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