Original subtitles

(TENSE MUSIC)

REPORTER: Warning shots were fired across the civilian airliner,

and when the plane still continued on its way,

the Israeli jets shot it down.

(WOMAN WAILS)

A lot of Israelis are asking themselves tonight...

how their air force could shoot down

an unarmed civilian plane whatever the circumstances.

WOMAN: We didn't believe this was the way we behaved either.

FROST: Who is to blame here?

There was clearly no intention of shooting him down.

Nobody's gonna convince any pilot

that firing at the wings of a Boeing are a deterrent.

They will bring the plane down immediately.

Israel must rise above the chauvinism of other national states.

Rabbi Kahane. It's easy for you to sit...

where you are, not threatened.

The Talmud gives us a Jewish ethic,

which says if one comes to slay you, slay him first.

The Israel-Palestine conflict is the most vicious,

most emotional, most misunderstood...

problem in the world today.

And what Frost did was look closely at the painful journey...

of these two peoples, two nations.

I'm interested in something far more important to you and that is...

how to live with other people in this part of the world.

MAN: We wanna live with other people. You don't want to live with us!

This is original Israeli state... FROST: All right. Let's...

..promised by the god to Abraham in the Bible.

OK. (INDISTINCT SPEECH)

BLAIR: David was certainly fascinated by the Middle East...

I said please stop. We've had enough.

..and was a seeker after a solution there.

Does anyone here accept the point that the Palestinian Arabs...

have currently got an unfair deal?

I don't think you can ever have peace without dialogue.

You get a spiral of continuing conflict

with no resolution, no way out of that.

How many people think another war is inevitable?

How many of you think it could be peace from here on?

Dad cared so much about peace in the Middle East,

from the day he started in television to the day he died.

And I don't think he was gonna stop wanting to talk to the protagonists

who might, possibly,

be able to engineer that peace.

CLINTON: He got people to talk...

because he inspired trust.

You thought, 'This guy's gonna be straight with me.'

Do you think you will live...

to see a Palestinian state?

I will invite you...

..to come to visit me there in Palestine.

(GUNFIRE)

You have to be able to listen to each other,

and we desperately need that today.

Would you say you've staked your political future on this working?

I am taking risks, but I believe...

the cause of peace...

deserves taking calculated risks.

Hello, good evening, and welcome.

We wanna involve both world leaders and world entertainers.

And what I've tried to talk with them about

are things that are not usually asked.

Every time a Black man's lynched, I'm lynched.

We're not living in ivory towers in Hollywood.

Am I paranoid?

The answer is, at times, yes.

I had betrayed a myth, an image.

I've never really known how to communicate

with people on a one-to-one basis.

(DRAMATIC TV THEME)

NEWSREEL: For the third time since its birth as an independent state,

Israel is embroiled in a war with the Arab nations that surround her.

Across the deserts of Sinai, the forces of Israel sweep on

in an astonishing triumph of strategy.

Led by her famous General Dayan,

she took just over 50 hours to achieve her main objectives.

The Six-Day War was an amazing military victory for Israel...

..that a small country, threatened on all sides,

managed to defeat all its foes

in a series of lightning campaigns run by Moshe Dayan.

After the '67 war,

Moshe Dayan was one of the most famous men in the world,

and he really kind of reflected the image of Israel at that time -

the plucky and dynamic little country.

Dad was doing, perhaps, the most controversial,

complicated interviews imaginable...

in a foreign country, as a 29-year-old.

It is truly remarkable.

Good evening. Tonight, as you can see, we are not in the studio.

We're in a private home in Israel.

He hasn't spoken since he directed the Six-Day War, but he's here now -

General Moshe Dayan.

General Dayan, when it came to fighting and so on,

were you fighting for... the Jews here,

or were you fighting for Jews everywhere?

Oh, I'm afraid I'm going to disappoint you.

We fought to win, we fought... (LAUGHS)

..we fought to destroy the Egyptian forces.

Can war, in fact, be...

an exciting, exhilarating thing, in a way?

It's the most exciting and dramatic thing in life, is war.

It's probably the most hateful and inhuman thing.

You are frightened, you are nervous, but you are excited.

And I think that this is the most exciting event...

in life, that can happen, is war.

I hope I'm not sounding happy about war, but...

but I think it's very exciting.

Are there, in fact, though, you think,

things that the Arabs could teach the Jews?

I mean, do the Arabs have qualities you admire?

I do believe that we can live together with the Arabs,

and that they can live together with us.

I think it's a matter that can be settled.

They don't like the fact...

that in Israel, or in Palestine,

a Jewish state was built here, and established here.

But I don't think there's anything basic, personal...

..that would deny them living together with us

in a good and close friendship.

In a sense do you feel the Arabs have a case for feeling...

..that, well, perhaps, even that the..

I feel that if I were an Arab...

if I were an Arab, I probably would have thought the same way.

NEWSREEL: The General Assembly of the United Nations

has made its decision on Palestine.

Palestine is going to be split into three zones.

There will be a Jewish state, there will be an Arab state,

and then Jerusalem would be under international supervision.

Wild jubilation among the Jewish communities

in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv -

a vivid contrast to the bitterness felt by the Arab peoples

as the troubles of the Holy Land enter a new phase.

Palestinians, feeling that...

our country had been unfairly split,

rejected the plan.

We have the right to self-determination.

We have the right to be in our lands.

Some 750,000 Palestinians...

flee or are expelled.

Some of them flee into the West Bank and Gaza Strip,

some of them flee North to Lebanon and Syria, like my family did.

Our very national community...

is shattered.

And that predicament has been ours since that day.

MONTEFIORE: The Six-Day War made things worse.

In '67, Israel took the Golan Heights.

They took Sinai, but most significantly...

they took Gaza, the West Bank and Jerusalem,

which is a holy site for both Jews and Muslims.

Before the one-week war,

there had been over a million Palestinian refugees.

Now with Israel occupying four times as much land as she had then,

the problem has grown enormously.

And so, in the space of six days,

what had been left...

of Palestine also fell under Israel military occupation.

And with the Israeli occupation...

came Israeli settlement...

in Palestinian territory.

Palestinians understood, at the time,

that liberation of their homeland...

would only occur through force of arms.

(ALL CHANTING RHYTHMICALLY)

Prime Minister, do you honestly, and realistically,

feel there is hope for peace in the Middle East?

I believe in a better world...

..in mankind that...

that will work together, not kill each other.

Someday people, children, will be taught in school that...

there were barbarians in the 20th century.

Look what they did instead of sitting down together

and talking about their problems, and working together,

they sent out people to kill and to be killed.

REPORTER: The latest official report from Israel

is 25 persons killed and 78 wounded

in last night's terrorism at Tel Aviv airport.

Later on, Palestinian resistance adopted measures

that crossed the line from armed struggle against armies,

against governments,

to terrorism against civilian targets.

REPORTER: The scene at the airport was total confusion.

One of the first officials to arrive

was Minister of Defence, Moshe Dayan

It would have terrible consequences.

REPORTER: This is an ITN newsflash from the Olympic village in Munich,

where armed Palestinian guerrillas are now holding 20 athletes

and six officials as hostages.

MONTEFIORE: The leader of the Palestinians was Yasser Arafat -

one of the most fascinating characters in the world at the time.

He had embraced terrorism. He had used terrorism ruthlessly.

But equally, he had in his person,

manifested the dreams,

the aspirations of the Palestinians for independence.

REPORTER: The crowd waited for Yasser Arafat.

When Arafat showed himself, his message...

hugely applauded, was very simple. (APPLAUSE)

He would fight any plan for a peaceful solution with Israel.

Arafat again demanded the total liberation of Palestine.

Frost secured a secret interview with Arafat,

which was a pretty adventurous step.

We got to Beirut airport, and they put blindfolds on us.

(HORN HONKS)

And they took us to this location.

At that time, we never read a decent word about him.

I was expecting...

to meet the monster when they took the blindfolds off.

Mr Chairman, when you talk about the struggle and the armed struggle,

to a lot of people watching in England...

..they still think of you as...

..associated with terrorist activities.

And they think of Munich and Lod Airport and...

all of those things.

What would you say to people who...

who really feel that...

the Palestine fight means...

..that sort of murder?

What would you say to explain it?

It is...

You know, I will give you a small example.

Washington...

..was a terrorist in your view...

..when he started his liberation work.

You, the British, was looking to Washington as a terrorist.

Yes? Because he was looking for the liberation of his nation.

All those freedom fighter... fighters...

used to be called as a terrorist in the beginning.

But you have to look at it...

from the other point, that some persons...

who are in the corner...

(SPEAKS ARABIC) MAN: Frustration.

..from frustration and... ..despair.

..and despair.

They begin to think of it.

But don't you think it would be simpler, in fact,

if you were simply to meet with the Israeli leader, face-to-face?

(CHUCKLES) It is a joke. Do you know why?

The moment he will meet me, he will shoot me.

Ah, no, but he's changed that. Yesterday, he said...

'If I meet Arafat, I will talk to him, and he will talk to me.'But...

And he then said that, 'If he hits me, I'll hit him.'But...

He said. (CHUCKLES)

This means that playing with words. Yes?Yes.

But he didn't say he'd shoot you. (CHUCKLES)

I still remembering... What if...?

I still remembering that they are looking for us.

But moving on from that.

What sacrifices have you had to make because of what you're doing?

It is personal questions.

I don't like to speak about myself.

Let us speak about my...

my people, my cause.

The most important thing is how...

..to get rid of this tragedy.

The Palestinian tragedy is something...

very, very hurt.

You can't describe it...

unless you have to live with it

AMANPOUR: Yasser Arafat was the symbol of the struggle.

Very few people could,

or would, interview Yasser Arafat.

But you can't have peace...

if both sides...

are living with the desire to kill each other.

Cos every year, there's gonna be...

a terrible bloodletting.

So in order to go into a meaningful solution...

..absolutely, what Frost did was vital.

You have to talk to both sides.

Final question, who of all the people you interviewed,

who made the greatest impact on you?

Yitzhak Rabin.

There was a man who was on the verge of making a difference.

People would have said about him, 'One man who made a difference.

He brought peace to the Middle East.' And I think he could've done it.

(PEOPLE CHANTING)

We will call upon...

the Palestinians to have...

a continuous negotiation.

Let's find out. Can it be achieved or not?

MONTEFIORE: Rabin was one of the great statesmen of Israeli history.

Like Arafat, he was a man of war -

an extremely dour character.

More intense and more turbulent than he looked.

He was a chain smoker.

He won the election with a promise that he would look to find peace,

and because he was such a successful General,

and such an unshowy character,

people trusted him.

I believe that agreement will be reached

within less than one year.

(INDISTINCT YELLING) (GUNFIRE)

(PANICKED YELLING) (DISTANT EXPLOSION)

(YELLING CONTINUES)

(GUNFIRE)

(GUNSHOTS)

(SIREN WAILS)

REPORTER: It is the first agreement ever signed

between Palestinians and the State of Israel.

The two sides met, first of all, in secret negotiations in Oslo.

The shrewder Israelis, like Rabin,

realised that the Palestinian people

would never give up the aspiration to a state.

And at the same time, Yasser Arafat and the PLO realised...

that the armed struggle would never destroy Israel.

AMANPOUR: It was a remarkable, remarkable moment. Remember.

At the time, it was forbidden for Israeli government officials

to speak to the terrorist organisation known as the PLO.

It was forbidden, so it was the first time...

each side had formally spoken to each other,

first and foremost, and then recognised each other.

REPORTER: Yasser Arafat has already added his initials.

For the PLO Chairman to call for an end to the Palestinian uprising

is a great political risk.

(ALL CHANTING)

In the West Bank town of Ramallah,

Islamic militants were on the streets, denouncing the agreement.

And Rabin, of course, has his own opponents,

who are in shock this morning.

Among them, the right wing, much of the religious community,

who are burning today's agreement.

The agreement is a leap of faith.

Jews and Palestinians must do something they've never done before.

They must trust each other.

CLINTON: Our country was clearly... for the peace agreement.

I thought if we could...

..capture the moment, before the world,

in a high-profile way,

that it would increase the chances of success.

Rabin said,

'Do you know how many young men I've put in body bags

because of that man?'

I said, 'Look, if you don't wanna shake hands with him,

you certainly can't make peace with him.'

He said, 'OK. Shake hands. I'll shake hands.

But no kissing.'

Cos he'd have all the kisses on the cheeks.

(APPLAUSE)

Today marks a shining moment of hope for the people of the Middle East,

and, indeed, of the entire world.

(CHEERING)

FLORESCU: You have something amazing, that all of a sudden,

on the White House lawn, you've got Rabin and Arafat,

and it looks like they've got a deal.

So, David said, 'Let's get them together on screen.'

Now, we are shooting high, because everybody wants that interview.

And guess what, we got it.

We caught up with Arafat in London.

And we've got Rabin in the Prime Minister's residence.

(BOMBASTIC MUSIC)

ANNOUNCER: Yasser Arafat...

and Yitzhak Rabin...

talking with David Frost.

MAN: OK, whenever you're ready... OK.

We're about to start. OK, you ready?

OK.

Chairman, do you feel now...

more or less optimistic than you did...

at the signing on September 13th?

I'm always... As you know, I'm always optimistic.

So, you...trust...

Prime Minister Rabin?

Yes. And he trusts you?

I hope that he is trusting me.

Well, really, this whole thing is...

is based on the trust between the two of you, isn't it?

And for this, I called it the peace of the brave.

The peace of the brave.

And in terms of Jerusalem, I mean, that is the...

the long-term dream, isn't it?

That er...capital for two states.

I can imagine it, I can accept it.

Is it possible that Palestinian extremist groups...

that oppose this move...

make attempts on your life to destroy this understanding?

Not one attempt. Not one attempt since September?

Because the impression that's given...Till now, not one.

..is that your life... Till now. Till now.

Maybe...Well, I'm not gonna attack you so that's all right.

The thing is... but the impression was

that you were more in danger now than before.

Give me one day without danger...

during all my life.

When I had started this line...

..for the sake of our people,

their future,

their dignity.

For our children, for our new generations.

You think, wow, you're watching a bit of history in the making.

Both sides finally seem to be on the same page.

And now from Yasser Arafat in London,

we're here in Jerusalem to interview Prime Minister Rabin.

Prime Minister, you said you now, and Chairman Arafat are partners.

Yasser Arafat told me the other day...

that he trusts you - do you trust him?

I trust that he will keep his commitments,

and as long as I have...

I have no reason to suspect him,

he is the partner.

Do you think that if you died, or if Chairman Arafat died,

that this Israeli-Palestinian agreement could survive...

..the death of either of you?

I hope so. And I believe so.

I asked Chairman Arafat whether he thought that his extremists,

the Palestinian extremists, could destroy this agreement.

And basically, he said no.

Do you think that the right-wing extremists,

and others who oppose it in Israel - your problem -

do you think that they could destroy this agreement?

No, I don't believe so.

I'm fully aware that I am taking risks.

Calculated risks.

But I believe because of peace,

the hope, the chance...

that we'll reach a beginning of solution...

of the 100 years conflict between the Palestinians and us

deserves taking calculated risks.

Would you say you've, in taking a risk,

that you've staked your political future on this working?

I've seen too many wars, too many bloodshed.

I would like to make sure...

that I've tried my best,

including risks...

..to find a solution...

to the Arab-Israeli conflict, or at least to part of it.

This is my desire.

At this time of peace and goodwill, thank you very much, Prime Minister

Thank you.

(SPEAKS HEBREW)

(CHEERING)

(GUNFIRE) (YELLING)

Hello, good morning and welcome...

on a tragic morning.

For those of you who were out last night and missed the news,

The Prime Minister of Israel has been assassinated.

REPORTER: There was deep shock on the streets of Tel Aviv last night.

Not long before, these people had heard Mr Rabin speak,

urging them, one last time, to embrace peace.

After it had happened, the police hustled the assassin away.

He's said to belong to an organisation of Jewish extremists

who believe Mr Rabin's pursuit of peace

made him a traitor to his people.

Very shocked...

for this awful and terrible...

..crime.

CLINTON: He was one of the most remarkable people I ever knew,

and I loved him very much.

It was...maybe the darkest day of my presidency,

and there were some dark ones.

His last words...

..were in defence of that peace...

he did so much to create.

Because words cannot express my true feelings...

let me just say...

Shalom...chaver.

Goodbye, friend.

In Israel, in order to be a realist,

you must believe in miracles.

This morning, we must all believe in miracles.

Thank you, good morning.

I think the man who killed Yitzak Rabin...

got exactly what he wanted.

He's never recanted it.

Says he believes that he did the right thing...

in killing the peace process, which is effectively what he did.

I knew it would be an enormous boon to the Israeli right.

To the people who did not want to make this peace agreement.

And I thought then, and think now,

none of that would have happened, I believe, if Rabin hadn't left.

Cos Arafat truly trusted him.

And we've been dealing with that absence of trust...

..in the Middle East, and indeed, all over the world.

(CAR ALARM WAILING)

DAJANI: I remember seeing images of Northern Ireland and the Troubles.

Kids facing off against tanks,

throwing rocks against heavily armed soldiers.

And there are so many ways in which the Palestinian struggle

and the Irish struggle for freedom are similar.

A lot of Irish people would see the Irish problem

as being a consequence of the kind of...

..colonisation and settlement over centuries...

that has characterised our experience in Palestine.

Northern Ireland was given the chance of a new beginning...

after nearly two years of talks, after thirty years of conflict,

after thousands of violent deaths and centuries of bitterness.

There are lessons to be learnt from Northern Ireland,

even though the context is very different,

which can be applied to the Middle East peace process.

The Good Friday Agreement was a beginning.

But we had committed to a referendum,

and if we couldn't get it agreed,

then the whole agreement would've collapsed.

We needed to do a big intervention,

where President Clinton would put the weight of America

behind getting the referendum agreed.

It took us about five seconds to say there's only one person who

myself and President Clinton will feel comfortable sitting down with,

doing what is a very unusual interview,

on a topic of enormous importance,

upon which the entire Northern Ireland peace process rested.

And that person was David.

Now from a look at the news to two men who regularly dominate the news.

Late yesterday afternoon, we had an unprecedented joint interview...

with the President and the Prime Minister.

Let's begin on the subject that's on everybody's minds today,

the subject of Northern Ireland and...

that the vote may be more perilously close

than was hoped a week or two ago.

What is your message that each of you have right now

to persuade doubting unionists or doubting Catholics?

I mean, I think it is... it's in many ways,

a battle between...

fear and emotion on the one hand,

and reason and hope on the other.

And the fear and the emotion's totally understandable,

but it is important that people vote for reason and hope.

If I could just say, sort of as an...

interested friend, an outside observer...

..as you know, I've been very involved

in the Middle East peace process.

I think, essentially, the people that are for this...

want a better future for their children...

and don't want any more violence.

If you really listen to the arguments of the people

that are against it, and I've tried to listen very respectfully,

it is that they still don't trust...

those on the other side.

In 1993, Yitzhak Rabin,

right before we signed the agreement between Israel and PLO,

said to me, he said, 'You know, I have spent my life as a soldier.

I have killed a lot of these people,

and they have killed a lot of my people.'

But he said, 'Mr President, you don't make peace with your friends.

You make peace, and then you make friends.'

And I think that's important here.

The risks of doing it are so much less than the risks of walking away.

And I think that example is really the relevant one,

of Yitzhak Rabin.

David conducted it with immense skill,

cos the most important thing was that...

Bill Clinton felt able to really explain,

and expound, why... he thought this was so important,

why America thought it was so important.

You know, it played a significant part in getting us...

the result we wanted in the referendum.

Yes...

71.12%.

(CHEERING)

I just tried to do what I was asked to do.

If I played a positive role,

I'm grateful to have had to the chance to do so.

(CHUCKLING)

I'll just keep working on it.

The Irish thing ought to give you hope for the Middle East,

because the lesson is... just don't ever stop.

In Northern Ireland, this was the day they said would never happen.

In Israel, the opposite has happened.

The situation has destabilised beyond belief.

In both contexts,

the United States played a significant role in peacemaking,

and that really came to a head

by the time we came to Camp David.

Israeli and Palestinian negotiators are meeting again

at the Middle East peace summit near Washington.

MONTEFIORE: Camp David's a remarkable moment.

Ehud Barak becomes Prime Minister of Israel.

He's got something of the Rabin touch in that...

he's a very, very successful General.

And when he offers to negotiate a peace process,

the Israeli electorate elects him and gives him a mandate.

Both Prime Minister Barak and Chairman Arafat...

..have the vision, the knowledge, the experience, and the ability...

and the sheer guts to do what it takes, I think,

to reach an agreement.

Look, if this were easy, it would have been done a long time ago.

(INDISTINCT CHATTER) (CAMERA SHUTTERS CLICK)

The purpose of Camp David...

was to figure out what the Palestinians would say yes to...

..and what they couldn't abide.

I was one of the legal advisors who participated in the summit.

I think the American team showed up with an idea...

that Camp David would be a little bit like a bazaar,

like negotiations over the sale of a carpet.

The Israelis would come some distance,

and the Palestinians would meet them with a little bit more distance.

But for us, the Israelis are not giving us land.

They're giving us our land back.

REPORTER: An agreement is the last thing the Jewish Zealots

living in the Arab town of Hebron want,

because it would almost certainly mean they would have to move.

The weekend clashes were yet another example of their intolerance

and their readiness to use violence.

(GUNFIRE)

Islamic radicals warning Yasser Arafat not to surrender.

(ALL CHANTING)

The mock coffins borne aloft

for Bill Clinton and Israel's Ehud Barack

show that there was no trust here in two of the main parties.

I said, 'OK, this is best I can do.'

The Israelis said OK, and Arafat seemed to be genuinely committed.

So I said, 'Do you wanna do this or not?'

BUERK: The Middle East peace talks at Camp David have broken down

after 15 days of negotiations.

I have concluded, with regret,

that they will not be able to reach an agreement at this time.

Camp David was a last-ditch attempt by President Clinton.

But, of course, Clinton realised a big chance had been given away.

We met earlier this week when the former President was briefly in London.

Tell me, Mr President, you said, '"Right before I left office...

Arafat thanked me for all my efforts and told me what a great man I was."

"Mr Chairman," I replied, "I'm not a great man, I am a failure.

And you have made me a failure."' That's right. I said that.

I didn't mean I was a failure all round, but I meant that I had...

..failed to get them to make a conference of peace.

And I thought Arafat was making a terrible mistake.

I didn't know for sure...then,

and frankly, I don't know for sure today...

why he turned down the plan that I outlined.

Because about a year after I left office, he said he wanted it.

By then, he had a Prime Minister who wouldn't give it to him in Israel,

and the public in Israel didn't trust him any more.

DAJANI: I thought so much about the consequences of our failure

to achieve a deal that summer.

As terrible as the...dynamics were.

As...

As many good reasons as we had...

..to distrust the process, and they were good reasons...

..I think that we didn't fully appreciate...

how...slender the opportunity was.

The Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak said tonight

he was forming a government of national emergency

after the worst day of violence on the West Bank and Gaza Strip

since the peace process began in 1993.

A few minutes earlier, the Palestinian Leader, Yasser Arafat,

ordered a general mobilisation of his people

and talked of all-out war.

I was devastated, because I knew what would happen.

The Israelis did what they often did then.

When they felt secure about peace, they'd vote for the peace candidate.

When they felt insecure, they'd vote for the toughest guy on the ballot.

(HORN HONKS) (NOISY EXPLOSION) (PEOPLE YELLING)

REPORTER: Panic in Jerusalem tonight

as a bomb rips through a crowded cafe.

(SIREN CHIRPS)

I don't think any of us imagined how bad things could get.

A spur of terrorist attacks inside Israel

that would turn Israeli hearts even more squarely against Palestinians

and against the idea of peace,

with a ferocious Israeli response.

In Gaza, swift and devastating Israeli retaliation.

And a scale of civilian casualties

that hadn't been seen in a decade.

The Palestinians are paying a heavy price.

(WAILS)

(ALL CHANTING)

I'm joined now by the former Prime Minister of Israel.

Some, including himself,

might say the future Prime Minister of Israel, too, Benjamin Netanyahu.

Good morning. Good morning, David.

It seems to the world excessive force.

You kill lots of defenceless Palestinians,

and they kill lots of... lots of defenceless Israelis,

but it's always... Palestinians always lose more lives.

And, therefore, Israel, rather than being plucky little Israel,

as back in the Six-Day War,

appears like the big bully boy.

David, that is, forgive me, a bogus argument.

And coming from someone who should know better, because you know the history of World War Two.

The fact there are so many, or the number is greater than Israelis,

is no more a condemnation of Israel than the number of Germans killed

is a condemnation of America or Britain in World War Two.

I don't agree with that...

rather spurious comparison, but let's move on to -

Really, why not? You cannot have the argument both ways.

You either have principles or you don't.The point is - just coming back to the point...

BROCK: David never shirked from any of the issues.

He and Benjamin Netanyahu, off screen, got on really well.

But it didn't stop him asking the big questions that had to be asked.

The real tragedy of what you're doing

is you're trying to find a military solution

when there's gonna have to be a political one.

And in the meantime, every Palestinian you kill...

creates 100 new suicide bombers.

Well -And in fact, you're making the situation worse, not better.

Valid point to argue?

In order to get to a political solution, you must stop terrorism.

Because if you make political concessions to terrorism,

terrorism increases and prevents a political solution.

Thank you very much indeed for joining us today.

Thank you, David. Appreciate it.

(ALL YELLING)

Following the death of the man who embodied so many of their dreams,

what now for the Palestinian people?

When Arafat died,

Palestinians felt that we had lost a father figure.

There was a recognition that no-one else

could fill his shoes at that juncture.

And in the years that have followed, things have gone from bad to worse.

(ALL CHANTING)

When I heard of Yasser Arafat's death,

I remember thinking it would take a heroic effort of political will,

from both sides, to restart the peace process.

Because what came after Arafat was the epitome of hardline,

militant Palestinian leadership, which was Hamas,

which won the elections in Gaza, and the rest is history.

REPORTER 1: After 40 years of dominating Palestinian life,

the party of Yasser Arafat is out.

REPORTER 2: A Hamas official said recognising Israel,

or negotiating with Israel, are not on their agenda.

The feeling was that the light...

was always shone from the Western world in,

never from the Middle East out.

And that's what it was set up to do,

to really show the intensities of the conflict,

of the history from an Arab point of view.

But first, Al Jazeera's Andy Simmons...

I was having conversations with the Director of Programmes,

and I said...

'The problem that Al Jazeera English has...

..is there's no figurehead.

There's no one massive star

that people are gonna think of

when they hear the words "Al Jazeera English".'

And he said, 'For instance, who?'

I said, 'The person you need is Sir David Frost.'

(UPBEAT THEME MUSIC)

Hello, welcome to Frost Over The World -

a new programme for a new station.

Finally, there was this Arab channel...

that could produce pretty darned objective,

pretty darned critical and probing journalism.

And then to have someone of David Frost's stature

was also really extraordinary.

BLAIR: I mean, to be absolutely frank about it,

I would never have gone on Al Jazeera other than for David.

Because I thought...

whatever...difficult subjects were to come up,

and there were a lot of them at that time...

..at least you would get a fair chance to give your point of view.

One of the problems, though, is the perception that you, and America,

are not unbiased in this situation. Of course. Absolutely.

Everyone in the Arab world thinks you're on the side of Israel.

I am a strong supporter of Israel. I believe that Israel should have the right to exist.

Right, but I also believe we need a Palestinian state, an independent,

viable democratic Palestinian state, living alongside Israel.

It probably wasn't a coincidence that he chose Al Jazeera

when he could've chosen many other places to do his...

final stint as an interviewer.

I think the Middle East meant a lot to him -

personally, not just professionally.

(BOMBASTIC THEME MUSIC)

I'm here in Jerusalem with Shimon Peres,

the President of Israel.

How many presidents have there been of Israel?I'm the ninth.

With more than 65 years in Israeli politics, he's seen it all.

You came to Israel from Poland in 1934.Right.

Most of my family came here to Israel.

In Israel...

I was like a reborn person.

Everything changed. Yeah.

I felt from the very first day that I can remember...

..that I belong to a different country.

That I'm part of Israel.

The sky...

the panorama, the people.

Totally different world.

Do you hope to see...

peace in your time?

Oh, yes. Oh, yes.

You have to compromise.

And the real sense of politics is compromise.

We have to go to the table knowing...

..there are different points of reference and different ideas.

And we have to find a common ground.

WILFRED FROST: I think the bit of that interview

that really would've resonated with Dad

was when Peres talked about the need for compromise.

That is exactly the type of sentiment

that I think appealed to Dad,

to this man that believed in dialogue,

believed in trusting people.

The future belongs to the young.

All over the world, your children, my children.

They're a new generation - they say,

'We don't want the wars you went through. We don't want the hatred.'

The future belongs to the young.

For someone as impartial as Dad,

who gave such light to both sides of the conflict,

I think...for him to see what's going on in the Middle East now

would be just totally heartbreaking.

He was so driven...

wanting the best of any scenario,

and to get that next interview.

It's why he did it till the day that he died.

(BBC NEWS THEME)

Good evening.

The acclaimed broadcaster Sir David Frost has died at the age of 74.

He suffered a heart attack last night on board a cruise ship,

where he'd been due to give a speech.

CARINA FROST: I was gonna go and join him on the QE2.

It was about six in the morning, and my brother,

he just came and said, 'Look, I'm sorry. David's dead.'

It was horrendous.

I miss him every day.

I think everyone misses him.

I mean, I've never heard a bad word said about David, ever,

which is pretty remarkable.

Isn't it? In today's world.

People really loved him.

(CHEERING)

He'd been in all sorts of different things, different types of show.

He'd done these famous interviews with Nixon and all the rest.

He was a big, big figure.

But you never got the feeling, with David,

that he thought he was extraordinarily important.

Never.

I'm looking at the establishment. I see the White House.

(LAUGHTER) I'm not the White House!I see...

I see the... I see something white!

(LAUGHTER)

He came about as close as you can come

to what a conversation would be like...

if you ran into somebody you liked,

and you sat down and had a cup of coffee.

Cos there ain't much time, cos it goes on in England...

The programme starts in an hour in England.Whoa.

We better get it on.

He gave you the feeling that he really wanted to know the answer.

I think David Frost was amazing for his...

willingness to engage a range of different voices.

And I feel a sense of gratitude for his commitment

to getting multiple stories out there.

What I really took from it was...

a desire to carry on his legacy -

not his professional legacy,

but his ability just...

to always see the best in people.

That kind of looking out for the little guy.

I've spent more hours than I could count studying Dad's interviews.

And that was my dad.

That's pretty cool.

The great regret is I didn't discuss it with him more...

whilst he was alive - one just always thinks,

'Well, I've got all the time in the world with my dad.

I can ask him this tomorrow.'

Until you don't.

He was...

I'm biased...

..the greatest broadcaster of all time.

But he was an even better father.

And that's, really, want I want to emulate.

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