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At This Hour

FAA Cancels U.S. Flights to Israel Airport; MH17 Black Boxes in British Hands; Obama Fundraising Out West

Aired July 23, 2014 - 11:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: Consider this, a child was killed in Gaza every hour on Monday and Tuesday. Every hour. That sobering statement came today from the top U.N. official on human rights. She was on the verge of accusing Israel of war crimes over the carnage.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Hundreds of people in Gaza attending a funeral for four children killed by an Israeli naval strike. It Israel has accused Hamas of ordering people to remain in their homes. Death toll rising on both sides. Most of the 600 Palestinians killed have been civilians. 33 Israelis have also died, three of them civilians.

Secretary of State John Kerry is trying to broker a cease-fire at this moment. He's shuttling between Benjamin Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas.

PEREIRA: All of that as the FAA decides whether of not to lift a banned on all U.S. flights to Ben Gurion International Airport in Tel Aviv.

Former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg has landed at that airport and tweeted this, "Safely landed at Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv. Here to show support for Israeli's right to defend itself. A sign of solidarity." And sort of a sign of an argument against the restriction.

We have so much to talk about with our military analysts. We have two with us today, retired Lieutenant Colonel Rick Francona; and retired Lieutenant General Mark Hertling.

Good to have you both with us.

First of all, Rick, I think we have to talk about just the end game for Israel here. In terms of what can be done to resolve all of this, without giving Hamas any sort of upper hand.

LT. COL. RICK FRANCONA (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Well, the Israelis are committed to this operation. Now, they have got too much invested in it to just stop. They have achieved an objective. They have defined the objective. It's very difficult to do and they are finding it harder than they thought as Hamas has adopted what I call Hezbollah tactics. They prepared that battlefield. They knew the Israelis were going to come and they knew to prepare for it. They got these tunnels. They pop up. Guerilla tactics. The Israelis are going to have to achieve some sort of result.

BERMAN: General, you spent a lot of time in that region. We've worked with the Israeli military and the government before, and you've noted how they have been developing their messaging over the years and it strikes me that yesterday was a very fascinating messaging moment with the order to close the airspace over Ben Gurion Airport. The FAA banning flights there. Israel has been saying all along about these rockets we can't live like this, but when the FAA bans flights to Ben Gurion, all of a sudden they say, no, no, no, we can live like this over Ben Gurion Airport. It's OK, it's not affecting our operations over there. Is this creating a messaging problem for Israel?

LT. GEN. MARK HERTLING, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: It does. I agree with Rick completely, in the last couple of operations that the Israelis have done against Gaza in 2008, and 2012, they had to stop short of achieving their objectives. They want to continue to push, get these tunnels and rockets and provide security for Israel. But what happened yesterday was an interesting dynamic, John. Because I think the Israeli minister has said Ben Gurion is defended. It is what we in the air defense community calls a priority-protected zone and the air fields, the airport itself, they are certainly under the Iron Dome and there's probably not going to get a whole lot of missiles into the site itself. 90 percent probability of hit from those missiles from Iron Dome. But what you have to concern yourself with the flight paths in and out of the airport. Rick being the Air Force retiree and me being the Army retired, yes, we talk a big sky, little bullet philosophy. You don't want to be flying aircraft in and out of a space when there's rockets flying over. We have systems in the military, altitude, time, and space deliberations whenever we have aircraft flying over a battlefield where there's artillery or missiles going in. They never know when they are coming out of Gaza, so you can't protect all the flights coming in and out. And that's a real problem, especially after what's happened in Ukraine.

PEREIRA: Colonel --

(CROSSTALK)

PEREIRA: General, it's our honor to have you sir.

Rick Francona, always a delight.

Excuse my gaffe.

We're going to take a short break here. Ahead @THISHOUR, flight 17 black boxes are now in the hands of British investigators. The question is, do they hold the answers? And could someone have tampered with that evidence and the data they hold?

BERMAN: President Obama fundraising out west. Is he sending the wrong message to the world in this time of crisis?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PEREIRA: Some tragic news out of Taiwan, as many as 47 people feared dead, 11 others injured. A passenger plane crashed in the Penghu Islands.

BERMAN: CNN affiliate ETTV is reported that the plane crashed into a residential building. Witnesses saw it setting homes on fire. Some media reports the plane was making an emergency landing from strong winds from Typhoon Matmo, which hit Taiwan early today.

PEREIRA: Concern as to why it was flying to begin with if the weather was as bad as --

BERMAN: Bad, bad.

PEREIRA: CNN will continue to follow this story.

BERMAN: @THISHOUR, MH-17, the plane's flight data and cockpit voice recorders, or black boxes, they are in British hands.

PEREIRA: British authorities working with the Dutch to extract the flight information and analyze that data. We also understand an expert from NTSB will assist as well. It could be weeks before they learn anything.

Our safety analyst and former FAA inspector, David Soucie, is here.

I want you to give us an idea what the data, the voice recorder, what kind of information can it give authorities and help solve this mystery? Maybe even provide some justice here.

DAVID SOUCIE, CNN SAFETY ANALYST: There's a couple of things that are really critical about this. One is that if you are going to add to the case that this was the missile because that will be challenged in court, if they find out who did push the button, they are going to say so what, there was a flash here, did it really hit the aircraft? To ability to prove it was launched from that missile is critical. In order to do that, you got to know what the flight position of the aircraft was when it was struck. If you don't, it could be claimed that it wasn't a missile. The things in court are just discussed and it's horrible to see. You look at the trajectory of what shrapnel came out of the missile and went through the aircraft. You draw a line between two points and it gives you a very good proximity of where that missile came from.

BERMAN: Michaela said it could take weeks before they get answers. There's a lot of urgency. The world wants and needs this information as soon as possible. Is it really weeks, and if so, why so long?

SOUCIE: Well, it takes a long time to get this. What I wanted to note is that the Malaysian government was so quick to get this into the hands of someone they have obviously learned how to do it right because when this was put in their hands, which it's questionable whether it should have been, because Ukraine gave this investigation to the Dutch, so the Dutch really have the responsibility and the ownership or at least responsibility of moving these boxes. So when it was in the hands of the General Osrutin (ph). He immediately gave it to the right people, got it there right away, maintained the chain of custody so he can show who it went from and who it went to. That's a very important piece to be able to prove something in court. PEREIRA: A fair amount of diplomacy, considering what was going on on

the ground at the time.

SOUCIE: Absolutely.

PEREIRA: And how much had been tampered with and how the chain of custody had not been kept intact.

SOUCIE: And as much as they tried to make this a big ceremony and all this for public relations and --

PEREIRA: For the hand over.

SOUCIE: For the hand over -- it was very quiet after that. There was no exchange ceremony for how they got it to the U.K., so it was handled well. I just wanted to make that point.

PEREIRA: It's important to note, David.

BERMAN: Right now, scientists, they have their eyes on it. Let's hope they get the information as soon as possible. Let's also hope it's not tampered with.

David Soucie, great to have you here.

SOUCIE: Thank you.

BERMAN: Ahead for us @THISHOUR, President Obama is fundraising out west. But with everything going on in the world, is now the time to be going after money?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: -- points out, Republican presidents have fundraised as well but Democrats criticized them at the time. So I don't think we'll get any satisfaction --

(LAUGHTER)

-- in the debate.

Reihan, let's talk about the president's overall standing in the country. A new CNN/ORC opinion poll looked at his approval rating. It's pretty low, but it could be a whole heck of a lot worse. Particularly given everything that's going on now. You have the immigration crisis down at the border. You have all these crises overseas. Issues now with Obamacare again. And the recent court rulings here. He's still at 42. Does that indicate that he isn't going to take this Katrina plunge that some pollsters talk about, where the bottom simply just absolutely fell out under George W. Bush?

REIHAN SALAM, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: In America now, we have a very divided country. I would argue you've got a good solid 40 percent of people who will be with the president no matter what. If the president is at 42, that means that he has that solid rock solid foundation, and he has a couple of other people, but not many others. He's lost the trust of those people he needs to hold the center of the country.

PEREIRA: Agreed, Maria? What do you think? I want you to respond to Reihan.

MARIA CARDONA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Sure. Well, the year before, he was at 42 percent. Yes, I agree with Reihan. This is an incredibly polarized country. This doesn't help this president in trying to deal with all these issues we're facing and frankly it would be nice to see Republicans trying to help this president to demonstrate a unified front when it comes to all these global issues.

BERMAN: I'll leave you with this thought. We do have to go. A lot of the softness that the president is suffering is from Democrats. He's not getting as much support as he normally does from Democrats so it can't be all the Republicans' fault here.

(LAUGHTER)

Reihan Salam, Maria Cardona --

CARDONA: Sure it can.

BERMAN: -- thank you for joining us. Appreciate it.

(LAUGHTER)

PEREIRA: Thanks for joining us, guys.

A short break here. Ahead @THISHOUR, a hash tag that has seemingly taken over social media. The question is, can it really broker peace between Israel and Hamas? Next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PEREIRA: A poignant look for you now as the fighting in Israel and Gaza spirals out of control, Jews and Arabs around the world are taking to social media to express their desire for reconciliation.

BERMAN: They're sharing photos of themselves holding signs for peace using #JewsandArabsrefusetobeenemies.

Samuel Burke has the details.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SAMUEL BURKE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It is a unique plea for peace for a region filled with war. The social media campaign is called #JewsandArabsrefusetobeenemies. Its Facebook page may only have a few thousand likes now, but it is filled with moving messages, powerful photos, of couples who won't let religion stand in the way of love. Like this photo, this journalist, who's half Lebanese, embracing her Jewish boyfriend. I call him Arabic for my beloved. This photo posted by an Arab Jewish couple in the United States holding a sign that says we cohabit in peace, that's also a solution.

Families of mixed heritage are sending a message across social networks. This caption reads that he is Israeli, she is Palestinian. Their message, we are family, there is an alternative. This young girl's photo posted to twitter poses a simple question. My mum is Jewish. My dad is Muslim. So how can I be an enemy of myself?

Organizers hope if the message is taught to everyone this young, then the devastating cycle of valance that's gripped generations can finally be broken.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

Samuel joins us now. It is a delight to have you with us @THISHOUR.

I'm curious how widely spread and how widely used this hash tag is being used, and is it being used to send messages to some of the leaders there?

SAMUEL BURKE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You see it's being used in the United States, in Europe, in parts of Africa. I want to show you a map, really zooming in on Gaza and Israel. Unfortunately, you can see, barely anybody is using it. You see a few people using it up there in Lebanon. There are a few Israelis but not enough to register on this map.

BERMAN: That is really discouraging to me. I'm sorry to hear that. So the one place where it would matter most, which is in the actual area where this conflict is raging, it is not being used. It makes you wonder what the sentiment is among the young people there.

BURKE: But it was created -- this whole Facebook page, hash tag movement was created by two students here in New York, one comes from Israel, and then another one comes from Syria. So maybe that can give us a moment of hope and peace. All the people in here are people, a lot of them are people, are the children of people who came out of these conflicts, are living in other parts of the world now, like this man here, coming from Switzerland that you're seeing on your screen.

PEREIRA: Let's -- a chance for peace maybe. Let's see if maybe more of the sentiments can be spread at least in the social media sphere.

Thank you for joining us. Appreciate it.

BURKE: Thank you.

PEREIRA: Good to have you with us.

Thanks for joining us, you at home, @THISHOUR.

BERMAN: I'm John Berman.

PEREIRA: I'm Michaela Pereira.

BERMAN: Anderson Cooper takes over our continuing coverage of the crash of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17. He begins right now.