Amanpour & Co. - June 25, 2024
Fears are mounting about access to our most vital resources — food and water. “The Grab” is a documentary that chronicles how certain governments are attempting to control these global resources. The journalist and director behind the film, Nate Halverson and Gabriela Cowperthwaite join the show to discuss whether the fight over our most precious commodities could lead to geopolitical conflict.
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00:00Hello, everyone, and welcome to Amanpour & Company. Here's what's coming up.
00:09The approach that has the greatest chance of success is a multilateral one, not a unilateral
00:15one.
00:16American voters face a stark choice in November, and I speak with career diplomat David Satterfield
00:21about the high stakes for global security then. With the future of the Middle East also
00:27on the ballot, correspondent Jomana Karachi follows up her investigation of one teenage
00:33victim of the Gaza War, and...
00:35I think the Palestinians have been ready to live with the Israelis and to make peace based
00:41on justice and splitting the land between the two people.
00:45Palestinian author and activist Raja Shehadeh explains why his vision of peaceful coexistence
00:51may be fading. Then, with food and water supplies becoming increasingly scarce, filmmakers
00:58Nate Halverson and Gabriela Kaupethwaite tell Hari Sreenivasan about what may be the next
01:05major global threat.
01:21Amanpour & Company is made possible by the Anderson Family Endowment, Jim Atwood and
01:31Leslie Williams, Candace King Weir, The Family Foundation of Layla and Mickey Strauss, Mark
01:39J. Bleschner, The Philemon M. D'Agostino Foundation, Seton J. Melvin, Charles Rosenblum, Ku and
01:48Patricia Ewan. Committed to bridging cultural differences in our communities. Barbara Hope
01:54Zuckerberg. Additional support provided by these funders and by contributions to your
02:01PBS station from viewers like you. Thank you.
02:07Welcome to the program, everyone. I'm Christiane Amanpour in London. As American voters look
02:12ahead to the first Biden-Trump presidential debate on Thursday, along with the rest of
02:17the world, coverage is mostly focused on domestic issues. But an array of global challenges
02:23could have the greatest impact on Americans' daily lives. In Ukraine, American hesitation
02:29has already helped Vladimir Putin advance his interests. In the Middle East, progress
02:34towards regional peace could be one more casualty of the brutal war in Gaza. And from China,
02:41Iran, North Korea and beyond, the next foreign policy crisis could be just over the horizon.
02:48So Americans face a stark choice. And so does the rest of the world. Between Joe Biden,
02:54with his view of a global battle between democracy and autocracy, and Donald Trump's populist
02:59America first isolationism. Until a few weeks ago, David Satterfield was America's special
03:06envoy to the Middle East for humanitarian issues. And I had a wide-ranging conversation
03:11with the veteran diplomat about these foreign policy flashpoints facing America's next president,
03:17whoever he will be. David Satterfield, Ambassador, welcome to the program.
03:22Happy to be here.
03:24So one of the huge issues is obviously the raging war in Europe 80 years after D-Day,
03:31the end of World War II. Robert O'Brien and President Trump basically criticized the Obama
03:37administration when Biden was vice president for not confronting Putin enough during the
03:432014 invasion and annexation of Crimea. And also, if you remember, not giving Ukraine
03:51lethal weapons like the javelins when they needed them. What is your answer to that before
03:56we go on into the future?
03:58Christian, I think there's no question that the limited response after the annexation
04:05of Crimea led Putin to believe that he could make further advances on the territory of
04:11Ukraine or elsewhere without significant challenge from the United States or the international
04:17community. That was, in retrospect, a significant error. With respect, though, to the approach
04:24to Ukraine after the Russian invasion, the administration engaged in a quite extraordinary
04:30and almost unprecedented campaign prior to the invasion of making very clear to the world,
04:36privately and publicly, that we knew exactly what Putin was planning to do. We knew what
04:40the scope of his takeover of Ukraine was intended to be with the object of avoiding the war.
04:48Well, that did not succeed because Putin, in the face of all of this, still went forward.
04:55Could more have been done sooner to provide weaponry of a very sophisticated kind? The
05:02answer will be debated for some time, but I can tell you this. The intent of the administration
05:08was to avoid, if at all possible, an escalation with a nuclear power, Russia, that could involve
05:15directly the United States. The wisdom or ill-wisdom of that, again, is a matter for
05:21historians. The point is the U.S. is now robustly supporting Ukraine, including in a very selective
05:30fashion the targeting of those facilities in Russia that are being used for specific
05:35attacks on Ukraine.
05:37So clearly if there is, I guess, another Biden administration, Ukraine can pretty much count
05:42on, maybe with delays like before, continued aid. And potentially, I don't know, Trump
05:48has said a lot of things that put in doubt continued military aid. But I want to ask
05:54because he has been, rather Putin, has been getting a lot of support from North Korea
06:00during the war and now with this new declaration of military cooperation with their visit in
06:05Pyongyang. And Putin, you know, is really counting on that and this anti-American axis
06:11that he's, you know, gathering together, including China, Iran, etc. What do you make
06:18of how any president can contain North Korea? Because again, remember, the Obama administration
06:25essentially didn't do hardly any diplomacy with North Korea. And Trump tried, but then
06:33according to the South Koreans, there was no follow-up. What can an American administration
06:38do to make sure North Korea doesn't act against their interests in the way it's doing right
06:43now?
06:45Well, the approach that has the greatest chance of success is a multilateral one, not a unilateral
06:52one. It is assembling and then sustaining a coalition of parties who do have influence
06:58with Pyongyang to the extent that any country or combination of countries do in that very
07:04unique place to make clear that there will be no support for the economy, no support
07:12for or legitimization for Korea's bandit behaviors. And that's the term to use, banditry. This
07:19is a regime which engages in behaviors not just at the level of ballistic missile challenges
07:24or nuclear programs that go beyond the realm of international conduct. It is a very sad
07:31judgment on where Russia now finds itself, that it is turning to Iran, turning to Korea,
07:39turning to what are, in a very old phrase, pariah regimes in order to meet its military
07:45requirements to conduct this illegitimate war in Ukraine.
07:50And yet that's where it is, and we don't see any end in sight to this war. Let me turn
07:54to the Middle East, your area of most recent specialty. You know, one could say that President
08:01Trump, with his visits there, with his diplomacy, really, really empowered the extreme right
08:07wing in Israel, the settler movement, obviously Benjamin Netanyahu's maximalist tendencies.
08:15And I wonder, though, whether President Biden can do anything different or better, because
08:20he is viewed as, although being its strongest ally, not having a huge amount of influence.
08:28And even this latest peace proposal, or rather ceasefire proposal, didn't go anywhere. And
08:34I heard you trying to, you know, get the Israelis around it, saying that it was an Israeli position
08:39as well, but they never claimed it, and it's clear that they didn't take it up.
08:44Well, Christiane, there is a very frequent, quite long-standing over-reading of the degree
08:50that outside powers, including the United States, have to influence Israeli or Palestinian
08:57behaviors when both sides interpret those behaviors as existential. And that's the situation
09:04we find ourselves in right now, for Hamas, for Israel and Israelis, and I go far beyond
09:10this government of Israel, for Israel itself. These are existential issues. Now, the U.S.
09:16has every ability to put forward as clear a vision as possible of what we believe can
09:23lead to a sustainable peace, a reduction of the security threats posed to Israel and the
09:28Israeli people. But at the end of the day, the decisions being made are in the hands
09:32of Israel itself and of Hamas. With respect to the previous administration and presumed
09:40encouragement for right-wing activism, look, I think that's overstated. The politics of
09:46Israel are just that. They're the politics of Israel, and they have far less to do with
09:51external factors than they do with various internal domestic drives, just as is the case
09:57with the United States.
09:59Well, let me just ask you then, because obviously under the Clinton administration, when we
10:03had Oslo and there was Yitzhak Rabin, there was the King of Jordan, there was Yasser Arafat,
10:08there was a period in which it appeared that all the convening powers and the parties themselves
10:13were on a certain route. Now, that obviously didn't last, and it failed, but the latest
10:21several years have been, I guess, the end of the Obama administration and then whatever
10:25happened in the Trump administration. Essentially, there was almost no engagement on the Palestinian
10:31issue. Do you think that a second, any future American president can avoid putting the Palestinian
10:40issue at the center of Israel's need for security, of the desire to have normalization with Saudi
10:47Arabia as well as the UAE, et cetera?
10:50Christian, I think it's critical that any US administration pursue two courses in parallel.
10:58One is to continue to underscore, as this administration is doing, that a two-state
11:03resolution, a credible pathway to a two-state outcome through negotiations, has to be the
11:08overarching frame in which ultimate security, well-being, the quiet miracle of a normal
11:15life, as Bill Clinton spoke to, can be achieved. But at the same time, there needs to be a
11:21strategic vision for the region as a whole. That is why we are pursuing what is referred
11:27to as the Saudi deal as tirelessly as we are, because that offers not only strategic benefits
11:35for the United States vis-a-vis challenges from Iran, from the PRC to the region, but
11:41it also forms an additional stabilization framework for peace in the region. You've
11:45got to pursue both the Palestinian-Israeli course and the broader regional course for
11:52stability and peace.
11:54And a last question on this. Obviously, Americans and much of the democratic world were horrified
12:00by what happened in Israel on October 7th, by what Hamas did on October 7th. They are
12:06equally horrified now by the tens of thousands of Palestinians who have been killed in Gaza.
12:12How sustainable is this dynamic for a U.S. president, not just seeking re-election, but
12:21in the future?
12:22Christiane, the massacre perpetrated by Hamas on October 7th, a massacre which their leadership
12:29has declared they would repeat again and again and again if given the opportunity, is indeed
12:35the root cause for the suffering of the Palestinian people that has unfolded over these last nine
12:41months. That death toll is horrendous, and we've spoken to it in quite human, personal
12:48terms. It is, as Tony Blinken has said, a kick in the gut to see these images of shrouds
12:54covering young children prepared for burial. It's terrible.
12:59But we should be under no illusion as to who and what is responsible. It is Hamas, it is
13:05Yahya Sinwar, it is the consequence of the incredible paroxysm of bestial brutality on
13:12October 7th. Hamas could bring this to a close tonight, this hour, if they were to agree
13:20to the terms of the ceasefire hostage release deal that we and our partners in the region
13:27have advanced on behalf of Israel. It is their proposal. Hamas has rejected it, continues
13:33to reject it. That's where responsibility has to lie.
13:37But you know, because you've worked for several administrations, that this Israeli government
13:43does not sign up to the peace process that the administration, the UN, that everybody
13:50else has signed up to right now. You say there's this responsibility on this side, but the
13:56other side is an actual government. How do you get it into a place where it will actually
14:01agree to a two-state peace solution? Many would say that one of the big problems is
14:08that the Israeli government has tried to play off Hamas against the other Palestinians who
14:12have actually recognized Israel and are part of the internationally recognized peace process
14:18and the political process.
14:20Christian, we do believe strongly that that framework of a credible pathway to a two-state
14:26resolution is the only way to move forward to counter the vision that Hamas provides
14:33for governance, not just in Gaza, but over the Palestinian people as a whole, if not
14:38the entire Middle East. You have to have a counter vision, and many in Israel are speaking
14:44to that as well. How do you do that? How do you move that forward beyond rhetoric? It
14:49is through diplomacy. It is through the continued unilateral, bilateral, multilateral approach
14:54that points out this is what fulfillment of execution of this vision could achieve.
15:01It's hard. It's very hard, particularly under these circumstances. Israel is traumatized
15:07deeply by the events of October 7th, by the continued holding of 120 hostages, living
15:13and perished. But you still have to articulate and advance the idea. You cannot fight a concept
15:21and idea without another better, more compelling idea.
15:26I just wonder whether you think President Biden's mission to bolster democracy against
15:34the autocratic world is sustainable now and how you would rate it, given what we're seeing,
15:40for instance, in Europe, right? We're seeing these latest elections favoring quite a lot
15:46of the far right and the extremists.
15:49Christian, the message that democracy, not demagoguery, that the advance of human interests
15:59and human values, not a resort to fear and fear-mongering, is the best way forward for
16:07the world, not just for the United States, is a message that has to be repeated. Eighty
16:14years after D-Day, this is an even more profound message that freedom, democracy, is indeed
16:24the best course for the world because the alternative has led the world into tragedy,
16:30into horror, too many times in the past.
16:34The Benjamin Netanyahu government has said from the beginning, we are going to destroy
16:39Hamas. As you've seen, lately, certain members of his war cabinet have resigned. They don't
16:46like his non-post-war plan. They've said certain things about the military strategy. And the
16:51latest is the IDF spokesman, a military guy, Daniel Hagari, who has said the war aim of
16:58eradicating the Hamas terror group is unattainable.
17:02So there seems to be, in some Israeli quarters, a realization that they've got to do certain
17:07things differently to get rid of Hamas's governing power and its terrorizing power.
17:14Would you agree with that, that the aim of eradicating it is unattainable?
17:21We believe the goal of ensuring that Hamas is diminished to the point that – or disrupted,
17:29degraded, choose your term – to the point that it can no longer threaten Israel and
17:33Israelis, as it did on October 7, that it is no longer able to dictate the terms of
17:39governance of life to the Palestinians of Gaza, has to be the goal of this campaign.
17:45Now it's a goal that has to be advanced in two different ways. There's a kinetic, military
17:49aspect to it, which is absolutely essential. There is a humanitarian aspect that preserves
17:55the time, the space, the ability to get to a day before to do the third key element.
18:03A plan for the day after. And that plan for the day after has to encompass a political
18:09vision as well as a security vision. That's very, very hard to do, because Hamas has proven
18:16an extraordinarily resilient military force. It is not just a terrorist gang. It has a
18:22terrorist army of many tens of thousands. And it is quite able, given its commitment
18:29of resources for 16 years to the construction of this tunnel network, over 300 miles of
18:36deep bunkered tunnels, it has an ability to continue to exert influence. That's what
18:42needs to be challenged and diminished, but it takes more than military action to do so.
18:50Ambassador David Satterfield, thank you so much indeed.
18:52Thank you.
18:54Now we take a closer look at one of the most disastrous issues that we just discussed,
18:58and that is Israel's war on Gaza. Ever since the slaughter of more than 1,000 mostly civilian
19:04Israelis on October 7th, and the capture of hundreds of hostages, since then the war has
19:10killed more than 37,000 Palestinians across Gaza, and more than 85,000 have been injured.
19:18For the wounded, life becomes a world of pain with limited access to treatment or relief.
19:24And even those lucky enough to get help abroad still carry the trauma of their experience
19:28with them. Correspondent Jomana Karadze has been following the story of Roba, and she
19:33brings us this update on her condition. And as you can expect, this report contains some
19:38painful images.
19:42War is forever imprinted on Roba's face. Even here in the safety of Qatar, far from the
19:49conflict, she avoids people and going out, still haunted by what she survived. This scene
19:57of carnage. It was a horror we uncovered earlier this year. The Israeli military attacked this
20:03warehouse in central Gaza, where Roba and her family were sheltering. When our cameraman
20:09met her in the hospital in January, she was seriously injured and in shock, struggling
20:14to tell her story.
20:21She would become the heart of a CNN investigation, an example documenting how Israel's conducting
20:27the war in Gaza, revealing how indiscriminate Israeli fire killed displaced civilians, including
20:33half of Roba's family. But with access to Gaza restricted, we never met Roba in person,
20:42until this spring.
20:52Following our report, the Qatari government flew her on this military transport plane
20:57to Doha for treatment.
21:08She and her family went through the unimaginable in that Gaza warehouse. They'd taken refuge
21:13there in November, following Israel's directive to evacuate south. Residents said that in
21:18the early hours of January 4th, they heard what they called resistance fire in the area,
21:24though denied there were militants where civilians were sheltering. The Israeli military told
21:28us that after coming under fire from the warehouse, they carried out a quote precise strike. Experts
21:35told us that strike was likely a massive 2000 pound bomb, dropped with no prior warning
21:41to Roba's family and other civilians. Roba was trapped for days, bleeding, surrounded
21:47by the lifeless bodies of her five siblings. The youngest was 10-year-old Azeen.
21:54The once-outgoing 19-year-old has been left shattered, inside and out, still grappling
22:01with seemingly endless pain and loss. Not just her family, even the new love she found.
22:31That young man, Mohammed, she says, was out looking for firewood when he was killed in
22:44an Israeli strike. But it is her body, the physical scars that are constantly haunting
23:02her. Roba came to Qatar hoping for a prosthetic eye, a shroud for her anguish.
23:21We joined her for this doctor's appointment. She was expecting to get a date for the surgery.
23:27But instead, it was crushing news. The doctor tells Roba and her aunt the reconstructive
23:33surgery is not available in Qatar. Slowly, the bad news begins to sink in.
23:40She can barely stand. No words can comfort her. She tries to shield herself, as she likely
23:58did that night, reliving the trauma, reliving a nightmare that just won't end.
24:05That was Jomana Karaj here reporting. Raja Shehadeh is an author, a lawyer, and founder
24:12of the Palestinian human rights organization, Al-Haq. His new book is called, What Does
24:18Israel Fear From Palestine? During his recent visit to London, he came here to the studio
24:24to talk not only about the humanitarian devastation in Gaza and in his home in Ramallah, but also
24:31the destruction of Palestinian culture, literature, and identity. Still, he does hold on to an
24:38undying hope for peaceful coexistence one day.
24:43Raja Shehadeh, welcome to the program. So this is the first time you have left the West
24:49Bank where you live since October 7th. And I wonder whether everybody's eyes are on the
24:54horrors that are going on first in Israel, then in Gaza. And I wonder what you can tell
24:59me about what's been going on in Ramallah and around the West Bank.
25:05Under the cover of the war in Gaza, there has been so much more settler violence and
25:11unrestrained settler violence never as before. And the army has been supporting the settlers
25:17and they have made pogroms and checkpoints and attacked cars and attacked homes and attacked
25:25communities and let them out of their communities. And it's been terrible.
25:30What do you think the aim is?
25:32Oh, the aim is very clear. They want to push the Palestinians out of the West Bank. And
25:39also the aim of the Zionist group in Israel, the extreme Zionists, is to not only weaken
25:48the Palestinian authority, but to eliminate it in order to be able to take over the parts
25:53of the West Bank, 17%, which were under territorial jurisdiction of the PA, to take that part
26:02away from the PA and annex the entire West Bank. This is their aim, to annex the entire
26:06West Bank.
26:08Certainly a lot of those who prop up Netanyahu's coalition are exactly of that mind. They are
26:15believers that they should have that territory and apparently also resettle Gaza. So let
26:23me ask you about the book that you have written. The latest one is called, What Does Israel
26:29Fear From Palestine? Given that Israel essentially has the balance of power, why do you think
26:37Israel fears Palestine? Do you think it does?
26:41I think they fear the very existence of Palestine because if Palestine exists, then the Israeli
26:47myth, the foundation myth would have to be amended because the foundation myth of Israel
26:51was that they came to a land that was empty, that didn't have any Palestinians or anybody,
26:56and they established Israel from year zero. So to recognize Palestine would require reconfiguration
27:06of the Israeli myth. That's the main fear, I think.
27:10You come from a family that has been involved in the attempt to broker peace for decades,
27:17at least 48, frankly. Your father, when you were a teenager in 1967, submitted a peace
27:24proposal to the Israeli government on behalf of the Palestinians. And of course, all these
27:29decades later, there is no peace. So Israel always blames the Palestinians for not grabbing
27:35a chance when it's there or walking away from all the best opportunities it's given, backed
27:40by the United States, et cetera. Palestinians always blame Israel for, quote unquote, not
27:44being serious, for continuing to build settlements, while talking the peace talk. Given that,
27:53what is your actual hope for this dynamic to be broken? Do you think it ever will be?
28:00Well, not as long as the Israeli government has the settler lobby in the government.
28:06But it didn't, for instance, under Ehud Barak's term.
28:10But they still, the labor established more settlements than they could. They have been
28:15establishing settlements continuously since 1967. Continuously. Of course, more so at
28:21certain times than at other times, but continuously since 67. And they have not wanted to return
28:27the territories they occupied in 67, even then. And they kept making one excuse after
28:33the other and blaming the Palestinians. And that is the dynamic that has continued. And
28:38it is a terrible dynamic that my father realized that the only way in 67 was to establish peace
28:46with Israel so that they don't continue with the settlements and don't become more extreme
28:50as they have become. And he has been proven right.
28:54What did you learn from your father? Again, you were a teenager when that took place.
29:00And you went on to be a lawyer. You founded Al-Haq, the human rights group. You're an
29:06What did you learn from everything you saw as you were growing up? And has that been
29:11changed irrevocably, irrevocably since October 7th or not?
29:15Well, I have learned that the only way is to make peace with Israel. It's a small land
29:20with two nations, Israeli nation and the Palestinian nation, and they have to live together. And
29:25my father was adamant that they will have to live together and we have to find a way
29:29to live together. And I have continued with that vision. But since October 7th, it has
29:34become much more difficult because they've dehumanized the Palestinians to such an extent
29:38that it's difficult now to imagine how we can make peace with them.
29:43I'm going to get to that in a moment, but I first want to put to you what you just said
29:47because I want to read, you know, I've interviewed some Israeli writers as well, and they all,
29:53it seems like the artists, the cultural leaders, the public thinkers believe like you do that
29:58there must be a fair, just solution for both people. So of course, you know, Yuval Noah
30:04Harari, he said the following, and we're just going to play this.
30:10There is a Palestinian people, they have a right to self-determination, and they have
30:16a deep historical connection to the land between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River. And
30:21at the same time, there is a Jewish people, it has a right to self-determination, and
30:26it too has a very deep connection to the same land. This is just a reality.
30:32So do you agree with his framing?
30:35I agree that both people have the right to self-determination, the Israeli people and
30:39the Palestinian people, and the Palestinian people have been denied the right to self-determination
30:43for a very long time, and it will not end until they have obtained that right.
30:48Do you agree with what Yuval also told me, that both Palestinians and Israelis in their
30:53hearts believe that the other wants to eradicate them?
30:58I think generally yes, but I think the Palestinians have been willing to live with the Israelis
31:05and have shown that willingness after the Oslo Accords were signed, even though the
31:09Oslo Accords were terrible accords. I remember after the Oslo Accords in 1993, those who
31:14were most militant said, but we have a future, we have to live together and we have to have
31:18a future. So I think the Palestinians have been ready to live with the Israelis and to
31:24make peace based on justice and splitting the land between the two people.
31:30And you talk about the militants, maybe then they were ready, but certainly not the Hamas
31:34people who have shown themselves unready and empowered, and you know, this is what's going
31:41on in Gaza now, and more and more Palestinians in Gaza are daring to speak out against Hamas
31:47and they're basically saying these guys are useless at governance, they've contributed
31:53to raining this hell on us, and we hear more and more about Sinwar himself and other Hamas
32:00leaders who essentially believe, and they've told journalists, that unless it bleeds, it
32:06doesn't lead. In other words, you know, the more blood, the more spotlight on our situation.
32:13And we spoke to a doctor who saved Sinwar's life in an Israeli prison, and he said Sinwar
32:18told him, you know, a thousand, ten thousand, a hundred thousand Palestinian deaths would
32:24be worth, like other liberation movements, he said Algeria, Vietnam, and et cetera, would
32:30be worth it if we got our rights. What do you think of that?
32:35Well, I think this is too harsh, but I think at the same time that Israel could not have
32:40continued to oppress the Palestinians and put them in an open-air prison and expect
32:44them to be calm and silent and not resist. And Hamas resisted, and they had the right
32:49to resist, because the blockade was an act of war on the part of Israel, which continued
32:54for 16 years. And an act of war can be resisted under international law. And they resisted
33:00by breaking the barrier, so they had the right to do that. What they didn't have the right
33:03was to kill the Israelis, 1,000 Israelis, and that was, I think, a crime, of course.
33:11You call what they did a crime.
33:13Crime, yeah. But breaking the barrier...
33:17You're making a difference between breaking the barrier and going after military targets.
33:21Yeah, exactly.
33:23And you say it's a crime to have killed all those civilians and taken them hostage.
33:28Yeah, that's right.
33:29So tell me about Palestinian culture, because, you know, there are many people in Israel
33:34and even outside who talk about Palestinian people, but not a Palestinian people. You
33:40know, I wonder whether people you run across, you know, know about Palestinian literature,
33:47poetry, cuisine, farming, culture.
33:50Well, the paradoxical thing is that now with the tragedy of Gaza, there's more openness
33:56to listen and to appreciate Palestine and Palestinian culture. And they are much more
34:02open to that. And there's openings to understand, to learn about the history, to learn about
34:07the culture. And I think Palestinian culture is flourishing even now in the West Bank.
34:13And there are exhibits and literature and writing and so on. And that's, you know, the
34:20Palestinians are very resilient. Anybody who, any nation who has been through what the Palestinians
34:24have been through would have given up. But the Palestinians don't give up. They're very
34:27resilient and they're very creative.
34:32One would say Jews have that in common with Palestinians as well.
34:35That's right. That's right.
34:36That's right. You know, I talked to another Israeli writer, Fania Oz, and her father was
34:45Amos Oz. And she said that her father believed and that she believed that you absolutely
34:51have to listen to the story of the other. There was no route to peace unless you can,
34:56for want of a better word, sit down and share a cup of tea or have a meal. I assume you
35:02agree with that.
35:03I absolutely agree with that.
35:04But do you think it's even conceivable in the current conditions?
35:07Well, now that they have dehumanized the Palestinians to such an extent in Gaza, it's not conceivable
35:12because it's, I mean, they don't think of the Palestinians as human beings. They've
35:18done such massacres and such destruction, making Gaza uninhabitable, that it's difficult
35:25to imagine how they can move beyond that. But eventually, we have to. We have to.
35:33When you look at what's happening in Gaza, you can see that universities have been destroyed.
35:37You can see that cultural centers have been destroyed. You can see a whole lot of stuff
35:42that we can't see because we're actually not in there. But the local people see it and
35:46the local journalists there are telling us. Do you see an intent in terms of wiping out
35:55Palestinian culture, or do you see it as part of the general destruction of Gaza in this
36:01pursuit of Hamas?
36:02I think there is an intent. I think there's an intent to destroy Gaza and the culture
36:07in Gaza. And I think that there's a denial by the Israelis about, just as there was a
36:13denial about 48, there's a denial about the destruction of culture in Gaza and the people
36:18of Gaza entirely.
36:22Tell me a little bit what it's like to be a writer in the circumstances that you find
36:28yourself in.
36:29Well, it was very difficult to write this book, What Is Israel Fears of Palestine, because
36:35I was writing in the course of continuous action and updates and so on. So that was
36:41very difficult. At the same time, it saved me because it gave me something to do rather
36:46than sit and be idle and watch television and be like a voyeur looking at the suffering
36:52of Gaza. So it was a lifesaver for me. And I think writers, and also the fact that they've
36:59been so well received is very uplifting. And it's my contribution, and I feel I've made
37:04a contribution in that way as a writer.
37:06And what will your next chapter, i.e. your next book be, do you think? When you must
37:11go to sleep at night or sit in your garden and wonder, what is going to be the substance
37:17of my next book?
37:18I've started the next book, but I don't describe books when I'm reading and writing them.
37:22Is it optimistic or pessimistic?
37:25Optimistic, of course.
37:27We need optimists. Raja Shehadeh, thank you so much indeed.
37:30Thank you. Pleasure.
37:32In a world full of unrest, fears are mounting around access to our most vital resources,
37:37food and water. The Grab is a documentary that chronicles the way some countries are
37:43attempting to control these global resources. Here's a clip from the trailer.
37:47U.S. has become much more powerful than the world.
37:51How do you think that's going to end?
37:52It's not just China, not just Russia. This is Wall Street, big money, leasing land to
37:58foreign countries. I thought maybe there might be more to it than that. Turns out there was.
38:05I mean, it's like a who's who. It's like the MVPs of the mercenary world.
38:11What if there's an uprising?
38:12That's what we call it. Private military corporations.
38:15One of the most notorious mercenaries on the planet. You have thousands of his emails.
38:19Correct.
38:21The journalist and director behind the film, Nate Halvorsen and Gabriela Kalpathwaite,
38:26joined Hari Sreenivasan to discuss whether the fight over our most precious commodities
38:32could lead to the next major geopolitical conflict.
38:35Christian, thanks. Nate Halvorsen, Gabriela Kalpathwaite, thank you both for joining us.
38:39You have a new film out called The Grab, and it is about how food and water are going to
38:45affect the geopolitics of everything going forward. Before we get into our conversation,
38:50I want to set up this clip here. Let's take a look at the trailer.
38:54Every century is characterized by a key commodity.
38:58And food is a very obvious and central way to wield power.
39:04I came across this classified cable telling companies to go overseas and buy up food and water resources.
39:11And a lot of this is happening in the shadows, quietly.
39:15Nate, give us this kind of 30,000 foot view, if you can.
39:18I mean, you've been following different, kind of pulling at different threads of this story for a decade now.
39:24How did you put it together in this longer arc?
39:28Yeah, that's right. When I first started looking at this,
39:31I didn't have a strong understanding of what was going on,
39:35that we had moved almost into this new epoch in the 21st century,
39:38where food and water are almost becoming what oil was in the 20th century,
39:44where intelligence communities, defense departments were all looking at food and water security
39:50as a top line national security issue.
39:54And they had elevated these issues to begin to wonder,
39:58how are they going to be able to feed their populations going forward?
40:02But also, how does food and water now become a geopolitical tool going into the 21st century
40:08as these resources grow increasingly scarce?
40:11So Gabriele, from the outset, if somebody says,
40:15yeah, there's going to be a big geopolitical impact of food and water,
40:18how is there a good narrative arc?
40:20I mean, the filmmaking is a very different process sometimes
40:25than just the reporting that Nate and his colleagues were doing.
40:27Yeah, it's pretty labyrinthian.
40:30I think that learning about Nate's initial reporting,
40:34and kind of, you know, he had started reporting out a few of these stories,
40:37and really like the China Smithfield story, Arizona water story.
40:41And those I kind of saw as portals of entry to this much bigger issue,
40:47which was really essentially that powerful entities are grabbing up
40:50the final resources that are left out from underneath us,
40:53and largely without us knowing it.
40:56And that felt jaw-dropping to me.
40:59When reported out, all the different iterations felt kind of connected,
41:05but felt very important.
41:07Nate, for our audience that's not familiar with the reports that you did on Smithfield Foods,
41:11and how basically the Chinese government was,
41:14and the Chinese National Bank was backing a purchase of Smithfield Foods,
41:19which is responsible for one in every four pigs in the United States, right?
41:23Or the Arizona water story.
41:25What do these different ideas have in common?
41:29Yeah, I mean, that Smithfield Foods story was when China's largest meat company,
41:34Shuanghui, effectively purchased one in four American pigs
41:39with the financial backing, and also at the directorate of the Chinese government.
41:44It was part of their five-year plan to go overseas and to buy up food and water supplies,
41:49because China no longer has enough water to grow enough food to meet their growing demand,
41:55which is really a demand driven by their growing middle class.
41:58You know, people become wealthier, they want to eat more meat,
42:02and meat just requires more water to grow more food to produce.
42:07And so we saw this reach by China across the world, including in the United States.
42:12And so after I did that story, I began wondering, like,
42:15okay, is this just a one-off? Is China the sole example of this trend?
42:20And it turns out, definitely not.
42:22One of the other stories that I found was that the largest dairy company in the Middle East,
42:29which is in Riyadh, had gone into the Arizona desert
42:33and bought essentially 15 square miles of, you know,
42:36wily, coyote, kind of saguaro cactus-like desert,
42:40and was pumping the water up to grow hay to send that back to Riyadh to feed the dairy cows there.
42:46And it's an unregulated part of Arizona, which means that if you buy the land,
42:52you effectively can pump up as much of that water as you want.
42:56And that's what we were seeing, where, you know,
42:59people in Arizona, in these local communities,
43:01didn't realize that there was this global now grab for their water.
43:05What they did see was that their own domestic wells in their homes were beginning to go dry.
43:11And that's sort of the trend we're not just seeing in Arizona or in the U.S.,
43:15but we're beginning to see all around the world.
43:17Najib, why is Zambia kind of an example of what's happening in Africa?
43:22Why go there? I mean, we've had conversations on this program before about land rights,
43:27but what's happening there is a microcosm of what might be happening in other parts of Africa or other parts of the world.
43:32It has water, it's arable, and it's inexpensive.
43:36And so it is a prime place to be able to go in and create value for people that are investing in farmland
43:45and to be able to export crops to other wealthier countries.
43:49And it's not that Zambia isn't a country of laws, it is.
43:52It's actually the judicial system there is highly regarded.
43:57Nonetheless, when you are living in a remote area,
44:01you don't speak the predominant government language of the government,
44:06and you don't have access to justice.
44:08If you don't have money to hire an attorney to get to Lusaka to go to court,
44:13you effectively then have no justice.
44:15And that's what we saw was that folks that they didn't know their rights,
44:21they didn't know how to access their rights,
44:23and they didn't frankly have the money to access their rights.
44:26So it becomes an opportunity for others.
44:29There's a scene when you mentioned Zambia, you all try to go there,
44:34and you're detained at the airport.
44:37I'm not giving too much away, but your names are on a list.
44:40You're not welcome.
44:42Right there, smack dab on it, was all of our names and passport numbers.
44:48They were definitely waiting for us.
44:56What's going on now, Nate?
45:07Oh, we're getting kicked out.
45:09Apparently, intelligence says our reporting is a national security threat.
45:19I guess what happened to how you were thinking about the reporting, Nate?
45:24Yeah, I mean, I think the big takeaway is when you go to a country,
45:29and you land there to report on essentially farming on food and water,
45:34and you're immediately detained and put into a detention cell,
45:38and you see your names and passport numbers up on the police blotter,
45:43you realize that food and water have really risen to that level,
45:47that when you show up to report on them, you get detained.
45:51I think that is a key takeaway of how we're shifting into the 21st century
45:55with regards to the importance of food and water.
45:58Nate, when you were looking into how Africa is this fertile ground
46:05for both food and water for these multinational corporations,
46:09as well as groups that you don't expect,
46:13I mean, an interesting name comes up, and that's Eric Prince.
46:16Most people are familiar with Eric Prince as the head of Blackwater Securities,
46:20and basically, we're doing contracts for the US government in Iraq and Afghanistan.
46:26What's the role that he is playing in this, or was playing in this?
46:30Yeah, that's right.
46:31I mean, it started for me personally as I was reading World Bank reports, UN reports,
46:36and they say that 50% to 60% of the arable land left in the world
46:42that could feed the growing global population is in Africa.
46:46And so, I began thinking, okay, I'm seeing what's happening in Arizona,
46:50in the US, and elsewhere.
46:51What does that look like in Africa, and who's doing it?
46:54And I'd actually seen Eric Prince go on Jon Stewart's The Daily Show
46:59and say that he had started a private equity company
47:02that was going to be investing in land in Africa for farmland.
47:08And one thing led to another, and we got a lot of information
47:13on what Eric Prince was doing there, and who he was sort of financially supporting.
47:18But government and powerful entities were backing him to go into Africa to buy up land
47:25to be able to export food to wealthier countries.
47:28Did you try to reach out to him?
47:29What did he have to say?
47:31I did.
47:31I tried to reach out to him multiple times.
47:33It was always no comment.
47:34I went to their offices, one of his offices in Hong Kong, emailed his spokespeople.
47:41Always, unfortunately, no comment.
47:43There's a section in the film where you start talking about
47:48really how climate change is going to affect the planet,
47:51and what are some of the unintended sort of opportunities,
47:54I guess, that climate change presents.
47:56And you have this map of basically sections of glaciers thawing in Russia,
48:02and how it could essentially become a new Iowa.
48:06And it was a very interesting scene where I had no idea that
48:10Russia was importing American cowboys.
48:12You know, my wife seen an ad on the internet,
48:16and as a joke, she thought it'd be funny as hell.
48:20So she put my resume in,
48:22and I was getting ready to watch Sunday football in Valentine, Nebraska.
48:28And this Skype thing come over the computer, and I hollered at her,
48:32honey, she kind of got panicky and said, you need to talk to him.
48:35It's about a job.
48:36And so I answered it.
48:38And 30 minutes later, I was hired.
48:42Pretty much my wife didn't think that was very funny after all that, you know,
48:47because now we're packing up and going to Russia.
48:49Oh, here we go.
48:50Here we go.
48:52You guys better give him some air.
48:55Oh, he's tapped out, boys.
48:59Why were they doing that?
49:00Yeah, that's right.
49:02I think here in the US, the idea of climate change can be contentious.
49:07Some people are skeptic.
49:09But what I can tell you is that President Putin isn't.
49:11He's basically said that climate change is happening,
49:14and it means that they're going to have to buy less furs
49:16and are going to be able to grow more food.
49:18And the reason it happens is as things warm up,
49:21they get more growing season days,
49:23which just means that they can grow more crops,
49:26more variety farther up north on more land.
49:28And they have a tremendous amount of water.
49:31And Putin has said that he sees that as a geopolitical asset,
49:35that basically they're going to be able to feed the world.
49:39And by feeding the world,
49:41they're going to be able to use that as a tool
49:43to help have other countries see things the way they see them.
49:47And so one of the ways to do that was to import American cowboys
49:52to begin helping Russia to build up the world's largest cattle herd,
49:57to be able to feed beef to other countries.
49:59And so we found these spur wearing,
50:03leather chap wearing cowboys from New Mexico, Montana, Nebraska,
50:07in the middle of nowhere, Russia,
50:10training up Russians to become cowboys.
50:14Gabriel, one of the things that was interesting watching the film
50:16is, you know, we are all now very familiar
50:19with the invasion of Ukraine by Russia.
50:24But in some of the footage that you have had found,
50:28that there was essentially a canal in Crimea
50:31that I bet the bulk of the people watching this documentary
50:34had never even heard about, much less thought about.
50:36And really, even the footage of drone strikes
50:40or missile strikes on grain silos in Ukraine,
50:45how essentially food is one of the targets of this war
50:50and could be one of the big reasons why this invasion even happened.
50:55Yeah, they do say the world sort of has deemed Ukraine
50:59as one of the final bread baskets,
51:03a country that's going to be feeding the world
51:06and feeding a lot of poverty stricken nations as well.
51:10So really being able to rely on that country as a, you know,
51:16a planet is something that we've all kind of assumed
51:19would be something that, you know, this place is going to be intact.
51:22No one's ever going to touch that.
51:25The idea that this, and this stems just directly from,
51:28you know, the Russian cowboys and the beef.
51:30But, you know, if Russia is able to control beef
51:34and can also control grain,
51:37you can see that there's no better example of a grab,
51:42you know, when you think about it that way.
51:44But, you know, everything that Nate is saying
51:47about the geopolitics of what Russia is doing
51:49bore out in this one story.
51:52So it's not just foreign countries or companies
51:55that are coming in and buying property and farmland in the U.S.
51:59There are U.S. companies or ones based in the U.S.
52:02that are also using this land
52:04or leasing it out to other countries or companies.
52:08China does not have enough water to feed its population.
52:12The reason that they are such large food importers
52:16is that they are importing food as a proxy for water.
52:22So our way is basically buying farmland.
52:26And we want to make sure that we're focusing on areas
52:29that are water-rich and that can sell crops
52:32to areas that are water-poor.
52:34So in 2018, we purchased a farm in Southwest Arkansas
52:38that is 25,000 acres in size.
52:41And to put that in perspective,
52:43that is close to two times the size of Manhattan.
52:47What's the state of play or the landscape, if you will,
52:50across the country in how this ownership works
52:54and whether these resources of water or food
52:58can be exported?
53:01Yeah, that's right.
53:01And there is a federal law that requires foreign ownerships
53:06to register when purchasing farmland.
53:07But my understanding is the compliance isn't that great.
53:11And there are states that have some restrictions
53:14on how foreign ownership can own land.
53:18For instance, Iowa has some restrictions on it.
53:22But also, there is a lot of questions
53:25around who ultimately owns a company
53:28that can make it very difficult to understand
53:30at the end of the day,
53:31whose money is it that's buying that farmland?
53:34And so I think there's an increasing interest
53:36on the national level, on state levels,
53:39to understand who is purchasing the land.
53:43And we're seeing some push from lawmakers in that regard.
53:48Gabrielle, what surprised you when you made this film?
53:53I was blown away that there is no national water policy.
53:59Nate reported this out,
54:01that there's not only not a national water policy,
54:05there's no national water strategy.
54:07What does it mean to protect us and think about water
54:13in much more of a similar way that China and Russia do?
54:16Which is, I mean, you're playing a long game, right?
54:18They're in the 21st century,
54:19thinking about burgeoning populations
54:21and what to do there to feed them,
54:23while we and our water laws are 19th century.
54:27Some of them are from the 19th century, literally.
54:30So trying to build consensus
54:33over what we do with what we have left
54:36seems a no-brainer,
54:37but we're not there yet.
54:41Nate Halverson and Gabriella Copperthwaite,
54:43the film is called The Grab
54:44and you can find it on most online streaming platforms.
54:47Thank you both for joining us.
54:48Thank you so much for having us.
54:50Thanks so much.
54:51And finally tonight, heavy metal and hijabs.
55:04This all-female Muslim rock group
55:06will make history this Friday,
55:08becoming the first Indonesian band
55:10to play at Britain's famous Glastonbury Festival.
55:13The trio, called Voice of Basaprod, or VOP,
55:17sing of female empowerment,
55:19lamenting the fixation on their appearance
55:22instead of their music.
55:24They've performed abroad before,
55:26but this will be their biggest gig yet,
55:28sharing spaces with Coldplay
55:30and Shania Twain, amongst others.
55:32And that's it for our program tonight.
55:34If you want to know what's coming up every night,
55:36sign up for our newsletter at pbs.org slash amanpour.
55:40Thanks for watching and goodbye from London.