Christiane Amanpour Discusses the War in Gaza | Salman Rushdie On Freedom of Expression

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See it as shit. International anchor and host of The Amenpor Hour, Please welcome to the program, Christy on Ahmanpor Hello.

Hello, Hi, I wanted to have you. Want to talk to you.

The world is ending, well it seems that way.

Yes, That's why the eclipse was so beautiful today because it looked like it was ending, and yet it brought so many people together in this incredibly divided country.

Honestly was very emotional. It was very emotional.

So just the answer to this is we just got to do this every day now? Yeah? Yeah, I think can't we just protect people? Put something over it and just block it on there?

What is happening? What is the frustration you're working over it? A what is the name CNN?

CNN the big red letters? I've heard you know, really most trusted news.

What that's a new brand? Let me ask you this. We see it on air and everybody's working so hard. What are the journalists behind the scenes talk about as their frustrations, What would they like to see covered, How would they like to see it covered, or are they executing it in the manner at which they think they're satisfied.

Well, here's the thing.

You know, you've been talking a lot about Israel, obviously about Ukraine.

Our major problem covering Israel.

Gaza right now, this phase of it, which has been going on for six months, is that we can't get there. This is an unprecedented situation. Journalists are not on the ground in Gaza, and it is.

Well, they're journalists on the ground there.

You're right, You're right.

I'm talking about independent Western journalists are not able together or anybody else, except for those people who are absolutely risking their lives every single day media workers, journalists. Almost one hundred have been killed according to the CPJ, in Gaza, West Bank and Lebanon in six months. It is an unprecedented situation and it goes beyond the horror of what's happened to those people and their families. It's about telling the story of Gaza, telling the story of the Palestinians.

You know, actual local journalists would.

Tell you about a people, right, a people, not just you know, dehumanizing numbers or.

The like, but a people.

And when we go to do our job, and I've been doing this pretty much since the first Golf War, we go there to be the eyes and ears of everybody who can't go from who's not a local.

But we're not able to get this.

That's an American problem, because it's greatly problem.

They won't No, no, no, no.

I don't mean that.

I mean that we in this country might not be getting the information. But on social media, on various things, or with Al Jazeera, the world is certainly seeing a very different picture than what Western journalism is showing.

That is very true.

And you know, if this terrible law goes through to throw out any organization from Gaza, including Al Jazeera, it would be a terrible thing, yet another chilling effect on trying to tell the truth in this raging war. So this is a real, real problem, and it is true many people do get you know, daily news from social media from actually, as I say, the very brave camera people who are there with their phones and with their cameras, and we're feeding things.

It is remarkable you were covering these types of events from nineteen eighty three. We all remember that was the occupation in southern Lebanon.

It was right the Israelis invaded Beirut. They were after the PLO.

And then there was eleven civil and the rise of Hesbal in that occupation, there was the Islamic Revolution in Iran. We're watching these stories play out redundantly.

Yeah, you know, there's two things.

Obviously, one is that you know, history is not always a great teacher.

But the other is that.

You know, leadership matters, and we are in a crisis of leadership around the world, I genuinely believe. And even as bad as it was in the nineteen nineteen seventy nine, in the eighties and all that, there was a period, let's say, in this part of the world, in the Middle East in the nineties, where there was.

An actual peace process.

Now we can pooh pooh it, we can laugh at it, we can say that it failed, but it failed because the people responsible for enacting it didn't do it and actually sabotaged it.

So there have been instances.

Where peace can be forged, where both sides can come together and it depends on the leaders, you know.

But this will take more than both sides. This isn't even both sides. This will this will have to be a regional piece. Yeah, this is a grinding war with no real I mean the idea is what we're going to do this until we eliminate hamas well. So you're going to just kill everybody? Like what what does that?

Even?

Two? Is there two things? Right?

Israel was attacked on October seventh, the worst single day massacre in its history, and it has the right to defend itself. But right the issue is you stay within the guidelines of international law. So now you heard, you know, America is getting very frustrated and concerned.

We're very concerned.

If Christian if true.

You know, you know we aren't concerned, do you know.

It reminded me of something that happened at the State Department during the Rwanda genocide when a journalist asked the State Department a spokesperson in nineteen ninety four, thirty years ago this week how the woman said there have been acts of genocide committed in Rwanda and the reporter said, well, how many acts of genocide does it take for you to call it a genocide, and she said, I'm not able to respond to that position you're taking.

So, you know, a genocideologist, we have we have an issue with calling what's happening.

Certainly back then.

We have no issue roundly condemning or being very clear with our moral issues and the other side of it. This isn't about the ability to defend yourself. It's not even about the moral issue. It's about efficacy. It's about, you know, after nine to eleven, the vindictiveness in me, the bloodlet like it certainly rose up, but very clearly our response was flawed in its efficacy.

We made a mistake.

And you know that President Biden said that to Prime Ministerness and yeah, who when you went there, So did Lloyd Austin.

So did many mistake.

He was in a position to say that to America after nine to eleven, didn't say that. That's not the position that he took then, and the position was, yeah, let's go into a rhe's going to Afghanistan. You know, it's easy in that retrospect, which is why it feels as though the world order has failed in this moment and I'm surprised at and maybe this isn't really the case, and I'm misrepresenting this, but the passive nature of the Arab States, well.

Look that is a big issue because they have now all rushed to make peace and certain accords with Israel.

The UAE, Morocco, Saudi Arabia was apparently on the verge of doing it, still is working on it.

And I actually have spoken to a lot of Arab leaders and I've said to them, look for all these years, since nineteen forty eight, when the Palestinians left the Nachbar, when they were forced out, when they were chased out, when they voluntarily left, all that what happened, and that's what.

That's what Vagaza is right, the refugees from nineteen.

Forty eight, When are you going to stand up also and take ownership of this problem? Because the Arab states have had Palestinian refugees for you know, pretty much seventy five our is and they've navigating them, I mean, has probably a larger citizenship.

None of them have, because.

Look, they're all terrified of hamasen has Bollot.

The dirty little secret over there is the Islamists that they helped foster through Madrasas and all those other actions. They're scared shitless of They just are.

Yeah, and they would like to see Hamas get a bloody nose, There's no doubt about it.

But people the leadest thing on.

They don't want to count people for people think another thing, and the people are essentially very upset.

The people in that part of the world and over the world are very very long.

Tell me why this is naivel wrong that the Arab states form a DMZ to immediately de escalate this problem. How do they not step in and form some type of guarantee the security of Israel in that moment, guarantee the security of the palesting is and stop this carnage.

So there've been certain plans floated at the moment, the Israeli government wants none of it. It doesn't want the UN, it doesn't want the Arab countries. The only thing that the Prime intery.

Does it not see it's isolation in the world.

That is what its allies are trying to tell it that you had the moral high ground and you are very close, if not having lost it. And this is a problem for Israel because the truth is, as all these people on my show tell me, all the you know, the experts and the analysts and the leaders that if this is actually isn't solved politically, then unfortunately, it will keep happening, this vicious cycle in.

The future of this As you look at when you talked about leadership, then who is the leader that emerges. It's clearly not net Yahoo.

Well, I think the Israeli situation is really interesting because you have two contrasting facts. The overwhelming majority of the country supports the war. They also want their first priority to be their families to come back. They need a ceasefire and you know, a deal to bring their families back. But the overwhelming majority of the Israelis do not support

Be you know, meddling in another country. But nonetheless there has to be electionist by the way.

That's against the rules based world order this thing.

Yeah, and then and then potentially hopefully open up another real possibility of a negotiated solution that's backed by the Arab States, as you mentioned, by the United States, by Europe, by all the vested.

But why is this not the top priority of Why is this not the only session that's going on at the UN? Why is everybody not stopping whatever the hell they're doing and hammering this.

Out, because as you know, the Security Council, there's a lot of people with vetos and things like that. It hasn't got to that point yet. And the big big issue right now is famine stalking Gaza and the told that's mounting and mounting and mounting. And you know, even Josey Andres, the chef who you know so well, after the killing of seven of his you know, workers, he said, I spoke to President Biden and I said, how can you also send weapons and also call for respecting life

And how can we only respond to this tragedy when it's seven Western aid workers that are killed. When you know, when I heard the figure of children over ten thousand unprecedent, I've never.

Heard anything like that.

Pictures, I mean, of.

Course they're haunting and I'm listen for Jews. This is heartbreaking because you know, I don't necessarily have that much of a connection there, But there's this idea that like they're sticking it out for all of us because we're not safe anywhere in the world, which, by the way, if that's the issue, that's kind of a larger problem to begin with.

I think for Israelis, for Jews, for Palestinians, right, crucial is that there has to be real leaders who come once and for all and create a piece. And the most important thing also is to be able to converse and discuss. There is nuance and diversity within communities that is not allowed.

But why is that not allowed today?

Do you have any idea and means what's going to happen? But you always you're always in the thicket.

But I have all these diverse opinions on my program.

That's what I try to do.

I try to bring Israelis, Arabs, Jews, Muslims, all the interested parties in this particular conflict onto my program to talk people who've lost family members, whether it's in Israeli or a Palestinian.

You know, people who've waged peace, who've tried.

To wage peace, whether it's an Israeli mother or a Palestinian mother.

I have them on my program.

Young people who still believe in the peace process, even though it's evaporating before their eyes. They come onto the program, so there is hope. They have to be empowered, these people.

And where's the discussion so much more robust in that part of the world. You know, it's always you can't talk about it in America, but you know where they talk about it Israel.

Yes, yes they do, but to be fair, to be fair, they do. There's very robust arguments going on. But even they on their television are not seeing the full horror of the civilian.

Casualties in Gaza. Is just not They're just not.

So it's very traumatized, as you know. Relatives of the hostages tell me it's still a very traumatized society. And yet I promise you this incredible woman, Sharon Liftshire, she said to me, we Israeli. Sometimes the Arabs look at us as if we're all the same.

We're not.

And we cannot look at Palestinians as if they're all hamas they are not. And for a woman whose parents have been held hostage to be able to say that, and how we must make friends with our enemies otherwise we will keep dying.

But we cannot keep putting the onus on these individuals that governments and nations have to step up and step in because it is all slipping away very rapidly.

And Ukraine is the next one you have to do, because that's a big one. We cannot take our eye off.

No, I thought that was fixed. I think that's I think you check.

I think done, Speaker Johnson.

Maybe I can't even tell you how many times I've called that. Let me let me tell us so, Speaker Johnson, they were doing. There's you know, the Afghan Adjustment Act where they're trying to bring in we were trying to help them get interpreters who helped American troops in Afghanistan, and it was going into this omnibus bill that was going to keep the government open. And I can't tell you how many times I called that office and left messages on them going, hey man, dur to the Daily Show,

Christian, I'm a poor thank you, so much. We're back to the Daily Show.

My guest tonight a world renowned i'm best selling author. His new book is called Knife Meditations After an Attempted Murder. Please, welcome to the program, Salmon Rushdie.

So nice to see you.

Nice to see you.

First question, obviously, how how are you? This was obviously a traumatic experience. How are you feeling?

I'm okay, you know, I mean, surprisingly yes, But sometimes there are good surprises.

This was one.

I'm pretty much recovered, I.

Have to say, and I know this, it's it sounds peculiar to say this because of the traumatic experience that you endured.

I love this book.

It's it's it's a beautiful work of introspection. I feel like I know now how your mind works. You know, I read other of your books, but you really do a wonderful job of taking us through how you think.

Yeah, it's weird how I think. I mean, I have this kind of free associating mind which goes from the moon to a movie, to a book, to a piece of mythology to a joke.

I had to read this book with another book next to me to get just some of the references.

It's but it's it allows you.

You know, sometimes you read an author's memoir and there's a certain self consciousness to it.

But maybe because this is.

About a traumatic incident, I feel like your defenses were down and it was very revelatory.

Yeah, I mean there's a subject, right, I mean, it's what I felt is that it's starts. There's a love story which turns into a murder story, which turns back into a love story.

Yes.

The love story, by the way, is with his wonderful wife, Eliza, who is really the hero maybe of the book.

Yeah.

No, I mean she did a huge amount and I wouldn't be here in good shape without her. And plus she's an amazing writer. Right, is that too, I say, with a certain amount of gritted teeth.

Yes.

Is there a competition in writerly families?

Not really. Actually, one of the nice things about this is there isn't rely enormously supportive of each other's wook.

I thought a really interesting part of the book is spoiler alert at the end when.

You go back to Chittaqua.

Chataqua is the famed community in upstate New York where they bring in speakers and where.

This unfortunate event happened.

Yeah, and you go back to revisit the scene of it, but also the jail where they are holding this person that attacked you.

Yeah, it was a last minute decision. We were actually on the plane flying up to because I had this desire to go and revisit the scene of the crime and show myself that I was standing up where I fell down. Sort of important for me. But then in the flight up there, I thought, che Talk was a really small town, and if he's in the county jail, how far is that from the institution, And it turned out it was like five minutes drive, so I thought, well, let's go to the jail.

I just it blows my but you didn't have a desire necessarily to see this, and I just.

Want to see the jail, but I don't you get there. It's a it's a really boring jail. It's a little cell block at a wall with some barbed wire. But I thought, you know, he's in there. I'm out here. It feels going And what happened is a weird thing happened. My feet started dancing.

You were dancing.

No, my feet were duds.

But what does that look like?

It's just shitting But the body stayed well, wife said, stop doing that. I can imagine this gentleman just glancing out the window for no apparent reason and going is that the guy.

Like, yeah, he's dad said at the cop park.

You.

You know, you talk a lot about your thoughts about this gentleman and whether you wanted to confront him. There's actually a really wonderful section of it, almost like a Socratic litigation that you do in four parts.

I make him up.

You make him up, but you don't make him defenseless. No, the litigation that you and the dialogue that you have with him is challenging.

Yeah, well I thought you you know, you've got to give the enemy an even break. If you're going to have a serious conversation, then it's can't just be me yetting get him, telling him what a bad person he is, which I think.

Yes, but he wasn't.

It makes you wonder about you know, you spent since nineteen eighty nine, this fatois is put upon you, and it's these fundamentalists, and these are religious extremists who have decided they're going to punish you for whatever their reasoning was.

You righte though, that this gentleman is sort of.

A copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of.

That twenty four He wasn't even born right when this thing happened, and he, by his own account, had read nothing I'd written, and yet he was willing to commit murder. I mean that's stupid, yes.

But it's I wonder if you think of it, does it strike you as a change in fundamentalism? You know, you say he was radicalized by iman YouTube, that he watched YouTube videos. And do you think this attack had more to do with like John Lennon's attack or with a religious attack.

Well, I think it's I think in some ways it's a very American attack. Right, he spent four years in a basement playing video games and watching videos and it kind of messed with his head. And also, you know, I mean he's born and bred in New Jersey.

Slow down, I think I know where this is going.

Well, then you know you're ahead of me. But you know, we live in in America where people kill each other every five minutes, right, you know, And I think maybe in his New Jersey brain.

Yes, that is how we describe it as well. By the way, it's got that New Jersey brain exactly. Do you think that there is a shift. You know, we think of fundamentalism as primarily a religious artifact. Have the algorithms made fundamentalism something different from that?

I think maybe they have. I mean too, I'm too old to know, really, because I don't. Algorithms don't know what to.

Do with me, right, give them a chance.

No, I do, but they don't know what to do. So I'm not algorithmically influenced. Right, But people are, people are all the time. And yeah, I mean I think he was. Something happened in him which made it possible for him to decide to murder a total stranger, right, And that has to be brainwashing of some kind, right, whatever you want to call it, but I call it brainwashing.

Yeah.

As I read the story, I started thinking, you know, we're so used to this idea.

That of violence with a cause, this.

Idea that these you know, there is something deep inside them that can almost be.

Noble or understandable.

This is not that it struck me more as more in common with the school shootings we see or the other things that you were just this thing he saw.

And you know what's so strange about it is, first of all, he must have known that he was messing up his own life as well, right, you know, not just mine at twenty four. At twenty four, and you know, the last thing he did before he got on the bus from Fairview, New Jersey to Chautauqua. Last thing he did he canceled his gym membership.

Because he knew that he had weights.

He wasn't coming.

He wasn't coming back, and why should he keep his starting order?

Going wow, So he's going through it and going like, I don't need serious radio anymore.

I don't exctly.

So this was he suicidal or was he?

I don't know. I mean, maybe we'll find out if whenever, if this trial happens, we might find out more about him.

But do you dread something like that? Is that something that still visits you?

No? I mean I think you know, if I they if they need me to testify, I'll go testify and I'll be in the court with him. But my view is he should be scared about being in the country with me.

Absolutely absolutely.

Do you wonder sometimes you know, and this is not not not to get but you and I are both getting older, and you write a lot in the book about fran saddle Down. I was just on jury duty by the way. I don't have you saw picture of my doppelganger, but there is there's mortality. You write about Martin Amos and Paul Ausler and people that you've lost, even during the writing of this book, lost to esophageal cancer. You had a cancer scare in the middle of rehabilitation.

In the middle of all this repair work. Suddenly apparently I might have prostate cancer. I thought that's not fair.

No, well, you write, he writes, he goes to the doctor.

Well you can tell.

I mean I went to the doctor, and the examining your prostate is not fun.

Again, speak for yourself. It's it depends on if you have a Jersey brain.

Anyway, the first examination, they thought they found a bump on the prostate, and then I had to have an MRI scan. An MRI scan, you know, it grades from one to five, and five is really bad, and I came out at four. It said cancer probable. And then it turned out that it was not probable that it was had this bump on the had been caused by some.

Other infection and a medicine that they had actually given you.

Yeah, exactly. And then a second doctor, the first doctor's boss, also examined by prostate more thoroughly.

They lined up down the hallway. What are we doing here?

No, this was very thorough and also even an Indian doctor was a fad of mine.

Six nothing more uncomfortable than that extra thorough yes, and he said, no.

I think this might be caused by this other infection. And so that to go back and have another MRI scout and it said one to five. It's one no concert. So I had concer for two months and then I didn't.

It's so incredible because you face this as you write in the book this twenty seven seconds. It was just twenty seven seconds. And yet can't do you think about and pardon the question, but do you think does it matter how you die? As you watched your friends and you thought about your fate and your brush with mortality, and then to have this cancer scared, did it make you think it mattered how you die?

Do you prefer not to?

I've got some bad news.

Its color for all you, bad news for all of us. Yes, but I mean I don't know. I've my wife Eliza, and I have decided to be planning our hundredth birthday, Pozzy, my hundredth births and I think it has to be a dance pozzy.

Yes, so it tries just your feet, though not the whole boy.

So we tried to decide who should DJ, and I'll pick somebody.

But it strikes me because you, whether you've wanted this mantle or not, and I'm assuming you don't, you represent something. You represent a courage and a freedom of artistic expression, of the importance of artistic expression, and of the danger that artistic expression often visits upon the people who do it. It's a noble shield to carry, but not an easy one.

I don't I'm not an easy one.

And in a way, there's bits of me that would prefer to be well known for being good writer.

Well, I have to tell you, I'm pretty sure that's in there too.

Is that in that?

Yeah? I see. But you know, it used to be when I started out as a writer, when people would write about my books, they would mention that they were funny. And then after the attack on the Satanic Verses, everybody stopped saying I was funny.

Really, And because that book is satirical, it's it's it's and people.

Who read it I get I get two reactions to read it now, One is where's the dirty bit because we can't find it? And the second is who knew it was funny? And I say, people who read it.

But it's you know, with that on you do you feel there's an idea that that you have to wear that heroism.

I don't know the heroism, but I think I have to be part of the fight, right, I mean, I mean there is a fight about free expression in America too at the moment, and I'm I'm I feel like I'm in that fight. I have a dog in that fight.

What do you think that how that the nature of fundamentalism has changed, and how that affects artistic expression, Like even now when we see all the protests, you know up at Columbia University, some students protests as others think that's going too far and they're threatening people and we're crossing all those difficult lines. You spoke at the Penn Banquet, yes, yeah, last year, last year, which is a consortium of writers and poets and a lot of people truly defenders of free speech.

I just got a text today.

They've canceled, they've counseled the prize giving because they're people attacking them for not being sufficiently anti ISRAELI will Propellestinian or something. R I mean, everybody's so angry right now right that nobody can listen or talk to anybody else. So people have shouted each other listen.

There was a critic, and this is going to sound like a joke, a critic of Taylor Swift's new music album, The Torture Post Society. They had to remove the critic's name from the critique because of death.

Threats because he didn't like the record.

I didn't read it because I love the wreck. Of course, I don't want to hear any negativity, but so do I jump But it speaks to in nineteen eighty nine, there was an Ayatola and a fatua and a group of religious muckety MUCKs who delivered the law from high above.

And now we're all fundamentalists.

Everybody's an expert, everybody's got an opinion, and hostility and hostility. The level of anger is crazy right now.

Do you think of you know, you have a dog in the fight in that creative How do we and I think about this a lot, how do we manage that? And is that just a function of the algorithm?

I might I think to an extent it is. Yeah, I mean, I don't know. Frankly, I'm glad you asked, because I'm the answer, have the answer to the world's problems.

It's actually on page if I exactly. But you are thoughtful enough and you've been through it enough that I know you have an opinion.

Yeah, I mean, I just think people have to draw to stop having such thin skins. You know, at the moment, we're all very easily offended. And what's more is we also believe that being offended is a sufficient reason for attacking something, right, But actually everything offends somebody always always, I mean occasionally you.

What, how dare you? Sir? I am offended?

You see? And then if you go down that road, then we can't talk to each other anymore, right.

You know.

But having groups always had a way of policing language or behavior. I think I'm trying to sing. Has my perspective changed on it? Or has the dynamic Changeally.

What's happened is the temperature has got arisen, right, I mean yes, of course, people bolways disagreed, and people bulways said, you can't say that, you've got to say this that that's not new. What's new is the volume and the heat, right, and so what do we do about taking down the volume and taking down the heat? That's the question.

I mean, And again not to make you the avatar of this, but this is coming from a man who, because of threats from fundamentalists, had to basically alter your entire life.

Well, it did certainly have an impact. Yeah, yeah, I mean what it's sad is that I've actually got my life back.

Really.

I mean, I've been living in New York City for getting on for twenty five years.

Right, Well, you had made a decision I'm going to come out of this and make myself.

And for twenty three years it was fine, right, you know, I mean, I you know, I mean I was doing everything that writers do, book tours, readings, lectures, you know.

Oh, I know, I'm a writer, don't stop. I've been there with the coffee clotches.

Yeah.

And Oprah.

Yeah yeah, well I haven't been with Oprah, none of us have. But anyway, so it was a shock when this thing out of a quarter of a century ago, more than that, thirty years ago, sort of came out of a crowd at me. You know, it was I really was very surprised.

Do you find yourself now freedom that fear or is there still that PTSD?

Like, what where's your What does that do to you?

Well, I mean it doesn't, you know, nothing good. But it's now been well twenty months or something. I think I'm pretty much back to myself at this point.

Do you feel like you're in that writing rhythm again? Has your mind started to dream again? Finish this And by the way, let me tell you something and I and we don't have people on where I don't either, you know, read it articular. It's such a beautiful and incredibly interesting and revelatory book. I really thank you for writing it because you had to endure something awful, but your insight into that experience is.

Really a remarkable gift to give to other people.

And I really do it's funny bits, a couple of funny bits for a writer, not for a for a writer. But it really is a fantastic piece of work, and I thank you for doing it. The book is called Knife. It is available as we speak. Some'm on rushing.

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