The World This Week: Israel v Iran Special • FRANCE 24 English

The World This Week: Israel v Iran Special • FRANCE 24 English

[Music] hello and welcome to the world this week with me Gavin Lee and a panel of distinguished international journalists tonight discussing the biggest events of the past seven days in a week where there’s been huge developments just in the last 24 hours our program now selected amongst the world’s best podcast for current affairs folks thank you for watching in a week that has seen Israel launch pre-dawn missile strikes on Iran the start of what it calls operation rising lion hitting nuclear sites assassinating military commanders with apartments in the capital thran team burning 200 fighter jets involved more than 100 targets said to have been struck so far it’s ongoing tran said women and children have been killed and reprisal attacks are expected air raid sirens ringing across Israel since the early hours with Israelis receiving text alerts telling them to anticipate a military response president Trump meanwhile says he was aware but not involved moments ago Israel launched Operation Rising Lion a targeted military operation to roll back the Iranian threat to Israel’s very survival this operation will continue for as many days as it takes to remove this threat it’s been a week of clashes and curfews in Los Angeles what started with a series of immigration raids in a downtown Latino district led to a series of protests and rioting looting and burning cars president Trump declared “They spit we hit and sent in US troops for domestic law enforcement.” The Democratic Governor Gavin Houston said the situation was under control and accused Donald Trump of inflaming tensions this situation was winding down and was concentrated in just a few square blocks downtown but that that’s not what Donald Trump wanted he again chose escalation he chose more force he chose theatrics over public safety it’s been a week that seen an air disaster in India a Londonbound aircraft crashing shortly after takeoff on Thursday in Ahmedabad hitting a medical school with more than 200 passengers from India Portugal Britain and Canada confirmed to have died incredibly news came through of one survivor a British man who managed to survive in seat 11A telling reporters he recalls a loud noise 30 seconds after takeoff [Music] everything happened in front of my eyes i don’t know how I survived after takeoff within a minute it felt like the plane came to a standstill for 5 to 10 seconds i could feel the engine thrust increasing to climb but it crashed into a building with speed and it was a week of publicity for the activist group the Freedom Platilla Coalition the group bound for Gaza declared it was taking a ship of food to break the sea blockade with Greta Tonberg on board to raise awareness for the Palestinian plight israel’s foreign ministry called it a ship of fools called them Instagram activists on a selfie yacht with less than a truckload of aid israeli forces upset intercepted the boat took it to Israeli waters and activists either detained or deported on internationalally attacked and kidnapped by Israel it’s time to introduce our distinguished panel of correspondents joining us to give their unique insights and analysis here in the studio we have threetime Pulit surprise nominated independent international correspondent BU Dahi great to see you Bouru um we’re going to talk a lot about somewhere you used to live and report on a lot in Iran in a moment we just watching those images of the freedom flatillaa and Greta Tombberg i’m interested in your thoughts that they say they were there to promote the case of Gaza the counterargument to that is they promoted the case of the flatillaa and that made the headlines in the week what’s your view well I I mean I think that it’s u a kind of civil disobedience what these guys did and there is a long tradition of that in in western culture and and you know eastern culture as well uh so I I think it was a legitimate act of protest against uh what everyone in the world sees uh as as a a grave injustice against civilian population and by the way I don’t think that they’re unlin i don’t think that what is happening in Gaza and what happened in Iran are unconnected i think that uh you know feeling more pressure uh from the world over Gaza um uh Israel chose this moment to take this plan that has obviously long been in the works off of the shelf and put it into play and in the midst of what’s going on in Iran which we will talk about in a moment internet down according to aid agencies across Gaza today and the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said to be suspended this only source of food right now once again yeah but it it’s it’s a it’s a terrible situation and it’s a a what many in the world see as a a grave and grave injustice that needs to be addressed um this Iran attack diverts from that what a pleasure to have you with us let’s also bring in a man of many bureaus in many corners of the world formerly from Bangkok Tokyo Brussels Geneva now correspondent at the Swiss publication Blick author of the Ball of Illusions to Rishel Worly great to see you uh the thank you i should also begin with you actually when I look at the last time we spoke you said out of the blue I’ve just been inside JD Vance’s house in the the US for professional reasons talk us about where you’ve been recently where you’re planning to go next well uh this week I was in Switzerland and it was interesting because uh I attended a seminar on international law and you can imagine the level of desperation of this jurist people observer experts of international law from the ICRC the International Committee of the Red Cross to the International Commission of Jurist they realize that the whole world their world is completely collapsing and in front of them who do you have you have Donald Trump who is in the United States is really rolling over the judicial system and having the judges opposing him you have Netanyahu crushing the Palestinian without any respect for international law and now you have this war going on between Iran and Israel so I could tell from the pulse of Geneva that this world is getting in a very wrong way great to have you on board with us tonight as well Richard let’s go to London let’s say hello good evening to Dom Nichols evening Dom associate editor for Defense at the Telegraph and one of the presenters of the Telegraph’s podcast Ukraine the latest awarded podcast of the year at the Society of Editors Media Freedom Awards dom also a retired leftenant colonel for the British Army former rank commander helicopter pilot special forces officer 2 from 1992 to 2015 dom brilliant to have you with us and we’ve had as well from your podcast Francis Sternley on the show previously it is a pleasure fair to say with your deep military and intelligence officer insights it’s kind of fused the way that you explain events on the ground each day on your podcast well hi Gavin it’s very very kind of you to to put it like that i don’t know if I’d necessarily have uh given myself such a glowing report but thank you it’s very nice to be here well one thing I’m when I think I’ve heard I listen to your podcast a lot because it goes into a kind of minutia as well on the ground in in Ukraine that you don’t get in many other places in many other podcasts as well and when you were away uh it’s made a point of that you go through a kind of military assessment plus a journalistic eye on top of that and you can kind of go through a clockplace chronological order of events starting perhaps in Sunumi around Ukraine and tell us what’s going on in that almost like a militaristic clock face and it works yeah it I mean we we have a very loyal audience and it’s delighted we’re delighted to have um to be able to speak to uh such folk every every day but we’re aware that we are constantly trying to reach out to to new audiences and we have uh other people joining and and maybe I’m sure not not many people watch it as closely as we do every day so it’s very uh it’s very necessary um for for us to keep dialing back in um and talking people around the geography of the country it is a huge country if you’ve ever been there you’ll know you know it’s a big place it takes a long time to get around so just talking people around the the geography of the battlefield before you then try and dial in and and even attempt to explain let alone analyze what’s going on is a is a necessary and constant effort we have in fact went to places you can’t go now back in 2014 getting the train from Keev to Simopol Sevastaster long gone long annex for now it doesn’t look like that will start again you need your visas passport and probably impossible it has been for journalists to get in the other thing I’m I’m strikes me Dom is the fact that in your journalistic capacity when your old comrades from your soldiering days when you meet up with them are they a little less loose lipped if you have an a pint with them given you know you’re also the author of a spy novel um what’s that conversation like uh well Gavin I mean I I you generously described uh I I retired as a left tenant colonel um a lot of my friends that stayed in are now much more senior than that uh and therefore even though we are we are mates they are they’re very wary very aware they’re talking to a journalist i mean we we are interested we’re all interested in defense and security so so we do we do chat but I’m very I’m very conscious that friendship comes first and I’m not going to say ever say anything even if they do occasionally perhaps slip into stuff that maybe they shouldn’t have done in the office uh I’m never going to report any of that because uh you know friendships are more important than than getting a good scoop the next day hi Moral Stander great to have you with us Dom let’s go to Jerusalem let’s bring in press 24 international correspondent Noga Tonapolski evening Noga worth saying no you’ve covered the Middle East for more than two decades born in Argentina raised in Switzerland a seasoned journalist contributor let me go through the list new York Times New Yorker LA Times Washington Post CNN MSNBC BBC World Service and a respected voice in the region fantastic to have you here i think every week uh our jaws can’t drop any further and yet here we are what time did your day start today my day started at 3:00 a.m with an alarm uh that was just repeated I have to say just this minute while Dom was speaking announcing that Israelis around the whole country should get close to their bomb shelters and shelter in place um so it’s been a very long day of anticipated Iranian retaliation that hasn’t yet come and note as well no from one of your um ex updates on social media earlier today this Israeli Air Force One aircraft appears to have been moved completely out of Israel it’s somewhere in Greece right now what’s going on here well there’s the expectation that among other very delicate sites that the Iranians will aim to try and destroy uh Tel Aviv’s the Bengorian international airport the number one international airport in Israel and so the Israeli version of Air Force One the jet that takes Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Herzog around uh has been moved to Athens for safekeeping but also the airplanes belonging to the Israeli airlines Aria and others were also taken to Greece rather than being left either in Hangars or on the tarmac at Bengurion it’s part of the entire nation buckling down and in expectation of this retaliation brilliant to have you with us Noga this evening lots to discuss and let’s start with the news that came in overnight 3:30 in the morning local time in Iran when explosions were first reported in Thran a few minutes later Israelis were sent government text alerts confirming operation code name rising lion had begun the aim to decapitate Iran’s nuclear capabilities the warning to Israelis prepare for retaliation we’ve seen six waves of Israeli missile strikes in the morning alone they are ongoing this evening that followed in Tran going back to the start of that we first heard of residential areas apartments on social media TV screens showing that they were burning hours later it was reported just before dawn an explosion at the Nat’s nuclear facility in a city 200 km south of Thran but 100 targets in total in the first few hours this morning not just fighter jet strikes but clandestine drone operations smuggled into the territory according to sources in Mosat Israel’s intelligence service hitting nuclear sites air defenses ballistic missile storage facilities assassinating six nuclear scientists and military commanders as well including the chief of the revolutionary guard Hussein Salami israeli leaders have contemplated the scale of attack for two decades and likely ramifications and wider consequences have been previously judged to be too big a gamble why now benjamin Netanyahu addressed that in his address to the nation in recent years Iran has produced enough highlyenriched uranium for nine atom bombs nine in recent months Iran has taken steps that it has never taken before steps to weaponize this enriched uranium and if not stopped Iran could produce a nuclear weapon in a very short time it could be a year it could be within a few months less than a year this is a clear and present danger to Israel’s very survival well is Iran’s foreign minister Abbasi said the attacks are quote a declaration of war and called on the UN Security Council to address gross violations of Iran’s sovereignty the country’s supreme leader is threatening a heavy revenge an initial Iranian drone attacks on Israel have already been launched mostly shot down and as the role of the US too which was is in the midst of nuclear deescalation talks with Iran although they appear to be going nowhere president Trump says he was informed but confirmed the US was not involved and warned Iran “Make the deal,” quote “before it’s too late.” He said “Iran must make a deal before there’s nothing left and save what was once known as the Iranian Empire no more death no more destruction just do it before it’s too late.” We’re going to get the view on this in a moment because we’re also getting European reaction too and right now we’ll crush live to the Elise where President Mron is about to speak attacked Iran its nuclear program and its missiles france was not part of the strikes france learned of the attacks this afternoon and the when they started and these attacks are set to last this marks a new chapter in the war i understand the justified concern of many French citizens france for many years and on multiple occasions has condemned the Iranian nuclear program and its ballistic missile program there has been no civil justification for uranium enrichment and they have reached enrichment levels which are close to military grade okay back with us on the world this week we’re just watching live President Mron explaining a statement calling for calm in the Middle East given the events in the past few hours a number of interesting points that he makes he talks about enrichment quotes close to enrich military grade he said in Iran he talks about uh the French troops increasing presence of the Sentinel initiative that was brought in 2015 after the Charlie Abdo attacks to protect sensitive sites from potential terrorist attacks given the unpredictability in the region in the Middle East he also talked about saying this should in no way detract from events going on in Gaza right now and Richard one thing that you noticed talking about next week where we thought it was seeming to be the path that France would recognize Palestine as a state that meeting seems to have been postponed yeah true um it was clear after what happened this night that it would have been very difficult for France to decide to recognize the Palestinian state in such a condition of war between Israel and Iran so the answer came from President Mroy himself he said that because the leaders of the Palestine authority cannot travel at the moment the meeting will be held in another location and at another time i think he is actually gaining time france is gaining time president Mron is trying to position France as possible in the region but you can guess that in such a situation now it’s Trump Netanyahu Iran France is not in the picture very interesting B his take on making a point don’t forget this has been hours in the making this speech as well about not detracting from events in Gaza yeah I mean as I mentioned you know that it was pretty clear to me that you know Israel is under a tremendous amount of pressure internationally because of Gaza um I’m kind of curious as to what intelligence uh Netanyahu and somewhat Macron were referring to that Iran is taking an I’m not aware of any intelligence and I follow this issue very closely uh and I would love to hear what our colleague in in London has to say about this but you know what particularly new intel is there i mean we have we know that we’ve known for months uh years at this point that Iran has near weapons grade enrichment but we on the sort of very very specific technical aspects of weaponization and that includes uh uh the kind of implosion event necessary to uh uh uh create a nuclear explosion of the type iran has not advanced uh very in 20 20ome years at this point since 2003 and I’m not aware of any and I I’m not aware of any IAEA reports referencing uh new uh experiments on the creating a high explosive event or miniaturization and so on i if there is that would be uh revoly and that would be a a pretty decent causes belly for Israel and the US even to act but short of that um you know there was really no uh uh as as Netanyahu was saying the language of an imminent threat there was no such imminent threat it’s a good point and it I’ll put that first to Dom and then to to no go to bur to put adding some context to it Dom which is that in the last few weeks we’ve seen intelligence analysts and the IEA suggesting that the amount of uranium has increased not necessarily enrichment level enrichment level seems to be now uh quoted to be around 60% weapons grade at 90% that the breakout point but to Barzu’s point you can rewind back to speeches in 2012 that Benjamin Netanyahu was has given to which he said it could be weeks and months we have to act now so are you hearing something different this time Dom uh well the short answer is no i mean we’ve we’ve heard this uh weeks months uh small number of years for a very long time now so to Baj’s point yes the imminence I think is a very very interesting point here um I mean we might not ever know the intelligence it may never be declassified but I I don’t know if there was an imminent threat here or actually this was a window of opportunity for Israel they see a a very much weakened um Hamas and Hezbollah we see a somewhat distracted Donald Trump and Israel in the last few months has shown the ability to operate inside Iranian airspace with stealth jets and what have you so they’ve shown that they can do it and they’ve shown that they can largely bring down possibly with the help of some of their friends any drones and missiles that have fired back at them so I think there was a confluence of timings here that meant this was the possibly the best window of opportunity to do something so yes they may well be imminent underneath it all we will probably never know but I think this was too good an opportunity for Benjamin Netanyahu to turn down yeah a weakenblah no has mentioned before also Trump he’s not Mr know as President Obama had been in the past but Joe Biden had been in the past against the idea of striking while you were talking Dom Risha wanted to come in you’ve been looking at a statement from the UN nuclear agency I was just uh um clear I mean looking at the statement from the international atomic agency based in Vienna actually the latest statement from the chairman or the secretary general of that agency he said Iran has repeatedly either not answered or not provided technically credible answers to the agency’s question So it was not an imminent threat i agree but recently there was a rising amount of concern of what Iran is doing so we may not call it imminent threat but clearly Iran was playing a strange game and that is precisely why Donald Trump was trying to take back Iran in a negotiation after himself withdrawing from the agreement in 2018 the agreement GCPOA negotiated by the Europeans and it’s worth saying isn’t it given what Richard’s pointed out from the latest statement this is not something of a moment appropo of of nothing of panic of sudden what shall we do given the Mossads what you telling us before the ability to get in and get drones in there this has been a long time in the making yes this is multi-level and multifaceted it’s become evident over the course of the day that Israel at least Israel’s MSAD the intelligence agency has been preparing this for years and years this is not something that you can put together even in a few months um just in terms even of the of the human involved and the precision um in addition we found out earlier today that the Israeli army has been working on this for at least 8 months that this was on the books but I want to return to something that uh Dom just mentioned these are two conditions that have changed radically and that may have impacted the timing in addition to Prime Minister Netanyahu’s well-known domestic political weakness there are two other issues one is I don’t want to say the destruction but the the major degradation of Hisbalah one reason that Israel did not attack Iran was the fear that Hezbollah would rain down missiles on the north of Israel that fear has gone and the other as Dom just said was basically across the board American president saying “Don’t you dare.” Donald Trump said no but not in the same tone and Netanyahu decided to go for it dom just going back to you a moment because NOGA touched upon it as well this eight months in the planning I’d be fascinated to know I think we all would your military perspective on this the scale the coordination the planning that this has taken some analysts comparing it to the operation spid web in Ukraine that we saw two weeks ago yeah I was I’ve been thinking about that today actually i I I would imagine there there was no uh no awareness by Israel and Ukraine of each other’s operation here but they do bear very striking resemblance to each other and I just wonder after spider web when we saw these drones come out of the containers deep inside Russia and go and attack airfields i just wonder if there was um concern in Israel as to whether or not that might then make countries around the world think well we need to beef up our our internal security against such threats i just wonder if if this operation was brought forward in light of that or possibly even um it might have been risk they might have been suggestions of cancing it obviously they’ve gone ahead with it it seems to be as far as Israel is concerned a very successful operation which are operations are continuing but I just wonder if these things if this operation was brought forward because of that successful Ukrainian demonstration of this of this uh this new method of warfare if you like b listening to to Dom add into that I heard oh no go yes no go first please just very quickly prime minister addressed the question of the timing as I think I mentioned before because he’s been accused of politicizing the matter he said that this was planned specifically for the last week in April uh and that it was delayed for unknown reasons and that the timing this week was entirely uh opportunistic coincidental and had nothing to do with Anything else what’s the cat called by the way very stealthy move in the back while you were talking to us there no emoteep the name of uh Pharaoh oh wonderful to guest appearance let me bring in Boru on that as well i heard Lord Peter Ricketts today former chair of the British Joint Intelligence Committee saying this he suspects that Benjamin Netanyahu feels Trump has been distracted with Ukraine as Dom was saying with the LA rights and protests and that he wouldn’t do anything to stop Israel because the sense is he can mend fences later i I would go even farther i I I mean I don’t think it’s any secret to to many in the world including myself i just think that Trump is completely incompetent and um uh completely not focused on anything but his own uh public appearances he’s essentially about all about everything is about domestic policy it’s all about you know his image so as long as he can um you know weasle out of taking uh culpability for any kind of attack and you know he won’t get smeared with the same wararmonger label he he uh he used against Hillary and and Camala Harris and so on he will uh get out of it unscathed and he simply just doesn’t care he doesn’t care about the world he doesn’t care about America he cares about Donald Trump well you’ve got two scenario um either Trump uh lured the Iranian into negotiation and Iran which is weak at the moment militarily we know it and then Netanyahu though the decision was taken earlier we just learned Netanyahu took the chance and decided the attack so that would mean there is some kind despite what the White House is saying there is a kind of cooperation between the US and Israel the other scenario is that Netanyahu clearly tell Donald Trump “I’m the boss i am the boss i decide to strike whenever I want you’re not going to continue dealing with the Saudis and with the Gulf region i’m the one who decide and set the agenda.” So between those two scenario personally I am not an expert enough to decide but I think in those both scenario Trump appears as weak we’ve heard the call for calm from President Macarron tonight we also hear the Brits earlier today as well saying a similar thing this is interesting Don this has just come through as we’re on air vladimir Putin has held phone calls with the Israeli prime minister and then followed up with a call to the is Iranian president as well that’s coming from Russian state media what are you making of uh how this looks from outside allies of Iran Russia China allies well I I’m I’m concerned about this window of opportunity idea that I was alluding to earlier on because you may well find that that Russia sees a window of opportunity now with a again a distracted Trump and a a divided Europe if you like to possibly test Article 5 with a little provocation in Estonia or somewhere else in the Baltic States for example China is probably looking at at this uh this idea that that why wait 10 years when you’ve got uh you’ve got everything ready to go it might be better to go sooner if you want to have a go at Taiwan for example when the opposition is uh is slight slightly distracted and hasn’t got got themselves ready so this window of opportunity it it concerns me i think Taiwan um could be under could be under threat in the next few years but I thought it was very interesting from you mentioned Russia there and Putin calling Netanyahu the statement earlier on today by the Russian foreign ministry calling Israel’s action an unprovoked or an an unnecessary provocation unprovoked aggression sorry that’s unprovoked aggression saying it was a violation of the UN charter and international humanitarian law of course what they’re trying to do there is they’re trying to appeal to those people who aren’t paying close attention to what’s happening in the world particularly around Ukraine they’re trying to portray uh the Russian state as as responsible global actors to say they have great humanity and and empathy for the people of Iran when of course when we see what’s happening every single day in Ukraine you know that these are absolutely hollow words that are coming out of Moscow and they are just trying to appeal to the to the large you know millions probably billions of people around the world who don’t follow events quite as closely as as perhaps we do and they’re trying to position Russia as this this noble statesmanlike global great power when of course their actions every day in Ukraine show that they are anything but and that takes us back doesn’t it Tom Don to early this week comments by M Rutter the head of of NATO the secretary general saying that you know no problem if you don’t want to spend any more on defense as long as you’re prepared to start learning Russian yes I mean it was somewhat flamboyant language and um no Mark Martin Rut’s known not to uh not to be uh not to issue boring press statements shall we say but it was it was quite quite a lively uh quite a lively event there at Chattam House here in London i he said that that at at the NATO conference later this month the um defense spending pledge is going to go up to 5% of three and a half% on hard heavy metal if you like and one and a half% on other defense initiatives for example um intelligence agencies infrastructure cyber that kind of thing so no this is a big uplift and the US are not at 5% of their their defense budget so it’s going to be it’s going to be a big uh ask for everybody but no Mark Rutter and he’s got a difficult hand to play i mean when he was um prime minister of the Netherlands you know they weren’t meeting the 2% minimum of NATO standards so he’s now banging the drum for 5% uh and he needs to keep this kind of very colorful language going to take people with him to win over the doubters who might say well well you haven’t got a brilliant track record yourself Mr bruta but but no I expect I expect quite a quite a quite a lively NATO conference in the H I think 25th 26th of this month in the next couple of weeks when we listened to Dom Bouru particularly when when Dom was talking a moment ago about what could be happening in the vacuum what else could be happening right now if you if you look away if you focus on this is it time to move elsewhere for for world leaders I mean I I I it struck me just how dark the world has become and uh you know the the the lawlessness on the part of many countries uh domestically internationally uh and and you know the the mention earlier about these jurists the this is a very very dark time we’re kind of retreating to these 19th century ideas uh of military conquest and yeah why not you know um I would just say I would just caution that I don’t think that Israel has any uh designs on taking Iranian territory i think there is a genuine trauma that is driving uh this uh whether or not Netanyahu is exploiting that for his own domestic reasons you know it’s not quite the same thing but again I think Gaza is more of a parallel to Taiwan and Russia and and these great powers seeking to do whatever they want regardless of international norms and laws uh than than the Iran situation but yeah it’s it’s it’s a it’s a bleak outlook for the world no that’s a fascinating point isn’t it because I’d be interested in the conversations you’ve had today in the last 24 hours compare the conversations over Gaza to the conversations you’re having over Iran and what people are saying yes it’s a very different feeling among Israelis but it’s also just an accumulation and an exhaustion among people the Israeli analysts who I spoken to today have actually not done made the connection that Boru just made gaza and Iran though I do think he’s right for Israelis uh Gaza remains this open wound this unexpected attack the massacre of October 7th remains very very vivid and I think it will as long as hostages are still being held that wound is open whereas Iran is almost a situation of the boy who cried wolf for Netanyahu for decades he’s been saying that Iran poses an existential threat um and his record in containing Iran was quite poor as we mentioned so Israelis are responding on two separate parallel lines and the only comments I made that in any way made a kind of strategic connection had to do actually with President Trump’s truth social post from earlier today where he basically threatened the Iranians and said you know I gave you a chance you better sign the deal now um with several Israeli analysts said how ironic it would be if Netanyahu’s successful strike against Iran ended up bringing Iran to sign exactly the deal that Netanyahu loathes uh and doesn’t want Iran to side with President Trump that is the flip the one side of the coin i guess the flip side B and you’ve touched upon this before is the fact that it could see hawks in Iran scrambling now to make a nuclear weapon as quickly as possible i I I worry about that and I think that is the really grave concern you can’t eliminate knowhow um you know you can eliminate hardware um and and you know you you can eliminate these senior gay-haired leaders um uh uh in their apartments and so on but uh trust me the younger ones are worse and they’re more hotheaded you know I’ve lived in Iran and I know what these like the these junior people are ferocious and they don’t have the wisdom of their the the the gen uh the gen Z of the Iranian hardliners are a little bit scary if you watch the telegram channels where they operate and so on um and they’re going to be even more I mean when when the supreme leader goes the the the thing that follows it um you know I I would love to see a democratic pluralistic Iran follow but that’s just not how the Middle East works it’s the toughest people on the block with the best weapons who win and those are not pleasant people are you getting messages from old colleagues in Iran in Thran old friends are they concerned about I’m interested whether they can actually feel they can Many people are cheering many people in Iran are cheering this they they want they want to see these IRGC commanders killed um and others are conflicted saying it’s good to see these guys get their comeuppants but not like this it has to be at the hands of the Iranian people and then there’s of course the you know the hardliners who are you know uh rallying around the the supreme leader and the those are the people with the weapons and not just the willingness to die for what they believe in but crucially the willingness to kill for what they believe in dom we’ve there are worth um a couple of points raising to you actually one is Libya the other is North Korea here libya giving up its nuclear capabilities in 2003 and its lead ending up dead in a ditch eight years later north Korea is a pariah but it survived sanctions and nobody’s talking about bombing Pyongyang are they no I mean what’s happening to the nuclear non-prololiferation treaty at the moment is is very very concerning because what what other lessons would you take out of um Ukraine and this attack on Iran if you were a a a rising regional power other than to say you know what if we’re able to develop a nuclear weapon is not going to be the wrong answer it might not be the best the best answer because it’s it’s very very expensive and it it does cross a few lines and you’re going to upset quite a few allies and other people around the world it is making a making a very clear statement but you know what would Putin have gone into Ukraine if Ukraine had nuclear weapons same with Libya as you say there and look at North Korea so yeah I think the nuclear non-prololiferation treaty and where we are in the 21st century regarding these weapons we’re in a very very precarious position right now richard yeah one thing I would add to what Bosu was saying is that we do not know yet actually I have not seen myself the extent of the damages caused by the Israeli bombing they were spectacular we know that four or five generals uh of the Iranian revolution guard uh died were killed about five scientists I I believe from the Natans uh nuclear complex but we do not know if really the strike managed to destroy anything very important on the chain on the nuclear chain of Iran and that that is an important factor because apparently and I’m sure Iran protected very much its side and new generation of engineers and scientists so we have to see whether that has been a decisive blow or not it’s very hard to know isn’t it i think we’ve heard from the uh IAEA today the UN’s nuclear watchdog saying that they have caused they have hit one of the main sites but it’s nuclear reaction levels are normal is that right yeah I think you’re referring to Natal Natans um I can also update uh my fellow panelists that the Israeli army is saying that it is currently striking an isfahan another nuclear facility um and that this is just the beginning of the strike so the Israeli project the Israeli operation Iran is very much at the start uh according to the Israeli army and to respond I think to Richard the the Israeli army has kind of posted um these showoffy type videos today showing off its prowess um and it is hard to know how much actual damage has been done but for example the facility in does appear to be destroyed of course we know nothing for example of forda we know nothing of a lot of what Iran is doing which was the main point in the IA IEA report that came out yesterday i want to bring in just other issues that have been going on in the world but to a lesser extent given that this breaking news but I do want to Richard mention this to you because we’re at a point now where we are going to see huge protests domestically for President Trump in the US his attention is going to have to be as Boru said elsewhere because it is the two 250th anniversary military parade commemorations they’re going to be bigger than they’ve ever been before sound like President Trump saying that it’s also coincidentally or not his 79th birthday huge protests planned coming off the back of huge what clashes turned curfew in LA what have you made of that well I think something is starting to move for real in the United States now uh it has taken month um we talked about it i mean the main opposition rallies were those of Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Kaziocortez they were the one managing to bring people in and to be anti-Trump but now we’re seeing that people rise and stand up so is it going to last that’s the big question is it going to last uh is it going to get stronger but clearly those Democrats that I met when I was in the States about 3 weeks ago they were saying we just wait for the midterms i mean the Democrats I was talking they were kind of let’s wait for the midterms is going to lose the midterms apparently a new trend is coming in the Democrat party it’s the time now to fight and in that way in that respect Gavin Newsome is the new figure gavin Newsome is the new figure this is war of narratives going on bouru Gavin Newsome saying it was under control this is a TV spectacle president Trump saying no you have to let the migration uh enforcement go ahead i mean I I think that Democrats are part of the problem in the US um they they you know misdirect uh the opposition in general um I I I but I also think that Americans don’t really know how to be an opposition they they protest they go out in the streets but they have no clue because of the disconnection of society from labor unions and the the complete collapse of civil society in the US they don’t know what it means to organize they don’t know what it means to build a political movement to resist to go and and you know the the the value of a general strike and you know meanwhile the Democrats are basically trying to figure out how can we seduce the oligarchs better than the Republicans how can we get these tech people on our side and it’s it’s it’s kind of a disaster because there’s no real opposition in the US uh there is opposition sentiment uh but there’s no real opposition movement dom I’m sure you’re one of the few people who can talk about what it must be like to be troops sent on domestic duties and what it’s like then as a journalist covering the protests and crowd troubles there are as we heard two different narratives of what was going on um I just wonder about your take on what’s been happening in LA this week well I mean it’s it’s pretty pretty shocking what’s happening in LA but I I’m I’m almost more interested in what’s going to happen in um in the capital for this for this parade this this absolutely not a birthday parade parade because if we learned one thing in this country in the UK from the 2012 Olympics for example when we had uniform personnel on the streets and also at all the the the sort of entries of the venues it was very clear to the world um that we the British society neither resented nor feared our uh our uniform personnel and we welcome them we were chatting and laughing and it was all it was all very nice there was that connection between um society and uniform personnel both military and civil police and I just wonder what’s going to happen in the states partly because it’s such a novelty they haven’t seen haven’t seen a parade like this for I can’t even remember when Second World War um so what is going to be the reaction it might just be befuddlement from the from the from the people i what happens if nobody turns up i mean if that was parade and and Trump and no one turns up for him you know is he going to say “Oh no no it’s for the it’s the 250th anniversary of the army it’s definitely not my not my birthday parade.” Or if there are thousands on the streets is he going to say “Hey they’ve all come out for my birthday.” It’s going to be it’s going to be interesting to see the reaction from the people because it’s just it’s just they’re not used to this uh in um in in in the US this overt demonstration of of military might uh and to see how that’s uh how that is received I think is going to be going to be well for me one of the most interesting aspects no we might get into a scenario where we’re getting numbers from Trump which um are different from the numbers given officially which we’ve seen before haven’t we the other point Dom is let’s take a look at one of our colleagues this week we’ve all had when we go to hostile environments as they’re known including public order training uh you go through with exmilitary officials and how to deal with it our colleague at Channel 9 TV this week Lauren Tamasi getting caught in the midst of the crowd let’s take a look after hours of standing off this situation has now rapidly deteriorated the LAPD moving in on horseback firing rubber bullets at protesters moving them on through the heart of LA [Music] you just shut the You okay i’m good i’m good dom I’ve heard some colleagues of ours saying that she was standing in the wrong place she should have been on the pavement but the officer is supposed to shoot at the floor isn’t he with rubber bullets not at people uh yeah it’s been a while since I did my public order training but you know I think that was that was the tor technique at the time she wasn’t in the wrong place she was a reporter she was a journalist doing doing her job and you know as we can see clearly presenting no threat whatsoever that was that was a disgraceful uh display of of force i don’t know if I I doubt it but I don’t know if there’s been any subsequent action against the uh against the officer who who took that shot but that was that is not how you police uh a civil um situation um somewhat somewhat intrigued as to the the the camera operator who sort of turned turned 180 degrees and started legging it and then we heard a kind of are you okay shouted over the shoulder i mean I’d like to think that some of our camera operators at the Telegraph might hold me in slightly higher esteem to actually actually check if I was all right but you know I’m probably doing him a massive disservice he must be a very capable camera or videographer so to film over their shoulder as he was actually helping but you know I’m probably being a little bit mean to my to my colleagues there but no that was that was absolutely disgraceful that is not how you how you police public order that was um beyond any kind of rules of engagement i I’m I’m absolutely shocked when I saw that earlier in the week that’s disgraceful yeah so when you the moment you find out where your friends are isn’t it in a moment like that last word from you Borto on this we’ve got 30 seconds or so um just when you’re looking ahead of the protests tomorrow when you’re hearing Trump saying uh that they will strike very heavily there are fundamental questions and some Democrats saying this is an author authoritarian regime yeah i mean clearly that Donald Trump wants to be an authoritarian um clearly Americans don’t really know how to oppose him um you know in an in an effective way um and this is a and clearly US law enforcement is overly militarized overly uh um you know right-wing um overly uh uh connected to to Donald Trump and has its own fascistic uh uh tendencies and this is a recipe for disaster this is a recipe for another Kent state in which you know innocent student protesters and and nonprotesters were killed by US troops and this is what we were supposed to be moving away from thank you Boru thank you to all an excellent panel tonight unique experience clarity of insights needed now more than ever from London The Telegraph’s associate editor Dom Nichols presenter of the award-winning podcast Ukraine the latest thank you Dom from Jerusalem thanks Kevin france 24 international correspondent Noga Talipolski thank you to Noa and with us in the studio Rishib Willie correspondent for Blick author of the ball of illusions and the three-time Pulit surprise nominated international journalist Bouru Deragi thank you Boru too thank you for watching thank you De we’ll see you in seven days for the world next week [Music]

It’s been a week of escalating global tensions. Israel launched a series of targeted strikes on Iran—code-named Rising Lion—aimed at crippling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities. Iran has vowed a swift response. In the United States, protests erupted in Los Angeles over immigration enforcement, as federal officers intensified roundups of undocumented migrants—part of President Trump’s broader plan for mass deportations. Meanwhile in Ukraine, Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Odesa came under heavy fire. Russia launched one of its largest aerial assaults yet, striking the capital with a wave of 315 drones and ballistic missiles. And in Europe, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte delivered a stark warning in London: defense spending is no longer optional—it’s existential.
#Israel #Iran #Nuclear

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