♪ ♪ welcome to amanpour on pbs. controversy in israel. does the nation state law change the character of the jewish state and a story for our times, anxiety online and in real life. comedian and filmmaker bo burnham captures human angst in its purest form, focusing in the life of a teenage girl in his new movie "eighth grade." ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ welcome to the program, everyone. i'm christiane amanpour in london. we begin tonight in israel where a controversial new nation state

law has drawn rare criticism from the influential jewish federations of north america. it is a set back for all minorities. in israel, protests against the law which was pushed through by the netanyahu government in a stormy session of the knesset are planned for this weekend. supporters of the new law said that it simply enshrines israel as the national home of the jewish people, but as critics point out, it also said the right to exercise national self-determination is unique to the jewish people. israeli arabs and left-wing mps tore up after the vote. in 1948 israel's declaration of independence which enshrined the country as a beacon of democracy in the middle east, promised complete, social and political equality for all citizens, that is a quote, regardless of religion. indeed, israel's founding prime

minister warned the nation had to withdraw from the occupied territories after the six-day war or watch their young state descend into conflict between democracy and pluralism or identity. now all these years later, the still-occupied west bank and the lack of a peace process has proven the prophecy. joining me to discuss is a member of the knesset and she's leaders of the left-wing party which is petitioning the high court to overturn the law and we had hoped to have a proponent of the bill here to debate the issue. we invited almost a dozen senior officials to appear on the program with samma, and none would do so. miss samberg, welcome to the program. why are you petitioning the high court? after all, as the proponents say, there's nothing out of the ordinary in this bill. it's simply the right of the jewish people. the right of the jewish people

to its own homeland after the tragedy of the jewish people really to work in human history was promised in the declaration of independence that you quoted very rightly in your opening remarks. we lived 70 years here under the premise of the jewish homeland and at the same time, a democracy, that promises first of all, equality to all its citizens and regardless of race, religion or gender like the beautifully written declaration of independence stated. and now, 70 years later when we are much stronger than we were when the declaration of independence was read by our first prime minister, the netanyahu government for the first time in its history, the only of the israeli democracy and also of any democracy in the world in quality and discrimination, in a

constitutional law and i don't know if you know, but israel does not have a constitution and we have a series of basic laws which together complete some kind of constitutional principles and here, there, instead of the quality and they incurred discriminatory principles and that is a shame not only to israeli minorities like the arab authority and the processed against this law and lgbt women, jewish other than the ultra orthodox and any israeli that cares for equality and fits in it the basic principle of the democratic system broken by the netanyahu government. >> let me say to you what benjamin netanyahu said about the law as it was being pushed through the knesset. >> translator: this is a defining moment in the an nals of zionism and the history of

israel. we will keep ensuring civil rights in israel's democracy. these rights will not be harmed, but the majority also has rights and the majority decides. an absolute majority wants to ensure our state's jewish character for generations to come. >> so he's kind of having his cake and eating it, too, saying absolutely civil rights will be enshrined and will be respected for all and yet the majority decides. i mean, i guess what i want to know is, it looks like according to poll that the majority of israelis do believe that when it comes to choice between democracy and identity, these days, anyway, they're choosing identity and they're siding with identity. >> you know, the mere founding principle of the zionist movement that seek to ensure the

homeland for the jewish people was that there was no contradiction between identity and building the homeland for the jewish people and between ensuring democracy and equality for all. the majority decides is one principle of democracy and other important principles are also defense for minorities and this is what keeps us together and when the declaration of independence was signed in 1948 it was signed in a wide consensus between ultra orthodox and communists. >> everybody joined this beautiful text that defined our identity here this day and today benjamin netanyahu unfortunately, together with his extreme conservative right-wing partners signed some kind of political deal between themselves, defining the identity for all of us and it's no wonder that a huge part of israelis go out and profess whether it's the jew minority,

lgbt rights activists and many of us feel really hurt, insulted by this law that in a way we feel that intentionally this government was about to make it a point to hurt minorities and to go against many of the rulings of the supreme court, for example, that during the years enshourd the quality and footage as a profound principle of the minority. after legislating a series of laws starting with ngo law and boycott law and a series of laws to farrow the democratic space of israel and stress the nationalistic character over the democratic one. >> i want to say briefly to viewers who don't understand the actual point because supporters and analysts say this is really about words and as you say, potentially a political deal, a

political ploy ahead of potential elections. what will it actually change? actually, two main points here. one is the general spirit, even i would say, the atmosphere of this law. taking the beautiful declaration of independence and replacing it with not a very elegant text that is supposed to be a constitutional principle, really to the best part, unnecessary, but the others are specific clauses in the law that clearly hurt the policy and one is the one insured the supremacy of jewish settlement and jewish inhabitants over their quality and promising the same rights to everyone including minorities. the other is, for example, downloading the status of the arab language that used to be a formal language alongside with hebrew and now the only hebrew anchored as a former language

actually pushing down in what is seen as humiliation for the arab minority in israel. it also hurts the jewish pluralism ensuring, the conservative jews, and the minority in israel and the minority in the world, and in the jewish communities around the world that are still less welcome here and many others. >> so let me quote to you your justice minister. she said in february of this year in a speech she basically said there are places where the character of the state of israel as a jewish state must be maintained and this sometimes comes as the expense of equality. so it does, actually look like she is agreeing with what you, you know, the critic is saying although she's a proponent of this law, but let me ask you, for instance to response to some of your critics, people like the tourism minister who has said at

the time tell us honestly and he's talking about many other people and addressing the labor party. can you contest the jewish people's right to the land of israel. is it not our nation state? is the flag not acceptable to you? there's never been such rejection to the zionist values. what do they say to that? i know you're not the labor government and the labor party, but nonetheless? >> i think this is a total misunderstanding and i say that's the least, and i think this is also an intentional attack and an attempt of delegitimization of the liberal community in israel and those who seek equality and see that as not contradictory to the principle of jewish and national homeland, and i think any one of us living in a liberal democracy whether that would be the u.s. plans and any european and other

countries around the world know that the fact that we have national identity and we are proud of is not in contradiction to other democracy in ensuring a right and equality and also for the minority and i think this is a true break in the principles of the israeli democracy shifting in and drifting away from a liberal democracy to being more like trends that we see around the world now and trying to be near row in the democratic space for other principles that are less -- that would like to see us less of a democracy that ensures the quality. >> it's interesting you say that because actually this law was pushed through on the very day that victor alban was welcomed in israel by prime minister netanyahu, and he calls his own country by his own admission a liberal democracy and there has been ugly antisemitism in that country as well with the soros law and all of these other

issues, and i wonder if you can expand on whether you think, really that israel which has served as a beacon for democracy for all its history is at risk right now and particularly, one of the sponsors has said this is also a response to arabs, both israeli citizens and those living in the west bank who believed that israel would become a binational state of all its people. >> first of all, i have to stress that i was among those rejected of the urban visit and the agreement between prime minister netanyahu and the prime minister of poland actually giving legitimacy to pure antisemitism that poland is trying to clear itself from the crime and in the same time and twisting history the way that israel truly cares about the history of the holocaust and of our people in europe.

i believe that another senior member of netanyahu's coalition explicitly say that one of the goals of this law, one of their aims is to stop, as they say, the spread of the non-jewish inhabitants and the non-jewish settlement and one of the places in israel where jews and arabs live together and they practice mutual life and co-existence and these are israeli citizens being jewish and non-jewish and this is a real danger and vis-a-vis the palestinian population in the west bank surely, the way to ensure the sustainability of israel as a jewish and democratic state is creating a two-state solution that we seek for so badly. >> prime minister netanyahu constantly refuses to implement, and we will keep watching that.

>> tamara samberg, thank you so much. head of the party. from fake news to data leaks, facebook continues to dominate headlines. however, when it comes to teens only 10% of them only use facebook as their primary social media platform. long ago they migrated to snapchat and instagram and the performance angst that entails. the new film "eighth grade" paints a perceptive portrait of what it means to grow up online. take a look at this ♪ ♪ >> eighth grade, huh? >> i said one more week of eighth grade, right? >> yeah. >> crazy. >> yeah, huh? >> well, bo is among the first wave of social media teens. at 16 he was a digital guinea pig, posting comedy on youtube and rising to fame even before

justin bieber. now he's 27 and his comedy career ranges from stand-up tours to tv specials and even poetry. all the while, he battles high anxiety. i asked him what solutions his film could offer when he joined me from new york. >> bo burnham, welcome to the program. >> thanks for having me. i appreciate it. >> you know what? it is odd to see and to talk about a film called eighth grade that you've made from the perspective of a 13-year-old girl. how did that come about? >> you know, i just wanted to talk about how i was feeling at the time which was nervous and i was interested in the internet and i watched hundred of videos of kids online talking about themselves of that age. the boys talked about video games and the girls talked about their souls. so it was, going to be a girl, probably and i wanted to be a move bebeing young that wasn't

nostalgic and wasn't a memory and it being a girl, i couldn't -- i couldn't project my own spencer on her. i couldn't pretend like i knew what she was going through and i had to walk her experience with her for the first time. the theme of anxiety runs through the whole theme and maybe that's the whole point of this project, but tell me because obviously kayla, your subject is anxious and we'll get to that in a second, but extraordinarily you have revealed that you also have a huge amount of anxiety despite your immense popularity, success and performing so visibly. >> it was something i struggled with in my career as a stand-up comic and i started having panic attacks on stage about three years ago and had a dozen or so live in front of two or three dozen people and it was a surreal experience and it's an experience that i thought was unique to me in my circumstance and it wasn't until i talked about it on stage that i found a lot of young people shared my anxiety and not only that, shared the source of my anxiety

which was feeling like you had to perform for an audience even though they weren't stand-up comedians. i found that social media sort of democratized the stresses of a d-list celebrity and everyone feels like they're their own publicityist and they have to show themes and that's an anxious, strange, weird, disassociated state to be in. >> what is it like? what's the experience of having a panic attack and an anxiety attack on stage in front of all those people. what happens? >> tunnel vision. you feel short of breath, for me, it's happening within the confines of my written show which is written to the word and to the beat and it's a strange groundhogia day stuck in a prison of my own making and it's very surreal and strange and i think panic attacks and anxiety make any situation strange and i happen to be in an already

surreal situation. >> i'm going to play a little clip which we put together to link you and your 16-year-old self to kayla in the film, her 13-year-old self. >> again, i just woke up so i thought i would serenade you, rather, with a song about my life and it's something i have to come to realize. >> hi, guys. kayla back here with another video. being on, so the topic of today's video is putting yourself out there. >> so putting yourself out there. i can see you grinning. what's making you laugh? >> i was such a cringy little loser when i was 16 years old, and i didn't see the video, but i know what i looked like in that which is that i had a shakespeare in the park t-shirt and a gold crucifix on my neck which is vintage, peak, 2006 high school style. >> but it was what it was.

so -- >> it continues to be what it continues to be. >> right. precisely. it's not going anywhere, and what about the youngsters and your age all those years ago and are you cringy teenagers? is there something cringy about being a teenager of any stage in life and particularly now anxious making and different because of exposing yourself so to speak on social media all of the time? >> it's particularly visible. no way to not be visible and everything is seen and everything is permanent and cringing isn't necessarily bad. cringing is just a sort of uncomfortable form of empathy. so when you are cringing it is because you are feeling despite wanting to feel. >> well, what do you want people to take away from this film, from eighth grade and is it a broader audience that you're looking at or are you trying to commune and sympathize with people feeling particular anxious right now at that age? >> not necessarily at that age and i was writing a story

talking about what i was feeling and i'm a 28-year-old man and it's anyone looking at the current moment a little confused which i hope is most people. i think everyone feels certain about the cultural moment is lying to themselves and i think there's way too much commentary on kids on the internet and not enough gathering of the raw emotional data. in 20 years when 13-year-olds grow up to become social scientists i would be curious about what they say about the internet and until then, we need to talk about what's happening from the subjective point of view. how does it feel to be a kid in this moment without saying the internet's bad or she should throw her phone into the ocean. >> here's something she said which was kind of a warning in your last live performance before you decided to take a hiatus. here's what you said about it. >> like the me generation. it's not. the arrogance is taught or it was cultivated.