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Amanpour
Arab Parties in the Spotlight in Israeli Election; Saudi Prince Discusses Israeli Elections; FIFA Needs "Change at the Top"; Imagine a World. Aired 3-3:30p ET
Aired March 17, 2015 - 15:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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[15:00:07] CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN HOST: Tonight: Israeli voters at the ballot box while the world wonders what this election may mean for peace in
the region. An unprecedented coalition of Arab Israeli parties could become the kingmaker.
And joining me live from Nazareth is one of those leaders, Ahmad Tibi. Reaction from one of Israel's Arab neighbors, Saudi Prince Turki Al Faisal
tells me that he was never deluded about the Israeli prime minister's desire for peace.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PRINCE TURKI AL FAISAL OF SAUDI ARABIA: I was never one of those who believed that Mr. Netanyahu was going to deliver on the two-state solution
because of his actions and his words.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR (voice-over): And also ahead, why this Jordanian prince is lining up to give FIFA's Sepp Blatter the red card.
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AMANPOUR: Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the program. I'm Christiane Amanpour.
The stakes could hardly be higher in this Israeli election, especially in the fraught decades-long quest for peace. In this super-fractured
political climate, the question may not lie in who wins but in who can form a governing coalition.
What might have been a ho-hum election with an inevitable winner turned into an exciting and close-run horse race, as the main candidates galloped
towards the finish line.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called an early election. He did it last autumn when he seemed assured of a comfortable win. But opposition leader
Isaac Herzog's Zionist Union slowly closed the gap and then took the lead. But no opinion polls were published over the last crucial days of
campaigning and on the eve of the election, Prime Minister Netanyahu dropped a bombshell, turning his back on the two-state solution and the
U.S.-backed peace process.
The Arab Israeli parties have formed an unprecedented coalition to defeat Netanyahu and they have considerable influence.
And joining me now from Nazareth is Ahmad Tibi. He's a member of the Knesset and a leader in the Arab Joint List.
Mr. Tibi, welcome back to the program. As you await the final results, what are your party operatives telling you about where it stands right
now?
How close is it?
AHMAD TIBI, TA'AL PARTY: I think we are going to achieve around 13 seats. I hope that there will be more and more during the next hour. People are
arriving to vote in a lot of cases, areas in the Arab towns. But still the most important thing is the gap between Herzog and Netanyahu, how much this
gap will be.
It seems that Netanyahu succeeded today in the last hours in narrowing the gap for two seats, maybe three seats. But we will wait one hour in order
to see if there will be change in the grave reality in the Israeli politics and in the area ormat (ph).
AMANPOUR: Well, one thing has changed and that is this unprecedented coalition of your party and several others in the Arab Israeli parties.
Why have you been so mobilized?
What will this mean in terms of the power of your Joint List and for the 1.7 million Arab Israeli citizens?
TIBI: For the first time, we are united. The four parties representing the Arab voters united in the Joint List. It is unprecedented. It is a
unique experience, sending a signal that there is -- this is a legitimate elected leadership of national minority and that this is the way we should
defeat racism, especially the racism of Netanyahu, Bennett and Netanyahu against the Arab citizens, against their rights, their very existence.
We are being threatened to be removed by Lieberman or to be beheaded by Lieberman as a foreign minister --
AMANPOUR: I want to -- you mentioned that. And I actually want to play you this sound bite so that our viewers can see what you're talking about.
Last week, Avigdor Lieberman, the foreign minister, said this about Israeli citizens.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
[15:05:05] AVIGDOR LIEBERMAN, ISRAEL'S MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS (from captions): I would like to say whoever with us should get everything in my
kingdom. But those who are against us, there's nothing to be done -- we need to pick up an axe and cut off their heads. Otherwise, we won't
survive here.
(APPLAUSE)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: Mr. Tibi, I wonder how you feel, listening to the applause of a minister who's basically going ISIS on you, saying that he wants to behead
so-called disloyal Arabs.
There's a huge amount of fearmongering that's gone on.
How do you make -- what do you make of this?
TIBI: The Joint List representing the Arab minority with cooperation, with democratic Jewish forces, we are sending a message of wog (ph), a desire to
cooperate with those who are willing to change the reality to create a new situation, both -- for both Jews and Arabs, Israeli citizens. End
politics, end economical and social issues. And here is the foreign minister of the State of Israel, threatening us by ISIS ways of beheading
us just because we are different, just because we are not playing according to his Zionist policy.
I suppose if one of us, if I, Ahmad Tibi, was saying so about any Jewish citizen -- and I will not because I have human values -- that it will be a
big mess and noisy and I will be brought to investigation and to court.
Lieberman said so and no one said anything.
The prime minister today, Christiane, Netanyahu himself frightened the Israeli public by saying that the Arabs are coming probably to vote as if
we are not citizens. We are using our right to vote and --
AMANPOUR: You just mentioned, you are citizens --
(CROSSTALK)
TIBI: -- as the prime minister.
AMANPOUR: Well, in that case, Mr. Tibi, will your Joint List join a coalition if that would defeat the prime minister, you say, is conducting
this fearmongering and denying your rights?
Will you join a coalition?
You never have done before.
TIBI: It is not practical point. We will not join the coalition. Nobody will propose to us to join the coalition. But there is another option in
order to bring Netanyahu and the right wing down, to have a preventive block to try to hand, to assess from the opposition, Herzog and the other
parties, to block Benjamin Netanyahu and Naftali Bennett and Lieberman. It is possible. We are willing to cooperate and to bring into achievement to
our community and to implement our rights.
We are there in order to achieve. We are here in order to change.
AMANPOUR: Ahmad Tibi, leader of the Ta'al Party and a member of the Joint List, thank you very much indeed for joining us tonight.
Now of course also watching very closely is Saudi Arabia. That nation's 2002 peace plan remains pretty much the template for a deal between Israel,
the Palestinians and the rest of the Arab world.
Like Prime Minister Netanyahu, the region is also very wary of Iran's rising influence and the current deal being thrashed out with the U.S. and
other world powers on the nuclear program.
To get the lay of the land, I spoke earlier with Prince Turki Al Faisal, a senior member of the Saudi royal family and the country's former
intelligence minister.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: Prince Turki, welcome to the program.
FAISAL: Thank you, Ms. Amanpour.
AMANPOUR: So Prime Minister Netanyahu has said that if he retains his leadership there will be no Palestinian state.
FAISAL: Well, I hope that's not going to happen because if there is not going to be a Palestinian state, there's going to be one Israeli state that
encompasses 6 million to 7 million Palestinians. And --
(CROSSTALK)
AMANPOUR: So they'll outnumber Israeli Jews.
FAISAL: What will he do with that?
Is that the kind of legacy he wants to leave behind him for his children and his grandchildren?
I don't know.
AMANPOUR: There are many people such as yourself, such as the king of Jordan, others in the region who still believe and say that they've --
Prime Minister Netanyahu can deliver a peace deal.
But it's been nine years of him in power.
Is the Arab world deluded?
FAISAL: I was never one of those who believed that Mr. Netanyahu was going to deliver on the two-state solution because of his actions and his words.
[15:10:05] And he is living to that expectation from me. So if there are those who are deluded, I hope they will have awoken by now.
AMANPOUR: And yet would you say it's a fair characterization that because of the currents in your region right now -- the rise of ISIS; Iran, which
you're not happy about, particularly about the nuclear deal -- that actually you and Prime Minister Netanyahu are on the same page, singing
from the same sheet of music?
FAISAL: If we are singing from the same sheet of music, definitely we're not hearing each other because his tune is definitely different from my
tune or I think the Arab world's tune, which is finding peace between Palestine and Israel; between Israel and the rest of the Arab world, as
envisioned by the Abdullah peace initiative that King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia presented back in 2002.
By the way, I don't call it ISIS because I don't think it is either an Islamic state or that it controls Iraq and Syria. I call them fahish (ph).
And you know, in Arabic, fahish (ph) means obscene. And the --
AMANPOUR: It also rhymes with daish.
FAISAL: -- with daish, absolutely.
AMANPOUR: So you're specifically using that terminology to discredit them?
FAISAL: Absolutely, absolutely. And they should be discredited.
AMANPOUR: Well, before we get back to how to defeat them, you say that you're not singing from the same sheet of music on Palestine and the peace
process and that seems to be evident.
However, when it comes to Iran, there is a confluence of agendas and objectives; Prime Minister Netanyahu says no deal is better than a bad deal
and I've heard you say that, too.
FAISAL: Well, I said it in the context of that there is a better deal that can be had, which is the zone free of weapons of mass destruction for the
Middle East, which will have to include Israel giving up its nuclear arsenal as well. I don't think Mr. Netanyahu will be happy with that.
So even in that context, there's a difference between us. And I think the way that the talks between P5+1 and Iran went from the very beginning, got
off on the wrong foot, which is to single out Iran and leave the rest of the zone, as it were, not dealing with it.
So any deal that comes out of Iran now will open the door for proliferation because of the --
(CROSSTALK)
AMANPOUR: So you're worried about a regional nuclear arms race?
FAISAL: -- regional and worldwide.
AMANPOUR: You don't want to see Iran empowered.
Yet you also want to see ISIS defeated. Right now the only boots on the ground are Iranian and Iranian-backed militias, pushing ISIS back in places
like Tikrit.
What option is there if you're not going to put boots on the ground, if United States is not?
FAISAL: Our foreign minister has said that if there is a joint effort to put boots on the ground to fight fahish (ph), that Saudi Arabia would be
happy to do that. You know, we're doing this air coalition without any hesitation.
And I think it's always been necessary to have boots on the ground. It's been the United States and mostly European countries that have not come
along on that idea.
But if there is a genuine wish and will to put boots on the ground, I think many countries in the Arab world would be happy to do that.
AMANPOUR: You have been on record as criticizing the United States over the response to Syria.
About two years ago, you wrote in "The New York Times," "We've seen several red lines put forward by the president" -- Obama -- "which went along and
became pinkish as time grew and eventually ended up completely white.
"When that kind of assurance comes from a leader of a country like the United States, we expect him to stand by it. There is an issue of
confidence."
That was your view then; is it your view today?
Do you think anything has changed?
Is the United States leading in this battle against fahish (ph), as you call ISIS?
FAISAL: Let me start by saying that fahish (ph) is the symptom of the troubles we have in the area. The disease lies in Damascus, in Bashar al-
Assad and the way that he has been oppressing his people and doing awful things to them.
Just today, there was a report about barrel bombs with chlorine gas falling on Syrian citizens. The disease was in Baghdad when Maliki was prime
minister, which allowed fahish (ph) to come in and invade Iraqi soil.
So fix the diseases and not the symptoms.
I was astonished actually yesterday and the day before to hear that Mr. Kerry now, that says that we can talk to Mr. Bashar.
[15:15:05] AMANPOUR: I was going to ask you --
(CROSSTALK)
AMANPOUR: -- is that a starter?
FAISAL: Not at all. And not just with us in Saudi Arabia. The people who are most offended by Bashar al-Assad are the Syrian people and that's why
they're fighting him.
And for the United States to now start to talk to a person who has committed more than 250,000 murders of Syrian citizens is an incredible
idea.
AMANPOUR: Prince Turki, thank you very much indeed for joining us.
FAISAL: Thank you, Ms. Amanpour.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: And there's more from Prince Turki online at amanpour.com, including human rights and that case of the Saudi blogger sentenced to
1,000 lashes.
And from Israel's election to another election, the whole world is eagerly awaiting, it is countdown to the kickoff in FIFA's presidential vote. And
I ask one of the main candidates how to fix the ugly side of the beautiful game -- after this.
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AMANPOUR: Welcome back to the program.
And whatever happened to the beautiful game? Football or soccer has always been truly global. But its governing body, FIFA, is riven with allegations
of corruption and misjudgment and mismanagement. Case in point: the World Cup of Summer 2022, that they decided to hold in a nation that's just too
hot for sport in the summer, Qatar.
FIFA holds its next presidential election May 29th. And in the firing line is President Sepp Blatter, who's going for a fifth term. He promised to
step down after his fourth. And against all odds, my next guest, Jordan's Prince Ali bin Al-Hussein, hopes to replace him and promises to do a better
job.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: Prince Ali, welcome to the program.
PRINCE ALI BIN AL-HUSSEIN, JORDAN: Thank you so much. So wonderful to be here with you.
AMANPOUR: This is an extraordinary thing. Everybody around the world loves football. I look at it as a punter, as a mother of a young boy who
plays football.
What is wrong with the top of football that there seems to be so many dark corners, alleged corruption, secrecy, a lack of transparency?
AL-HUSSEIN: Well, I think as much as football is popular, it is the most popular sport around the world, I do believe that the impression of FIFA
itself is the opposite.
And that's why I'm intent on running for FIFA president, because I believe that the only way to change that, the only way to bring back the dignity to
the football family, is to have a change at the top.
AMANPOUR: Do you think you have a chance?
You're obviously, you know, quite a unique candidate. You come from the Jordanian royal family. You'd be the first Muslim if you were to be
elected, but even your own Asia Confederation has said that they will back Blatter.
[15:20:00] AL-HUSSEIN: An incumbent always has the advantage and I do believe that that statement came out even before I declared myself as a
candidate.
Having said that, I do believe that there is a real understanding within the football community that there is a need for change.
AMANPOUR: Well, so the image has been pretty tarnished. I mean, even as a layman, a lay person, I can see that. The whole idea of awarding the next
games to Russia and to Qatar has been a massive controversy within football and outside of football.
Do you oppose Qatar getting the 2022 World Cup?
AL-HUSSEIN: Every member association within FIFA has the right to host the World Cup if they have the means and capability to do so.
The question is whether it should be in winter or in summer. There are concerns about workers' rights, obviously.
AMANPOUR: Huge controversy about the toll in lives that the building of these stadiums is having on the workers and workers in general.
I would like to play you a little bit of an interview that I did with the emir of Qatar regarding this issue.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SHEIKH HAMAD BIN KHALIFA AL THANI, EMIR OF QATAR: No, we changed the laws. They are enforced. And there are many laws that have been changed and I'm
telling you because I -- I'm personally hurt about the situation. I don't accept that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: So, he's saying he doesn't accept the huge human rights violations against the workers there.
We checked with Human Rights Watch. They're saying that, actually, they may have changed some laws but it's all around the periphery and the real
issue is they're not being enforced. So workers are still not getting the full rights that they deserve.
What's your reaction to that?
What would you say to Qatar?
AL-HUSSEIN: Well, I think we'd have to take the emir up on his words and encourage and help him to do that.
AMANPOUR: Obviously women's professional football is gaining strength, certainly in America; it's bigger than men's football.
What about women in your region?
What about the cultural sensitivities -- the hijab, the clothing?
Can women play professional soccer?
AL-HUSSEIN: Yes, of course they can. Obviously I was instrumental in allowing the headscarf to be played and not just by women but also for Sikh
communities around the world as well. So I'm very proud of that. As long as the safety issues are not a concern -- and we passed that.
Having said that, yes, women's football is a huge growth area. And we have to invest in it. In Jordan, next year, we're holding the Under-17 Women's
World Cup, which we're very proud of.
AMANPOUR: You're the son of King Hussein. You're the brother of the current King Abdullah.
You were obviously personally affected -- like the whole world and your country was -- by the brutal death of the pilot, Moath al-Kasasbeh. You
flew back from some of your FIFA duties.
How did it affect you, what happened?
AL-HUSSEIN: Well, it affected me as it affected all Jordanians and people in our region -- very deeply. But at the same time, one has to look at the
fact that we must move on. Life must go on. And in every field that we're in, we should work our hardest and our best. And, again, with football,
that's what I intend to do.
Social responsibility, for example, is a very big part of it. We've worked with, for example, with UEFA and others to help -- and the United Nations,
to help and the Norwegian government to help refugees in Jordan, to build them facilities, pitches as well and (AUDIO GAP) awareness, for example.
I have a foundation where we've helped out, for example, in Cambodia, girls who were victims of trafficking. Now they happen to be the Cambodian
women's national team.
And we need to also bring that concept of social responsibility into football itself. There's so much more that football can do to give back to
society.
AMANPOUR: You are facing an uphill struggle here, because of Blatter's -- and you said the incumbent always has the advantage.
If this doesn't work out, will you continue to try in the future?
Or is this the end of Prince Ali's FIFA ambition?
AL-HUSSEIN: Well, there's one of two options obviously. But having said that, I made the decision to run because I honestly believed that I could
not be a member of the executive committee under the present circumstances for the next four years. So I'll be focused on hopefully winning this
election.
AMANPOUR: Sorry, that means that if Blatter wins again, you're out?
AL-HUSSEIN: I will not -- I will not run for the executive committee, no.
AMANPOUR: Prince Ali, thank you very much indeed for joining me.
AL-HUSSEIN: Thank you very much. A real pleasure.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: So Prince Ali trying to change the top levels at FIFA. And after a break, we return to the very top level and that very tight race in
Israel.
Now you may wonder what Israel's future has in common with St. Patrick's Day. But imagine a world that could learn from Ireland's peace process
almost two decades later. We'll tell you -- next.
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[15:27:27] AMANPOUR: And finally tonight, as Israel decides its future in the land of war and deep division, imagine it learning from Ireland's past
as the world toasts this St. Patrick's Day, the annual celebrations have painted the planet green again. But the day is also an important reminder
that leadership can bring peace.
The dark past of Northern Ireland, known as The Troubles, between Catholics and Protestants, decades of blood, fire and division, a seemingly
impossible situation, actually found a resolution on April 10th, 1998, in the Good Friday agreement.
Sealed with an iconic handshake and creating a peace that despite it all still stands to this day. Surely an inspirational lesson for the people
and the leaders of Israel and Palestine today.
That is it for our program tonight. And remember you can always see the whole show online at amanpour.com, and follow me on Facebook and Twitter.
Thank you for watching and goodbye from London.
END
