Transcription
[Music] Welcome to the week with John Simpson, our world affairs editor, joining us to take a look back at some of the major stories that have been making uh headlines. John, a new segment. It could be the making of you, couldn't it?
Um, it's been a Yeah, >> never. Um, it's been a huge week. I mean, it's hard to choose really, isn't it? So many. >> Extraordinary. I mean, it's really rare that you know, each day produces a a major news story that makes you forget about the one the day before, the two days before.
>> Let's start, shall we, in the Middle East with um strikes by Israel on Doha. >> I'm not thrilled about the whole situation. It's not not a good situation.
>> Well, um what were was Israel really trying to achieve here? And were they successful? This is a sovereign nation that they were hitting. Yes, the seventh country that Israel has attacked in uh in the past year, I think. Um they didn't succeed, of course, because they were trying to wipe out what was left of the Hamas leadership. But I think it it's much worse than that in many ways uh for Israel's relationship with the with the US because they only warned uh Donald Trump minutes before the bombs actually started last started landing which didn't look good. And you got to remember that last May Donald Trump went to Qatar and he said this is a country we're going to protect. Well, that didn't look very good either. Um, if you say to Israelis, look, you're you're eating away at the international support for your country, they say, what has international support ever done for us? I mean, we we've got to look after ourselves. But the thing is that I it it's true in most of Europe for instance. It doesn't really matter what Europe says about about Israel, but it does matter what uh what the United States does. And to make the American president look a bit feeble, a bit inadequate, is is a it could well turn out to be, I think, quite a serious thing. Apparently, he picked the phone up, we're told, and yelled down the line at Byamin Netanyahu. But if he did, that was all done in private in public. Uh all he did was to say, as he did there, nothing, you know, it it he's worried about it. We've also though had at the UN Security Council condemnation from the United States over this happening which is not necessarily what you will always you can always expect.
>> No. Uh and that is absolutely essential from the American point of view having promised uh Qatar that it would protect them uh and then not to be able to do it against Israeli attack. It's all part of that, I think, the way that the world in general is is turning against Israel.
>> And we're likely to have a number of increasing number of countries recognizing um Palestinian statethood soon.
>> Yes. if that means very much because it's very hard now to see how Palestine is going to be a proper state like like any other with its own leadership, its own territory and so forth. It that is going to require a major change in the whole region.
>> Well, this week we also saw Poland being forced to defend its skies against 19 Russian drones which had entered its airspace. and it's prompted several NATO members to strengthen their defenses.
>> This situation brings us the closest we have been to open conflict since World War II. We have a full-scale war beyond our Ukrainian Russian border, but we already have something that goes beyond the bounds of mere provocations in our own skies.
John, Donald Trump says that this incursion by Russia into Polish airspace might have been a mistake. Was it?
>> Uh, well, the polls certainly don't don't think so. I mean, it came days before a major exercise in the area which the Russians and the Bella Russians are carrying out um just on the other side of the border from Poland. uh and uh the the drones that were shot down or otherwise destroyed did seem to be heading to a particularly sensitive uh area in Poland where supplies for Ukraine are are gathered. So no, I don't think it it was a mistake. The Russians don't make mistakes like that. I don't think anybody makes uh that that kind of of mistake. Um, it of course got NATO talking about its article four of its of its charter which binds every single member to join in in support of any single member who's which is attacked. Um and indeed uh France, Britain, Germany, uh others have all uh beefed up the the uh the Polish forces on the on the other side of the the border from this Russian exercise which is going on. Um, are we actually on the brink of World War II? I World War II. It It doesn't It doesn't feel like that. It doesn't look as though Putin actually wants to spark it off. It looks as though he wants to test NATO and show up its weaknesses, but it doesn't look well certainly not to me as though he's planning a major assault. But you have to say nowadays it does feel a bit like the 1930s, doesn't it?
Well, the other issue as well because you mentioned the importance of American support in any solution in the Middle East. Likewise with NATO, Donald Trump carries a lot of weight.
>> and he's not nearly as supportive of NATO himself uh as most I suppose every NATO country would like him to be. I mean, they want him to smash his fist on the table and say to the Russians, if you do this again, you are seriously going to suffer. And of course, he he doesn't say that.
Well, the story that's dominated headlines in the latter part of the week, including today, of course, is the fatal shooting of the conservative commentator Charlie Kirk at a college campus in Utah. A suspect, 22-year-old Tyler Robinson, has now been taken into custody. This is a a very sad day for again for our country. Uh a terrible day for the state of Utah, but I'm grateful that at this moment we have an opportunity to bring closure to this very dark chapter in our nation's history.
>> How dangerous a moment is this for the United States? Are we going to see big political implications in a divided country?
>> Uh I I imagine yes. Um I mean you have to remember that Charlie Kirk was a big supporter for instance of the right to bear arms and this is a country with more guns than people. Um so to that extent it it's anything like this is really really dangerous. Um, and you've got some people uh apparently rejoicing on social media that that Kirk was assassinated and you've got other people saying it's all the fault of the the Democratic Party. I mean again uh you know it's like with talking about World War II. It's very easy to talk about civil war in a country which has had a civil war though long time ago 1861 but it it doesn't feel like kind of fort to to me um the world is a different world now. It wouldn't be armies that fought. It's it's more in terms of political violence and people in the United States just like here just like in Europe are inclined to follow uh the leadership of of people that use violent means and violent language and violent means. So much of this goes back to 1987 when Ronald Reagan was president and he decided to abolish the what was called the fairness doctrine in broadcasting uh in in the United States. It meant that every broadcaster, radio and television and every broadcast had to be balanced. You weren't allowed to take one strong political line. He abolished that. We got the rise of Fox News and actually many many many more extreme versions of that all on on both sides. So that nowadays, you know, you turn your television on in in the US and all you get is angry argument on one side of of the line. Um it it is it is worrying and there is a real danger I think that that there'll be more violence of a political nature and perhaps the greatest danger of all is that uh Donald Trump might feel he's got to put the National Guard and the army into big city centers not to stop crime but to stop political violence.
There were more headaches for the uh UK Prime Minister Sakir Starmer this week, sacking the UK ambassador to the United States Peter Mandelson over his relationship with the pedophile financia Jeffrey Epstein.
>> I regret very very deeply indeed carrying on that association with him for far longer than I should have done.
Look, President Trump is due to visit the UK on a state visit as Sakir Stalmer looks to repair that relationship, but now we don't even have an ambassador in place, do we? What does this say about the state of relations between the US and the UK?
>> Well, I don't think I don't think Lord Mandlesson's departure as ambassador says very much. I mean, it's it's a a an accident of history. Well, you might call it an accident of history. Um, it's the past catching up in one way or another as indeed it's caught up with Lord Mandlesson more than once in the past. He's actually been a hugely effective ambassador uh in the US. He's managed to make everything turn around well a lot anyway turn around the the British American relationship. And uh you know Donald Trump is not an easy person to deal with. He wants to be the boss and everybody else he he he expects to agree with him and perhaps flatter him. And Mandlesson learned the way to do that extremely well and to deal with with Trump on a on a basis almost of uh if not equality certainly of of some substance. He wasn't he didn't go down and you know he didn't kind of go on his knees and uh and uh sort of surrender everything. It is going to be a difficult uh uh state visit. I think it's very short uh only really two nights and most of two days effectively and um I dare say Kama will be quite grateful when it's over but um it has damaged Kama. I don't think there's any doubt about that. The decision to uh appoint Lord Mandlesson, even though it worked very well for a year, uh it it came to a nasty end.
>> It doesn't make you question the sort of due diligence that goes on when these appointments happen, doesn't it? They've got to be immensely robust.
>> Well, I suppose everybody knew Lord Mandlesson's past. I mean, it didn't come as a a sort of terrible shock or anything like that. But I just think um yeah, maybe maybe the the kind of aftershocks of uh um of the uh the the whole Epstein business weren't appreciated sufficiently in Downing Street.
Well, here in the UK, a mural by the street artist Banksy depicting a judge apparently about to beat a protester with a gavvel was removed from the wall of the Royal Courts of Justice in London. The mural is believed to be in reference to recent arrests of protesters showing support for Palestine action after they were prescribed as a terrorist group. John, what do you make of this? I mean, there have been some commentators who said it's hardly fair to depict a judge in this way when a judge interprets a criminal law that is decided in the first instance by politicians.
>> Yeah, I know. Sure. But this is art and it's satire. Whoever said art or satis satire had to be fair. I mean, you know, um, and it perhaps it is unfair. It's unfair on the on the judges who simply got to put into uh, operation the law which has been passed by politicians. That's certainly certainly true uh, and enforced by the police. And you could say, well, you know, the way the police enforce it and the way the the the laws have been have have been passed are responsible, not not the judges with their with their gavvels. Um, I I'd like to put another question to you, though. Is it right to cover up to effectively destroy a work of art just because we don't like what it means or the place where it is? I I'm there's so many complications here. It's a real moral maze.
>> And when the um graffiti, if that's what you want to call it, the artwork was being removed, it took on that sort of ghostly quality, didn't it? For for a while as well.
>> haunted everybody for just a little while. Yes. I I'm sorry they couldn't take couldn't have taken it away carefully and put it up somewhere else. I suppose perhaps that's a bit much to expect any political organization either a government or local government to do.