WEBVTT - Israel v Iran: The new Middle East war explained 

0:00:03.960 --> 0:00:07.000
<v Speaker 1>From The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Christianamie.

0:00:07.320 --> 0:00:13.920
<v Speaker 1>It's Monday, June sixteenth, twenty twenty five. Senators want Amazon

0:00:13.960 --> 0:00:17.120
<v Speaker 1>to be banned from winning lucrative contracts for government work.

0:00:17.600 --> 0:00:21.240
<v Speaker 1>It comes as Prime Minister Anthony Albanesi toured Amazon's headquarters

0:00:21.239 --> 0:00:24.639
<v Speaker 1>in Seattle, prompting criticism of his government's links to the

0:00:24.680 --> 0:00:30.480
<v Speaker 1>tech giant. The PM is expected to meet with Donald

0:00:30.520 --> 0:00:32.839
<v Speaker 1>Trump on the sidelines of the G seven summit in

0:00:32.960 --> 0:00:36.199
<v Speaker 1>Canada this week. On the agenda is the future of

0:00:36.280 --> 0:00:40.559
<v Speaker 1>the orcust Military Pact as the Trump administration throws defense

0:00:40.640 --> 0:00:44.599
<v Speaker 1>and trade ties inted doubt. Those stories alive right now

0:00:44.600 --> 0:00:53.080
<v Speaker 1>at the Australian dot com dot au. Civilian casualties, crumbling

0:00:53.120 --> 0:00:58.000
<v Speaker 1>buildings and rockets raining down on Israel and Iran today,

0:00:58.160 --> 0:01:02.200
<v Speaker 1>the new Middle East war over a nuclear ambitions, Why

0:01:02.400 --> 0:01:05.760
<v Speaker 1>Israel is striking now and what happens next.

0:01:17.360 --> 0:01:20.840
<v Speaker 2>It was so surreal. You know, you can hear noises outside,

0:01:20.880 --> 0:01:23.960
<v Speaker 2>You're not sure what they are. It was like nothing

0:01:24.000 --> 0:01:27.119
<v Speaker 2>I've ever experienced, but it was something that people who

0:01:27.160 --> 0:01:29.839
<v Speaker 2>live in Israel have experienced a lot.

0:01:31.080 --> 0:01:35.080
<v Speaker 1>This is Page Taylor, the Australian's correspondent in Jerusalem.

0:01:35.800 --> 0:01:38.840
<v Speaker 2>The bomb shelter I went to on Friday morning was

0:01:38.959 --> 0:01:41.800
<v Speaker 2>on the same level of the hotel I'm staying at.

0:01:42.160 --> 0:01:45.319
<v Speaker 2>What I hadn't realized at the time is that everywhere

0:01:45.319 --> 0:01:48.440
<v Speaker 2>in Israel, building codes for more than thirty years have

0:01:48.600 --> 0:01:52.240
<v Speaker 2>required a bomb shelter on every level, which says a

0:01:52.240 --> 0:01:55.520
<v Speaker 2>lot about the conflicts that have been going on in

0:01:55.560 --> 0:01:58.280
<v Speaker 2>Israel for a very long time. But I think some

0:01:58.360 --> 0:02:00.360
<v Speaker 2>of the people who've been living in Israel for a

0:02:00.400 --> 0:02:04.440
<v Speaker 2>long time are quite accustomed to what is a full

0:02:04.440 --> 0:02:08.800
<v Speaker 2>scale alert and what is a standby alert. So it

0:02:08.960 --> 0:02:12.919
<v Speaker 2>wasn't until the second alarm rang that Israelis and other

0:02:12.960 --> 0:02:15.560
<v Speaker 2>people who live in the region came into that bomb

0:02:15.639 --> 0:02:18.359
<v Speaker 2>shelter with me. I'd been in there for quite some time,

0:02:18.400 --> 0:02:20.000
<v Speaker 2>wondering if I was in the right place.

0:02:20.160 --> 0:02:25.639
<v Speaker 1>Actually, Paige isn't usually a war reporter. She's the Australian's

0:02:25.680 --> 0:02:29.320
<v Speaker 1>Indigenous Affairs correspondent and was in Israel to report on

0:02:29.400 --> 0:02:32.799
<v Speaker 1>a delegation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people led

0:02:32.919 --> 0:02:36.320
<v Speaker 1>by former Olympian and former Labor Senator Novi Paris.

0:02:37.080 --> 0:02:41.120
<v Speaker 2>She was showing the delegates the parts of Israel that

0:02:41.160 --> 0:02:44.639
<v Speaker 2>she had visited last year, and she had been very

0:02:44.680 --> 0:02:47.320
<v Speaker 2>moved by that trip and wanted others to see what

0:02:47.360 --> 0:02:52.000
<v Speaker 2>she saw. The Jewish people have an unbroken history to

0:02:52.040 --> 0:02:57.040
<v Speaker 2>this land. They call Israel the epitome of decolonization is

0:02:57.120 --> 0:02:58.160
<v Speaker 2>the Jewish people.

0:03:00.080 --> 0:03:03.680
<v Speaker 1>Is an extremely experienced reporter and she's not faced by much.

0:03:04.040 --> 0:03:06.960
<v Speaker 1>So it's from this modest three x four meter space

0:03:07.320 --> 0:03:10.400
<v Speaker 1>that she's pivoted to reporting on a major escalation in

0:03:10.480 --> 0:03:18.400
<v Speaker 1>tensions between Israel and Iran. It began on Friday when

0:03:18.560 --> 0:03:23.000
<v Speaker 1>Israel launched Operation Rising Lion, a coordinated attack on more

0:03:23.040 --> 0:03:27.320
<v Speaker 1>than one hundred Iranian military and nuclear sites. The Israeli

0:03:27.400 --> 0:03:30.000
<v Speaker 1>Defense Force said in a statement that the air strikes

0:03:30.000 --> 0:03:33.600
<v Speaker 1>on Iran's primary nuclear site, the Natan's facility on the

0:03:33.600 --> 0:03:39.360
<v Speaker 1>Central Plateau, had been especially effective despite its protective underground construction.

0:03:40.200 --> 0:03:43.680
<v Speaker 1>Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin net Nyahu said the operation was

0:03:43.720 --> 0:03:47.040
<v Speaker 1>designed to curtail Tehran's nuclear ambitions.

0:03:47.680 --> 0:03:52.560
<v Speaker 3>For decades, the tyrants of Tehran have brazenly openly called

0:03:52.600 --> 0:03:56.960
<v Speaker 3>for Israel's destruction. They've backed up their genocidal rhetoric with

0:03:57.040 --> 0:04:00.680
<v Speaker 3>a program to develop nuclear weapons. This is a clear

0:04:00.720 --> 0:04:03.680
<v Speaker 3>and present danger to Israel's very survival.

0:04:04.360 --> 0:04:07.680
<v Speaker 1>Iran has always maintained its nuclear program has nothing to

0:04:07.720 --> 0:04:11.240
<v Speaker 1>do with making atomic bombs. It says it's designed to

0:04:11.280 --> 0:04:15.000
<v Speaker 1>provide energy to its ninety million citizens. But just a

0:04:15.080 --> 0:04:18.560
<v Speaker 1>day earlier, on Thursday, the Board of the International Atomic

0:04:18.720 --> 0:04:24.599
<v Speaker 1>Energy Agency censured Iran for stonewalling its inspectors and Benjamin Nettanya,

0:04:24.680 --> 0:04:29.280
<v Speaker 1>who says Israeli intelligence suggests Iran has enriched enough uranium

0:04:29.320 --> 0:04:31.360
<v Speaker 1>to produce nine atomic bombs.

0:04:32.279 --> 0:04:35.880
<v Speaker 3>In recent months, Iran has taken steps that it has

0:04:35.960 --> 0:04:40.839
<v Speaker 3>never taken before, steps to weaponize this enriched uranium. If

0:04:40.880 --> 0:04:44.400
<v Speaker 3>not stopped, Iran could produce a nuclear weapon in a

0:04:44.560 --> 0:04:45.440
<v Speaker 3>very short time.

0:04:46.800 --> 0:04:51.240
<v Speaker 1>Within the day, Iran retaliated, motivated state media said by

0:04:51.240 --> 0:04:54.400
<v Speaker 1>the deaths of civilians in the strikes what.

0:04:54.440 --> 0:04:58.839
<v Speaker 4>Iran Supreme leader Iatola Ali Hamane vowed a harsh punishment

0:04:58.880 --> 0:05:02.279
<v Speaker 4>in retaliation for the at, saying Israel has brought a

0:05:02.360 --> 0:05:05.760
<v Speaker 4>bitter and painful feat upon itself and it will certainly

0:05:05.880 --> 0:05:06.320
<v Speaker 4>face it.

0:05:07.520 --> 0:05:12.320
<v Speaker 1>Explosions were reported over Israel's capital, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

0:05:12.640 --> 0:05:15.200
<v Speaker 1>When I spoke to Page on Sunday afternoon Sydney time,

0:05:15.520 --> 0:05:17.640
<v Speaker 1>the impact was already being felt.

0:05:18.680 --> 0:05:22.000
<v Speaker 2>People in Israel were woken up at three am Friday

0:05:22.040 --> 0:05:26.080
<v Speaker 2>local time to alert from the Israeli government that they

0:05:26.160 --> 0:05:30.920
<v Speaker 2>had attacked Iran's nuclear facilities and that people should be

0:05:30.960 --> 0:05:34.719
<v Speaker 2>on high alert. And so that was the beginning. The

0:05:34.800 --> 0:05:40.359
<v Speaker 2>number of mythols fired back has been somewhere around two hundred,

0:05:41.120 --> 0:05:43.560
<v Speaker 2>and Israel has let some of those hit the ground

0:05:43.600 --> 0:05:47.920
<v Speaker 2>because they were going to unpopulated areas. Three people are

0:05:47.920 --> 0:05:50.880
<v Speaker 2>dead that we know of, it's dozens injured, and there's

0:05:50.960 --> 0:05:53.159
<v Speaker 2>quite a few people unaccounted for that. I think the

0:05:53.240 --> 0:05:54.599
<v Speaker 2>death toll is going to rise.

0:05:56.320 --> 0:05:59.480
<v Speaker 1>Iran's leadership also issued a warning to the United States,

0:06:00.120 --> 0:06:03.480
<v Speaker 1>Kingdom and France not to help Israel in its assault,

0:06:03.880 --> 0:06:06.560
<v Speaker 1>or else it would target their military bases in the region.

0:06:07.279 --> 0:06:10.839
<v Speaker 1>But with Israel's infamous Iron Dome defense system under pressure,

0:06:11.320 --> 0:06:13.800
<v Speaker 1>the US has stepped in to shoot down the missiles

0:06:13.960 --> 0:06:17.839
<v Speaker 1>raining down from the east. Caught in the middle, Iraq

0:06:17.880 --> 0:06:21.920
<v Speaker 1>has asked its ally Iran not to target its strategic partner,

0:06:22.080 --> 0:06:26.560
<v Speaker 1>the US. The reprisal hasn't deterred Israel.

0:06:27.560 --> 0:06:30.440
<v Speaker 3>This operation will continue for as many days as it

0:06:30.480 --> 0:06:32.400
<v Speaker 3>takes to remove the threat.

0:06:33.800 --> 0:06:37.920
<v Speaker 2>We're not hearing any backdown in the rhetoric from the IDF.

0:06:38.279 --> 0:06:41.560
<v Speaker 2>We're also not entirely sure whether their job is complete

0:06:41.640 --> 0:06:45.000
<v Speaker 2>in Iran. In fact, they're talking about hitting more targets

0:06:45.040 --> 0:06:52.200
<v Speaker 2>in Tehran. Their focus is to completely disable Iran's nuclear capabilities.

0:06:55.279 --> 0:06:58.400
<v Speaker 1>The Australians Foreign editor Greg Sheridan says this is a

0:06:58.440 --> 0:07:00.680
<v Speaker 1>pivotal moment in the Middle East conflict.

0:07:01.520 --> 0:07:04.840
<v Speaker 5>I think it's very uncertain exactly how it's going to go.

0:07:05.000 --> 0:07:10.240
<v Speaker 5>But Israel has widened its targets now to include Iran's

0:07:10.320 --> 0:07:15.320
<v Speaker 5>energy infrastructure, and it says its political leadership could be

0:07:15.520 --> 0:07:20.000
<v Speaker 5>targeted as well. So Iran will strike back in every

0:07:20.000 --> 0:07:23.720
<v Speaker 5>way that it can. So Israel's taking more hits on

0:07:23.720 --> 0:07:29.040
<v Speaker 5>its homeland than it's taken since the October seven terror atrocities.

0:07:29.760 --> 0:07:33.520
<v Speaker 5>I don't know whether Iran will attack Americans in the

0:07:33.520 --> 0:07:37.040
<v Speaker 5>Middle East. If they strike Americans in the Middle East,

0:07:37.160 --> 0:07:40.400
<v Speaker 5>they are likely to get a very very tough response

0:07:40.520 --> 0:07:44.880
<v Speaker 5>from the Americans. So far, the Iranian proxies have been

0:07:44.920 --> 0:07:48.520
<v Speaker 5>pretty quiet, as Ballah hasn't had much to say. There's

0:07:48.600 --> 0:07:51.560
<v Speaker 5>not much sign of activity from the militias in Syria

0:07:52.200 --> 0:07:56.240
<v Speaker 5>or Iraq. Israel has been striking the Hoodies again in

0:07:56.360 --> 0:08:00.520
<v Speaker 5>Yemen as well. But it's just impossib well to know

0:08:00.960 --> 0:08:04.360
<v Speaker 5>how long Israel's target list is and whether Iran has

0:08:04.400 --> 0:08:08.520
<v Speaker 5>any other options for retaliation that we don't know about,

0:08:08.640 --> 0:08:12.040
<v Speaker 5>and whether other countries will get involved. I mean, one

0:08:12.080 --> 0:08:15.920
<v Speaker 5>thing is that Iran is strongly supported by China, Russia

0:08:15.960 --> 0:08:19.200
<v Speaker 5>and North Korea, and they all have nuclear weapons, so

0:08:19.440 --> 0:08:23.080
<v Speaker 5>it may well be that they help Iran reconstitute its

0:08:23.160 --> 0:08:28.000
<v Speaker 5>nuclear weapons program reasonably quickly, even if the Israelis do

0:08:28.160 --> 0:08:31.960
<v Speaker 5>more or less destroy most of the Iranian capability. But

0:08:32.240 --> 0:08:35.120
<v Speaker 5>we are drenched in uncertainty and danger at the moment.

0:08:38.920 --> 0:08:43.240
<v Speaker 1>Coming up is a bigger ambition driving Israel's fight against Iran.

0:08:43.800 --> 0:08:45.280
<v Speaker 1>While I've got you, I wanted to let you know

0:08:45.320 --> 0:08:49.280
<v Speaker 1>the monumental challenges facing Australia's defense force will be examined

0:08:49.320 --> 0:08:52.959
<v Speaker 1>at the Defending Australia Summit in Canberra today. You can

0:08:53.000 --> 0:08:55.280
<v Speaker 1>tune into a live stream at the Australian dot Com

0:08:55.320 --> 0:08:58.440
<v Speaker 1>dot au from midday to hear our experts and key

0:08:58.480 --> 0:09:02.360
<v Speaker 1>defense figures speak on everything from Orcus to the future

0:09:02.440 --> 0:09:05.880
<v Speaker 1>of the Indo Pacific. And that's more of today's episode.

0:09:05.960 --> 0:09:25.880
<v Speaker 1>After this, in the aftermath of Israel's Operation Rising Lion,

0:09:26.360 --> 0:09:30.000
<v Speaker 1>Iranian state media reported the head of its Revolutionary Guards,

0:09:30.280 --> 0:09:33.560
<v Speaker 1>Major General Hussain Salami, had been killed in a strike

0:09:33.640 --> 0:09:38.000
<v Speaker 1>on the capital Tehran. It points to a greater Israeli

0:09:38.040 --> 0:09:43.640
<v Speaker 1>ambition toppling the brutal regime that seeks its destruction. Iran

0:09:43.800 --> 0:09:46.720
<v Speaker 1>is a backer of the militant groups Hesblah, who operate

0:09:46.840 --> 0:09:50.920
<v Speaker 1>largely in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, and the Houthi rebels

0:09:50.920 --> 0:09:54.959
<v Speaker 1>in Yemen. All have attacked Israel since October seven, twenty

0:09:55.040 --> 0:09:59.520
<v Speaker 1>twenty three, when Hamas militants massacred men, women and children

0:09:59.760 --> 0:10:03.200
<v Speaker 1>live in southern Israel and took two hundred and fifty

0:10:03.240 --> 0:10:07.880
<v Speaker 1>more people hostage. Israeli PM Benjamin Nettana, who said it

0:10:07.960 --> 0:10:11.280
<v Speaker 1>was Israel's actions against Hesbela that brought about the end

0:10:11.320 --> 0:10:14.960
<v Speaker 1>of the Assad regime in Syria and a new government

0:10:15.120 --> 0:10:20.000
<v Speaker 1>was installed in Lebanon, and on Friday, he appealed directly

0:10:20.080 --> 0:10:21.320
<v Speaker 1>to the Iranian people.

0:10:22.320 --> 0:10:25.200
<v Speaker 3>I believe that the day of your liberation is near.

0:10:26.040 --> 0:10:29.360
<v Speaker 3>When that happens, the great friendship between our two ancient

0:10:29.400 --> 0:10:31.880
<v Speaker 3>peoples will flourish once again.

0:10:33.000 --> 0:10:34.240
<v Speaker 1>Here's Greg Sheridan.

0:10:35.080 --> 0:10:38.680
<v Speaker 5>I think israel Is in favor of regime change, right,

0:10:38.720 --> 0:10:40.560
<v Speaker 5>there's no doubt about that. But this is not a

0:10:40.600 --> 0:10:46.600
<v Speaker 5>military attack designed through military means to affect regime change.

0:10:46.640 --> 0:10:50.160
<v Speaker 5>The Israelis don't have a proxy force which they're backing

0:10:50.200 --> 0:10:54.160
<v Speaker 5>within Iran. But the Israelis four years and the Americans too,

0:10:54.800 --> 0:10:58.280
<v Speaker 5>have been appealing to the Iranian people to try to

0:10:58.320 --> 0:11:00.920
<v Speaker 5>get rid of their despotic regime. Now, as far as

0:11:00.960 --> 0:11:04.880
<v Speaker 5>we can tell, the Iranian people hate their despotic regime.

0:11:05.160 --> 0:11:08.040
<v Speaker 5>Every year or two there is a wave of mass

0:11:08.160 --> 0:11:13.640
<v Speaker 5>protests in Iran. Protesters are routinely arrested and killed by

0:11:13.679 --> 0:11:16.960
<v Speaker 5>the Iranian authorities, in some cases for something as trivial

0:11:17.000 --> 0:11:21.440
<v Speaker 5>as not wearing the scarf with sufficient modesty. It's been

0:11:21.760 --> 0:11:28.480
<v Speaker 5>remarkably easy for Israeli intelligence to penetrate Iran, both Iranian society,

0:11:28.600 --> 0:11:33.280
<v Speaker 5>Iranian government, Iranian military, and even perhaps the Iranian intelligence services.

0:11:33.679 --> 0:11:36.240
<v Speaker 5>Now a lot of analysts think that itself is a

0:11:36.280 --> 0:11:39.280
<v Speaker 5>sign that there are a lot of people inside Iran

0:11:39.320 --> 0:11:43.520
<v Speaker 5>who don't believe in the regime, who are very unhappy

0:11:43.559 --> 0:11:47.160
<v Speaker 5>with the economic misery and the repression and the human

0:11:47.240 --> 0:11:51.320
<v Speaker 5>rights abuses and everything else that the Iranian regime has

0:11:51.640 --> 0:11:55.520
<v Speaker 5>foisted on the Iranian people. However, dictatorships can last a

0:11:55.520 --> 0:11:58.360
<v Speaker 5>long time. They're very strong until they're not. On the

0:11:58.400 --> 0:12:01.080
<v Speaker 5>other hand, some of them go on and on. I've

0:12:01.120 --> 0:12:04.080
<v Speaker 5>been reporting on North Korea one way or another for

0:12:04.120 --> 0:12:06.679
<v Speaker 5>more than forty years, and at every moment of that

0:12:06.720 --> 0:12:09.360
<v Speaker 5>forty years, there's been an analyst somewhere saying the North

0:12:09.440 --> 0:12:12.080
<v Speaker 5>Koreans are about to collapse, but here they still are.

0:12:12.320 --> 0:12:14.120
<v Speaker 5>On the other hand, then you have something like the

0:12:14.160 --> 0:12:17.040
<v Speaker 5>giant edifice of the Soviet Union. In the nineteen eighties,

0:12:17.080 --> 0:12:19.960
<v Speaker 5>Australian intelligence was saying it's going to be a superpower

0:12:19.960 --> 0:12:23.120
<v Speaker 5>forevermore and a minute later the fall of the Berlin

0:12:23.160 --> 0:12:27.400
<v Speaker 5>Waller collapse of Soviet Communism. So I think change in

0:12:27.440 --> 0:12:31.120
<v Speaker 5>Iran is possible, but it's very hard to predict whether

0:12:31.160 --> 0:12:33.840
<v Speaker 5>it will happen. But just at the technical level, this

0:12:33.920 --> 0:12:37.920
<v Speaker 5>performance in Iran is quite remarkable, and it would look

0:12:37.960 --> 0:12:40.240
<v Speaker 5>as though there are a lot of people in Iran

0:12:40.320 --> 0:12:44.839
<v Speaker 5>who are willing to work against the regime, maybe for money,

0:12:44.840 --> 0:12:48.760
<v Speaker 5>maybe for promise of escape, or maybe from a desire

0:12:48.800 --> 0:12:52.920
<v Speaker 5>to get rid of the Iranian regime which oppresses all Iranians.

0:12:55.360 --> 0:12:58.560
<v Speaker 2>This is a story that has been building since nineteen

0:12:58.600 --> 0:13:02.520
<v Speaker 2>seventy nine, when Iran made it quite clear that their

0:13:02.559 --> 0:13:07.120
<v Speaker 2>focus was to destroy Israel and that was not ever

0:13:07.160 --> 0:13:12.000
<v Speaker 2>going to be something that Israel could tolerate. So while

0:13:12.000 --> 0:13:14.440
<v Speaker 2>I've been here, I've been listening to people who talk

0:13:14.440 --> 0:13:17.000
<v Speaker 2>about the fact that this is a country that wants

0:13:17.040 --> 0:13:21.560
<v Speaker 2>peace but is surrounded by terrorist organizations that wish it

0:13:22.200 --> 0:13:23.000
<v Speaker 2>to be destroyed.

0:13:27.480 --> 0:13:30.600
<v Speaker 1>Greg Sheridan is The Australian's Foreign editor, and Page Taylor

0:13:30.679 --> 0:13:37.640
<v Speaker 1>is our Indigenous affairs correspondent. For all the latest from

0:13:37.640 --> 0:13:40.480
<v Speaker 1>our reporters on the ground in Israel, and to view

0:13:40.480 --> 0:13:43.960
<v Speaker 1>the Defending Australia Summit live stream, visit the Australian dot

0:13:43.960 --> 0:13:44.760
<v Speaker 1>Com dot au