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Speaker 1: You can listen to the Front on your smart speaker

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Speaker 1: every morning to hear the latest episode. Just say play

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Speaker 1: the news from the Australian. From the Australian, here's what's

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Speaker 1: on the Front. I'm Claire Harvey. It's Friday, September six.

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Speaker 1: Ndis Minister Bill Shorton is quitting politics for a university

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Speaker 1: vice chancellor job paying almost one point one million dollars.

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Speaker 1: Shorten will leave the government in February, leaving Labor to

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Speaker 1: fight the election without him. Alcohol taxes are now worth

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Speaker 1: nearly eleven billion dollars a year after big rises in excise.

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Speaker 1: That's the new claim from the lobby Group for pubs

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Speaker 1: and manufacturers, who say they're being overtaxed. Negotiations for a

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Speaker 1: ceasefire in Gaza have narrowed to a tiny piece of land.

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Speaker 1: Hamas calls it Selah al Din. Israel calls it the

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Speaker 1: Philadelphia Corridor. Haamas says Israel must leave the corridor. Israeli

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Speaker 1: PM Benjamin Netanya, who says no, because he says that's

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Speaker 1: how weapons and ammunition get into Gaza. Today we explore Nettanna,

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Speaker 1: whose hardline stance as israelis real. From the News. Six

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Speaker 1: hostages were shot dead by Hamas.

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Speaker 2: I'm sorry, I apologize that we didn't get them out.

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Speaker 2: We worked so hard to get them. We were clothes,

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Speaker 2: but we didn't.

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Speaker 1: This is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanna, who apologizing. He's

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Speaker 1: talking after he spoke to the grieving and angry families

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Speaker 1: of six Israeli hostages murdered in Gaza. Some of them

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Speaker 1: accuse Netanya who sacrificing their children by continuing his war,

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Speaker 1: and they.

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Speaker 2: Changed the torment. Our family is worried about their loved

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Speaker 2: ones to families grieving where they're fallen. Beloved that sentiment,

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Speaker 2: I know because I belonged to that family. But it's

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Speaker 2: a horror.

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Speaker 1: In an hour long addressed journalist in Tel Aviv earlier

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Speaker 1: this week, Ntnyahu went from the sorrowful grandfather grieving with

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Speaker 1: his people.

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Speaker 2: On October seventh, we experience the worst savagery metted on

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Speaker 2: the Jewish people since the Holocaust. These savages massacred our people.

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Speaker 1: To the analyst, they waited for.

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Speaker 2: Iran to start a general war with visual that didn't happen.

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Speaker 2: So then they waited for Hizballa to start a general

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Speaker 2: war with visual that didn't happen either. So now they

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Speaker 2: resort to the final tactic. They're going to sew discord

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Speaker 2: and create international pressure again using the hostages, even after

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Speaker 2: the murder.

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Speaker 1: To the war board.

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Speaker 2: Now the world will seriously demand that we'll make concessions

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Speaker 2: after this massacre. What messages are sent to Hamas, I'll

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Speaker 2: tell you what the message is. Murder, more hostages, you'll

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Speaker 2: get more concessions. That's not only a logical, it's not

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Speaker 2: only a moral. It's not right insane.

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Speaker 1: He took a pointer and stood in front of a

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Speaker 1: giant map, like a university lecturer or a TV with

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Speaker 1: a man pointing at a map of the Middle East

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Speaker 1: with Israel at its center.

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Speaker 2: Often you see maps of Israel, you think it's a goodliath. Well,

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Speaker 2: I'd like to give you first and overview of where

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Speaker 2: Israel is. This is the Middle East, and this is

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Speaker 2: the entire Arab world, and this is Israel. It's one

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Speaker 2: of the tiniest countries on the planet. It goes.

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Speaker 3: This is generally what baby does.

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Speaker 1: Jonni Vashan is a journalist with The Australian. He's been

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Speaker 1: traveling back and forth to report from the region since

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Speaker 1: the October seven attack by Hamas Johnny was the first

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Speaker 1: Australian journalist to bought from the ground in Gaza.

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Speaker 3: With many of his public statements, he knows he's not

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Speaker 3: just speaking to Israelis, but to Western leaders, to Western Parliament's,

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Speaker 3: students in Western universities. And he likes to use visuals.

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Speaker 3: He likes to use illustrations to do this. It's just

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Speaker 3: his style. It kind of reminds me of when he

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Speaker 3: spoke to the UN in twenty twelve about Iran's nuclear program.

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Speaker 3: So he held up a drawing of a spherical cartoon

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Speaker 3: bomb with a red line through it near the top,

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Speaker 3: like near the wick, which was a light, and that

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Speaker 3: red line indicated that Iran was getting close to the bomb,

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Speaker 3: so to speak. And then he did the same thing

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Speaker 3: in twenty eighteen, he held a press conference in front

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Speaker 3: of a half tent of Uranian nuclear documents that had

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Speaker 3: been well smuggled out of the country somehow by the

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Speaker 3: Israeli intelligence services. So he's a bit of a performer

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Speaker 3: like that.

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Speaker 1: When people talk about why there hasn't been a ceasefire

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Speaker 1: yet in Israel, they talk about the Philadelphia Corridor. That's

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Speaker 1: a tiny strip of land at the southern end of

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Speaker 1: Gaza between Gaza and Egypt. In two thousand and five,

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Speaker 1: Israel withdrew from Gaza, including the Philadelphi Corridor, and Neetnya

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Speaker 1: who says that's when things started to go wrong. Weapons,

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Speaker 1: rockets and tunnel drilling equipment went in, funded by Iran.

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Speaker 2: It became a huge terrorist base because we left that corridor.

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Speaker 1: Israel took the corridor back in May as its forces

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Speaker 1: swept through southern Gaza. So if it's such an important place,

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Speaker 1: why did this only happen seven months into the conflict.

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Speaker 3: Well, it took them a while to secure the Philadelphi Corridor.

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Speaker 3: It's a strip of land on the southern border with Egypt,

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Speaker 3: and it's basically what the Israelis call the smuggling lane

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Speaker 3: for all the anti tank missiles and weaponry that Hamas

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Speaker 3: has been buying with its Western aid money and quietly

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Speaker 3: stockpiling for seventeen years in tunnels which were also built

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Speaker 3: with Western aid money. But getting to that corridor took

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Speaker 3: time because, of course, the international community, namely the Biden administration,

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Speaker 3: put great pressure on the IDF not to go anywhere

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Speaker 3: near southern Gaza to Rafa's, especially for fear of greater

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Speaker 3: civilian casualties. Natanya, who pretty much knows that if he

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Speaker 3: gives up the Philadelphi Corridor, which seems to be at

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Speaker 3: least a partial condition of any ceasefire, then the smuggling

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Speaker 3: lanes will reopen, comas will regroup, and the war itself,

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Speaker 3: and the hundreds of Israeli soldiers killed in this campaign

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Speaker 3: over the last eleven months, well, that will have been

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Speaker 3: all for nothing. It would have been an enormous retreat

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Speaker 3: and tactically terrible. So he's sticking to those guns for now,

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Speaker 3: but facing immense pressure internally within Israel to make a

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Speaker 3: deal at almost any cost.

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Speaker 1: Nanya, who is under pressure from two directions. One group

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Speaker 1: in Israel, the grieving and fearful families of hostages dead

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Speaker 1: and living and the furious protesters on city streets. And

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Speaker 1: the other group the world, particularly Western nations long term

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Speaker 1: allies of Israel, where citizens are increasingly horrified by the

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Speaker 1: civilian death toll in Gaza. And it's this international pressure

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Speaker 1: which perhaps ironically is driving the Nyahoo to go harder now,

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Speaker 1: he says, when the international community, begging for a ceasefire,

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Speaker 1: says he should withdraw from the Philadelphia Corridor, and go

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Speaker 1: back in future necessary. He can't believe that because you.

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Speaker 2: All know and understand that the international community, including friendly countries,

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Speaker 2: under enormous domestic pressure because of the propaganda that's leveled

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Speaker 2: against is Isral and against that there'll be enormous international

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Speaker 2: pressure not to come back. What is their message and

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Speaker 2: the war and the war?

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Speaker 1: So Joanni, how do Israelis feel about the international community

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Speaker 1: turning on them?

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Speaker 3: There's a sense of disbelief. Really, the IDF is waging

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Speaker 3: a war against Islamic jihadism, against Iranian proxies, against basically

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Speaker 3: an ideological virus that doesn't just threaten Israel. So the

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Speaker 3: way is Raeli see it, it's their sons and daughters,

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Speaker 3: nineteen and twenty year olds who'd rather be on holiday

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Speaker 3: in Australia. Frankly, they're fighting against a movement controlled and

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Speaker 3: led by Iran that ultimately threatens the West and the

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Speaker 3: Western way of life. This isn't about Palestinian nationalism and

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Speaker 3: it never has been. The Hamas leadership doesn't give a

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Speaker 3: damn about its people. This is about advancing a sick

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Speaker 3: idea that Israel is a colonial outpost of the West,

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Speaker 3: and that the West itself is evil.

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Speaker 2: So people said, yeah, but if you stay, this will

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Speaker 2: kill the deal, and I say, such a deal would kill.

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Speaker 1: Us, coming up the increasingly impossible goals of Benjamin Netanyahu.

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Speaker 1: Do understand this conflict? Do you have to know? This tiny, dry,

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Speaker 1: rocky patch of land on the southeastern shore of the

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Speaker 1: Mediterranean has been fought over for thousands of years. It's

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Speaker 1: where the three great Abrahamic religions were born, first Judaism

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Speaker 1: with their prophet Abraham, then Christianity with the birth of

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Speaker 1: Jesus Christ their prophet, and Islam in the seventh century

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Speaker 1: with the rise of their prophet Muhammad. All three faiths

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Speaker 1: call it their holy land, and they've spent hundreds of

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Speaker 1: years warring over its holiest places, Jerusalem, Nazareth, Hebron. The

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Speaker 1: modern state of Israel was founded in nineteen forty eight

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Speaker 1: after World War II, when six million Jews were murdered

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Speaker 1: by Adolf Hitler during the Holocaust and countless others were displaced.

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Speaker 1: When the conflict finally ended, the United Nations had to

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Speaker 1: give those who survived the genocide somewhere to go, and

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Speaker 1: in nineteen forty eight, the newly formed United Nations split

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Speaker 1: it roughly in half and called one half Israel and

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Speaker 1: the other half Palestine. One day after that split, Arab armies,

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Speaker 1: including from Egypt, invaded Israel, and the Wars of raged

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Speaker 1: basically ever since. Hundreds of thousands of Palestine Indians living

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Speaker 1: in villages in the newly named Israel were displaced, and

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Speaker 1: many have never left the refugee camps they fled to.

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Speaker 1: Over the years, Palestinian control shranked two territories, the west

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Speaker 1: bank of the Jordan River and a tiny strip on

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Speaker 1: the Mediterranean coast called Gaza. Gaza's control by Hamas, which

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Speaker 1: won elections in two thousand and six and has declined

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Speaker 1: to hold elections since then. It's now effectively a one

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Speaker 1: party state. Hamas controls everything from the health services to

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Speaker 1: the schools. Israel, a parliamentary democracy, is now governed by

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Speaker 1: a right wing coalition including Netnyahoo. He's a seventy four

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Speaker 1: year old former commando and former architect who's BNPM twice before.

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Speaker 3: He started off with a great deal of popularity and

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Speaker 3: support in the nineteen nineties, taking the Prime ministership about

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Speaker 3: one year after the assassination of its Akrabin. This was

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Speaker 3: a horrible time for Israel. The first Inti far was

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Speaker 3: over by the time Bibi was elected, but he'd been

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Speaker 3: the opposition leader during this torrid period. It was a

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Speaker 3: time when Palestinian suicide bombers were blowing themselves up on

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Speaker 3: buses or in crowds or at nightclubs. So his platform

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Speaker 3: at that time was security and safety. He was an

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Speaker 3: elite commando in the Israeli Special Forces, well groomed, fiercely articulate,

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Speaker 3: an American educated at Israeli ambassador to the UN during

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Speaker 3: the nineteen eighties. These days, the narrative it hasn't quite flipped.

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Speaker 3: He remains popular with his base, but maintaining support in

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Speaker 3: the Israel of twenty twenty four is a difficult task,

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Speaker 3: especially when the country is becoming increasingly divided on religious lines,

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Speaker 3: and especially since October seven, when fractures in the country

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Speaker 3: are so evident, especially on how the war effort is

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Speaker 3: being run. And by that I don't mean the number

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Speaker 3: of civilian casualties in Gaza. I mean the central aims

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Speaker 3: of the war itself being to return the hostages, eliminate hamas,

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Speaker 3: and restore Israeli security. Now more than ever these these

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Speaker 3: aims seem to be increasingly at odds with each other.

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Speaker 1: Journie Bashan is a senior journalist with The Australian. Thanks

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Speaker 1: for joining us on the front. Our team is Kristin Amiot,

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Speaker 1: Jasper leik Leat, Sammaglue, Tiffany Dimac, Joshua Burton and me

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Speaker 1: Claire Harvey. For the best journalism twenty four to seven.

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Speaker 1: Join ours subscribers at Theaustralian dot com dot au