Twilight of an Israeli Icon
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN HOST: Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the program. I'm Christiane Amanpour. The U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has just left the Middle East after his 10th visit in five months, following a week of intense shuttle diplomacy. Despite the much vaunted U.S. pivot to Asia, the State Department says, in fact, Kerry spends more than half his time on Middle Eastern issues, trying to deal with fires in Iraq, Syria, Egypt and elsewhere, and also trying to finally reach that elusive peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians, which this week, even won faint praise from Israel's hardline foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman (ph), who said Kerry's written framework is the best Israel can expect. The Israeli government's position gets strong support from the diaspora. And one of the leading voices belongs to Lord Jonathan Sacks, who until recently was Britain's chief rabbi for 22 years, cementing his position as a respected public intellectual with a wide audience and influence. One of the most divisive figures in the history of Israel, meanwhile, is Ariel Sharon, the former prime minister who has been in a coma for the last eight years. I spoke to Rabbi Sacks as Sharon's condition continues to worsen. I asked him about the peace process and Israel's isolation, about a troubling rise in anti-Semitism here in Europe, as well as a rapprochement between Judaism and the Vatican under Pope Francis.</s>AMANPOUR: Rabbi Sacks, welcome.</s>RABBI JONATHAN SACKS: Thank you.</s>AMANPOUR: Thank you for joining me here. Ariel Sharon has been on his deathbed for a long time since suffering a stroke many, many years ago. His condition appears to be deteriorating. Your thoughts if he looks to be coming to the end of his life?</s>SACKS: I knew Ariel Sharon towards the end. And he was one of those figures that Israeli politics have delivered quite often, people who are military heroes, who became, in later life, people of peace, people willing to take very considerable risks for peace: Menachem Begin was one, Yitzhak Rabin was another, lost his life in the cause of peace. Ariel Sharon, pulling back from Gaza, a very controversial thing to do, was actually somebody who had gone through this profound realization that we need to find a new way in the Middle East. We need to make peace with the Palestinians. And he showed immense courage in doing so. And I think people from his kind of background, who make that kind of change, are, to me, real moral heroes, fighters for peace, who were willing to take risks for peace.</s>AMANPOUR: There are a lot of people who will take a different view of you calling him a moral hero because of what happened in Lebanon, because of what happened at Sabra and Shatila.</s>SACKS: I'm talking about the man I knew in the last years of his conscious and active life. That man was a very different man. And when people are able to make an enormous change, moving from being people who believe in military solutions to people who believe that military solutions may win the battle, but they don't win the peace, for somebody to make that kind of move, hence my kind of admiration.</s>AMANPOUR: And we talk, you know, amidst a backdrop of yet another attempt to restart the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, about 10 years or more ago you gave an interview in which you said, you know, a lot of what goes on makes you feel uncomfortable as a Jew that some of the -- some of the realities around occupation may not be compatible with your faith. What do you say now about that? And where do you see this process going or not?</s>SACKS: Look, I think what I feel about is -- and what most Jews feel about Israel is here is a country that in 65 years, has not known a single day when it has not faced the risk of war or terror. It's surrounded by enemies that are quite hostile to its very existence. And here it is, managing after 65 years to have created really a rebirth of Jewish national existence, created a democratic society with a free press, an independent judiciary, I think Israel, overall, makes me and certainly almost everyone I know feel very proud. And therefore the fact that within Israel -- and Jewishly, internationally, there is an active debate as to what is the best way forward. I think that's the strength of the Israeli democracy, that we can be self-critical but at the same time love the country, love the people and love what it's achieved.</s>AMANPOUR: Do you worry the very nature of democracy may be at risk? People are saying, well, you know, if there isn't a peace process, it'll be a one-state solution or it'll be a very segregated solution?</s>SACKS: No, I really don't believe that. I think, you know, we've got just too many tears (ph) in our history to make us indifferent to the suffering of all this (ph). And we know perfectly well that this is a chance -- you know, it's a Millennial opportunity for Jews to create a good, fair and just society and, at the same time, protect itself against a constant risk of terror. And I think Israel does a magnificent job of doing this. And I am very pained when it is criticized around the world because no country in the world faces those risks that severely.</s>AMANPOUR: Let's move on a little bit to, I guess, anti-Semitism here and around the world. You've talked about, you know, there's more joy now than there used to be, the height of anti-Semitism has sort of ebbed. And yet, in Paris, we see the government sort of cracking down against what it's calling hate speech; a comedian has used a sort of a Nazi-like salute. There are anti-Semitic words being said. And this continues. What do you fear about that? Do you think that there's a resurgent, worrying anti-Semitism? Or do you think that this is something inevitable that's going to continue but is not threatening the Jewish people?</s>SACKS: Christiane, I am very worried about the return of anti- Semitism to Europe. There are serious levels of anti-Semitism in a number of European countries. And for that to happen within living memory of the Holocaust is simply the unthinkable. And I don't believe anyone should take that literally.</s>AMANPOUR: Let me ask you, we discovered today by going online that in a certain sphere of Amazon (ph) the way it measures books and so-called best sellers, "Mein Kampf" is one of the top-selling online books here in England amongst young people.</s>SACKS: Yes.</s>AMANPOUR: Why?</s>SACKS: If you're asking what is leading to this, I think we always know that anti-Semitism historically occurs in eras of great change, where people are feeling very anxious and very threatened by technological, economic and industrial change. And people turn to somebody to blame. Now historically Jews have always been blamed, even if there were no Jews in the countries, still Jews were blamed. It's a demonic phenomenon, which has been around in Europe for 1,000 years.</s>AMANPOUR: A few years ago, Prince Harry was seen wearing a Nazi outfit and, you know, it was obviously widely criticized at a fancy dress party, I think, and he was sent to see you. What did you say to him?</s>SACKS: Prince Harry was absolutely beside himself with remorse and regret because he just didn't know. Now obviously that says something about his education and I did go to his school to give the kids a lesson in what actually happened. But the young princes are very special people. The royal family have been magnificent in their relations, not only with the Jewish community, but with all the faith communities in a very multifaith nation. And I don't think anyone does interfaith relations better than the royals.</s>AMANPOUR: The pope, Pope Francis, has made it very clear that he is a friend of the Jewish people. What do you make of the new pope?</s>SACKS: I think he is, in many respects, somebody who's broken new ground in his openness to Jews. He has often said in his reply to the editor of "La Republica," for instance, things that no previous pope has said. He is not merely reaffirmed as every pope has done since Vatican II, but God's covenant with the Jews is still in force, which was itself a really epoch-making change within the Catholic Church. But he's spoken about the admiration and the debt of gratitude Christians must have the way Jews kept faith with their covenant throughout the -- throughout the centuries. Now this is a very fine man. And I think -- I think he is the most important new development in Jewish-Catholic relations we've had.</s>AMANPOUR: Let me move to Iran; obviously a big bane of criticism and anxiety in Israel and in other parts of the world, under President Ahmadinejad there was a distinctly anti-Semitic and anti-Israel tone coming out of Iran. President Rouhani has made a big effort to be very different. I don't know whether you took notice of what he said, but at the Jewish New Year he wrote a tweet and so did his foreign minister. Rouhani says, "As the sun is about to set here in Tehran, I wish all Jews, especially Iranian Jews, a blessed Rosh Hashanah," and there was a picture of Iranian Jews praying. I guess my question is, are you aware of a different tone coming out of Iran? And what's your reaction to that?</s>SACKS: I wish I was, but the Iranian policy preceded President Ahmadinejad and it's not clear who is in the end the key factor in deciding Iranian policy. And I think to make a distinction between Jews on the one hand and the state of Israel on the other is not the kind of thing that fills me full of relaxation. I think Iran remains a threat. It remains a threat, not just to Israel, but to the West. And I really don't think this should be seen solely as an Israeli problem. It is a matter of grave concern to all of us.</s>AMANPOUR: Rabbi Sacks, thank you very much indeed. Lord Sacks, thank you for being with us.</s>SACKS: Thank you.</s>AMANPOUR: And just another note on "Mein Kampf," which is Adolf Hitler's manifesto, of course, and which was first published in the 1930s, now one of the top sellers on a variety of Amazon eBook charts, as we said, it is, of course, banned in Germany and it's rarely purchased in print editions anywhere anymore. But digital sales are soaring. Perhaps if the book cover were visible and there could be an open discussion of its content, its hateful message could be confronted and countered today. And while hate speech remains a threat to civilized society, so do, so too does chronic poverty, especially among children. And we'll meet the flamboyant and courageous champion of London's lost boys and girls when we come back.