talk they might be getting married. He would ever able quite able to pin down. My system the way you describe is he was madly, head over heels in love with her and wouldve married her in a heartbeat. She was the kind of forgot her life a little bit. Is that what you came to speak with yes. Actually its very meaningful that rabbi Michael Bernstein initiative because michael has a small walk on part of the book. Michael was a friend of sara and matthew is in jerusalem. In the course of researching this book when they died, they were portrayed on the front page of the new times as engaged to be married. As im researching this i couldnt find any evidence that they were. This is what happens when youre writing nonfiction. If this was a novel of course they would be getting married. But when youre writing nonfiction you cant make it a. Icon to get where they engaged or not . The families said no, there was no formal engagement. And i cant figure out, a lot of different our sake but they were heading that way. I have letters that match have written about how he was madly in love with sara. I have some of saras diaries interest. Finally, it was michael who wrote something on facebook and talked about how a number of weeks before they were killed matthew and sara came to visit michael and his new wife tracy and they wanted to find out, matthew and sara, what it was like to be married. That was what crystallized in my mind about how, they were walking the journey. I was fascinated because these were too young people setting out to explore life and wanted to explore marriage. This isnt in your book but i looked up the front page obituary of the New York Times and heres the lead. Im sure youre familiar with it. They were in love with her faith and with each other, and they died together as victims of hate. Its hard to that sends without getting emotional. It is, it is. In the course of the research this book, im an oldfashioned reporter. When i cover a crime i like to go to the crime scene, talked to detectives that handled it. In this case in israel i would like to chop the road. I walked jaffa road. I went to the crime scene sometimes. I went back there was some of the detectives that handled the. I went there with and those drivers who tried to rescue the wounded. Pick up the bodies. I went back there also was some of the counterintelligence agents that handled this as well to try to understand exactly what had happened. I wanted to get a sense of who was sitting by the window in the bus. They were sitting together. To do that i had to go to the morgue and look at how the blast affected them. This kind of work is difficult. Its emotional figure looking, talking about the death of two young people. Just doesnt want to portray their lives as vivid as possible i felt i needed to really talk about how they died and the kind of violence that was committed that day. February 25, 1996. Matt and sara are headed to jordan. They get up early as you said already to get on the number 18, the first of the bus or. How many of you have been on the number 18 bus . Its one of those iconic bus routes in the world. And it also takes you through really through the heart of jerusalem, and basic website of the city to the other. And we should say that while your book of course tells the real story focuses on the two of them. Were many victims of the bus bombing. Yes. There was a man whos that broad the holocaust and yet he died on that bus. There was a young couple who left an infant at home, they were going out to look for a new apartment. They died. On and on and on. There a couple of palestinians on the bus who died. It was really a crosssection of people going about as i said their ordinary lives. And who did faith brings them into contact with that morning and how did he find himself on the number 18 bus speak with there was a 19 yearold palestinian man recruiter to be a suicide bomber. When i first started covering terrorism i always thought suicide bombings were may be the work of one or two deranged individuals. Thats not the case at all. Is a highly sophisticated operations. The way i was able to discover this was in the course of my travels back and forth to the middle east, having no intention of writing a book, i decided to revisit this particular bombing. There were about 10 operatives involved in one of the ringleader, Hassan Salameh, the ringleader. He had been trained to make bombs and Islamic Republic of iran and iranians finance this bombing. How are we able to prove his . It was right there in the Iranian National budget. We can talk about that later. But Hassan Salameh it was an hamas operative, pretty high ranking, recruited this 19 year old palestinian boy from a community not far. This young man gets on the bus with a very, very powerful bomb and stands up, and after the doors closed and calls out a lot more, pushes the button and a powerful bomb goes off. It was packed with screws and bolts and nails and ball bearings into a sort of think of shredded the bus. You interviewed him. Not the suicide bomber. No, the ringleader. The man behind, yeah. Spent a deeply disturbing interview. He is serving 46 life terms in an israeli prison. What i was on assignment 2006 having no intention of writing a book, didnt even see this as a book, i wanted committed in 10 years since the bombing and wanted to revisit this particular bombing. Either the trees had arrested and put salameh in jail socalled him a. Unconvincing to you just dont call the israelis up. Unconvincing some of us. This took place over months. They said come to the prisoner you can interview salome. I described is in the prologue and it was a deeply disturbing energy because i didnt get my share of criminals. And overtime criminals often change. As a matter thats what i look for. How do people change . Do they change . What kind of characteristics does that take on . What i found in salameh tenuously was meant he would not change one iota. He was stuck in the same kind of warped theology, warped politics. That in his mind justify the killing of innocent people. I came back, wrote the story this is a man who care old sara duker teaneck this is the man who killed sara duker teaneck, new jersey. Who were you working on . As i want to write something about terrorism but i dont know where to go. And i told him about salameh and thats what he said you need to follow that. You tell an interesting story. Its a sort of in keeping with what dan and andy talked about, its very different ago interview a prisoner. Hes observing how many fortysix life terms. But in this country for journalists to try to get into an inmate who is that toxic serving such a lengthy sentence, the red tape can be rigorous, would you agree speak with yes. Quite different in israel. You go to the prison and as you describe in the book, basically the way it works is they are willing to let him, theres no, you had to get advance help in getting into the present but he doesnt know that you are there and why you are there. If you any and inmate in the United States at a local jail or in federal prison typically what happens is you contact the person authorities, the prison authorities then go to the inmate and 50, it is the invites choices a yes or no. He knows them if i come into a federal prison or a state prison to interview an inmate here in the United States he knows whats happening. In this case salameh walks into a room. Has no idea why youre there. You have a very brief time to get permission from him to continue the conversation. So youre thinking, this is the story that is so compelling are you thinking okay, i forgot a minute or two, what do i say to him . True. The israeli told me, they said you have to introduce or something they can do to get lost if he wants. What did you ask in . I said i would ask you one question and no matter how he answers i know i will be able to write a column. Some thinking deadline, right . I do work for a newspaper. So i said to him do you know the name sara duker . I said in english. I said do you know the name sara duker . He responded perfect english, yes. And i said you do . Data so began an hour and a half conversation with this man who refused to budge off the fact that he knew he had killed innocent people but nonetheless felt it was justified. And you asked him i think why did you kill her. Yes spirit he had a fascinating answer i think. It was complicated. He said he talked about, he felt he was a soldier. He felt he needed to make a statement but he also felt he was doing god gods work. This led in the course of my research to really taking a hard look at the theology of suicide martyrdom and suicide bombing. I spent about two months studying this theology. I was a lot of fun to live with common belief me. Its really a journey into a very, very dark hole. President obama has talked about if theres anything is ever going to change its going to come out of the muslim world. I understand why he says about. Because here in the west we have a concept of martyrdom, whether its the judeochristian tradition or even hinduism are buddhism in east. But the concept of suicide bombing and suicide martyrdom completely turns the traditional sense of martyrdom on its head. This is the kind of theology that was embraced by salameh. Dare i say is probably the theology that is embraced by the killers in paris. I do want to point out that the wonderful juxtaposition in a band and nancy to you here today among other things helps us think about the fact that Hassan Salameh and try for both thought they were killing in gods name yigal amir. It is chilling. It really i think cuts to the heart of what were trying to understand or at least coverage and. I think for most of us the whole concept of terrorism is just completely foreign even though we have lived with it for most of our lives. The idea of standing up in the theater as these guys did in paris apparently and shooting people at pointblank range, or in the case of yigal amir, walking up to the partners of visual and putting a gun basically a foot from his back and pulling the trigger or in the case of his 19 your palestinian boy stepping on a bus, pressing a button and blowing up the bus is very difficult to understand. If they dont know that theyre killing innocent people, certainly they are either blind or completely clueless. They do know theyre killing innocent people but yet theyve turned it around and justified in the name of god. Was at hasan who said or im sorry, they get to glimpse of outcome i keep forgetting his name, i apologize. The terrorist. You interviewed his brother. No, his father. One of them said in answer to the question about why did you kill sara and matt, i didnt, they werent the reason, i wasnt telling them. We were not killing them. This is my interview with salameh. I kept pressing salameh. I really want to get in his face come in my interview with them. This was not the glass wall or anything like that. This is literally need to be. I want to get into his physical space when us into vietnam, push myself up close and try to shake this guy a little bit. This was a stone cold killer. In the course of interviewing him, this is salameh, i was saying again and again dont you realize you have killed innocent people . While he says to me, final he says, yes, i know but she, meaning center, just got in the way. She just got in the way. My target was the center. My target was the israeli occupation, right . She just got in the way. The book not only gives what journalists call a tic tac which equally compelling, the story of sara and matt coming to the bus stop, getting on the bus, the start of Hassan Salameh assembling what would be two terrorist bombings on that day. So it tells us about star in a very dramatic fashion. But it only starts there. You go on and talk about the politics that flowed out of this, both in israel and, of course, in the United States. And we talked about that as well . The other piece to this story is what happens next . I wanted to tell that story. If youve ever been a crime victim, if you know anybody whos been a crime victim, i find crime victims asked a question. Doesnt matter wha what you that your bicycles or something far worse. The first question is who did this. The second is how can we catch the person or hold a person, bring the person to justice. Its the same thing with terrorism. Except the difference is that if you get a crime committed against you, you know who to call from the police. We know that pathway. With terrorism theres no pathway. Who do you call . Thats what the families of sara and matthew faced on that morning when the call by the state department that your son and daughter have been killed in a bus bombing in israel. So what do we do next . Who do we call . What do we do . Thats what the story takes up with the families wanted to find out who did this and hold those parties accountable. One of the really difficult part of your book to read is again that we creation of saras mother. Shes lost her husband. He has already passed the way some years, getting the call from the state department, and then matthews parents also getting the same call and being given this news. Sure. Tried to picture this in your own lives. Matthews parents, hes a physician who deals with critically ill babies so hes used to dealing with latenight phone calls. The phone rings at 5 a. M. He picks it up and its a woman from the state department, who i tracked down by the way. Shes to remember having to make these calls. Catherine is on the phone and telling them that are you the parents of trying to . Yes and yes. I have some very bad news. And then he said to me something i thought very pointed. He had to pass the phone to his wife. He said he made a bow to himself, if something ever happened to our children i never want to be the one who tells my wife. And so thats how that first call took place. Catherine riley calls saras mom a few hours later. Shes just getting up come into sunday month sunday morning. She slept late. She was out of the night before at a party after synagogue. She gets the same call. I think theres a part of us with bad news we sometimes go into kind of a numbness. And then she hangs up the phone and a pitcher. Star has been killed and she starts screaming. That was their first reaction. I felt i needed to capture that as best i could because so often what we forget again we reduce these acts of terrorism to just a number, a story of bodies and we dont realize that to our families at home, homes all over the place who take these phone calls and then have to figure out now what do i do. My son or daughter or husband or wife or so has been killed, now what . The reason i want you to recreate that briefly is because its from the moment of those phone calls on that i call it a political process, it was a quest for some form of justice that became entangled deeply in politics. Your book goes into the in great detail and we dont have the time to go over every little piece of it today but it essentially what happened here is both families felt they had to find some way to get justice for the deaths of their children. There was no way they were going, there was one point hope that maybe there could be a trial of Hassan Salameh in the United States, right . Thats right. That didnt go anywhere, right . It did not. I described as how, first of all, Foreign Policy is supposed to be handled by the executive branch of the government. If youve ever read the constitution is quite clear. In the mid 1990s congress was getting very upset because there have been a lot of acts of terrorism, big ones, pan am 103 for example, i taken place. The white house and executive branch were really taking kind of a hands off approach. Congress passes a law in 1995 that says that if you have been come if youre an american citizen and your family has been a citizen of terrorism a victim of terrorism, and you can prove at the time, if you can prove that those countries were involved, you can file a lawsuit, essentially a negligent death lawsuit in a u. S. Court, federal court. Thats what the families ended up doing. Heres another piece of this story. What about the criminal trial . What about Hassan Salameh . The israelis arrested in. Normally when a crime is committed particularly a Violent Crime against people in america the police state and very close contact with the victims often telling them we have got the perpetrator, there will be a trial weve all thought of these things. The israelis never called up the families and said by the way, we caught the ringleader. They didnt even know who Hassan Salameh was until happen to pop up in a 60 minutes broadcast of all things. Can you imagine putting that this is the guy who killed your son or daughter by watching tv . The fbi knew about salameh. So did the Justice Department. There was enormous pressure at the time to perhaps bring back, did the number of american citizens killed by palestinian terrorist. There was a lot of pressure to try to have a criminal trial back in the United States. So the Justice Department seems to prosecutors and the fbi sent two agents to israel to take a look at all of these cases in which americans have died. They felt salamehs case was probably the strongest, bringing back company want talk, made a Death Penalty case. They decided against it. The strength of the case, i interviewed one of the prosecutors and one of the fbi agents who handled this and they felt that salamehs case was the strongest because there was no doubt he did it. He was admitting. Not only did he admit to the fbi and the Israeli Intelligence service, he admitted to me and to bob simon of 60 minutes, to all kinds of people. Theyre going to bring solid back and put them on trial. That ran into a cloud bank and that of me, the diplomacy between the United States and the palestinians and israelis and the fact that criminal trial would have messed that up. That trial never happen. The families ended up filing a lawsuit and winning a massive judgment and then they went into another problem. Yes. That becomes really fascinating. Do you mind if i walk through it very briefly with you . There is a determination that iran is a state sponsor of this terror. Although you should tell the story. Mike has a fabulous little story about Yasser Arafat in all of this. The night before this bombing is visited by a neighbor. He is. Not just a neighbor, a fairly consequential figure in middle east politics. His name is tasha usher most of you have never heard this name. Terry rhode larson is a norwegian diplomat who was one of the key architects of the oslo peace accords. By 1996 he is now the United Nations representative to the palestinian people. He is stationed in gaza. Hes in the gaza strip and as he often does he is meeting with Yasser Arafat is also in the gaza strip. Arafat is a night owl spent he walked right down the street as they lived just a few doors from each other. Its saturday night, the night before the bombing on jaffa road. Larsson goes down to visit arafat if youre talking about, i interviewed larsson twice. Sometimes when people take such dramatic stories you almost dont believe him. I went back to him months later to just confirm, and from the right down the line. A guy who tipped me off to the store and was dennis ross. Dennis ross is telling me youve got to talk to terry rhode larson. It was that was so we tells me. Ross knew about this story. The point i will. The point i will make on that is in the second. Larsson goes to visit arafat and theyre talking about shipments of food and medicine. Ordinary things that a u. N. Representative might be talking to the head of the palestinian authority. Was giving a wink and a nod to them and tested approval and yet they never confronted with them because they thought he was key of the process. We dont want to go in great detail. Well, its all interrelated. So the families filed this massive lawsuit, they want to get what, 40 million, i forget the figure. Tens of millions of dollars from the iranian government. Hundreds of millions of dollars. Almost 250 million. And clint is in clinton is in the white house. Well, as i said earlier, there was a feeling in our country that these acts of terrorism were taking place and there was really no response, so Congress Passeses this law that americans can File Lawsuits. Clinton who is running for office and i should say and wanting to be tough on terrorism, has a ceremony at the white house and and he has people who has lost relatives in lebanon there and families from 103, he has others and also dukers and he has autolot of victims of terrorism, signs this bill, a number of these families File Lawsuits, Terry Anderson filed lawsuit t marines who were killed in 1983, they filed a lawsuit, one massive judgment, so as many of you know, they file a lawsuit, the next step is you go back if you win you go back to court and say, judge, we win, we want to collect, try to imagine the scene, the duke and the family show up in court and the iranians had never, never tried to defend this lawsuit, they simply ignored it and the judge said, if youre not going to come to court, too bad, im going to rule anyway. When they come back to collect some lawyers show up at the next table but theyre not from the Islamic Republic of iran, theyre from the United States Justice Department. The United States Justice Department decided to oppose these American Families collecting on the lawsuits claiming that it will harm u. S. Diplomacy overseas. Try to imagine the scene. You had Congress Passes the law and the president signs it into law, they go to u. S. Court and file lawsuit, they win and then their own government is prying to oppose them. So i told mike before we started, i said, when we get to this part of the story i want to make sure you understand youre really in territory here, there are a lot of people in this room who are good friends sure. And we werent going into detail because so many of us know him so well, you mentioned him a couple of minutes ago. I believe its one of the most complicated and compelling characters in this book because member of the Clinton Administration, he gets handed the task, work out this political mess that bill clinton he or she found himself into, on one hand favor and the efforts by u. S. Families to File Lawsuits against terrorist and yet on the other hand the Clinton Administration opposing the actual collection of judgments in these law enforcements, stewart as many of you know, as many of you know, if you dont know lost relatives in the holocaust, he has led efforts to get for Holocaust Victims and New York Times wrote editorial. He was working as a lawyer and he was and i interviewed stewart about this. He thought the push and pull of this issue in very dramatic way in the sense that understood this argument and i think its intellectually is, they didnt really think it through, they just went ahead for political reasons. It really involved individual families filing louts against foreign nations and what others were arguing is that this is going to set off a huge domino effect for diplomatic relations around the world and could result in retaliation, i dont necessarily agree with that but the argument is interesting enough that you have to embrace it and you try to explain it and it was isans job to carry through the administration. I think its time for questions. We could go on. Its a fascinating story and really well told. Thank you. Would you do me a favor, while we get ready for questions, after the last question, we agreed about a little paragraph from the book. Sure. I want to make sure you have it. I have it. I will do brief reading at the end. I would be happy to. Hi, i enjoyed your talking. Thank you. Going to paris you have made yourself expert. I dont know im an expert but written about it. Im curious what you thought what you thought the west should or should not do in reaction to whats just happened in paris in terms of what it can or cannot accomplish. Give us your best journalistic shot on this, mike. If i was king of the jungle, well the first thing i think they have to do is not excuse it politically, i think one of the things that we i tried to do with this book, obviously terrorism as a political dimension but what i wanted to do was take that and put it on the shelf somewhere and palestinian terrorists that obviously has dimension and im guessing that theres people in the room that i do, but what i wanted, too often used as an excuse of just doing nothing. Put over that here and in my opinion its murder, its just flat out murder and what has to be done. We dont know for certain and they have to Start Talking about dealing this as act of war and that was a problem that the Clinton Administration and indeed, i know i come hard on the Clinton Administration and the regular manage was doing no better when almost 250 u. S. Servicemen were killed in 1983, our country did nothing. And so to carry it forward, i know i come down hard on the Clinton Administration, but, you know, george w. Bush administration certainly tried to deal with the war on terrorism, we know there were many falls there. My point is this, is that i have to make it some sort of policy as how theyre going to deal with it effectively. I think i heard you mention during the interview that you had interviewed the father of the bomber. Sure. And i think it was gold maer, we are not going to come till p palestinians love their children more than they hate us. Great question. If i could get there i could probably spend enough time on the ground and find his family and i did and i spent a fair amount of time with the father and we talked at length and i said, listen, did you not know or suspect that your son might be might be heading in this kind of direction, he said absolutely not. We had no idea that my son, that his son was going to be this kind of murderer, so to speak. His son was not particularly religious, he was not hanging out with hamass, for example, he didnt appear to have any friends that were hamass operatives. This in general is a very difficult subject of research because most suicide bombers die, there is there are a number of us ray academics that are looking into this subject and some of them have done fairly good work on it, but yet, we still dont fully comprehend how is it possible that in the case of this young man he was approached on a friday and is committing this kind of operation on a sunday and so his father tells him, my son was not religious,not hanging out with hamass, for example, and his father said to me, he said, if i could have stopped him, i would have. Im ashamed that this happened and i feel terrible that this happened and its forever haunted me. How did people remember your son all these years later, he said words to effect, they dont, nobody talks about my son anymore. They dont remember him. I know theres a lot of talks about bombers become martyrs and that sort of thing, people honor them in palestinian communities and how long it goes on for its debatable. This has faded and what ive done is you contrast that with the lives of matthew and sarah and another figure in this book that was killed in the bombing related to this, their lives have hardly gone, if anything, they are celebrated again and again by their friends and written about on facebook and that sort of thing even to this day. We are getting a wrap. I know everybody wants to get that book signed. We are not going to read the excerpt, i thought in closing because it speaks to the victims in paris this weekend, you have a very moving scene of at the end of the book in which the families go and visit sure. Mat and sarah buried side by side. They were. And one of the members, i think arlene, sarahs mom said what would it have become of them and what did she say . Well, sarah was about to turn 40, would have turned 40. Matthew and sarah are buried side by side in graves in a cemetery in connecticut and around the time that it would have been sarahs 40th birthday. We drive, lennie and vickie, matthews parents and arlenes mom and one of sarahs sisters and me, we are in the car and we go visit the graves and we are standing there and and could i just read the scene. Read the last couple of pages. I know we are running on im trying to keep us moving, but, yes, please. Lender, turn to the light and steer the car to a narrow road that led through groves and maples. It was after 6 00 p. M. While the sun starting to sink in the connecticut hills, line parked and we got out and walked to a stone. Arlene, tradition jewish custom. Someone mentioned that sarah would have turned 40 in a few days, everyone nodded. A breeze kicked in and arlene stood for a moment in front of the head stone and the sidebyside resting places of the daughter and son they once thought would marry. I wonder what they would have become, their voice fell off and then she added, we will never know. [applause] mike kelly, the bus on the jaffa road. Thank you very much. Mike kelly, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you so much to all of our guests today, thank you all for coming and please join us for the book signing, mike kelly will be signing his book and dan will be signing his book on main street outside the theatre. This is book tv on cspan2, television for serious readers. Here is our prime time lineup. Tonight starting at 6 30 nick adams shares his opinion on political correctness, at 7 30 thers reports on influence on big money in politics. Ms. Mayer will join us live next weekend to discousin all of the books and take your questions on indepth. Prime time continues at