Speaker 1: Kyoda.
Speaker 2: I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a
Speaker 2: daily podcast presented by The New Zealand Herald. Fears of
Speaker 2: a war in the Middle East are growing after a
Speaker 2: senior Hamas leader was killed in Tehran last week. It's
Speaker 2: prompted Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters to urge New Zealanders
Speaker 2: in Lebanon and Iran to leave now while options remain available.
Speaker 2: Those in Israel are also being asked to consider whether
Speaker 2: they need to remain in the country. It comes as
Speaker 2: the war between Israel and Hamas nears the ten month
Speaker 2: mark with no signs of abating, despite multiple efforts from
Speaker 2: the US and Middle Eastern leaders to try and bring
Speaker 2: peace to the region. To discuss the ongoing threat of
Speaker 2: war today on the Front Page where joined by University
Speaker 2: of Otago professor doctor Leon Goldsmith. Leon, can you give
Speaker 2: us an overview of the players we're talking about here
Speaker 2: and the role they play?
Speaker 3: So, yeah, when we're talking about the main regional players,
Speaker 3: we're talking about the Iranian regime and the elite political
Speaker 3: elite in Iran, we're talking about its key appendages or
Speaker 3: allies and Lebanese Huzbala, led by Hassan Nasarala, the Alhuthi
Speaker 3: movement currently occupying or controlling northwest Yemen, and of course
Speaker 3: the Israelis, and there are US allies, but also the
Speaker 3: silent actors in all of this are the Arab States
Speaker 3: and the Gulf of so Jordan and Egypt, who are
Speaker 3: saying one thing and often doing another. So it's a
Speaker 3: very complicated scenario. We also have the Turks, who are
Speaker 3: getting more balakos in terms of their eratric as well,
Speaker 3: who are threatening also to intervene into various ways. But
Speaker 3: I'm not sure how much is that is just verbosity.
Speaker 2: With that context in mind, what do we know so
Speaker 2: far about the death of Ismail Khaniyeh.
Speaker 3: We don't know a lot. We do know that he
Speaker 3: was probably the target of an assassination attempt. We don't
Speaker 3: know precisely the reason why, but one theory is that
Speaker 3: the Israelis are looking to try to provoke Iran and
Speaker 3: its access into some kind of direct confrontation with Israel,
Speaker 3: whereby Israel would have the upper hand, especially with the
Speaker 3: US right there in proximity and on maximum a lot.
Speaker 3: So I think this is the kind of cat and
Speaker 3: mouse game that we're seeing, which is extremely dangerous. Whether
Speaker 3: or not there was some kind of internal collaboration inside
Speaker 3: your own as well. In terms of the assassination of
Speaker 3: ismahanir we just don't know. We know that a lot
Speaker 3: of Iranian of fish rules and security and officials have
Speaker 3: been arrested by the regime and around. So there's a
Speaker 3: lot still yet to learn about what exactly has transpired,
Speaker 3: but needless to say that the situation is extremely tense.
Speaker 4: Smite Hania was the most prominent political figure in Hama's ranks,
Speaker 4: leading courts on a potential ceasefire agreement with Israel. Now
Speaker 4: the question is who will replace him, and perhaps more significantly,
Speaker 4: does the assassination mean an end to negotiations towards and
Speaker 4: in Israel's war on Gaza.
Speaker 3: He died in Tehran, so I think what's quite significant
Speaker 3: about that is Ismahania, the leader of Hamas, usually resides
Speaker 3: in Doha, which is the capital of Kata. So in
Speaker 3: kata he's essentially under the sort of de facto protection
Speaker 3: of the Katari sake, but also the US, their biggest
Speaker 3: monetary based in the Middle East, is there, so he
Speaker 3: was quite safe. The Israelis wouldn't dare to stir things
Speaker 3: up and cuta so he was safe. But as soon
Speaker 3: as he left Kuta and went to Iran for the
Speaker 3: inauguration of the new president Mussu Possessikin in Iran, he
Speaker 3: was exposed, fatally exposed, and they got him. So this
Speaker 3: was also a major blow to Iran's prestige in terms
Speaker 3: of its ability to provide security for its allies and
Speaker 3: its guests. But there was another key resistance Axis commander
Speaker 3: for Shukhot who was killed in Beirut. He's second in
Speaker 3: command to Hassan Israli, so he's extremely important in the
Speaker 3: overall alliance. So the two assassinations together was a significant
Speaker 3: blow to the Iranian led Exis overall. And this is
Speaker 3: what the Israeli's sort of claiming some kind of victory
Speaker 3: in Netanya, who's becoming extremely vocal about this.
Speaker 2: And I can't imagine Qatar would be impressed with these
Speaker 2: assassinations given its attempts peace talks.
Speaker 3: Right No, Kato has come out and been very critical
Speaker 3: of the Israelis for basically blowing all of their efforts
Speaker 3: to try to bring the parties together and get some
Speaker 3: kind of a hostage or seats for ideal but at
Speaker 3: the same time, the Katharies have played a very inflammatory
Speaker 3: role themselves through their wall to wall coverage of Israeli
Speaker 3: atrocities through El Jazeera. So the Katharies are playing politics
Speaker 3: as well as all of these autocratic regimes are. But yes,
Speaker 3: the peace talks that the CUTHARISO are trying to mediate
Speaker 3: are definitely off the table for now.
Speaker 2: The Lebanese militant group has BOLLA has launched a drone
Speaker 2: attack on northern Israel in response to what it says
Speaker 2: is a strike carried out by Israel in several villages
Speaker 2: in south Lebanon. Is this a worrying escalation.
Speaker 3: At this stage? It's probably fairly consistent of what we've
Speaker 3: been seeing along that border for quite some time already.
Speaker 3: I mean, they've been hurtling twenty to forty to sixty
Speaker 3: rockets per day across there at various times. So if
Speaker 3: there is going to be an escalation on Elevenese border,
Speaker 3: it would be much more than this. Eleven Isa's BOLLA
Speaker 3: has the capacity to launch thousands of missiles at Israel
Speaker 3: if the order had been given to launch everything. So
Speaker 3: I think we're yet to see what could possibly happen
Speaker 3: on that border.
Speaker 2: Iran has said that it does not want to escalate
Speaker 2: tensions in the region, but that it needs to punish Israel.
Speaker 2: What can we make of that statement, Well.
Speaker 3: They need to restore their sense of security. Really, I mean,
Speaker 3: the actual individuals involved in the Iranian lead resistance access
Speaker 3: feel personally insecure. They need to re establish some kind
Speaker 3: of deterrence because what Israel has done has shown that
Speaker 3: it can reach anyone anywhere if it wants to. So
Speaker 3: the reason why they don't want to have a wider
Speaker 3: escalation is because they know that they can't win that escalation,
Speaker 3: but they need to be able to restore the terrence.
Speaker 3: So what we might see is some kind of a
Speaker 3: limited strike which we have limited effect, like we saw
Speaker 3: in April earlier this year. But what will probably hear
Speaker 3: most of all is a lot of language, a lot
Speaker 3: of talk about international law on these things, when the
Speaker 3: Iranians don't actually care about those things. They actually care
Speaker 3: about raw power. But they will try all different instruments
Speaker 3: to try to regain some kind of sense of security
Speaker 3: within this situation.
Speaker 2: Israel doesn't seem to be pulling back at all in
Speaker 2: this conflict. Is escalation of tensions something that Israel actually
Speaker 2: wants to see happen.
Speaker 3: Perhaps, Yeah, I think we need to nuance a little
Speaker 3: bit here between the various actors inside the Israeli politics.
Speaker 3: So I think Nathaniahu has shown very clearly that he
Speaker 3: wants to see escalation. He doesn't want to see a
Speaker 3: quick end to conflict, whether it be in Gaza or
Speaker 3: Lebanon or with the Iranians. I think that he knows
Speaker 3: that when the war finishes, he's going to jail un
Speaker 3: serious corruption charges and probably on a budget other things from
Speaker 3: his conduct in recent times. So he personally is looking
Speaker 3: to orchestrate and instrumentalize things to maintain the sense of
Speaker 3: escalation and security risk to Israel, which means that people
Speaker 3: have to rally around and therefore he has some kind
Speaker 3: of impunity within that. But having said that, Israel's security
Speaker 3: posture in terms of its military establishment is very much
Speaker 3: on higher art And I think what October seven did
Speaker 3: is it shifted their paradigm from trying to manage their
Speaker 3: enemies that what they see is their enemies in Lebanon
Speaker 3: and Gaza and elsewhere, to try to actually reduce and
Speaker 3: eliminate them. So I think they actually shifted that paradigm
Speaker 3: somewhat after October seven at the basic security apparatus level.
Speaker 3: But Nhania, who's becoming increasingly problematic as someone who is
Speaker 3: actually trying to manipulate things to his own political agenda,
Speaker 3: and most many Israelis actually see this, and this is
Speaker 3: part of the major issue that we are facing.
Speaker 2: What do you make of Benjamin Nettna whose leadership? How
Speaker 2: responsible is he for all that's going on at the moment.
Speaker 3: I think he bears a high degree of responsibility, and
Speaker 3: I think everyone and a lot of people inside and
Speaker 3: outside Israel are seeing this. The next election is not
Speaker 3: until twenty twenty six, so there's been a huge amount
Speaker 3: of calls for some kind of early election or some
Speaker 3: way to get rid of him, but according to the
Speaker 3: Israeli constitutional framework, short of a military coup, we're sort
Speaker 3: of stuck with him. So I think that he has
Speaker 3: really inflamed things by his work with their right wing
Speaker 3: extremists within Israeli politics, who are genuinely religious extremists and
Speaker 3: want to see the elimination of Palestinians from Waye to Israel.
Speaker 3: He's played with in that respect, the fact that he
Speaker 3: is trying to preserve his personal security, but even trying
Speaker 3: to attack the judiciary in Israel has been doing that
Speaker 3: since early last year and tried to reduce the oversight
Speaker 3: of the institutions within Israelsia. He has increasingly dictatorial on
Speaker 3: narcissistic tenancies, and I think we need to be very
Speaker 3: clear about that, and a lot of people inside Israel
Speaker 3: want him out of the way.
Speaker 2: We've seen recently countries all around the world, including New Zealand,
Speaker 2: calling for its citizens to leave places like Israel, Iran,
Speaker 2: and Lebanon.
Speaker 1: New Zealand's joined the United States and the United Kingdom
Speaker 1: telling its people to leave parts of the Middle East.
Speaker 1: There are fears of retaliation after the assassination of two
Speaker 1: senior leaders of militant groups Hamas and Isbelah. Winston Peters
Speaker 1: says the government's urging New zealand is in Lebanon and
Speaker 1: Iran to leave now while options remain available. Mister Peters
Speaker 1: also recommends New zealand Is consider whether or not they
Speaker 1: need to stay there.
Speaker 2: Do you think this is indicative of the growing threat
Speaker 2: of a war in that region or another war in
Speaker 2: that region?
Speaker 3: Well? Absolutely, I mean Lebanon's already a highly insecure environment,
Speaker 3: has been for some time, and also all parts of Israel.
Speaker 3: You run the risk of you know, there's a drone
Speaker 3: attack that killed people even from Yemen. But whether or
Speaker 3: not there's going to be a major war anytime soon,
Speaker 3: I think there's you know, those diplomatic warnings always highly
Speaker 3: on the on the side of caution. I think what
Speaker 3: we're going to see here is a lot of rhetoric
Speaker 3: from the Iranians, maybe a limited face saving attack, but
Speaker 3: I think that the real response by the Iranians is
Speaker 3: going to come sometime down the track, and it's going
Speaker 3: to come when it's a surprise, something similar to what
Speaker 3: we saw in October seven, except probably be something on
Speaker 3: a much more magnified scale than when we saw in
Speaker 3: October seven last year. So I think that's the real
Speaker 3: danger here, that there will be a strategic pause and
Speaker 3: then a major escalation further down the track when the
Speaker 3: Ranians feel like they're under less threat from the US
Speaker 3: and Israeli forces.
Speaker 2: The conflict in Gaza is ongoing alongside this. Around forty
Speaker 2: thousand Palestinians have been killed, around two million people are
Speaker 2: at risk of famine. Is that conflict going to become
Speaker 2: secondary if a war breaks out or if Iran does
Speaker 2: do something to assert its power in the region.
Speaker 3: I'm not really sure because I think Hamas has shown
Speaker 3: a certain degree of resilience. They just keep popping up
Speaker 3: all over the guards of strips, so I think that's
Speaker 3: going to become another front in that war. A very messy,
Speaker 3: very in terms of the damage to civilians and as
Speaker 3: we've seen, as you mentioned the idea of discovered another
Speaker 3: huge tunnel going under the border of Egypt beg enough
Speaker 3: to drive vehicles through. So they're still learning a lot
Speaker 3: about in terms of Hamasa's capacity in the Gaza Strips
Speaker 3: that Iran and be very keen to maintain that front
Speaker 3: and keep the israel Defense forces bogged down in Gaza,
Speaker 3: So I think it's going to become one of the fronts.
Speaker 3: The Lebanese front is going to be massively destructive, just
Speaker 3: because of the capacity of HBOAH with over one hundred
Speaker 3: and fifty thousand rockets, their military, their fighters are very
Speaker 3: battle hard and from over a decade of fighting in Syria,
Speaker 3: so I think there's just scale for multiple fronts in
Speaker 3: this war. Jordan is particularly nervous in terms of what
Speaker 3: could happen in the West Bank as well.
Speaker 2: Where does this conflict leave the international community? Do you
Speaker 2: expect that the US or maybe the UK would enter
Speaker 2: a war if that was to happen, or would they
Speaker 2: need to take a step back and leave these countries
Speaker 2: to their own devices.
Speaker 3: Well, unfortunately, the US is under the current administration, is
Speaker 3: still maintaining its so called ironclad promise to maintain the
Speaker 3: Israeli state, So whether they want to be involved or not,
Speaker 3: the US might get dragged into this, and I think
Speaker 3: this is part of the gambit of Netanyahu to try
Speaker 3: and pull the US into this conflict on his side.
Speaker 3: The UK more ambivalent but tending to also side with
Speaker 3: the US le alliance. So there is actually dangerous potential
Speaker 3: for wider powers to become involved. Russia was in obviously
Speaker 3: in Tahran to discuss options after the assassination in Tahran.
Speaker 3: Chinese are an unknown quantity, but they're increasingly involved with
Speaker 3: the Palestinian issue. So there is a lot of scope
Speaker 3: here for widening and globalizing of this conflict, which we
Speaker 3: need to watch very very careful as the international community.
Speaker 5: That is really the question here, where does this end?
Speaker 5: We've been seeing for months now, this tit for tach
Speaker 5: whether it's Hezbollah and Israel or Iran and Israel, could
Speaker 5: lead to an all war, the US would step in
Speaker 5: and defend Israel. So again, as we've been saying the
Speaker 5: real few years, that this could ask lead into it
Speaker 5: all of war and draw.
Speaker 3: The US in.
Speaker 2: I mean, New Zealand's a pretty small player on the
Speaker 2: world stage. Hey, but is there anything that New Zealand
Speaker 2: can actually do to help ease these tensions?
Speaker 3: Well, I mean people trust New Zealand on all sides.
Speaker 3: I mean they only spent over a decade in the
Speaker 3: Middle East and Israeli Arab countries and other countries. So
Speaker 3: I think our voice is something that should be heard,
Speaker 3: and I think that we need to be very careful
Speaker 3: when we do speak that we're speaking from an informed position.
Speaker 3: It's a very complicated environment. If we're just making misinformed statements,
Speaker 3: we can in fact inflate one side or the other.
Speaker 3: So we need to actually make sure that we're talking
Speaker 3: from a solid platform of information, and I think we
Speaker 3: need to get up towards that. I think at the
Speaker 3: moment we're sort of struggle. We tend to hear some
Speaker 3: sort of very blanket statements, which I don't think necessarily
Speaker 3: help the situation. New Zealand needs to be a responsible voice,
Speaker 3: but also well informed voice.
Speaker 2: What do you think we'll see happen over the next
Speaker 2: coming weeks? What?
Speaker 3: I could be wrong because the senior diplomats are saying
Speaker 3: that within twenty four or forty eight hours that the
Speaker 3: Iranians and his ball are going to strike. But we'll
Speaker 3: see if I'm right about this that I think that
Speaker 3: we'll probably see some kind of an Iranian strike which
Speaker 3: is not actually going to do any damage because of
Speaker 3: Israel's air defenses. But further down the track, I think
Speaker 3: in a few months time, six months time, we might
Speaker 3: see something fairly major. We've got chemical weapons which could
Speaker 3: be brought into play some kind of ground offensive. As
Speaker 3: I mentioned, there's dozens of tunnels that the Israelis haven't
Speaker 3: even found, which come under the Lebanese border and also
Speaker 3: the Egyptian border. I was in a Druid village last year.
Speaker 3: This is one of the villages that got hit by
Speaker 3: Habola rockets, and what I noticed in those houses is
Speaker 3: they have chemical weapons filters and they're very concerned about
Speaker 3: chemical weapons attacks coming from either Lebanon or from Syria.
Speaker 3: Who has known supplies of chemical weapons. I don't even
Speaker 3: want to talk about nuclear weapons, but we just don't
Speaker 3: know why the Iranian capability is in this regard as well.
Speaker 3: So nothing in the short term, but I think we're
Speaker 3: very traveling signs over the medium to long term.
Speaker 2: Thanks for joining us, Leon. That's it for this episode
Speaker 2: of The Front Page. You can read more about today's
Speaker 2: stories and extensive news coverage at enzedherld dot co dot z.
Speaker 2: The Front Page is produced by Ethan Siles with sound
Speaker 2: engineer Patty Fox. I'm Chelsea Daniels. Subscribe to The Front
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Speaker 2: tune in tomorrow for another look behind the headlines.