Spy Ops (2023) s01e06 Episode Script

1
[tense instrumental music playing]
- [tense instrumentals fade]
- [band playing poignantly]
[reporter] On most days, this stadium
holds 80,000 eager track and field fans.
Today, instead,
they came to a memorial service.
An hour of memory
for 11 fellow athletes from Israel,
slain yesterday during an abortive attempt
by Palestinian guerrillas
to gain the release
of Arabs held prisoner in Israel.
[suspenseful music playing]
[man 1]
This was executed by Black September.
We have to put an end
to this organization.
[man 2] The operation was
a combination of revenge, deterrence,
an attempt to demonstrate
to the international community,
this is not going to go unpunished.
[man 3] The Mossad made a list and said,
"Okay." And they started to look for them.
[man 1] After they succeeded
to kill many leaders of Black September,
they focused on Ali Hassan Salameh.
He was target number one.
[man 4] Mossad had almost inconceivable
and unthinkable achievements.
The Lillehammer operation was launched,
and this one was an operational failure.
They killed the wrong target.
EXECUTED
[man 1] Six years later,
Menachem Begin, the new prime minister,
felt that it was an unfinished business.
Salameh was a terrorist.
He was an assassin.
Begin gives the order.
"Find him, and kill him."
[tense music playing]
[music fades out]
Over the last 18 months,
a series of Arabs had mysteriously been
blown up or shot dead
in several European capitals.
But when they came to Lillehammer,
unaccountably, the Israelis
left a trail of evidence behind them.
Two men, unmasked,
used .22 pistols with silencers,
the same type of weapon used in the
assassination of Arabs in Rome and Paris.
Four days earlier,
the Israeli assassination squad
had come to Lillehammer
on the trail of Salameh,
the Arab behind
the Munich Olympics attack.
[suspenseful music playing]
[man in French]
At the time, I was in Saint-Tropez.
We played in restaurants.
We made music.
[suspenseful music continues]
We were in the street.
A policeman comes and says to me,
"You should contact your family,
because there was a problem at home."
"There was a problem in Norway,
a problem with Ahmed."
"But we don't know what's going on."
They told us he was dead.
But we thought it was a car accident
or some natural cause, unfortunately.
He was assassinated
by the secret service, by Mossad.
He was my big brother.
He was a bit of a guide for us.
He traveled so much that one day,
he found himself
in the Scandinavian countries.
He made his life there.
He met his wife, Torill.
He worked in Lillehammer,
and he lived in Lillehammer.
He was a karate teacher.
He was a waiter.
He had no ties
with the Palestinians at all.
At all.
That's why for us,
it was, beyond the tragedy,
a total misunderstanding.
[man 1 in English] When Ahmed Bouchikhi
was shot, he was shot close to a park.
In the park, there was
a young couple making love,
and they saw the car that left.
The car was a white car,
and they saw the number of the car.
Golden rule,
you don't use that car anymore.
But Dan Arbel had bought
some instruments for himself,
and they had left them
in the trunk of the car.
So, the following day,
he goes and he takes the car.
And with him is Marianne Gladnikoff.
And instead of taking the train to Oslo,
as they were supposed to,
they go with the car.
And not only they go with the car,
but Dan Arbel goes
to return the car to the rental agency,
which you don't do ever.
[ominous instrumentals playing]
The police arrest
Dan Arbel and Marianne Gladnikoff.
They speak immediately.
[tense music playing]
The problem with Arbel,
he was claustrophobic.
He couldn't stand
being in a confined, closed space.
He was ready to talk
if they just opened the door.
So, they opened the door, and he spoke.
And he gave a lot
of information about missions
and names of Mossad,
uh, leaders in Europe.
He gives them the address of the apartment
where Sylvia Raphael
and few other members are still waiting.
And the police
succeeds to arrest them.
[in French] It was painful because
the more we progressed in the story,
the more we did not understand,
because Mossad is a service
that is known throughout the world.
But in the end,
not immune to blunders like that.
Fortunately, some of them
have been arrested and convicted.
As a result, it became
an incredible state affair.
[in English]
Um, the Minister of Foreign Affairs
has, uh, informed, uh,
the Israel Embassy in Oslo
that, um, there will be no, um
[stammers] That it will not be possible
to, uh, release, uh, the prisoners,
uh, neither to, uh uh, permit anybody
to visit-visit them. Um
- [suspenseful music playing]
- [sirens wailing]
[Bar-Zohar] Dan Arbel, Sylvia Raphael,
and Marianne Gladnikoff are in prison,
and there is, uh, a trial.
[suspenseful music continues]
[reporter] The same scenes of security
have been repeated every day
as the six accused are rushed to court
under a heavily-armed escort today,
for their last journey
before the adjournment.
The public prosecutor, Mr. Hakan Vika,
said that at least one of the operation's
leaders had been caught,
and he called for sentences
ranging between six and nine years
for complicity in the killing.
The prosecution maintained
that the Israeli
intelligence organization, Mossad,
was in effect setting up its own
court of law to deal with Arab terrorism.
But a murder was a murder
and had to be treated as such,
whoever did it, and from whatever motives.
They were sentenced,
and it took quite some time
for Israel to negotiate their release
and to get them back.
[man] Almost all the guys on the operation
level get some time in prison in Norway.
But within 22 months, they were all out.
Israel never took
a formal kind of responsibility for it,
but it was clear between us
and the Norwegians that we did it.
Basically, that the Mossad did it.
[in French] As a professional,
I am still confused today
by this Israeli operation
against a Moroccan national
who was a waiter in Lillehammer
in Norway, whose only fault
was to have a physical resemblance
with Ali Hassan Salameh.
I knew Ali Hassan Salameh a little bit.
It was totally inconceivable
that this young and wealthy man,
who drove beautiful cars,
who had an extremely
important public life in Beirut,
by some strange twist of fate,
he would have ended up as a waiter
near the Arctic Circle, riding his bicycle
and leading a quiet life
among the Norwegians.
[in English]
A lot of operational mistakes were done,
some of them
out of the very short timetable,
because the head of the operation
was the same Mike Harari,
who ran, personally, many, many dozen,
probably hundreds
of different operations very successfully.
But this one failed, basically,
and create a mistake and
injustice to this
innocent Moroccan citizen.
[in French] So, the incredible thing
is that Israel never apologized.
Come on.
You bump into someone
in the street, you say sorry.
So, if you kill someone by mistake,
where are the apologies? That's huge.
My sister-in-law
never got her life back together.
She lived with this tragedy.
They made her sign a paper
that she wouldn't talk about that story.
[Bar-Zohar in English]
Years after, finally,
Israel agreed to pay
the indemnities to his families.
[ominous instrumentals playing]
Immediately, the Operation Wrath of God
was stopped. Immediately.
And everybody was brought back.
And finished.
After the Lillehammer incident,
Zamir offered Golda his resignation.
Golda rejected it right away.
She said, "It's a war."
"It's a war to protect Israeli lives."
"And in a war, mistake can be happen."
[man] In the eyes of Golda Meir,
we were attacked
only because we're Jewish.
We're being attacked
only because of an ongoing refusal
to accept our right to have our own
independent state in our ancient homeland.
[suspenseful music playing]
[man] Part of the Palestinian
terrorist organization strategy
was to attack Israeli targets in Israel,
Israeli targets overseas.
Therefore, Israel had to send
a message to world Jewry.
"We are going to help protect you
and protect your interests."
That's part of the raison d'être
for the existence of Israel.
[Bar-Zohar] The killings of the heads
of Black September
were an extremely successful mission.
[in Hebrew]
For a very long period of years,
there was not any more terror
on the scale we saw before in Europe
against Jews and Israelis.
These activities
caused a delay in operations,
caused the leaders of terror
to never sleep in the same bed at night,
because they knew that each one of them
could be touched personally,
and it disrupted the work.
[in English]
By killing ten or eleven Arabs in Europe,
Black September in April of 1973
ceased to exist.
But the only one who survived,
Ali Hassan Salameh.
Very strangely,
he had escaped every attack
we had on the leaders of Black September.
[in Arabic] Abu Hassan, he is
one of the leaders of Black September.
I mean, he is one of the leaders,
but he was not the senior leader.
[man in Arabic]
I, personally, started in the '60s
as president of the student organization
of the Lebanese Kataeb Party.
[pensive instrumentals playing]
After that, I was the first member
of the Kataeb Party who met Yasser Arafat.
And that started
communication and a friendship
between us and Abu Hassan Salameh.
His character is unusual.
Firstly, he was the first person
to invent parcel bombs.
He used to send these parcels
to members of the Mossad.
[thunderous boom]
Many of them were injured,
and I think some ended up dead.
The second thing, which he
deeply invested in and worked hard on,
was related to airplanes,
hijacking airplanes.
He was able to operate
inside Europe with the use of pipelines
by striking the oil lines
in Trieste, Italy.
[suspenseful music playing]
[Dietl in English]
Black September did not have an address.
I don't know
how big the Black September was.
Let's say, uh, 50 people,
and, uh, the leadership was changing.
[suspenseful music continues]
I read most of the reports
of intelligence services,
and of police organizations, about, uh,
the PLO, about the Black September.
I don't find Ali Hassan Salameh in it.
The names are all different.
Maybe he was so clever
that he never showed up.
He was, uh, a diplomat. He was a
He was in the in the committees.
He was one of the visible people,
but not so visible
that the whole world knew him.
The whole world knew a guy with a
with a a scarf.
Uh, his name was Arafat.
That was how the whole world
was identifying
with the Palestinian cause.
And-And Ali Hassan Salameh
didn't look like, uh, bloodthirsty.
I don't remember any picture of him
with-with a Kalashnikov in his hands.
[suspenseful percussive music playing]
[in Arabic]
Abu Hassan Salameh settled in Beirut
and established
the so-called "External Operations,"
whose mission was
to work outside the Arab lands
and primarily in Europe.
Abu Hassan Salameh
became the head of the special unit
that was responsible
for the protection of Yasser Arafat,
which was called Force 17.
[Pakradouni] He [Yasser Arafat]
would not travel abroad,
I mean, to non-Arab countries,
unless he had
Abu Hassan Salameh by his side.
Abu Hassan Salameh became, at this stage,
somehow like Arafat's shadow.
He used to assign him
with difficult tasks.
Yasser Arafat assigned him to establish
this secret channel with the CIA.
[Pakradouni]
But in 1973, there was a side agreement
between Israel
and the United States of America
that every time
the American administration
wanted to contact any Palestinian,
it had to inform Israel in advance.
He talked to me about this
for a long time,
and I couldn't find an answer
until a series of kidnappings
of Americans in Lebanon,
or attempts to blow up American places.
I noticed this new situation
and told him I think
that concerning the idea
of the security of the American Embassy
and of every American on Lebanese land,
if you took responsibility for it,
and if we informed the American Embassy
that there is Force 17,
and that Force 17 is at the disposal
of every American
who's kidnapped or in danger,
then I believe that
the Americans will be affected by it
and will open a secret relationship
with you, whether directly or indirectly.
Later on, President Nixon
assigned Robert Ames.
He assigned him to establish
a communication channel
with the Palestinians.
Robert Ames was the one who told
Abu Hassan Salameh in the first meeting,
"Now, you have the opportunity to convey
all your thoughts and demands
to the American administration
through this link."
Yasser Arafat and,
of course, Abu Hassan Salameh,
both aspired for America to recognize
the Palestine Liberation Organization.
[Bar-Zohar in English] The American CIA,
of course, looked at Salameh.
They decided he can become
a potential source,
and a potential connection,
a backdoor to Arafat and to the Fatah.
They succeeded at a point where
Salameh was even going up in the ranks.
He was now following and accompanying
Arafat everywhere he went.
Salameh married
the most beautiful woman in the world.
Georgina Rizk, who became Miss Universe.
Miss Rizk, congratulations
on becoming Miss Universe,
and, uh, how does it feel
right now to be wearing that crown?
Oh, thank you very much, first of all,
and, uh, really, I'm very happy.
I feel, uh, you know, great.
[Bar-Zohar]
CIA brought him and Georgina to a trip,
to a honeymoon, to America.
The CIA paid everything,
and they came to America, the two of them,
and went all over the place,
including Los Angeles and Disney World.
[helicopter blades thumping]
[Fakher in Arabic] Abu Hassan Salameh
was the one who organized
Yasser Arafat's trip
to New York with the CIA.
[reporter in English] The focal point
of the PLO's diplomatic advance
has been the United Nations,
where, in 1974, Yasser Arafat was invited
to address the General Assembly.
Arafat's presence at the UN
enraged the Israelis.
They boycotted the session,
and one Zionist group claimed that
Arafat would not leave New York alive.
Arafat not only survived,
but also ensured himself
a place in UN history.
[in Arabic] I come to you bearing
an olive branch in one hand
and a freedom fighter's gun in the other.
Do not let the olive branch
fall from my hand.
[grim instrumentals playing]
[Pakradouni]
News began to arrive in Israel
that there was a series of communications
between Abu Hassan Salameh
and the CIA in Beirut.
The principle of forming
a communication line between the CIA
and Abu Hassan
was absolutely unacceptable.
[in English] Now, Israel was
extremely angry about that,
because he was one of their worst enemies.
[in Arabic] The Israelis wanted
to assassinate Abu Hassan Salameh
for two reasons.
They wanted to break
the secret Palestinian-American link.
They believed that this secret link
would sabotage
the Israeli-American relations,
and would lead to the American recognition
of the Palestine Liberation Organization.
Secondly, the Israelis were killing
all the Palestinian leaders
who fell under their control.
[in English]
Six years after, uh, Lillehammer,
six years after the end of
of Black September,
Menachem Begin, the new prime minister,
felt that it was an unfinished business.
That this man could be a danger for,
not only for Israel,
but for many other countries.
He was a terrorist.
He was an assassin.
Begin gives the order.
"Find him, and kill him."
[tense instrumentals playing]
[Dietl in English]
There were three agents who were preparing
for the assassination
of Ali Hassan Salameh.
It still was Kidon, the Mossad Department.
[Bar-Zohar] Agent X was sent
to Beirut to follow Salameh.
His mission was purely intelligence.
He was told to try to find Salameh.
They found out
that Salameh was going to the sauna
of the Continental Hotel in Beirut.
[suspenseful music playing]
It's an unexpected hour in the afternoon,
and suddenly, out of all these, you know,
these vapors and smoke in the sauna,
suddenly, a man appears completely naked,
and it's Salameh.
The Mossad, first of all,
check the possibility
of killing Salameh in the sauna,
and then they found out that
there are going to be many casualties,
and they canceled it because of that.
And then Salameh
started speaking to our agent,
the Agent X, the Israeli agent,
and made him a friend, a close friend,
who was going to his apartment.
[suspenseful music continues]
[dramatic music plays]
Going out with Georgina and her sister,
they became quite close,
and this guy had to separate
between his friendship with Salameh
and his goal.
And then they decide
[tense notes play]
to send a woman.
[Fakher in Arabic]
Her name was Erika Mary Chambers.
She may have had additional identities
or used multiple names,
perhaps a fake name
that we are unaware of.
[tense music playing]
[Dietl in English]
She was the most important person.
She was a British student.
She decided to study in Israel.
And in Israel,
she was spotted by the Mossad.
She received two years
of Mossad education,
and she fit into the picture,
what they needed.
They needed, uh, agents
who did not have an Israeli slang,
who did not look like Israelis,
who did not, um, uh
create the impression that they're Jewish.
Her task was to find Ali Hassan Salameh
and to be involved in his killing.
Mike Harari comes to her, and he says,
"You must go to Beirut,
and your mission will be
to kill a man."
[tense percussive music playing]
And she had a business card
which said she's, uh, working for
a children's charity based in Geneva.
[airliner engines roaring]
And after a while,
she met Ali Hassan Salameh,
and, uh, in person,
just by-by accident, in a hotel.
[tense percussive music continues]
[Bar-Zohar] Erika rents an apartment,
which is on the corner of two streets,
of Madame Curie and another street,
and her window is actually
looking to the street,
Madame Curie Street,
where the convoy of Salameh
is passing at least twice a day.
She's very strange,
very weird, like some
She's feeding stray cats in the street.
[suspenseful instrumentals playing]
She sits and she paints,
and she is waiting.
You can't say he was not protected.
There was, in front of it,
there was a Land Rover
filled with Palestinian terrorists
with machine gun and-and Kalashnikovs.
Behind the car, always, was another car,
with Palestinian bodyguards in the car.
There were bodyguards
sitting on both sides of Salameh.
But they made the biggest mistake
of a secret agent we should never do.
A secret agent who is in danger
should never use the same route
when he goes back and forth
from a certain address.
Never the same route.
Always changing.
But he traveled all the time
by the Rue Madame Curie,
up to his home and back.
Every day, at lunchtime,
he would take his car and go home
for lunch with the delicious Georgina.
[Pakradouni in Arabic]
Abu Hassan's marriage
to Georgina Rizk caused him a problem.
Abu Hassan was able to become
a media star, and the journalists
especially Lebanese journalists,
followed him everywhere.
I personally arrived at a meeting once.
So, I heard Abu Ammar [Yasser Arafat]
with my own ears telling him,
"You should not live with Georgina,
because this is against
all security regulations
that you have learned,
and this is extremely dangerous,
and it will kill you."
[in French] The operation
against Ali Hassan Salameh
was greatly facilitated
because Ali Hassan Salameh had habits.
[Fakher in Arabic] So, according to
the daily accumulative information
about Abu Hassan Salameh's movements,
the plan was made,
which was to place the Volkswagen vehicle
in that location, while it was
packed with explosives, of course.
[Bar-Zohar in English] And when they
decide to carry out an operation
by which they will blow the car
of Ali Hassan Salameh,
one test is to see if the warrior
would be able to press a button
at the very millisecond
when the car is passing.
So, it must be very, very precise.
They bring her a transistor radio,
which is a radio for everything.
But when you put a pin
into a hole of the transistor radio,
it becomes a remote control device.
And then when you press a button,
it can carry out, eh, an order.
And they found out that,
from all the people who tried to do it,
Erika is the best.
She is very good at that.
Uh, the Agent X is sent
from Beirut to the South of Jordan,
where the Israeli Mossad people
cross the border
and bring him a piece of furniture,
which is full of explosives.
He loads it into his car,
and he drives his car
all the way through Jordan,
and then through Syria,
and then to Lebanon, to Beirut.
And he's supposed to leave the car
at a certain garage, which he does.
Israel, in the meantime,
has sent to Beirut two other agents,
one of which is a great expert
of the explosives.
[suspenseful music playing]
It's the middle of the night,
and they plant the explosives
in the headrest of the driver.
And they park the Volkswagen
exactly under the window
of Ali Hassan Salameh.
[in Arabic] On January 18, 1979,
I attended a meeting with the Kataeb Party
where Bachir Gemayel was present.
When the meeting was over,
Bachir asked me,
"Are you still
in contact with Abu Hassan?"
"He is our friend."
I answered him,
"Yes, I am in contact with him."
He said, "Ask him
to take care of himself these days,
and not to make too many moves."
I considered it an important message.
I asked my colleague and friend,
who was a friend of Abu Hassan,
to go to Georgina Rizk
to inform Abu Hassan
about what I've heard from Bachir.
He did this with his hand and said,
"I receive such news every day,
and I am already doing what is necessary."
"And Allah is the protector."
[Dietl in English] He received a small
piece of paper in the morning
by the CIA, saying,
"The Israelis are after you.
Be very careful."
He didn't care, but it was too late.
He had only a few hours more to live.
[tense percussive music playing]
Erika Chambers was in her apartment.
And she had a remote control.
That's when she saw the car approaching,
and it was a motorcade.
And a few meters before this motorcade
reached the Volkswagen,
Erika switched the button.
[in Arabic] As soon as he turned
the corner, we heard a big explosion.
[thunderous booming]
[Dietl in English] The car was blown up.
Eight or nine people were dead.
Others, bystanders,
people who were not involved.
All the five bodyguards survived.
They went crazy.
[in Arabic] The maid started shouting
and saying, "Abu Hassan."
I rushed to the other balcony
and I saw
that there was panic in the streets.
I put something on and went downstairs.
[ambulance siren wailing]
Abu Hassan Salameh
was wounded and rushed to the hospital.
[tense instrumentals playing]
[Rizk] A friend came to the house
and nodded his head like this.
I understood that he was gone.
[percussive instrumentals playing]
[Bar-Zohar in English]
And now, Erika has to escape.
So, she runs down,
she gets into her car,
and she's already scared.
But finally, she has now to drive the car
to the north, to a Christian enclave
where there is a boat waiting for her.
[suspenseful music playing]
She arrives to the Port Jounieh
in the North.
They take her by a Zodiac to the boat,
the Flotilla 13, the naval commando.
And she sits on the boat deck.
It's evening, the sun is setting down,
and she looks,
and the sky is so beautiful,
and the mountains are so calm and quiet.
She said,
"That's the-the finale of my operation."
Mike Harari was waiting for them.
He was there, and he watched it.
For some people in Beirut, it was,
"Okay, another bomb,"
but Mike Harari knew what was going on.
And he saw the smoke, and he was so happy.
[in Arabic] I will never forget this day,
because I lost a friend.
- [chaotic chatter]
- [horns honking]
My first reaction was, "Really?
Did the Israeli assassinate Abu Hassan?"
I mean, that's abnormal.
[Pakradouni] Of course, my first reaction
was to take the phone
and call Yasser Arafat.
And I heard him saying,
"You were his friend, and he loved you."
"Rest in peace, my hero."
[solemn chorals, instrumentals playing]
[Fakher] Yasser Arafat managed to travel
to Beirut with great difficulty.
He attended the funeral
of Abu Hassan Salameh
and, of course, carried the coffin,
and there were thousands of mourners.
[crowd chanting indistinctly]
[Fakher] In terms of security,
the assassination of Abu Hassan Salameh
came as proof that the Mossad
is strong and capable of breaking through
the Lebanese situation
and executing a prominent figure.
If the Mossad was capable
of killing Abu Hassan Salameh,
it is likely that they can
also kill others.
As a result,
perhaps several Palestinian leaders
will have to increase
their security measures out of fear.
[Chouet in French]
The consequences of Salameh's death
were, above all,
the rupture of the links that Salameh
had managed to develop
with a certain number of foreign powers
in the Middle East and the West.
The Mossad broke a number of links
that could become unfavorable to Israel.
After all, that's its job.
[Bar-Zohar in English]
Agent X continued to operate in Beirut
and in Damascus,
very successfully, for a long time.
It never ended.
I think that every prime minister
between Golda and myself had the same.
It's quite a tough decision
to decide to order
your operational guys to kill a person.
These guys are dangerous.
One of them who was involved
in the Munich assassination
was killed only in '92,
some 20 years later.
[in French] Good evening,
you will probably not be surprised
that the news of the day
is still marked by violence.
Violence in Paris.
A Palestinian leader was shot last night.
Atef Bseiso, the number two
in the PLO security services,
was returning from a dinner party
when one or two men appeared and fired.
The Palestinian leader died instantly.
[reporter] It was night,
in front of the Meridian Hotel
that Atef Bseiso was shot
by one or more individuals,
whose weapon was probably equipped
with a silencer and who managed to escape.
This afternoon, Yasser Arafat
immediately accused Mossad,
the Israeli secret service,
of being behind the attack.
This evening,
Israeli and Palestinian sources
confirmed that Atef Bseiso
had been one of the organizers
of the 1972 Munich Olympic Games bombing,
which had cost the lives
of 11 Israeli athletes.
Atef Bseiso was one of
the very high officials of the PLO.
The question remains,
who had an interest in assassinating him?
[Aronoff in English] So, you're looking at
over 20 years of diligence,
20 years of precision,
20 years of determination.
This is a very clear message
to every person out there
who is planning
to inflict harm on Israeli targets.
And that's the importance
of the Israeli reaction
to the Munich massacre.
[Tsoref] A few years ago,
I went to Munich, to Connolly 31,
where the Israeli delegation
were living during the Olympic Games.
And that was a shock,
to stand there in front of the house.
It wasn't easy to be there,
because this event was a trauma.
It's very severe trauma
in Israeli public memory.
[in Arabic] After the assassination
of Abu Hassan Salameh,
the security link
was cut with the Americans.
This secret channel was cut off
until a public channel
was renewed in 1988,
when the US Secretary of State,
George Shultz, informed Yasser Arafat
that if he renounces terrorism,
only then will the United States
be ready to negotiate with them.
[reporter 1 in English]
It is the first agreement ever signed
between Palestinians
and the state of Israel.
A short ceremony in Jerusalem
saw Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin
carefully read the letter
from PLO chairman Yasser Arafat.
And then, breaking the greatest
of psychological barriers
that have lasted for generations,
he signed the document
of mutual recognition.
[crowd applauding]
[reporter 2] The Oslo peace agreement,
signed in Washington in August 1993,
signaled a fresh start in relations
between Israel and the Palestinians.
It also offered the first real hope
of a final peace agreement
between the two sides.
Today, the leadership of Israel
and the Palestine Liberation Organization
will sign a declaration of principles
on interim Palestinian self-government.
It charts a course toward reconciliation
between two peoples who have
both known the bitterness of exile.
Enough of blood and tears. Enough!
[crowd applauding]
[Bouchikhi in French]
What is incredible in this story
is that 23 years after the assassination,
I received a phone call from UNESCO.
"Listen, can you help us?"
"Tonight is the first anniversary
of the peace treaty in Oslo."
So, right away, I miraculously managed
to find all my musicians and technicians,
and we arrived in Oslo.
And we went on
and played in front of this audience,
in front of Shimon Peres
and Arafat, who didn't know me.
They didn't know who I was.
And I find myself playing in the country
where my brother was assassinated,
playing in front of people who,
by their function,
represent what he was assassinated for.
Shimon Peres was Israeli,
Arafat is Palestinian.
And after the concert,
Shimon Peres and Arafat came on stage
and shook hands.
And I found that really a sign of fate.
I forgave because forgiveness
is what helps us to build,
and especially to rebuild ourselves.
Because, frankly, we were really touched.
[crowd applauding]
I was appointed UNESCO's
Special Envoy for Peace on May 9, 1996.
And so I went to play
in Israel, in Palestine.
I always thought
that we could be a small bridge
over this barrier that
they have between them.
And this bridge,
I believe, is called forgiveness.
[poignant instrumentals playing, fading]
[theme music plays]
[music ends]