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Israel to Release Palestinian Prisoners; Stopping Stop and Frisk; Israel Approves New Settlement Construction; A Prayer for Father Paolo

Aired August 13, 2013 - 15:00   ET

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

HALA GORANI, CNN GUEST HOST: Good evening, everyone and welcome to the program. I'm Hala Gorani, sitting in for Christiane tonight.

Right now in Israel concrete steps toward a Middle East peace agreement may be taking place. However, will they be undone by Israeli government action?

Israel is freeing more than two dozen Palestinian prisoners. Any minute now we're expecting those images. The men are leaving a country where they're seeing as having blood on their hands and released into the occupied West Bank as well as the Gaza Strip where many see them as heroes.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said sometimes leaders must make unpopular choices for good of the country.

Yet at the same time, while this is all going on, Israel announced plans to construct 900 new housing units in East Jerusalem. Even so, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry says he doesn't expect the announcement to derail the upcoming talks. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN KERRY, SECRETARY OF STATE: The United States of America views all of the settlements as illegitimate. I think what this underscores actually is the importance of getting to the table, getting to the table quickly and resolving the questions.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GORANI: John Kerry there.

However, Palestinians say this Israeli announcement could be a stab in the back of any two-state solution. Let's see how all this is unfolding on the ground. We go to Vladimir Duthiers, who is live in the West Bank.

Vladimir, what's the latest? Have we seen any of these released prisoners?

VLADIMIR DUTHIERS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We have not. We were told that they could be released within the next couple of minutes, starting anytime from 10:00 pm local time, which is just a little after 10 o'clock in the evening here in the West Bank. We are at the Batunia (ph) crossing in the West Bank. Behind me (inaudible) most of the prisoners from the West Bank are expected to be released any time within the next couple of minutes to the next couple of hours.

Crowds have already started to gather here; members of the media, families waiting for prisoners, some of that have been in prison for over 20 years, Hala. As you've said, there's some on the Israeli side that have said that they oppose this move by the Israeli government's release, the first of 20 -- 104 prisoners. These are the first 26 to be released.

There are some Israelis that say that these are criminals, these are some - - in some cases are murderers and terrorists, whereas the Palestinians say that these are political prisoners. People here regard them as freedom fighters. Once they are released from this prison, they will go to the presidential compound of Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah, where they will be treated to a hero's welcome, Hala.

GORANI: All right. And Vladimir, you mentioned some of the prisoners, some accused of murder, others accused of other things.

Who -- generally speaking, who are these prisoners? Who should we expect to see released here?

DUTHIERS: Well, we, Hala, spent some time this morning in Hebron. We met the family of a man who was imprisoned for taking part in an attack that left an Israeli soldier -- killed an Israeli soldier and left another wounded. He was the driver of the car; he wasn't the trigger man but the trigger man was actually released in 2011 during the exchange for the Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, while this man has languished for 20 years in prison. He went in when he was 29; he's now 30 (sic) years old.

Another man, much more controversial man that is expected to be released is a man who killed Ian Feinberg.

He -- Ian Feinberg was a man working in the West Bank. He was working as a lawyer for a European rights group. He was stabbed to death. This man is expected to be released, his sister says it's a travesty of justice and doesn't want to see him released. But he is part of that prisoner release today, Hala.

GORANI: Vladimir Duthiers, in the West Bank there with the latest on that expected prisoner release. We're going to have more on the Middle East peace process in a moment.

Is this time different? And if so why? We'll also turn to a controversy raging here on the streets of New York. Where does law and order end and racial profiling begin? Putting a stop to stop and frisk, when we come back. A lot more ahead on AMANPOUR. Don't go anywhere.

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GORANI: Welcome back to the program, I'm Hala Gorani, filling in for Christiane Amanpour today.

In the United States, a federal judge has ruled that New York City's control stop and frisk program is, in fact, unconstitutional, in part because it targets minorities.

Under stop and frisk, police can stop, question and even bodily search anyone they consider suspicious in any way. The NYPD stopped 4.4 million people between 2004 and 2012, and here's a statistic: 87 percent of those were black or Latino. And the overwhelming majority of those stopped did nothing illegal.

The judge's ruling states, "The city's highest officials have willfully ignored overwhelming proof that the policy of targeting "the right people' is racially discriminatory and therefore violates the United States Constitution."

The federal judge said stop and frisk is legal so long as the stops are based on reasonable suspicion and not on racial bias.

New York's mayor, Michael Bloomberg, and police commissioner Ray Kelly plan to appeal the ruling. They insist that stop and frisk deters crime and has contributed to a 50 percent drop in the city's murder rate over the past 12 years.

Bryan Stevenson is a lawyer and founder of a group dedicated to eliminating unfair sentencing and exonerating innocent prisoners, and he joins me now from Alabama.

Thanks for being with us.

BRYAN STEVENSON, LAWYER, FOUNDER OF EQUAL JUSTICE INITIATIVE: Happy to be with you.

GORANI: So explain to our international viewers why stop and frisk was something that had minority rights groups, among others, so incensed in the U.S. as far as the New York case is concerned.

STEVENSON: Well, what you have to remember is that people of color often feel like they are burdened with the presumption of guilt, that they are suspected, that they are targeted for criminal prosecution, that they are often marginalized by race in ways that is quite disempowering.

When the New York City Police Department adopted a policy that was going to interact with people who had not been proved guilty of anything, had not done anything wrong, and then did it in the kind of discriminatory manner in which it's been carried out, it was deeply burdensome to these communities. Ninety percent of the people who are stopped are African- American or Latino.

About 90 percent have done nothing wrong. Some people were stopped five, 10, 15 times during the course over the last decade and it's quite burdensome to feel like every time you leave your home, you have to worry about crime and you have to worry about police officers who are going to target you for harassment, frisking and assault.

GORANI: You told our producer that you yourself have felt somehow targeted, that you've been confused in court for the suspect rather than identified as the lawyer for your client. I mean, this is something that black men in American experience, you think, on a daily basis?

STEVENSON: Oh, I do. I think racial profiling is a huge problem in this country and it's actually magnified when police officers and law enforcement officers expressly do it. Then security guards do it, department store employees do it, taxicab drivers do it. It's a very serious problem; it's not unrelated to the problem that the Trayvon Martin shooting reflects.

And yes, I think there are very few men of color who have not had this experience. The only time in my life when someone has pulled a gun and threatened to shoot me at very close range is when a police officer did it and when I was sitting outside my apartment in Atlanta, Georgia, having done nothing wrong.

So I think it really is a burden on people of color that we have to confront if we're going to actually own up to the legacy of fairness and justice and opportunity that we talk about so freely.

GORANI: And even the U.S. President Barack Obama, as something he mentioned in a very candid speech about race in America after the Trayvon Martin verdict.

But I want to ask you this, too, because here you have Raymond Kelly, the police commissioner in New York, saying -- writing in an op-ed as a result -- after -- in the aftermath of that stop and frisk ruling, "We have to face the reality that New York's minority communities experience a disproportionate share of violent crime."

And Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York, had this to say. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAEL BLOOMBERG, MAYOR OF NEW YORK CITY: We go to where the reports of crime are. Those, unfortunately, happen to be poor neighborhoods and minority neighborhoods. But that's not the original objective or the intent or how we get there.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GORANI: So they've said they're going to appeal this ruling.

Don't you see -- do you think there's any logic in what Mayor Bloomberg said about this? We're not targeting blacks and Latinos, that's where the crime is happening.

STEVENSON: Well, no, I don't think that's actually very credible. I mean, first of all, these stops take place throughout the city. These stops, these frisks are not happening only at a moment when a crime is taking place. They're happening when police suspect men of color of doing things.

If 90 percent of the time they're stopping people who have done nothing wrong, then they're absolutely not advancing public safety. They're not improving public safety. They're not stopping crime.

And in fact, you hear the commissioner talking about the drop in the homicide rate over the last 12 years. Most American cities have had comparable drops in their murder rate over the last 12 years without stop and frisk.

So I don't think it's persuasive to suggest that this is necessary to respond to crime.

There is a hug problem of disproportionate crime in minority communities, and I think it's actually aggravated when people in the community don't trust the police, don't cooperate with the police, don't give information to the police when crimes are committed because they fear then as much as the offenders and the criminals that have victimized them.

And that's what stop and frisk, in my judgment, is contributing, it's undermining the effective of law enforcement.

GORANI: Let me -- well, then, I need to ask you what needs to be done then in your opinion. I mean, stop and frisk has been ruled unconstitutional, so unless the city officials who plan to appeal win their case on appeal, this is not going to happen any more in New York.

But what needs to be done?

Is there a cultural shift needed here at the NYPD?

And in other big city police departments as well?

STEVENSON: Yes, I think there is and I think a lot of police chiefs would speak to this. When we diversify police departments, when we actually present police officers to the community as allies, as people who are there to protect and serve, who are not there to harass and threaten and intimidate, we actually improve the effectiveness of law enforcement.

We improve public safety. People of color don't want to be victimized by crime any more than anyone else. They want their police officers to serve them, to help them, to protect them --

(CROSSTALK)

GORANI: And do you need more minority police officers?

I mean, is that one -- is that a possible solution? Because in Atlanta -- and we're here in Atlanta, by the way, Bryan, I was going to tell you and there are -- and I'm not sure what the percentage is, but there are many black police officers in Atlanta as well.

Does that make a difference or not?

STEVENSON: It absolutely does. I think when you have people from the communities that they are policing, they don't suspect the people that they know. They understand these institutions. I think that's an important first step.

But it takes more than that. We need the police to see the community as the people that they serve and care about, not just potential suspects and people to arrest. That's the mindset that I think stop and frisk represents, and it's why I think it's so dangerous.

GORANI: Bryan Stevenson joining us live from Alabama on this controversial program that was ruled as being unconstitutional by a federal judge here in America, thank you very much, Bryan Stevenson for joining us on this story.

Turning back now to the latest move toward Middle East peace or peace in the Middle East -- we've seen this dance before, let's be honest.

Will the outcome be different this time?

Joining me now to discuss this are Ari Shavit, senior correspondent at Israeli newspaper "Haaretz," and Daoud Kuttab, a Palestinian journalist with almonitor.com, who joins me from neighboring Jordan.

Thanks to both of you for being with us.

Daoud, I'm going to start with you. So the announcement that Israel had authorized the constitution of almost 1,000 new housing units in East Jerusalem, is this enough to torpedo these talks that haven't even started yet?

DAOUD KUTTAB, PALESTINIAN JOURNALIST, ALMONITOR.COM: It's putting a big dent on the -- those who believe in the peace process.

The problem is that the Palestinians are trapped because they're hoping that some of the prisoners who are promised to be released 19 years ago will be released. And the Israelis have scattered the release over nine months to ensure that the Palestinians don't walk out, even though the Israelis are doing things that are provocative and against the spirit of the peace.

GORANI: Ari Shavit, people have been wondering, why announce this now? If you're Israel, you've agreed to go back to the negotiating table. These negotiations stalled for three years. And then you make this announcement -- it sounds like something done in bad faith, no?

ARI SHAVIT, SR. CORRESPONDENT, "HAARETZ": It -- we are still in the early stages. This peace process, this renewed peace process, which is very essential and I think Secretary Kerry and American administration deserve every credit for trying to save the two-state solution by starting this process.

But it's in very -- it very much it is a process that is imposed on this -- on the parties. And there is no real willingness so far to really change hearts and to go through a real deep conversion needed to reach peace.

So what you see is each side going forward with the process formally, but at the same time, actually dealing with opposition within its own side.

So the Israeli side is doing, it's balancing the fact that prisoners are being released, which is something very unpopular in Israel. It's balancing it with this housing project, which I very much do not like and I don't approve of.

But this is like the old politics that is pouring into the new process and I think it shows us that the process so far is not very well founded and doesn't have very promising prospects at the moment.

GORANI: Right.

And Daoud, do you think the Palestinians are going to stick around and go through with these talks, even after this announcement that new housing units were going to be built in Jerusalem, in the West Bank?

KUTTAB: Well, first, Hala, these are not housing units. It's not a housing problem. These are illegal settlements that Ban Ki-moon has said that they're illegal; they're settlements.

And the Palestinians are stuck. I mean, they're in a trap. They gave a lot of attention to the fact that they made a promise.

Nineteen years ago they signed an agreement with the Israelis in Shada Meshech (ph), that they would be released. And now 19 years later, they are being used as bargaining chips by the Israelis to make sure that the Palestinians don't walk out when they do things that are completely against the peace process.

So there's -- they are trapped. And Mahmoud Abbas has egg on his face today because he can't get out of the talks because he wants the prisoners released. And the Israelis know this and they're using the fact that he's trapped.

GORANI: Well, this just doesn't sound good at all. I mean, if you listen to what both of you have listed, just over the last two or three minutes, before substantive talks have even begun, I mean, are we looking at a -- essentially are we looking at a process that is doomed to fail?

KUTTAB: I think the problem is --

(CROSSTALK)

GORANI: Ari, go ahead, I just want -- and then I'll get back to you, Daoud.

Ari?

SHAVIT: OK. I think you've asked the most important question. And let me put it this way. On the one hand, as I said, the effort to revive the peace process is benign and essential because the two-state solution is slipping away.

But any attempt to impose a peace of the size the parties are not ready for will fail.

Therefore, what is really needed is very creating thinking, of bringing new kind of concepts, perhaps interim agreements (inaudible) as settlement freezes, perhaps coordinated unilateral steps, all kinds of steps that have been -- have not been tried before, because if what the American administration and the international community will try to do is to try again what has failed three or four times in the past, in a neighborhood that is becoming more unstable and ugly, there is no chance to win the hearts of both Israelis and Palestinians and to move forward.

But if a new approach will be tried, I think there is still a silent, moderate majority on both sides which will react to a new and more creative peace process.

GORANI: And Ari, I've got to ask you this about something Gideon Levy even said -- and we've had him on the program before -- that there is really no peace camp in Israel, that this can't succeed because there really is nobody in Israel in a decision-making position who wants this to work or who has any incentive for this to work.

What do you think about that?

SHAVIT: I deeply, deeply disagree. You must look at the history -- and here I must explain something about the state of mind, the justified state of mind of my people.

Israelis are not benign or amazing more than in an amazing way, but they are realistic; they do want peace and quiet. They do want peace in a realistic way. Now they've tried it 3-4-5 times in the past. They made concessions. They opened their heart to peace. And the end, the result was disastrous in every time.

The Palestinians might feel exactly the same. We suffered violence; they feel that they suffered settlement activity and Israeli expansion. I don't think the two are dissimilar, but both sides have bitter experiences.

Therefore I think that if you show these Israelis and the Palestinians that there is a realistic approach that deals with the real reality of the region, that tries to work things in a different way, you'll be surprised by the moderate Israeli majority that is still there. And I hope there is still a Palestinian majority definitely in the West Bank there.

But --

GORANI: And Ari, I want to give Daoud the opportunity to respond, because we're running out of time.

SHAVIT: -- that will not work. That --

GORANI: Ari, I want to give Daoud the opportunity to respond here.

One of the things Ari is saying is, look, understand the mindset of Israelis --

KUTTAB: Absolutely.

GORANI: -- they've opened their heart to peace; they've been punished for it every time. Daoud, what do you say to that?

KUTTAB: Well, they haven't. They have never frozen settlements; they continue to build settlements.

But the problem is in the mindset of the Americans and who think that they can just get Palestinians and Israelis together in a room and the idea that only Palestinians and Israelis can make peace. We need an imposed (ph) solution and I think the American and the international community have to have a blueprint of what peace would be like and they have to basically impose it on both sides. There is no other way.

GORANI: Impose it on both sides? Well, we'll see if these talks even get underway to both of you, thank you very much for joining us, Daoud Kuttab in Jordan, Ari Shavit joining us from Tel Aviv in Israel. Thanks to both of you.

And after a break, we'll turn to Syria, where ancient saints and holy men called the desert their home. In our own time, a man of God has followed in their footsteps, risking his life again for peace, searching for Father Paolo when we come back.

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GORANI: A final thought tonight, imagine a world where a messenger of peace has himself become a symbol of Syria's tragic civil war.

Father Paolo Dall'Oglio is missing. The charismatic Jesuit priest, a passionate opponent of the Assad regime, was expelled from Syria last summer for his outspoken views. After 30 years of missionary work inside the country. But exile did not silence him and he continued to call for international intervention to end the bloodshed.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

Without the exercise of radical international responsibility, we will have a long-lasting civil war. We have a national tragedy that -- with long lasting output for the entire region. We are already beyond salvation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GORANI: And this was last year. As we know all too well, that call has gone unanswered.

Then two weeks ago, Father Paolo may have put his life on the line again. Reportedly slipping back into Northern Syria on a mission of peace in an effort to negotiate the release of hostages and broker a truce between rebel groups and the war-torn region of Raka (ph). He hasn't been seen or heard from since and now there are fears that Father Paolo may have become a hostage himself -- or worse. With conflicting and unconfirmed reports that he may have been kidnapped or even killed.

While his fate in shrouded in rumor and speculation, Father Paolo's ecumenical vision of what Syria could be remains an inspiration.

Back in 2005, I traveled to Mar Mousa, the 6th century monastery in the Syrian desert that he restored and transformed into a community of faith and dialogue for Muslims as well as Christians. I saw first-hand how Father Paolo, who can quote the Quran as well as the New Testament, strove to establish a truly diverse and democratic society, a model for the Syria he had come to love.

No wonder that so many Muslims as well as Christians are lighting candles and saying prayers for him, including his fellow Jesuits, Pope Francis hoping for his safe return, as we all are here.

That's it for tonight's program. Meantime, you can always contact us on the AMANPOUR website, amanpour.com, and follow me on Twitter, @halagorani. Thank you for watching and goodbye from CNN Center.

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