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Amanpour
Interview with Former Egyptian Foreign Minister Nabil Fahmy; Interview with International Crisis Group Director of Iran Project Ali Vaez; Interview with "The Teacher" Director Farah Nabulsi; Interview with "The Teacher" Actor Saleh Bakri; Interview with "Bone of the Bone" Author Sarah Smarsh. Aired 1-2p ET
Aired September 30, 2024 - 13:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[13:00:00]
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Hello, everyone, and welcome to "Amanpour." Here's what's coming up.
As Israel keeps up the attacks across the Middle East, what will the endgame be? We discuss the strategy of assassinations.
And, how will Iran react as Israel delivers battlefield blows to its proxies? I ask expert Ali Vaiz to explain. Senior adviser at the
International Crisis Group.
Then, the new film putting a human face on what's at the heart of this decades long war, the struggle for Palestinian rights and statehood.
Director Farah Nabulsi and actor Saleh Bakri discussed "The Teacher."
Also, ahead --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SARAH SMARSH, AUTHOR, "BONE OF THE BONE": It feels like maybe you're growing the food or extracting the resources that are fueling other
people's lives who are looking down on you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: -- a daughter of working-class America challenges people's preconceptions. Sarah Smash talks to Michelle Martin about her new book,
"Bone of the Bone."
Welcome to the program, everyone. I'm Christiane Amanpour in London. The next stage of the war against Hezbollah will start soon, those are the
words of the Israeli defense minister, Yoav Gallant, while his country conducts reconnaissance and other ground raids inside Lebanon right now,
according to the United States.
Washington says any ground invasion could be more limited than originally thought. Of course, the U.S. had confidently announced a 21-day ceasefire
proposal between Israel and Hezbollah last week, just days before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the IDF to assassinate Hassan
Nasrallah, the head of Hezbollah. The Israelis attributed this disconnect to an honest misunderstanding.
But will Israel's decapitation of Hezbollah in Lebanon actually ratchet the war down? Not if the past is anything to go by, while Israel has dealt
blows to many of its foes since it was attacked by Hamas a year ago, it also has had a long history of assassinations.
Just look at some of these figures taken out since Benjamin Netanyahu became prime minister in 1996. Targets in Gaza, in Syria, in Beirut, and
the Hamas leader, Ismail Haniyeh, in Tehran just this past July. And yet, war continues to flare periodically and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict at
the heart of all of this remains unresolved.
Joining me now on this situation is Nabil Fahmy. He's the former Egyptian foreign minister and only one of two Arab countries that have a peace
treaty with Israel. Foreign Minister Fahmy, welcome to the program.
Could I just start by asking you what goes through your mind when you hear the IDF or the defense minister say that the next stage of the war against
Hezbollah is at hand?
NABIL FAHMY, FORMER EGYPTIAN FOREIGN MINISTER: Well, it's not anything that surprises me because, regrettably, for decades now, the only real tool
that Israel has used in trying to deal with conflict in the region has been force. They have -- they choose tactics, but they never have a real
strategy.
And I want, if I may, to emphasize here, this has really dangerous consequences on the region, and even on the security of Israel.
AMANPOUR: Let me -- yes, sorry. Go ahead.
FAHMY: On the region, we get more and more -- and I had this discussion this morning here in Cairo with some people. I was asked, do you really
believe Israel wants peace? Is this the way to move peace forward? So, even in a country, the first country to have peace with Israel, the question is
being raised now, are the Israelis really in favor of peace?
[13:05:00]
My second point is the real threat to Israel security is from within the occupied territories and within Israel itself. Because in occupation of
Palestinian territory -- of Palestinian Territories. And my third and last point, and I'll allow you to go to your next question, is you very
correctly referred to, in your introduction, that these kinds of actions have consequences. Hezbollah, that Israel targeted this last couple of
days, it actually emerged immediately after the Israeli attacks against Lebanon in '82, that's when Hezbollah emerged.
So, let's be serious here. We in Egypt and Arabs want peace, but the Israelis have to prove that they want peace, not only want to prevail over
the region by force.
AMANPOUR: Let me just put the counternarrative to you that, I understand what you say about strategy versus tactics, but clearly, Israel has really
sort of done almost like a 180 since October 7th, when it was at its lowest point, its military and its intelligence had been breached by Hamas. And
now, most analysts are saying that it's dealing very significant blows. It has to Hamas, it has to Hezbollah, it is to Iran and to Syria. Would you
agree for this moment that Netanyahu has reversed his fortunes?
FAHMY: Yes, I do think that within Israel itself. You see now much more in a positive sense than in a negative sense, but I don't believe that he's
changed tactics, because you've had a conflict for over 70 years. So, this episode of violence and counterviolence is simply a tactic in this process.
We want to end violence at all sides and achieve peace. You cannot achieve that without dealing with the cancer in the issue, the occupation itself.
AMANPOUR: Can I just talk again about the policy of targeted assassinations just, I mean, basically assassinations, which, let's not
forget, have also killed a lot of civilians, according to the authorities on the ground.
We've put up a picture of many who had been assassinated over the last 30 odd years. And one of those who Israel attempted to assassinate was Khaled
Meshaal, and that was in the '90s. And basically, the Mossad agents had tried to inject a poison into his ear, and apparently did. But when King
Hussein, the king of Jordan at the time, got wind of it, he demanded Netanyahu send the antidote to Jordan because that's where Meshaal was, and
that actually saved Meshaal's life.
Here is a fragment of an interview about that, that I had with Khaled Mashal in Egypt back in 2012. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KHALED MESHAAL, THEN-HAMAS POLITICAL LEADER (through translator): But God saved me when they tried to assassinate me.
AMANPOUR: King Hussein saved you?
MESHAAL: Allah saved me, then King Hussein.
AMANPOUR: King Hussein demanded the poison and the antidote.
MESHAAL (through translator): This, and this is a standing that's great on the part of King Hussein. I'm still loyal to him and I pray for him. And I
am obliged for this courageous stance that forced Netanyahu to give the antidote. And thank God I was healed. But I mention this in the vein of the
Israeli crime.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: Foreign Minister Fahmy, I bring that up because he's one of the rare ones who got away, so to speak, and is still a Hamas leader. I guess I
want to ask you again, what do you think will be the result of killing somebody as powerful as Nasrallah, the result on Hezbollah, the result on
Iran even, the result on the region?
FAHMY: You will have more opposition groups like Hamas, like Hezbollah, and you will also now pursuing a very forceful assassination policy, but
also a policy where you don't draw no distinction whatsoever between civilians and competence. What you're going to have is the reaction. It's
not going to be (INAUDIBLE), it's really going to bring the conflict back to the people.
And when I say back to the people, I mean, civilians, and that's going to actually be not only in the Arab territories, but actually within it within
Israel. And that's a very dangerous consequence on either side.
[13:10:00]
AMANPOUR: And Gaza is on your border, obviously. Rafah is the border there. And obviously, you and Qatar and others, including the United States
have been trying to get a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.
Can you tell me whether that's, at all, likely, is it still in the offing, and whether you think Hamas has been materially weakened? It clearly has. I
mean, there's been a lot of the fighters killed, Sinwar we haven't heard of from a long time And clearly, Haniyeh was killed. What do you think? How do
you judge the state of Hamas right now?
FAHMY: Well, there's no question that the very strong force used by Israel, without any accountability, be that against Hamas or civilians, has
had an effect on the whole structure of Hamas in Gaza. But that being said, this is only -- this most recent phase of the process. The issue I'm making
is the more you use force, even though you may feel you're getting some immediate security, you're actually creating more opposition down the road
that you had in the past, and that's what the history books tell you over and over again.
The only way forward for security for Arabs and Israelis is to achieve a two-state solution.
AMANPOUR: And that I have to say, as you know, better than I do, seems further and further away because this current Israeli prime minister has
dismissed that out of hand. So, we'll see how that goes in the future. But for now, Foreign Minister Nabil Fahmy, thank you very much indeed.
So, what about Iran? How does it understand the elimination of its main regional ally, Hassan Nasrallah? The U.S. is raising the alarm about a
possible revenge attack by Tehran on Israel.
For more now, I am joined by Ali Vaez. He's director of the Iran Project at the International Crisis Group. Ali Vaez, welcome back to the program. So,
let me just ask you flat out, you know, everybody's been waiting for the so-called Iranian response after the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh on
Iran's territory itself. It hasn't happened, and Iran has been signaling some kind of restraint while it was at the U.N. What do you think is going
to happen now?
ALI VAEZ, DIRECTOR OF IRAN PROJECT, INTERNATIONAL CRISIS GROUP: It's great to be back with you, Christiane. Look, the reality is that Iran's options
really range from on palatable to outright ugly. In the same way that it faced similar options when Haniyeh, it was killed in the sense that if Iran
does respond directly or even indirectly, it might actually provide justification for Israel to expand the war, which is one thing that Iran
has not wanted.
And if it's directly involved, Iran is directly involved, and causes death and destruction on Israeli soil, then it has provided cause a spell eye for
Israel to strike Iran directly. And this is a much stronger, superior military power backed by the world's number one superpower militarily. And
so, this is a big risk for the Iranians.
But if they don't respond they also, first of all, risk losing face and credibility. Their alliance system basically boils down to all for one and
one for none. And that's also very dangerous for the Iranians. And I think they -- looking back at the pattern of the past few months and the fact
that they didn't respond to Haniyeh's killing and decided to demonstrate that restraint has clearly demonstrated that Israel has got the wrong
lesson and has continued to push the envelope. So, I think there is some serious rethinking happening in Tehran now.
AMANPOUR: Let me play you a bit of an interview, an excerpt, that I conducted with Javad Zarif in New York just before -- literally two days
before Nasrallah was assassinated. And he also sort of reiterated that they don't want to be -- I think he used the word entrapped by Israel into going
-- you know, to incurring another war. Here's what he said. I want you to talk about it afterwards.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MOHAMMAD JAVAD ZARIF, IRANIAN VICE PRESIDENT FOR STRATEGIC AFFAIRS: Iran has exercised restraint when Israel conducted military operations against
Iran, conducted terrorist operations, killing the leader of Hamas who was attending the inauguration of our president, of all things, and we exercise
restraint.
We believe that Hezbollah is capable of defending itself. It has been exercising restraint in not doing so. It is the responsibility of the
International Community to come in before Hezbollah has to take its defense into its own hands, and maybe the situation will get out of hand at that
time.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[13:15:00]
AMANPOUR: So, you see, I mean, clearly putting the onus for retaliation, in any event, on Hezbollah and not suggesting it would get involved. But
does there come a point, as you were saying, where Iran is forced, I guess for the whole deterrent reason, that Israel has been going at it since
October 7th? It was said it needed to re-establish deterrence. First, do you think it has re-established deterrence, Israel? And does Iran have to
counter established deterrence or not?
VAEZ: Well, Iran's deterrence is clearly in ruins right now. And this is why, I think, there is a rethink happening in Tehran because they believe
that the policy of demonstrating restraint, as the former foreign minister was saying, which was based on this logic that Israel wants to goad them
into a trap that would then result in pulling the United States into a direct confrontation with Iran has only turned out to be a trap that they
didn't expect, a trap that Israel has now effectively managed to cut Iran's hands in the Levant and completely dismantle Hezbollah's leadership in ways
that was very difficult to imagine.
But none of this changes the fundamentals, Christiane, which is that, at the end of the day, Hezbollah and all of these other groups were supposed
to be the shields that would protect Iran, not the other way around. And that is why, I think, the optional preference for Iran, even under the
current circumstances, would be to try to regroup and rehabilitate Hezbollah.
We know, of course, Hezbollah's capabilities have been diminished as a result of Israeli strikes. We don't know if they have been completely
depleted. But whatever remains of Hezbollah's formidable capacities, if they want to use it, probably Iranians would come to the conclusion that
it's a question of now or never. And that would be Iran's option of choice rather than getting into a direct conflict with the U.S. and Israel itself.
AMANPOUR: Can I ask you what you make of the United States amidst all of this? I mean, it's been unable, as I put to the foreign minister -- former
foreign minister of Egypt, to have a ceasefire, to broker a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel. It clearly didn't stop Israel from its operations
in Lebanon. And it looks like there's going to be an actual ground war in Lebanon, which the U.S. is basically confirming and so, have the Israeli
defense minister.
Is this a rare time? And therefore, is it dangerous that the U.S. has not been able to have any influence on any of the actors in that region?
VAEZ: Well, it's absolutely disastrous for the Biden administration's policies because they have constantly warned Israel against pushing the
envelope too far. And Israel has ignored the U.S.' advice and has continued to escalate tensions.
It is true that Israel has been able to get away with it, and some of the warnings that the Biden administration had about the adverse consequences
of Israeli actions have not materialized. But that is exactly the circumstances that create overconfidence and result and overreach, which
would then eventually backfire.
And remember, Israel is historically very good at winning tactically, but the Iranians are very good at winning strategically and playing the long
game. And there's another consideration here that I think is really important to take into account. The more Prime Minister Netanyahu succeeds
in weakening Iran's regional deterrence, the more he fails by pushing Iran towards the ultimate deterrent, and that is nuclear weapons. And given
Iran's proximity to nuclear weapons capability, this is a particularly dangerous moment. And unfortunately, again, the Biden administration is
completely absent in all of these discussions because it has proven to be the junior partner in its relationship with its strongest ally in the
region, Israel.
AMANPOUR: Oh, that's going to sting. That's going to sting the U.S. foreign policy establishment. But let me just say this. I obviously asked
Zarif about it, and he said, quote, "We do not want to break out because we have a -- you know, have decided that it's just not in our interest and we
will not augment our security."
I know they're much closer to it, but what did you learn from the presence of President Pezeshkian and the others, a new president in New York? Did
you have any -- you know, have you been able to absorb anything from what they're thinking? I mean, there was even one quote, I don't know whether
it's true, but it's been quoted, that he said that he was potentially ready to lay down arms if Israel does the same. Is that even likely that he did
say that?
[13:20:00]
VAEZ: Well, it's on tape and he said something along those lines, but mostly in a kind of a conceptual discussion. But the reality is that this
is an administration in Iran that is very open engagement with the west and is very keen on getting some sort of economic reprieve even in the form of
very narrow, limited transactional deals with the west.
I think the problem that they have, and they probably got a better understanding of it, in this week of diplomatic speed dating in New York,
was that some of Iran's objectives are in conflict with one another. It's very hard to get sanctions relief from the west when you're on the opposite
side of the west, it gets to the war in Ukraine, because Iran is assisting Russia, or you're on the opposite side of the United States when it gets to
tensions in the Middle East.
And of course, Nasrallah's killing has just sharpened all of these choices for the Iranians, but I think they are -- at least until last week, they
were desperate for some sort of a nuclear deal, which now is in question. Because as of days ago, there's a lot of discussion internally and a lot of
voices are calling for Iran to weaponize its nuclear program as the only viable shield against Israeli assertive actions against them and their
allies in the Middle East.
AMANPOUR: All right. Ali Vaez, thank you so much, indeed.
Now, getting back to the huge issue at the heart of all of this, there have been tens of thousands of civilians killed by Israel after the October 7th
attacks by Hamas. But too often, the human stories at the heart of this crisis go unreported. But my next guest, the director, Farah Nabulsi, has
tried to give them a voice with her new film. It's called "The Teacher." And it's about a Palestinian man named Basem, who turned away from
militancy to become an English teacher. But when one of his pupils sees his brother murdered by a settler, events begin to spin out of control. Here's
a little bit of the trailer.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: -- United Nations. Hello, Ms. Lisa. Welcome to our home.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You're not confined in that prison anymore.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): You're the brains, I'm the muscle.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You have to finish school. Yacoub, please, man.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): Sons of bitches. They're setting fire to the olives.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: And writer-director Farah Nabulsi joins us with the star of the film, Saleh Bakri. He is the teacher himself. Welcome to the program.
A really dramatic telling of the heart of this situation. What actually caused you to take this issue and make a film about it?
FARAH NABULSI, DIRECTOR, "THE TEACHER": So, Christiane, I'm Palestinian by heritage, by blood born, raised, educated in the U.K. here, but I travel to
Palestine a lot, and I've witnessed with my own eyes, as well as spoken with dozens and dozens of Palestinians who've experienced firsthand much of
the Palestinian cruel, absurd things that take place in the screenplay, such as Palestinian children being processed through Israeli military
detention or home demolitions or illegal Israeli settler violence and vandalism, and compelled to tell these stories and lend my artistic
expression to them.
As well as a story I came across during my travels, and I distinctly remember the U.K. media, maybe even yourself covering this, when an Israeli
occupation soldier, Gilad Shalit, was captured in 2006. And in 2011, he was released for over 1,000 Palestinian political prisoners, hundreds of whom
were women and children, hundreds of whom were being held in administrative detention without trial or charge.
And at the time, I just thought this was an insane imbalance in value for human life. Never could I have imagined though that that imbalance in value
for human life would be so exponentially magnified at the time of this film's release where we have hundreds of thousands of Palestinians killed,
maimed, burned, blinded, nearly 2 million displays.
So, that imbalance in value for human life, I don't know. I don't know where we stand with that.
AMANPOUR: And when was the film shot? Obviously, way before October 7th, right? You're Palestinian yourself.
SALEH BAKRI, ACTOR, "THE TEACHER": Of course.
AMANPOUR: Do you live in the occupied West Bank?
[13:25:00]
BAKRI: No, I live in Palestine, 1948, which is -- which became Israel today.
AMANPOUR: OK. So, what made you want to do this film? What was your experience of the human stories that maybe your own family, friends, had
experienced?
BAKRI: We are living in Palestine, and Palestine is scattered, is -- we are not able to live a normal life. Meaning, we cannot move in our own
homeland freely. It means if I want to work with people from Gaza, I cannot. With artists from Gaza, I cannot. I never been to Gaza. If I want
to work with the artists from the West Bank, they cannot get to where I live because they need a permit from the Israeli army and usually, artists
don't want to get permits from armies. They want to be free and they are fighting for being free.
So, this is where I live and I experienced that every day, like every day in the morning, I wake up and in my mind, well, I'm still here, the
occupation is still there and I'm living that.
So, people in the world, people who doesn't experience occupation, they don't think of that. They go, they wake up in the morning, they have a new
day to live. When I wake up in the morning, I think, OK, another day, I need to get -- you know, get myself prepared for another day.
AMANPOUR: So, every day is a battle for survival?
BAKRI: Every day. It's a constant fight.
AMANPOUR: So, Farah, it's really interesting that you build a story around a teacher. Everybody can identify with the teacher all over the world. Two
boys, teenagers, everybody can identify with that. They have the home, which they see demolished, and they see their mother in distress, and they
have an olive grove, which is their financial lifeline, which then gets burnt down by a settler.
And I think that we have -- OK. So, let me play this this clip, because this is about the house demolition.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): Move. So, we can do our job.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): Your job?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): And you want us to pay?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): Yacoub. Adam.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): I'm not moving from here. I won't let you -- destroy our home.
BAKRI: Boys, enough now.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): Teach?
BAKRI: Today, at this moment, there's nothing any of us can do to stop this. Understand? Yacoub? You have barely been out a year. Losing this
house is nothing compared to the loss of either of you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: So, Farah, you have written the story for "The Teacher" to disadvise revenge because it's just going to be worse. What caused you to
write that dialogue like that? What made you create this man who's obviously seen terrible things as well try to get the kids to do it
differently?
NABULSI: I think the word differently, this is a film about It's about the love of a parent, and it's about the pursuit of justice. And it's a deeply
human story that is centered around these specific characters that is set in this brutal, violent reality of military occupation and colonization and
apartheid.
So, I'm more interested in the human dynamics. I'm interested in the real- life conditions and circumstances that drive people to take the actions they take and make the decisions they make rather than, you know, branding
them. The socio political that you see that the home demolitions and so forth is present and integral to the story. But my focus is on the
personal.
AMANPOUR: So, I'm just going to read some of the stats that we have, which is that, you know, since October 7th, there's been a massive uptake in
house demolitions, in violence by settlers and the military against Palestinians on, you know, Palestinian civilians who've had to flee.
Apparently, it's really got what we've seen.
NABULSI: Well, prior to October 7th, it was an all-time high. And now --
AMANPOUR: Yes. And now, it's an all-time, all-time high. Yes. Settler violence increased after -- you know, after the right-wing came in by a
huge percentage. Incidents, you know, in the week post-October 7th were 40 percent higher than the height just before.
[13:30:00]
But one of the most dramatic scenes is when you -- I think you come across the fire in the olive grove and the two boys are trying to -- Adam and
Yacoub are trying to get the settlers to stop burning down their olive groves. I want to play that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): Sons of bitches. The olives. They'et setting to the olives.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: So, that there is the crime -- well, the beginning of the crime, and then something else happens. Are you -- are we allowed to say what
happens there?
NABULSI: Yes, it's in the trailer.
AMANPOUR: We are, right?
NABULSI: Yes.
AMANPOUR: Because it's not the full, full spoiler alert. So, the older brother who's trying to stop the settlers from burning their olive grove
gets shot by a settler. And your character is trying to -- you know, trying to help those boys. What goes through your mind now, because I saw you
looking very closely, and I know it took you a long time to actually see the whole film?
BAKRI: Well, I was thinking that this olive trees, it's our land. It's the Palestinian land. And it was all stolen and it was all burned. And there is
no peace since it is a symbol of peace. There's no peace in Palestine since it was stolen. And for -- and the people were forced to leave.
Now, you know, I long -- I'm longing for, like most of the Palestinian people, for us to return back to our homeland and to live together with the
Israelis who are there in peace and in this and in a decent life and with dignity, you know.
And when I see this scene I think of the whole tragedy and, you know, I cannot also distinct my personal pain as a Palestinian from the collective
pain. And it is in me wherever I go. And what I do, I do life. I do -- this is the culture of life in front of the culture of death that is spread by a
ruthless regime.
AMANPOUR: There are a lot of twists and turns, but just picking up on what Saleh just said about trying to live in peace and dignity with Israeli
neighbors. You bring a story thread into this film, which is actually about, I believe, an American Jewish family whose son has come to Israel,
joined the IDF, and now he's kidnapped.
And the teacher's character, who's also a father, who also has a tragedy with his son, which I'm not going to say right now, communicates in a
hallway with this American Jewish father who's trying to get his son back. And you have them say something actually really remarkable. Well, I think
it's remarkable. You know --
NABULSI: The entire conversation?
AMANPOUR: The entire conversation, but the American and the Jewish American expresses sorrow for the Palestinian father. And the Palestinian
father says, well, I'm sure he'll -- you know, he'll be released your son because they value, you know, thousands of ours against one of yours.
NABULSI: Yes, they'll keep him alive. And he says, how do you know that? He says, because they know that your people believe your son is worth a
thousand of mine.
AMANPOUR: Right. So, that was, A, you made a point. But, B, you did bring in the other side a little bit, because you can see that there is on -- you
know, in many occasions, another dimension.
NABULSI: You know, when I came across this story of Gilad Shalit, yes, I thought, what an insane imbalance of value for human life, but I also
remember thinking to myself, well, to that individual's, parents, their loved ones, what are they worth? You know, if I ask you what your child is
worth or my child is worth, we say the world, metaphorically, right? So, at the end of the day, I remember thinking that as well.
And when one is providing a sort of humanity to your own characters, I don't see the need to dehumanize anyone else in the process, in my
filmmaking process. So, I was very interested in that dynamic, in that parallel of two fathers.
[13:35:00]
But at the same time, bear in mind, what I also found interesting was the fact that in the case of Basem, his loss is irrevocable, it's irreversible
and he has no recourse for justice. In the case of Simon Cohen, the father, he has a power behind him. He has the government behind him. He has agency.
And in the end, he's OK as it were.
Whereas for Basem and most Palestinians, unfortunately, no matter how big the crime or how big the loss, when the people you need to turn to for
justice are one and the same and complicit in the crime in the first place, the system is perverted.
AMANPOUR: There's a very, very powerful scene inside an Israeli court, which the Palestinians only have access to, and the killing of the brother
is just dismissed. They just say no proof, no case, no investigation, no nothing. And we've heard so many Israeli human rights organizations, you
know, write and report that there is no justice, no equal justice for Palestinians.
NABULSI: Exactly.
AMANPOUR: But can I just ask you, finally, what do you hope people will take away from this? What do you want the ordinary viewer, the moviegoer,
to know?
BAKRI: Not to give up, to continue the fight, to resist, to know that there is always a hope. And we say in Arabic -- there is no right. We don't
lose a right if we are asking for it, if we continuously asking for this right. So, we are not going to stop, and we're going to continue resisting
and doing this work, for me, this work.
This is what I do. This is why -- this is the resistance I know to do. And I hope we continue resistance until we get our rights back.
AMANPOUR: In the meantime, it's so important to have these stories, which so few people, because even journalists now are heavily restricted, even on
the Occupied West Bank. Just finally, do you have a distributor? Have you been able to sell this film?
NABULSI: We have distributors in various countries. Unfortunately, this is a British Palestinian film and we do not have a distributor in the U.K. and
Ireland. So, at the moment with the cinema release, it's self-distributed. But I think it's such a pertinent film at this moment in time.
AMANPOUR: And the British Film Institute, the film festival is happening in the next week. Is it entered?
NABULSI: No, we've done all our festivals and now, it's the cinema release. So, yes.
AMANPOUR: Well, good luck. It's a really touching, emotive story. Really interesting.
NABULSI: Thank you.
AMANPOUR: Thank you so much.
BAKRI: Thank you.
AMANPOUR: Thank you both very much for being in. "The Teacher," which is now out in cinemas across the U.K. and Ireland.
NABULSI: Yes.
AMANPOUR: It is. So, in the United States, Storm Helene has sown destruction in the rural Midwest, across poverty struck Appalachia, life-
threatening flooding leaving residents in limbo. White working-class regions like these have been stereotypically attached to the Republican
MAGA movement. But our next guest says the picture is far more complex. Author Sarah Smarsh tells Michel Martin about her latest book, "Bone of the
Bone."
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MICHEL MARTIN, CONTRIBUTOR: Thanks, Christiane. Sarah Smarsh, thank you so much for joining us once again.
SARAH SMARSH, AUTHOR, "BONE OF THE BONE": Thanks for having me back, Michel.
MARTIN: We last talked with you about your memoir, "Heartland," and now, you're back with a collection of essays, things that you've written about
over the course of 10 years. Is there a through line? Is there a connecting tissue among those two?
SMARSH: Well, for sure they're of a piece. And while this new collection, "Bone of the Bone," involves the last essayist and journalist, I actually,
for more like 20 years, have been writing about, indeed, the common theme between "Heartland" and this new book, which is socioeconomic class, which,
to my mind, remains an under discussed and maybe poorly articulated aspect of the American experience.
So, I've been talking about that, writing about that for a long time, has a lot to do with where I come from, and this collection is a different form
but very much the same message.
MARTIN: As you pointed out, we don't tend to talk about class in this country in the way that people in other countries do. So, do you remember
when you first figured out that there was this thing about class and that it did affect your life?
SMARSH: I do. So, growing up, my fifth-generation wheat farm in Kansas, where I was raised, was technically below the poverty line, as we say. So,
indeed, we were poor by federal measures. I never would have used that word to describe myself because we had enough to eat and we had a roof over our
head. There's a lot of work that went into keeping those two things true and a lot of precarity about those situations.
[13:40:00]
But nonetheless, you know, I wouldn't have considered myself, quote/unquote, "poor." When I left the farm to become a first-generation
college student, even at a state university I found that, you know, I was rubbing elbows with kids who they got a car for high school graduation from
their parents or, you know, their parents sent them checks and were paying their way. I couldn't find a word for it. And not only that, but while I
did get academic scholarships and I, you know, got a Pell Grant because of our income and all that, nonetheless, there -- my identity itself was often
presumed to be economic privilege along with the racial privilege. One of those certainly true and the other one was not so much. So, I found that
the language was lacking.
MARTIN: One of the things that I always really noticed about this book that I maybe -- I don't know that I really saw as much in "Heartland," but
I feel like I definitely see it, and this is the rage. There's a lot of anger at being ignored. There's a lot of anger at being kind of
misrepresented. Do you feel that -- you think that's true?
SMARSH: Well, I think it's true, certainly. I would like to think and hope that -- because for me, this would be a mark of good writing that there's a
controlled fury about it, if you will. I've already done the thinking through and processing of what I believe to be true that I'm then conveying
with, as you say, sort of like the rage or the anger and the fire that was -- that relates to my early life experiences and the -- today, you know,
the poverty and disadvantages that my loved ones and family face still.
I do think that the earlier pieces, the book is structured chronologically from 2013 to present. And I think that the -- in the earlier pieces there's
more of that emotional component specifically.
MARTIN: One of the things that you write about is the difficulty of writing about the so-called white working class and just how hard it is to
have gotten these pieces published and seen, you know, and out there. And I wonder -- and, you know, you have a lot of -- you know, you speculate about
a lot of the reasons why that might be. But I do wonder whether the kind of the rise of Donald Trump as a national figure. Are more people interested
in your work because of it or does it cut in another way, in a way, kind of reinforcing some of the things that make you crazy?
SMARSH: Right. Yes. Yes, I do. I think it cuts in all sorts of ways. For sure class and specifically the white working class, the white working poor
is now, you know, a kind of fixture in headlines as a concept or a demographic or a term, and it is specifically because that political
movement and that political figure has artfully and successfully leveraged, you know, political tools of manipulation, in my view, to, you know, garner
a shift to the right among that group in terms of voting habits.
There is, I believe, a kind of convenient obsession with that particular group in our national discourse that diverts attention away from the people
I'm really mad at, which is people who have immense power, people who are - - you know, you might call them the puppet masters of our political moment, you might call them mediocre people who have billions of dollars and a
little moral compass, whether it's corporations or the factions behind dark money or -- you know, I'm interested in, yes, we absolutely should be
talking about that very dangerous political movement that is MAGA and how it came to be and why it is.
The -- what I'm interested in talking about, where my anger is, is upward, toward the top, the very top, the top of the pot, top. At a moment of
historic wealth inequality that hurts everyone, not just those white working-class people, and of course, the working -- there's another issue
is that the working class, of course, is itself racially diverse and diverse in every way.
So, it has brought that -- the term to the fore in ways that it was missing from our discussion previously, but in ways that I believe are problematic
and misleading.
[13:45:00]
MARTIN: So, let's talk about that. I was struck by one of the essays, it's called -- that you wrote for The New York Times, it's called "Liberal Blind
Spots are Hiding the Truth." So, why don't you pick up from there and just read a little bit from that essay, if you would.
SMARSH: Sure. Most struggling whites I know live lives of quiet desperation, feeling angry at their white bosses, not at their co-workers
or neighbors of color. My dad's previous three bosses were all white men he loathed for abuses of privilege and people, including himself. It is unfair
power that my dad despises. The last rant I heard him on was not about race or immigration, but about the recent royal wedding, this piece from 2018,
the spectacle of which made him sick.
What's so special about the royals? He told me over the phone from a cheap motel after working construction hundreds of miles from home. But they'll
get the best health care, the best education, the best food. Meanwhile, I'm in Marion, Arkansas. All I want is some chickens and a garden and a place
to go fishing once in a while.
What my father seeks is not a return to times that were worse for women and people of color, but progress toward a society in which everyone can get
by, including his white college educated son who graduated into the Great Recession and for 10 years sold his own plasma for gas money.
MARTIN: Yes, and you go on to point out just how -- I don't know what word to use, integrated, you know, diverse, your dad's circle is. I mean, he
works with people from all different backgrounds. But how then do you explain, you know, the appeal of somebody like Trump? I mean, somebody
who's rich, somebody whose dad was rich. How do you explain the appeal?
SMARSH: It's hard to do it because, you know, as that passage bears witness to, you know, my family and my immediate community have not -- we
don't get it either. You know, there was an idea about 20 years ago, a book came out called "What's the Matter with Kansas" by Thomas Frank. That hot
button cultural or social issues had been leveraged or seized by the far- right or, you know, conservative movements to convince some people to, quote/unquote, "vote against their own best interests in economic terms,"
and that might be abortion or other kind of cultural and social topics.
It never quite sat well with me, and the notion seems to suggest that people are stupid. I know they ain't stupid. I think it's more like this,
if we're talking about a place and the people who have been on the losing end, in a lot of ways, simultaneous with in the case of white voters,
racial privilege, I would say that the Democratic Party, for a few decades, didn't have much of a ground game, if you will, in those places.
And there's the Electoral College results in strategic use of resources, where are we going to invest and where are we not? And, you know, I'm in my
mid-40s and I've never experienced a Democrat knocking on my door during a campaign season. So, that's one.
And then, at that precise moment, let's say during my '80s childhood, the Reagan era or even into the '90s, during my adolescence, all of a sudden,
I'm hearing on radio stations, on those long drives down country highways, Rush Limbaugh or conservative talk radio, then following from that was Fox
News and now, of course, our social media era, there are messages that have co-opted the terms and the symbols of that place to somehow suggest that a
rural identity means these particular political ideas or that those things are synonymous.
That was -- that's intentional. It's been successful. If nobody's looking at you, it's -- it feels like an invalidation. It feels like you're unseen.
It feels like maybe you're growing the food or extracting the resources that are fueling other people's lives who are looking down on you while
you're doing that work and nobody's talking to you.
And then, if somebody shows up and talks to you and looks right at you, even if it's a bunch of lies and just, you know, to my mind, a horrifying
message, we are -- politics is an emotional business. It's not necessarily so rational as it is felt. And I think that's true across party lines in a
lot of ways.
MARTIN: Is anything getting better when it comes to the things that have made you crazy all these years?
[13:50:00]
SMARSH: I think so. I really think that even though, you know, I just got done telling you all the ways I think we don't talk about class necessarily
productively, at least we're talking about it, kind of, ish. And I would say that, you know, that's an improvement over the big void that I sensed
as that first-generation college student in 1998 going like, I don't even have a word for what's going on here, but there's something.
So, I believe we have begun that conversation and we're new at it. We're early. We need a -- just a diverse spate of people and experiences and
professions to figure out how to do it, to improve the language. But yes, I think we're -- we've begun the journey and that is heartening to me.
MARTIN: You've certainly done your part with your work. Some people might argue, so has J. D. Vance. He came to fame because of his own memoir,
"Hillbilly Elegy," which then was made into a movie. And now, he's, you know, become, you know, an important public figure, candidate for the vice
presidency. Whether he wins that job or not, he's in the United States Senate, right? I'm just curious about what you make of him.
SMARSH: Right. When you asked about if the Trump era, if you will, had sort of been a boon for me professionally, in terms of like, are now, are
people more interested in what you have to say sort of thing, actually, I turned down a lot of invitations right around that moment with that the
"Hillbilly Elegy" was -- had come out, to be a sort of Trump whisperer, if you will. Because the -- it wasn't my message. It wasn't right to me. Let
alone I didn't know how to explain it myself.
And so, I do think that, you know, pretty clearly, he kind of found a groove in that sense and then wrote it into politics, with a capital P, for
-- as his own professional shift. That book always had a lot of red flags in it for me.
MARTIN: Because why?
SMARSH: Yes. So, I don't begrudge anybody, even if I don't agree with their politics, he's telling his story about where he came from. And I was
like, you know, cheering for anybody that they beat the odds to have their story told. That said, it did strike me as kind of a conservative polemic,
particularly toward the end of the book.
What felt to me like a lot of finger wagging at the very place that he comes from and the people that he comes from, penning their, you know, poor
outcomes or negative life circumstances on their own decisions with some sort of moral framework relating to character, as someone who I've never --
I've always rejected the narrative about getting out, so to speak.
You know, I have been very fortunate to -- in my career. But I live in rural Kansas today and I went back with an intention to write about and
document, that space and experience not in the rearview mirror, and it seemed to me like he was writing a story about the pain and that's real
about where he came from, but also, with a very specific framework about you get what you deserve kind of felt like what was an undercurrent or an
underpinning, and I don't know if that's fair or not, but it's how it struck me. And that does kind of correlate more with the conservative
politics, in my view.
So, I'm not all that surprised that he went into -- that he sought elected office and that he's now, you know, kind of exemplar of that kind of
conservative, I don't want to say appropriation of, but claiming of certain symbols as though country or blue jeans or cowboy boots means a certain set
of beliefs. I know firsthand that that's not true, even on my own dirt road.
MARTIN: Well, so before we let you go, who are you hoping will find your book?
SMARSH: You know, it's always lovely if someone says -- and you might appreciate this as a professional communicator, if someone says, I read
this and now, my eyes are open to this thing that I didn't know before. Boy, does that make my heart sing.
But the thing that really is just the most moving and gratifying for me is if it's someone for whom -- it's not that they didn't know about this thing
now they know, it's that they always knew this thing, and nobody said it for them, and now, they feel seen in some way for having read it.
[13:55:00]
You know, there's kind of an old writing adage, like, write the thing that you wish existed, or that you would like to read yourself. And "Heartland"
and then this collection, "Bone of the Bone," these are messages and ideas that that I didn't access, weren't available to me as a kid in a struggling
rural space. And so, if now someone in that space feels seen, that would be my greatest hope.
MARTIN: Sarah Smarsh, thank you so much for talking with us.
SMARSH: Thanks, Michelle. Always a pleasure.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: And finally, remembering a music legend, Kris Kristofferson died on Saturday, aged 88. From the U.S. Army to Oxford University, he had an
incredible career, on the big screen and in music, including releasing the Grammy winning ballad, "Help Me Make it Through the Night," which we want
to leave you with now.
Thanks for watching. Goodbye from London.
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