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- [00:04]
Christiane Amanpour
Hello, everyone, and welcome to Amanpur. Here's what's coming up.
- [00:08]
Wael Al Dhatoum
I said if it was inevitable for me to die, now I have to die standing up.
- [00:14]
Christiane Amanpour
Journalists on the front lines. Al Jazeera's Gaza bureau chief Wael Al Dahtu tells me about risking it all to report Israel's war. Then there's no guarantee that either of.
- [00:26]
Wael Al Dhatoum
Them are cutting out of this alive.
- [00:28]
Christiane Amanpour
A family torn apart. I'm joined by a former Israeli hostage and the director who filmed the struggle to bring her home.
- [00:36]
Michael Crow
Also ahead, what we've tried to build is an unbelievably accessible model in which finances will not be a barrier.
- [00:43]
Christiane Amanpour
Innovating across higher education. Arizona State University president Michael Crow tells Walter Isaacson how he's changing the game. Welcome to the program, everyone. I'm Christiane Amanpour. In London, the week that derailed diplomacy with an Israeli strike in Qatar targeting Hamas leaders as they were trying to discuss the latest proposal to end the war in Gaza and free the remaining hostages. Now those desperately awaiting outcomes are left in limbo. And today we hear from both a former hostage and a Palestinian journalist from Gaza. First, as Israel pursues a full scale invasion of Gaza City, those bearing witness for the world face ever greater danger. The Committee to Protect Journalists counts at least 189 Palestinian journalists killed since October 7. At least 26 of those it says were directly targeted. Al Jazeera has emerged as the dominant force chronicling Israel's offensive in Gaza despite efforts to silence them. Ten of their journalists who have been killed in Israeli strikes. Israel accuses some of them of being terrorists without presenting any evidence. One man became the face of the unimaginable horrors these journalists endure. While Al Dhatoum is Al Jazeera's Gaza buracheev and he joined me here, here in London. Wael Al Dahdu. Welcome to our program. You know, we're used to seeing you over there. You've become incredibly famous as the face of news reporting in Gaza. From the beginning, you have lost so many members of your family. Your wife, your daughter, your son, your grandson. How did you manage to keep going and to keep reporting after those losses?
- [02:54]
Wael Al Dhatoum
Definitely because of my love for this profession. First, my deep conviction and belief of the importance and impact of this profession. And it's a profession which is worth sacrificing for. But ultimately it's something we do for the humanity at large for the profession of journalism. The whole world waits for our coverage to reach it at a time when it was meant for Gaza to Be kept in the dark, away from professional journalism. And in the end, what do you expect from someone like me, with all this determination to work and to do that in an objective way. And then his. Almost his entire family are targeted and killed. Then he sees his wife, his son, his grandson and nine members of his family, apart from many neighbors who have all been targeted because of this profession. And do you want me to give up on them? To let them now? No, I will not give up on them. I'll do it for the dignity of the sacrifices they have made.
- [04:13]
Christiane Amanpour
And you said it was the most difficult decision of my life to bury my family and then stand before the cameras. And you've explained why you had to do that. I see your hand is still in a brace. What happened to your arm? It goes up to here. I think.
- [04:30]
Wael Al Dhatoum
This hand was injured while I was on a job which was previously coordinated with the Israeli occupying forces through the International Red Cross. And we were accompanied by medics from the Palestinian Red Cross. When we went to the location, we did the filming, we saw some tragic situation, that part of Khan Yun. We spent three hours there. When we decided to go back after finishing the job, we were targeted by a missile from an Israeli drone. Three of the medics we were traveling with were killed. And my colleague, the cameraman, Sam Rabu Dakta, was injured and he. I was left there to bleed for six hours. I lost my hearing temporarily and I lost consciousness. And I tried desperately to stand up and run away, because we know by habit that there'll soon be a second missile. I was looking for a place to take cover when I realized that I was covered in blood, my hand was injured. I couldn't help my colleague and cameraman. I lost all hope of surviving. But I said if it was inevitable for me to die, now I have to die standing up, walking. Maybe. Maybe I can make it to one of the ambulances, which were some 800 meters away. When I crawled there and got there, I said to them, please help my colleagues. They said, it's impossible. We cannot make any moves without prior coordination with the Israelis. The permission took six hours. By then it was too late. Samer couldn't make it. They took me to hospital. Then I buried Samer near where I buried my family and continued my job. This is my message, this is my mission. Later on, my own son was targeted and killed. And I also continued. Because ultimately there is no escaping this reality.
- [06:49]
Christiane Amanpour
I want to get to the current reality. But first I want to ask you, because you're no longer in Gaza. And yet everything that you're saying makes me believe that you wish you could still be there telling the story. And you said when you left, it was like being poisoned. Your family persuaded you to leave finally in January 2024, after Hamza's funeral. But you said, you know, this was too hard for me to leave. Tell me what you were feeling when you left the battlefield and left your. Your dead family, who you'd buried.
- [07:26]
Wael Al Dhatoum
Maybe this was not less painful than the moment when I buried my family once and then later on, my son, Hamza. It was a horrific day. I adamantly refused to leave. But I have daughters, young daughters, who need treatment, and I need the treatment. And many people advised me, and many people were pressurizing me, saying, you have to leave. You have to do something for your daughters as well. When I decided to leave, I felt as if the whole world had stopped moving and I had to drink poison. And I never been a situation like that or a feeling like that. It never occurred. Occurred to me before that I can leave this place. I can leave the people who I saw being shredded into pieces because I was in this job and in this profession. This is not easy. But I said, maybe it's God's will that I have to go now somewhere else, maybe to continue the mission somewhere else, and hopefully managed to provide some treatment for my daughters and maybe circumstances would one day allow us to return after the treatment.
- [08:56]
Christiane Amanpour
While you became a hero, you became known all over the world. Al Jazeera journalists have become the heroes of the Muslim world. Hundreds of millions of people are watching Al Jazeera. People like yourself, people like Anas Al Sharif, who was also killed last month, others who are telling these stories. We obviously have told the story of Gaza through your eyes and your camera and your words, because we cannot get in. So, you know, we. And frankly, the whole world owes you a debt of gratitude. What do you say when there's what, you know, certain Israeli newspapers have called sort of the legitimization project. In other words, every time one of you is killed, and there have been scores, the Israeli government says that they were Hamas, they were paid by Hamas, they were militants, they were this, they were that. We haven't seen the evidence, but how does it make you feel that each and every one of your colleagues are either killed in the crossfire or deliberately and then immediately targeted as criminals?
- [10:03]
Wael Al Dhatoum
Definitely this is premeditated, deliberate killing. We started by seeing one or two journals being targeted. Later on, they started targeting groups of journalists, Eneas Sharif and Mohammad Krekha and four others were targeted together in one tent. Then later on, they discovered the camera belonging to Reuters and our colleague was there. They fired a tank round to where he was when people, civilians, civilians and medics and other colleagues went to help him. The Same tank fired two more rounds and they ended up killing 22 people. So this is no coincidence. When a journalist is clearly wearing a helmet, a flat jacket, and we always move in the open, and the Israeli drones never leave the skies, they know exactly who everyone is and where everyone is, and there are no Israeli armies, there are not even civilians around sometimes then. Yet 250 journalists were killed. This cannot be a mistake. First of all, they banned international journalists from coming to Gaza only to single us out, because they want the eyes of the world not to see what's happening, to report that to the world, not to cause Israel any embarrassment, not any ethical considerations, and maybe later on evidence that can be used before an international criminal court or something. You remember an Israeli investigative journalist who, after the targeting of Enzarif and his friends, said Israel had established a special unit in the Israeli intelligence. Their sole job is to search for names, to prepare for killing them, and later on smear them and raise doubts about them and say they are terrorists disguised as journalists. Yet they've never presented any evidence to justify anything. How can you justify the murder of 250 journalists? Have they ever had the kind of independent investigation, have they allowed for international observers? Have they allowed for anything to search into that? But we are being killed on just mere accusations and substantiated accusations. We are journalists. We do not belong to anybody. We try to be professional even when we pay the heavy price. We still stood before the camera in a balanced way, professional way away from emotions.
- [13:12]
Christiane Amanpour
I wanted to ask you about journalists, Palestinian journalists who are still there. But first I want to ask you. Look, Hamas, when it was in power, is not exactly a democratic organization. It's a pretty, you know, authoritarian regime. And I just wondered whether you felt pressure ever before October 7th or since October 7th, because Hamas is watching you as well. They're there too. Are journalists also under pressure, not just from Israel, but also from Hamas in Gaza? Was that difficult?
- [13:49]
Wael Al Dhatoum
This is a comparison when at times of war is not applicable.
- [13:54]
Christiane Amanpour
No, I mean even before.
- [13:58]
Wael Al Dhatoum
Hamas are not angels. Nobody's saying that they are not without mistakes. Maybe they have committed mistakes even towards the journalists. But does that justify the crimes Israel is committing against the Palestinian journalists? It's our misfortune that we are under occupation and therefore the space we're moving in is all about what the Israeli army is doing. So we are doing our jobs. We're trying to do it with the utmost professionality, without any pressures, neither from Hamas or anybody else. There are aspects that we disagree with Hamas, but we will fight for our rights. We will not capitulate, we will not give in to any pressures in Gaza. We try to do our job as best as we can. We cannot compare to anywhere else in the world. We never saw this number of journalists being killed.
- [15:09]
Christiane Amanpour
Let me know how. You're right. And starved, by the way, even some of our Palestinian colleagues who work for BBC, cnn, Reuters, ap, you know, are also targeted and are also having a really difficult time through lack of food, malnutrition and all of that. So I want to ask you. There are young journalists who are still there, young Palestinian journalists who are still there. And even as the Israelis prepare to invade Gaza City, I read an article about a young woman who is working for Al Jazeera, who talked to her colleagues about should we flee, should we stay, and decided to stay, you know, knowing what's happened to all of you, to tell the story again, for which we are very grateful and we are very angry and upset, and we oppose the fact that we are not allowed in Gaza to help you report. But they're doing it. Do you understand that? Or do you think now, after two years, they should seek safety?
- [16:12]
Wael Al Dhatoum
Right from the start, nobody left us any space or hope or margin to choose safety in Gaza City, of Gaza or anywhere else. Now Gaza is surrounded completely. You have colleagues who have been injured, but they are not allowed to leave and get treatment. Some of them are paralyzed now. And this gives you the impression as to how a journalist lives. We cannot choose anything. Everything is imposed on us. All these obstacles, fear, tension. Yet we are required to continue. Even if some colleagues or one of them decides to choose safety, where can he go? He can't even attend to live in. If he goes to hospital, the hospital will be targeted. But our only consolation is the voice is still there, the image is still there and still. And the world is still in touch with Gaza, despite Israel wanting to be isolated. And thanks to these efforts, although it was the price very heavy and very painful for all of us.
- [17:35]
Christiane Amanpour
You're right. It's thanks to you and all your colleagues there that the world knows what's going on. So thank you for coming in here and telling us your story.
- [17:45]
Wael Al Dhatoum
Thank you very much. God bless. And we hope that the world can do something. Our colleagues, governments, parliaments, news organizations, and people to do something to save journalists and to save humanity in Gaza.
- [18:03]
Christiane Amanpour
Later in the program, a new documentary focuses on one Israeli hostage and her family's relentless effort to get her back. Holding Liyat after the break. America is changing and so is the world. But what's happening in America isn't just.
- [18:26]
Michael Crow
The cause of global upheaval. It's also a symptom of disruption that's happening everywhere.
- [18:31]
Christiane Amanpour
I'm Asma Khalid in Washington, D.C. i'm.
- [18:34]
Michael Crow
Tristan Redman in London, and this is the global story.
- [18:38]
Christiane Amanpour
Every weekday we'll bring you a story from this intersection where the world and America meet.
- [18:43]
Michael Crow
Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [18:53]
Christiane Amanpour
And now to the other side of this two year bloodbath for Israeli hostage families. New fears after Israel's attack on Hamas negotiators in Qatar that remaining hostages could be killed in revenge. A new documentary, holding Liat, shows just how deep a torment these families have endured since October 7th. It follows the family of Liat Benin Atzili, who goes through all the stages of grief as they fight relentlessly for her return. Here's a little bit of a clip.
- [19:24]
Liat Benin Atzili
There's no way of knowing how much longer this is going to go on.
- [19:27]
Christiane Amanpour
Who's holding her? Is she in a house? Is Lee in a cave? Is she being fed? Does she have her glasses? Because the longer it takes, the harder it is to stay positive. There's no guarantee that either of them.
- [19:38]
Wael Al Dhatoum
Are cutting out of this alive.
- [19:47]
Michael Crow
I want them back because what are.
- [19:48]
Walter Isaacson
You making you so understanding about their considerations?
- [19:51]
Wael Al Dhatoum
They're playing games.
- [19:56]
Christiane Amanpour
I feel your pain.
- [19:57]
Michael Crow
I lost half of my family's home.
- [20:01]
Christiane Amanpour
I think every person in Israel and I'm sure that on the Palestinian side has someone that they have lost. So how do you even begin to coexist in that violent cycle?
- [20:15]
Wael Al Dhatoum
Your story is quite unusual.
- [20:18]
Liat Benin Atzili
Can you talk about what you remember?
- [20:22]
Christiane Amanpour
Liat herself and the film's director, Brandon Cramer are joining me here in London. Welcome to the program. It is such an intro. Interesting film. I'm going to get to your tragedy in a moment. But as a film, I don't know, what did you think even of that clip? Because they get your parents, your sister, even some of your children and warts and all. I mean, Brandon captured it, warts and all. No sugarcoating, you know, the arguments, the tensions, the differing views about what was going on with you.
- [20:52]
Liat Benin Atzili
I know my family well, so it wasn't a surprise. It wasn't. It wasn't. They told me a lot of what had happened while I was away. But still seeing it and seeing it for the first time on film, it was very, very emotional and funny and I was crying and laughing and it just, all of a sudden everything came to life and I sort of got a deeper understanding and appreciation of what my family had been through and what they done.
- [21:27]
Christiane Amanpour
Yeah, and I mean, you endured a tragedy. You endured 50 plus days of captivity. You were released in one of the deals that was struck actually to return hostages, but your husband did not make it and you had to come back to face that knowledge as well.
- [21:45]
Liat Benin Atzili
Yeah, obviously that was the most difficult thing. There's a part in the movie where I addressed that, and that was also very difficult for me to see. Again, I didn't remember feeling that way. I say that I can't deal with the fact that on the day that I returned, we still thought that he might be alive and that he was being held hostage. We found out a day later that he'd been killed. So that's, that's been very challenging to deal with that.
- [22:28]
Christiane Amanpour
While you take a moment, let me ask you, Brandon. Aviv was killed. You somehow got this family to. I want to know the mechanics of how you managed to get inside the family in such an intimate and real time way as they were, you know, desperately seeking, you know, solutions to their, to their daughter's plight and their son in law's.
- [22:51]
Brandon Cramer
Yeah, I mean, I'm very close with Liat's family. I've known them for over 20 years. And, you know, a week after Liat and Aviv went missing, Liat's father, Liat's son, and Liat's sister all came to Washington D.C. where my brother and I are documentary filmmakers, and we started filming. We thought it would just be a few days. You know, we thought we'd put something together really short. And, and as we were filming, we saw that what they were experiencing was a story so drastically different than the story of the other hostages or hostage families that was being presented in the media and on social media. I mean, Liat's father was within days advocating for peace and reconciliation. Her son had barely survived the attack and was deeply traumatized. Her sister want politics to be a part of this at all. And here in front of our camera was three generations of one family navigating their grief in different ways and their political differences.
- [23:55]
Christiane Amanpour
It is in that regard, remarkable. Particularly, I was stunned by how your father and mother and, you know, others did express those immediately empathetic views of the people who had committed this horrendous act of terrorism and murder and kidnap against you. Obviously, they weren't sympathizing with the perpetrators, with the Palestinian cause and rights. It's very hard even to talk about that today, two years after, for many Israelis.
- [24:26]
Liat Benin Atzili
I think that one thing that's very fundamental in our makeup as people and certainly in our political makeup is that no matter what happens to you, there's this moral guide that you don't let go of, no matter what. How hard and how difficult the things that you're going through are. And I'm glad that my family chose to deal with what happened and that their work to release me, to secure my release, was loyal to that.
- [25:09]
Christiane Amanpour
You know, I'm going to play a little clip that emphasizes that in real time and in real life when you were, you know, starting this journey with the family. So this is your father, the father who is in Senator Chris Van Hollen's office, and he's talking about desperately wanting information and movement on his daughter and son in law. And he expresses the day after wishes as well.
- [25:36]
Brandon Cramer
In the name of my.
- [25:37]
Michael Crow
Daughter and her husband as part of the hostage release.
- [25:40]
Walter Isaacson
I think the most important message after this is all over is the question.
- [25:45]
Christiane Amanpour
Now, what reconciliation with the Palestinians is.
- [25:49]
Walter Isaacson
Probably the single most important thing that can actually affect a change for the.
- [25:56]
Christiane Amanpour
Better in the long run. Again, Brandon, I don't know about you, but for me, that's humbling.
- [26:01]
Brandon Cramer
Yeah, I mean, look, you know, watching, watching Yehuda, watching Liat, we didn't know that Liat was going to come out when we started making this film. And when she was released, we didn't know how you would feel. And, you know, the empathy that you've expressed, obviously, toward the hostages that are still in Gaza, but also toward Palestinians that are suffering. For me as a filmmaker and a storyteller, it was a profound, a profound thing to document the story of somebody that has suffered what you've suffered 54 days in captivity, losing your husband and still emerging with the ability to look on the other side of the fence and care.
- [26:48]
Christiane Amanpour
Liat, tell us. It's documented in the film, obviously, and it's, you know, some of the most compelling testimony as well, how you survived, what happened when you were ripped from your house, your son was still there. You didn't know what had happened to your husband because he was a first responder. In the end, he didn't survive. And where were you taken and how were you treated for those 54 days?
- [27:13]
Liat Benin Atzili
I was taken to Khan Yunis, which is a city in the Gaza Strip. And I was taken to the. To the home of one of the people who'd kidnapped me from my home. And I met his family there. And I think they were a little bit surprised that their son came back from wherever with this woman. And they treated me very well. I think it's still an unusual story. A lot of the other hostages obviously weren't treated as well, and we've seen terrible pictures and heard horrible stories about what other people have gone through. But I was incredibly lucky and that I was treated well by this family. And then also when I was transferred to other people, they also managed to provide basic needs. And they saw that as part of their, I don't know, their job in guarding me. And another woman who I was with, they kept saying that it was their job to keep us healthy and to keep us well until we were released in a deal. So a lot of luck on that.
- [28:29]
Christiane Amanpour
A lot of luck, yeah. A lot of luck in a terrible situation. Did you get the impression that they didn't know about the operation?
- [28:37]
Liat Benin Atzili
They knew about the operation, but I did get the impression that they didn't understand to a full extent what had happened.
- [28:44]
Christiane Amanpour
And did you have sort of religious or political discussions?
- [28:47]
Liat Benin Atzili
Yeah, well, we were four people in an apartment, and they weren't hostile towards us and they interested in talking. And also I was very curious about when I stopped being afraid. I let my curiosity about life in the Gaza Strip. I let that go, and I just.
- [29:10]
Christiane Amanpour
Asked him all these questions.
- [29:11]
Liat Benin Atzili
Yeah. Asked all the things that had always interested me about life there.
- [29:16]
Christiane Amanpour
We'll get to that in a moment, because the end of the film is just remarkable about view of life there. But while this was happening and Liat was in this condition inside, you were outside now filming her parents in dc, as we've seen, and also at home inside Israel. So the second clip I want to play is of actually Liat's sister, and she goes to visit two congresspeople as well. But she has a much different attitude to your father. Let's play. I hate this, really. I don't like asking for help. I think also everybody that we've met with is doing all they can, so I'm not exactly sure what the point is. I mean, I'll do it, you know, because if it's for my sister, I'll do it, but it's just not my preferred way of helping. I mean, she's a firecracker. She's also a reluctant warrior in this case. Give me a deeper sense of what you learned about Liat's sister.
- [30:23]
Brandon Cramer
Well, I mean, Liat's sister is an incredible, incredible person and incredible sister dedicated to you. And I think for me, what was so interesting was her relationship with her nephew and with her father, you know, being able to. They're in the absolute worst days of their entire life. This is, you know, days after Liat Naviv are missing. And they opened up their lives to myself and our camera, which is an incredibly difficult thing to do. I mean, we're literally sleeping on the floor outside their hotel room so we can film the 2am phone calls they're getting from the IDF. We're filming conversations between a father and a daughter disagreeing about how to get Liotte home and their political differences, which is a very sensitive thing. And I think, you know, these kind of fractures and disagreements happen with families all over the world. The difference for them was that lives were on the line. And so instead of keeping those differences apart, they were forced to confront them. And my hope is with this film, it allows audiences to bear witness to people dealing with grief in different ways and confronting those differences.
- [31:46]
Christiane Amanpour
And also, you even got into bedrooms. I mean, there's a scene with, you know, your father and mother on a bed having a bit of an argument as well. Again, it's just so intimate and so utterly revealing. When you. Okay, so when you came out, that was also amazing. The scenes of the reunion, you were, you know, embracing obviously, everybody, including your children, a special place for your. For your daughter, for your sister as well. I mean, you guys obviously get on so well. And then by contrast. Contrast and not contrast. I was struck also about the funeral you then had for Aviva and how you talked about him. That it seemed to me like an impromptu speech that you made right there for everybody about the value of his life. And then the dancing. I mean, how does somebody do that?
- [32:43]
Liat Benin Atzili
Aviv, I think it's evident in the movie he's a wonderful and very, very special person. And the day before the funeral, there was an event that was supposed to be to raise awareness to our release. And it ended up being sort of in Aviv's memory. And my oldest son, Ofri, read something that he wrote on that occasion, and he said something about Aviv being the worst dancer in the world.
- [33:20]
Christiane Amanpour
So you got everybody to dance.
- [33:21]
Liat Benin Atzili
Yeah, so it was just. And Aviv and I had a lot of discussions about death, and we decided on the music that we wanted played at each other's funerals. And then I spoke to the kids, and I said, you know, look, we discussed this before, and this is what we thought. But after what Ofri said, I have a different idea. And how are you with that? And. And they said, well, yeah, I mean, of course it's joyous. Yeah. We have to play that song. We have to dance. We have to do what he would have wanted us to do.
- [33:58]
Christiane Amanpour
You are a history teacher.
- [33:59]
Liat Benin Atzili
Yeah.
- [34:00]
Christiane Amanpour
You took your high school class to Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial in Israel, and you told them a story about that. If I can't talk about it, I.
- [34:13]
Wael Al Dhatoum
Don'T know who's going to be able.
- [34:14]
Christiane Amanpour
To talk about it. Anyway, let me gather myself, because it's really profound.
- [34:18]
Brandon Cramer
We've shed a lot of tears together through this process. So you're in good company.
- [34:23]
Christiane Amanpour
You told them the story, the historical story about the ghetto in Warsaw where the Jews were confined, and you said, behind a fence, and while it was burning, the other Poles just watched it burning and didn't do anything. And then there's a picture of you sitting near the Gaza fence. Or you're talking about the Gaza fence and you're talking about what is, you know, over the fence and what you all should or shouldn't or will or won't be thinking. Just explain that, because it's an amazing phenomenon.
- [34:53]
Liat Benin Atzili
Well, the. I was telling my students about a poem by the Polish poet Czaslaw Milosz, and he talks about that in the poem about the Warsaw Ghetto going up in flames.
- [35:10]
Wael Al Dhatoum
And actually.
- [35:14]
Liat Benin Atzili
The connection between that and between the fence between Israel and the Gaza Strip is something that I had spoken about with students of mine years before. They'd been on a trip to Poland with me. And months afterwards, I asked them what the most memorable thing about the trip was. And one of them said that the indifference of people to other people's suffering, that she found that very, very troubling. And then she said, but we live near a fence, and nobody thinks about what's going on behind that fence. And that's something that just stuck with me. And it seemed very, very appropriate ever since to our situation. And it can go in so many different directions. I mean, obviously in the direction of the suffering in the Gaza Strip, but also in the direction of the political process that's been happening there and the things that led up to October 7th. And that's also something that we weren't. We weren't aware of. Like, on the one hand, the terrible suffering, but on the other hand, that there was a monster being created on the other side of that fence, and now we have to deal with it. We can't. Not with everything well, this film is.
- [36:50]
Christiane Amanpour
I hope and I feel is going to open a lot of people's eyes, not just for the humanity of what you've been discussing in your own story, but for the bigger, bigger story as well. So, you know, Liat, thank you so much for being here. And Brandon, congratulations. Well done on a really moving and exceptional film.
- [37:09]
Brandon Cramer
Thank you so much for having us.
- [37:11]
Liat Benin Atzili
Thank you.
- [37:13]
Christiane Amanpour
Incredibly, after that conversation, Liat told me that she's refurbished her devastated house in near Oz and is moving back to that kibbutz, hoping to create a new community there. Now holding Liard is out in the UK today. It'll be released in the United States in January. And we'll be right back after this short break. And now Trump's clashes with American universities. His administration announced plans to cut $350 million in federal grants to colleges and universities serving large minority student populations, unilaterally declaring these programs to be unconstitutional. Michael Crow is the president of Arizona State University, recently ranked the most innovative school in the country. Crow believes universities should be driving social and economic progress, and he spoke with Walter Isaacson to explain why and how this conversation took place before the shooting of conservative activist Charlie Kirk on a university campus in Utah.
- [38:27]
Walter Isaacson
Thank you, Chris, John and Dr. Michael Crow, welcome to the show.
- [38:31]
Michael Crow
Hey, Walter, nice to see you.
- [38:33]
Walter Isaacson
For two decades now, you've led Arizona State University, the largest public university in the country. One reason it's so big is you were early on, big on remote learning, on zoom and virtual classrooms. After Covid, a lot of universities experimented with that sort of thing and went way back to more in person learning. What did you learn from all of this and to what extent are you adjusting how much should be in person?
- [39:04]
Michael Crow
Well, Walter, you know, it's a complicated thing. We live in a country of approaching 350 million people in which we have a limited set of institutions and low levels of access to lifelong education. In fact, low levels of access to university education and underperforming and all kinds of other things. And so the lesson that we learned in Covid was that if you have a great faculty matched with unbelievable innovations, matched with unbelievable drive to continue to innovate, you can find ways to reach learners literally everywhere with the highest level of quality learning products possible. And so that's what we really learned, is that it can all work if you've got a dedicated faculty and a continuous stream of innovations.
- [39:44]
Walter Isaacson
So what are those continuous streams of innovations when it comes to remote learning? How have you tweaked or even revolutionized the process?
- [39:54]
Michael Crow
Well, first, we've built an innovative culture in our faculty which allows them to be open to the process of innovation. Second, we found 400 learning technologies that we could enhance, build further the innovative process. We brought all those things together. We've then found a dedicated energy focusing on the learner themselves. We believe in the theories of abund that human beings have unbelievable potential. And then with these tools, with these learning tools and with this dedicated faculty, what we found is, I'll give you an example. This year we'll have 35,000 engineering students. And when we started this process, we had 6,000 engineering students. We found new ways to teach calculus, new ways to teach biology, new ways to teach chemistry, enabling all the people who want to be an engineer to be able to be an engineer. That only comes through innovation in this process.
- [40:42]
Walter Isaacson
One of the things you've done at ASU is called the sky song, I think it is, in which you actually try to take research and translate it into technology, into real commercial things that used to not be done much at big universities. And then I think at the beginning of the seventies, it started happening. Tell me how important government investment in basic research is and then allowing you to translate that into commercial products.
- [41:10]
Michael Crow
Well, I mean, it's unbelievably important. I mean, one of the books that you wrote about the crispr Nobel prize with Jennifer Doudna was this whole thing about decades and decades and decades of fundamental research on enzymes, on chemistry, on proteins, on computational systems, on imaging systems and so forth. Thousands and thousands of research groups, tens of thousands of papers, hundreds of patents. All these things allow someone like her, who you've spent a lot of time studying and understanding, to even exist. Steve Jobs, the person you wrote an entire book about all of his creativity and his design and his genius. If you dissect and chop up the iPhone 16, it is in fact built on a platform of fundamental science, academic science, academic outcomes. Even Jobs said this himself. I mean, he was a genius of design, the genius of creativity, a genius of making things happen, of overcoming opposition. But what was he building? He was building from the threads of a fabric that had been 100 years, at least academically driven, and then even longer than that.
- [42:16]
Walter Isaacson
Well, explain how basic research did help lead to the iPhone.
- [42:21]
Michael Crow
Well, if you look at something like the iPhone 16 has got billions of transistors on the present chip. The first transistor was 1947. The first transistor was derivative of basic physics, basic math, basic computational science, basic material sciences. You couldn't design it, you couldn't Build it. You couldn't conceptualize it without that fundamental science.
- [42:42]
Walter Isaacson
So you've got a semiconductor research facility at ASU that's designed to do just that. And yet the federal Commerce Department just cut most of the money out. Right.
- [42:53]
Michael Crow
What's that maneuver going? So we won in the Chips and Science act, we won a major new lab with the nist. We won one eighth of the new Defense Department lab called the Microelectronics Commons. We won the State Department's funded project to secure the supply chain training. We won a $270 million project funded by Applied Materials, a company all designed to build new underpinnings for semiconductors. And then this thing that got started late in the Biden administration called natcast got stood up, and then they picked three places to build new national labs. We won one of those. Secretary Letnick has just decided to pull that back into the government. I don't know if that's the exact status of that. And so what we're going to do is we're going continue to fight to do everything we can to make sure that the United States continues as this epicenter of innovation. Academic research, industrial research, training, advanced people, advanced ideas in all things related to semiconductors, all things digital. Because that's on so much of what the future economy is going to be based on.
- [43:58]
Walter Isaacson
Well, more broadly than just this lab. Are you worried about the National Science foundation and other funding cuts into basic research that used to be funded by government?
- [44:09]
Michael Crow
Well, what I'm worried about is it's one thing to take the Legos apart because you wanted to have them shaped in a new form to drive the country forward into more success. Right now, the cautionary note I would give to the people that are doing that is you're melting some of those Legos and you're breaking this fundamental process. And so it's interesting to me to think about wanting to be the best economy, wanting the United States to be the most successful, and then taking this foundational thing, what I've called previously the invisible hand, this invisible hand of academic science which underpins all these other things. I heard President Trump on the news talking about being the AI leaders and so forth and so on. Well, yeah, okay. Well, that requires people, chips, science, technology, algorithms, new math, new tools, new ways of thinking about things. There's nothing that's static that keeps you as the best. The thing that keeps you as the best is this unbelievable drive to innovate. And so the unbelievable drive to innovate in the modern world is heavily driven by Academic science. I mean, in fact, it is the essential ingredient from which the massive integrative innovators have any promise of even being successful.
- [45:14]
Walter Isaacson
One of the reasons for the cuts in federal funding to research universities perhaps, is the public disaffection somehow with universities, whether it be the elites like Harvard or Columbia or state universities like yours, ucla, or whatever, of whatever. What is the cause of this public disaffection and what are you doing about it?
- [45:40]
Michael Crow
Well, my own view of this, and I've written a lot about this myself, is that the public disaffection comes from two things. One, disappointment. Most people that go to college don't graduate and they feel resentful. Most people that have debt have no diploma or degree, and that's on us. We should have not allowed that to happen. A second thing that's going on is that the universities, I think, in their rhetoric and their projection, haven't always shown fidelity to the success of the United States. And so more of a global approach to the world, which is fine. And so there's some of that going on. And then I think, also.
- [46:12]
Walter Isaacson
Let me back that up, unpack that for me. Not fidelity to the success of the United States. You're meaning they're less patriotic than they should be?
- [46:21]
Michael Crow
Not patriotic as much. It's sort of like if we're going to be involved in research, yes, we want the world to be a better place, but we need American corporations to be successful, and we need the American military to be a good defensive shield for the United States. And so that means we have to talk like that also. We have to be focused on those kinds of things. At the same time as there's this shared disaffection, the demand for the services from the colleges, the desire for people to have their children educated at the highest possible level, has never been higher. Our enrollment, we have a 5% increase in enrollment this year over last year. We have unbelievable demand for our services. We have people breaking our doors down to want to be here. From all over the world, 166 countries are represented here. We've got all this going on. And so we've got what I think is institutional instability because we need to do more, take more responsibility, and produce better outcomes for the United States.
- [47:15]
Walter Isaacson
A lot of universities brag about how low their acceptance rate is. In other words, they only accept 10, 12% of the people who apply. You, I think, brag about the opposite, that you accept as many possible 90% of the people who apply. Why that different approach?
- [47:32]
Michael Crow
Well, so somewhere in the United States You've got to have a standard for admission to a university which is based on what qualifications do you need to give you some chance of success. And so we went back to the admission standards of the University of California from 1950 and the admission standards of the University of Michigan from 1950. And there you needed a B average in high school, you needed to take certain high school courses, you needed to get at least a B in those courses, and then you're admitted. Those are our admission standards. We get lots of A students also. We get lots of kids like you coming out of New Orleans, going to harbor, you know, doing really well and so forth. We get those kids also. There's only so many slots for those kinds of, for those students. So we have a big honors college, about 8,000 students, which looks a lot like Columbia's undergraduate college where I used to be a faculty member. And so. But at the same time, we're not going to say that we're a better university because we didn't admit these fully qualified students. We also have taken one additional step, which is if you're not qualified for whatever reason, you know your family had a catastrophic event when you were in high school, you made some mistake when you were in high school. You didn't take the right courses, goofed off, you were a screw off or whatever. We have a pathway for you to earn your way in. So some of the great research universities in the US of which we are one of those, need to also be maintaining this notion of egalitarian access in the true spirit of the democracy. Otherwise we end up with a distorted outcome of only the hyper, hyper qualified students from high school being able to go to college and succeed at college. And if we end up that way, then the democracy is not going to be successful.
- [49:07]
Walter Isaacson
Is there some lesson there for navigating the world after affirmative action, after the Supreme Court has said race based affirmative action is bad?
- [49:18]
Michael Crow
Well, we didn't even read the ruling because we admit every qualified student. So if you're qualified, you're in. If you're not qualified, we find a way to get you qualified. And so for your big public research universities, your public regional universities, your community colleges, others that are really taking the lion's share of the educational challenge for the future of our country. You don't want any admission criteria other than what is the qualification for attendance. Then you have to deal with the issue of income disparity. And most kids don't come from families that are particularly well prepared to pay for college. So we worked very hard to be able to still have. I should have mentioned that University of California in 1950 had this B level admission standard. They also had no tuition. Their tuition was free. Now we have a fantastic financial aid package to make sure that people are not left out for financial reasons. So the only criteria that we look at for admissions is are you qualified to perform university level work? If you are, you're admitted and then we find a way for you to finish. We find a job for you, we find a pathway to a scholarship for you, we find a way for you to be successful. And that's allowed us to go from 8,000 graduates a year to 40,000 graduates a year.
- [50:31]
Wael Al Dhatoum
Year.
- [50:31]
Walter Isaacson
It used to be. You mentioned it happened at the University of California, but all over the country, including when my dad went to university, you went to a public state university. It was basically free.
- [50:43]
Michael Crow
Yes.
- [50:43]
Walter Isaacson
Now it costs a lot. Should we go in this new knowledge based age like we did 100 years ago when we made high school universal and free? Should we make access to public universities for.
- [50:57]
Michael Crow
I don't like the word free. What I like the word is accessible. The concept is accessible. And so what we need is we need a way where there's not a financial barrier. You have a way to take this next step. It turns out that college students are emerging adults. Emerging adults need to understand that nothing is free and that you have to take responsibility for what you want to do with yourself. You have to invest in yourself. So we need an investment based model. We need an ownership based model. Also in high school, you're required to create, go until at least certain age in certain states. College is still your choice. And so what we've tried to build is an unbelievably accessible model in which finances will not be a barrier. 17,000 students work for us. We're thinking that at some point, with so many other learners that we're attached to, there's some possibility that all of the 80,000 students that are here with us or the 100,000 students that are here with us, they won't have any tuition costs because they'll all be working as a part of a learning machine where we're educating many, many other people in addition to the people that are privileged enough to be able to be here with us. And so we see an expansion of this kind of model as being a viable way to move this university forward.
- [52:09]
Walter Isaacson
Dr. Michael Crone, thank you so much for joining us.
- [52:12]
Michael Crow
Thank you, Walter.
- [52:14]
Christiane Amanpour
An ongoing conversation over universities. That's it for now. If you ever miss our show, you can find the latest episode shortly after it airs on our podcast. And remember, you can always catch us online on our website and all over social media. Thanks for watching and goodbye from London.
- [52:38]
Brandon Cramer
Tab I Got News for your Ears the podcast.
- [52:41]
Christiane Amanpour
I am your host, Michael Ian Black.
- [52:44]
Wael Al Dhatoum
I will say what's impressive about him is that it doesn't matter.
- [52:47]
Brandon Cramer
No.
- [52:48]
Wael Al Dhatoum
Come hell or high water, he's gonna reshape American health industry.
- [52:52]
Brandon Cramer
There's just something off about the guy.
- [52:53]
Wael Al Dhatoum
Well, and his family has even come out the entire Kennedy clan, which is to get all the Kennedys on one the same page.
- [53:01]
Christiane Amanpour
They hate him. Have I Got News for your Ears Releases new episodes every Wednesday.
- [53:06]
Michael Crow
Don't miss an episode. Follow us wherever you get your podcast.