UK hits back on Israeli sanctions criticism

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0:51Hello and welcome to NewsHour from the BBC World Service. We're coming to you live from London. I'm James Menendez. And coming up a little later in the programme, why some AI industry insiders are calling for more regulation to counter what they say is an existential threat to humans. And as fans around the world mark 60 years of the sci-fi franchise Star Trek, we'll hear from one of its most enduring characters, Major Keira Neris played by Nana Visitor. He opened his computer and showed me this little thing landing on a planet. And he goes, that's Mars. I did that. And I was like, that is amazing.

1:28That looks so... And he said, no, no, I'm with NASA. I did that. So, and then proceeded to get my autograph, which felt very backwards. We're on that coming up in about 45 minutes. But we are going to begin with the fallout from Tuesday's announcement by the British government, together with several other Western countries, that it's imposing sanctions on Israeli goods and services coming from the settlements in the occupied West Bank. The reaction from Israel was swift and furious. The Foreign Minister Gideon Saar described the UK government as a hostile one that was systematically working against the Israeli state.

2:08He's ordered the closure of the British consulate in Jerusalem. He also accused the government of fostering a rise in anti-Semitism. That was echoed by Britain's chief rabbi, Ephraim Mervis, who said the sanctions would embolden those who use hatred as a weapon against Jews. And there's the accusation that the government's acting simply to enthuse its own Labour Party supporters, knowing the sanctions will be difficult to implement. Well, that question was put earlier today to Britain's Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband by my colleague Justin Webb. Is this just gesture politics? Well, I speak, Justin, as a British Jew, and the reason we took the action is because we see the two-state solution, the only hope, in my view, for security and dignity for both the Israeli and Palestinian people, being destroyed before our eyes by the facts on the ground, the ever-expanding settlement expansion, expansion.

3:07Indeed, the latest being the E1 settlement cutting into the heart of a Palestinian state announced in August. And as a government, we are not going to be passive. We are not going to stand by. And so did a number of our international allies, because this was concerted action because of deep, deep, deep, deep, deep sense of urgency about acting, given the situation on the ground. Are you saying then that the chief rabbi is wrong, that it does nothing to harm the interests of British Jews here? Yes, I am saying I don't agree with the chief rabbi, somebody of whom I have great respect. And I just want to be very, very clear, because I said it in my statement yesterday, anyone who holds British Jews, or indeed Jews around the world, responsible for the actions of the Israeli government is engaging in anti-Semitism, pure and simple.

4:00But here is his point, though. Here is the chief rabbi's point. Yes, those are British values, or we assume that they are. But all around the world, terrible things are being done by governments to their people. And you choose to focus on this one thing. And you do two hours in the House of Commons and you make a huge meal of it being the first significant action you take as foreign secretary. And that is Ephraim Mervis' point, isn't it? That is what leads to people saying, aha, it's the Jews, it's the Israelis. They are chiefly in charge of all the things that are wrong in the modern world. And it just isn't the case.

4:39I don't see it that way at all. Look, I take actions across a whole number of fronts as a foreign secretary. One of the most important things we've been doing, Andy and I, since we came into office, is standing shoulder to shoulder with Ukraine against Russian aggression. But what I'm not going to do is sit by and watch the suffering of the Palestinian people, both at the West Bank and in Gaza, and stay silent or act in a way that is powerless. And I think this is the really important point, Justin, is that we have agency here. We have a view, a legal view, that the occupation is unlawful. We then have a choice.

5:24We can sit on our hands. We can say, let's just have normal economic relationships with the occupied territories, pretend it's not happening, or we can act. When you look at this from the perspective of what's actually happening in Israel, another of the things your critics have been saying is that the timing is peculiar because there are about to be elections in Israel. Benjamin Netanyahu is fighting for his political life. This seems to bolster him. I don't think that we should overstate our ability to influence the Israeli election. The Israeli people make their own decisions on what happens in their election.

6:00We have to decide what we think is the right thing to do. Now, I do believe that the actions of the Israeli government are making it more isolated in the international community. But it will be for the Israeli people to make their decisions. But I also make this wider point. it's taken a long time to get to this point in terms of the gradual erosion of the prospect of the two-state solution it will also take a long time for us to get back to where we need to be and i think we were making a broader statement yesterday which is very very important which is we have no truck with those who will delegitimize the state of israel and that decision was not made when kia starmer was prime minister chris bryant when he was trade minister then saying often things can just be labeled as products of Israel and in actual fact they clearly come from settlement areas it would be difficult he said to enforce when he used those words difficult to enforce was he right?

6:55It's obviously any sanctions regime has its challenges but we absolutely are confident this is enforceable. I'll tell you how we will do it. It will be based on the postcodes of settlements and companies that import to this country will have to vouch for where in Israel these products are coming from. I also make this wider point, because this is about a substantive intervention to make a difference to the facts on the ground. With our sanctions regime, we are also saying, we are also seeking to cut off the supply lines of British finance, British construction for settlement expansion. This is about a clear purpose, which is to draw a line in the sand and to stop this infinite, ever-expanding settlement expansion.

7:45What about Israeli finance then? What about Israeli banks who are financing it? Are we also going to act against that? Well, the way this works is that we sanction companies, and we don't name the companies in advance, but we sanction companies that might be engaging in the occupied territories, and then it is about the relationship with British citizens and British companies. So it could be much wider than just people selling dates in the occupied territories. This could be companies in Israel that themselves have relationships with settler companies and they will also be sanctioned. Yes, because this is about seeking to have an impact on the services that are provided to expand the occupation.

8:27And we are very serious about making a substantive difference and using the power of our sanctions regime to make a difference to the facts on the ground. Are we ready for the backlash, particularly when it comes to trade and security cooperation, etc.? In fact, what are you expecting that backlash to be? Well, first of all, I'm confident that our security cooperation with Israel will continue. Why, given how angry they are? I won't go into the details of this, but we have important intelligence and security relationships with Israel, and I'm confident they will continue. And I was very clear yesterday that we do believe in working with our Israeli partners, but it is right to act because the bigger danger here is the wider suffering and oppression of the Palestinian people, which is continuing unabated.

9:17And we have a responsibility to seek to make a difference to that. The British Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband. Well, let's explore that question of enforcement a little more. Let's talk to Julie Norman, who's Professor of International Relations at University College London and an expert on the Middle East. Julie, very good to have you with us on the programme. How hard do you think these sanctions will be to implement? Yeah, well, good afternoon. You know, there's a couple of different layers to the sanctions. And the first, of course, relates to simply the trade of goods. And I would say there it is certainly imperfect, but there is a mechanism in place already that differentiates settlement goods from products coming from within Israel, from within the green line, so to speak.

10:02So that exists already. I think where it gets a lot trickier is when we're talking about what are called services, things like banking, tech, consulting, these businesses that aren't simply a physical thing you're bringing across the border. That is much harder to regulate. And I think that's what's going to need to be fleshed out a bit in the months to come and the discussions to come around this new policy. Well, just take banking, for example, and potentially banks who lend money to fund construction in the occupied territories. Could the impact on them be potentially quite consequential, do you think?

10:38It potentially could. And again, I would say this is one area where there's not a lot of detail yet that we're hearing from Miliband. But we did hear in his interview this morning and elsewhere that there will be attempts to prevent British financial institutions from directly funding settlement expansion and construction. And so that will implement it will implicate financial institutions. And I would say in a fairly significant way. And again, I think the way that that is actually monitored is going to be something that needs to be fleshed out. But also, I would say it just it creates an incentive to be more risk averse for these financial institutions to not be involved in tenders in contracts that could be violating this new policy.

11:24So some of it is just trying to create an incentive to not engage in that type of business as well. Just a question on the goods, though. I mean, you say there's a system in place, but how easy is it to distinguish between goods that perhaps only part of them was manufactured in the occupied territories, but the rest was in Israel? Yeah, James, I think we need to be clear-eyed about the fact that, again, this is not a perfect system right now. It's estimated that maybe one in every five or six shipments may include products that are mislabeled, either intentionally or unintentionally. And a lot of this is, as you said, through supply chains, maybe through products that are produced in one place but stored in warehouses in another.

12:08But I would say, again, this new policy, it does raise the stakes. It raises the consequences for these firms, for these companies to differentiate for themselves where these supply chains are, to extricate them when they are including settlements. And it just, again, kind of increased the cost for if that line is crossed in a way that it didn't before. And we've had this comment from the Manufacturers Association of Israel, its president, who says that Palestinian workers will be the ones hardest hit. I mean, is he right? Well, I would say there will be a slight cross for sure. It is true that some Palestinians in the West Bank are employed in settlements.

12:48But I would note that that number has reduced significantly since October 7th, when most of those jobs were stopped or suspended. Many of them are back, but certainly not to the levels that they were pre-2023. There's currently estimated about 30 ,000 or 32 ,000 Palestinians working in settlements compared to nearly 50 ,000 before that. But again, I would say many of these Palestinians work in settlements because there simply are not other options right now in the West Bank, in the Palestinian economy, under the occupation. And so many Palestinian leaders are saying even these small adjustments that will need to be made for the greater good for Palestine, there is there's something else to be thinking about there.

13:32Thank you very much. Indeed. That was Julie Norman, Professor of International Relations at University College London. We will be returning to the story later in the program. You're listening to News Air.

13:47also coming up we'll hear from the first afghan woman to reach the top of everest one specific time i i questioned my decision why i put my life in danger to prove something probably i will die i will never go back home and i closed my eyes i said to myself You have a chance to try. Afghan women in Afghanistan, they don't have this chance. More on that in about five minutes. Our main headlines from the newsroom this hour. As we've been hearing, Israel is taking further action against British and European individuals and organisations following the sanctioning of West Bank settlements. Also, a number of ships have been hit and damaged in the latest flare-up in the Strait of Hormuz.

14:33Oil prices have again been rising.

14:48This is James Menendez with News Out Live from the BBC. There's been another flurry of warnings about the dangers posed by artificial intelligence. On Monday, it was OpenAI's chief scientist urging extreme caution over AI's runaway progress. Today, it's even starker, a senior safety researcher at rival firm Anthropic, who says he believes that the chance AI could kill us all by the end of the decade is greater than 10%. Writing in support of a colleague who resigned over the lack of safeguards, Evan Hubinger said the risk right now was low. However, AI models, he said, could improve themselves to the point where they did pose an existential threat.

15:30Let's talk to Dr. Stephanie Hare, who co-presents the BBC's weekly TV show AI Decoded. As ever, Stephanie, very good to have you with us on the programme. This sounds particularly alarming, is it? Well, the language that many people, not just this latest anthropic employee, Jacob Coxon, have used to warn about AI risk is always very alarming. And what's really important to know is that these people who work in AI or are heavily invested in it have been making these warnings and continue to invest or work for these companies and do things that otherwise personally profit them, and they don't do anything to slow down.

16:10So we really need to figure out what's going on. Bill Gates, who is not your classic tech bro, but is a very senior baby boomer, former CEO and founder of Microsoft, also wrote a 5 ,000-word essay this summer warning about how AI could take out humanity. So it's not new. It's more that it's not very actionable. What are we supposed to do about it? Yeah. So does that mean then that you think there should be more transparency about those precise fears about what is happening as these models develop? I think it's more what is it that these developers and founders and CEOs want to see happen? Because on the one hand, they call for a slowdown, they call for a pause, and they call for greater regulation.

16:56But then on the other hand, they say that regulation will hinder innovation and then China will win, is usually the argument that you're getting out of Silicon Valley. What is worth noting is that both the United States and China are reputedly going to be meeting in Washington, D.C. at the end of this month, around September 24th, Reuters was reporting, to have talks about AI safety. So it isn't just a lone researcher here and there popping up. This is being discussed at the very highest levels and behind the scenes. But again, neither superpower is going to slow down if the other one won't. This is very much like a nuclear arms race.

17:34In a separate development, but clearly related. I mean, as you say, firms like Anthropic have often flagged up the dangers. And yet the Financial Times is reporting today that Anthropic didn't submit its latest model to Britain's AI Security Institute for testing. I mean, there seems to be a contradiction there. Why didn't it? Well, we don't know why they didn't do it. They wouldn't comment when the FT sought comment. But what we are guessing, and what we can certainly infer, I think it's quite reasonable to do so, is that right now, Anthropic is getting ready to have an initial public offering.

18:08It's going to go from being a privately held company to a publicly traded one. And they think that the valuation is going to be about$1 trillion, so it'll be one of the biggest in history. It is also very much under the spotlight with President Donald Trump and his administration and was indeed named a security risk back earlier this year in June, which affected its business and its potential IPO. So the speculation is that Anthropic has created a new model that is indeed so powerful and potentially dangerous, particularly in the domains of life sciences and cybersecurity, that it would be a risk to share it and that the US government has stopped it from sharing that model, even with a close ally such as the United Kingdom, to vet it for safety.

18:53Stephanie, just briefly, I mean, is there a strong case for a pause on further development? I would love to see a pause. I don't think it's coming because unfortunately the incentives are not aligned. The incentives of capitalism, first of all, and the incentives of national security. No government is going to stop first and no company is going to stop first. And I don't think we're going to get everyone together. The only thing that will stop it is if unfortunately something very bad happens and then we'll be reacting. Thank you very much indeed. Dr. Stephanie Heather.

19:30Now, River Ahmad has made history becoming the first Afghan woman to climb Mount Everest. As a teenager in Afghanistan, she survived a Taliban attack on a bus by pretending to be dead. She dreamt of climbing Everest with her 20-year-old brother, who later killed himself. Well, River now lives in Australia, from where she spoke to the BBC's Sudaba Haidari about her inspiration behind reaching the top of the world's tallest mountain. I just wanted to prove that Afghan women can do different things. Afghan women are not powerless as we live in the darkest part of the history. You come from Ghazni province.

20:09It's very mountainous and I've read in interviews that you used to go up there with your brother. You had a mutual dream to climb Everest together. I grew up in a very small village. It was similar to every space camp. Obviously, it was very tough to go climb in Afghanistan or specifically in a village. No one wanted me to climb. And mountain was just for men and boys to go to do those kind of stuff. but I just had a very good relationship with my dad when I was very young and I said dad just let me climb these rocks and when my brother had grown up we both used to go to the mountain and we used to climb and we used to just laugh and we used to just shout on the mountain you know you can hear your reflection of your voice and I was like I want to climb Mount Everest and I was like, okay, we will do that.

21:10I don't have my brother with me right now. And obviously, I miss him all the time. How did you mentally prepare? It's a big mountain and obviously different to the mountains of Ghazni where you grew up. First, I climbed big mountain in my head. Finally, one day after three months, I woke up and I said, yes, I feel that I can climb. I just want to mention one specific time I questioned my decision, why I put my life in danger to prove something, probably I will die. I will never go back home. There were so many dead bodies and you see people were coming down, struggling to breathe. I just stand on the rock and I close my eyes.

21:53I said to myself, you have chance to try. Afghan women in Afghanistan, they don't have this chance. And the moment I said to myself, you can do it. You survived Taliban attack. Try harder because Afghan women cannot do it and give them hope. In 2014, you had your own experience with the Taliban. When the bus you were traveling on was attacked, many were killed, but you survived because you smudged period blood on your face and pretended to be dead. When I finished my year 12, I just wanted to go to study in Kabul. They stopped buses along the way and you just start fire and just began. I had my period.

22:37You know women when get pressure, get scared, the blood is coming constantly. And I was like, I'm not going to die. I love life. What should I do? What should I do? They were getting closer and I took the blood and I put it on my face and I just let pretend that I'm dead. They came to me and they just looked and said, oh, this prostitute lady is dead and then leave the bus. What is your message to Afghan women? I want them to dream big. I want them to believe themselves. I know it's a very tough time, but they are stronger than they think and they can do different things. My name is Riva Ahmad speaking there to the BBC's Sadaba Haidari about a remarkable career that's led to her climbing Mount Everest.

23:26You're listening to NewsHour from the BBC World Service. Do stay with us. We've got lots more coming up. in the second half of the program. Don't go away.

24:01We're talking reliability, performance, and long-term potential. And get this, these veteran machines can pick up the latest precision tech with ease. You know it, and fans ready to add John Deere certified pre-owned equipment and more options to their lineup can shop at machinefinder.com. Booyah! Did America's war on terror work? I'm Asma Khalid, host of the Global Story podcast from the BBC. In the words of a former U.S. official, on September 11th, 2001, the terrorists hijacked not just airplanes, but also the direction of U.S. foreign policy. 25 years on, what were the unintended consequences of the war on terror?

24:41For the full story, listen to The Global Story on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

24:51You're listening to New Zah. Live Golf, the multi-billion dollar breakaway league backed by Saudi Arabia, has filed for bankruptcy protection in the United States. It was launched four years ago to rival the PGA Tour, but is now attempting to restructure for what it calls, quote, a new era. Top golfers such as Bryson DeChambeau, John Rahm and Sergio Garcia made the move to live four years ago, signing some very lucrative multi-year contracts. They're said to be now free to leave. Let's talk to Alex Myceli, a US-based golf journalist who joins us live now from Wisconsin. Alex, thanks very much for being with us.

25:28Why is it in such financial dire straits? Well, I think it's like any other business. They were mismanaged, basically. And I think if you go back from the beginning and you watched what they did, how they did it. They did some good things and they did some bad things. And then eventually the marketplace was ready for something like live, but it had to be done a little differently. Their business model is completely different than the PGA tours. And in the end, they just, they just couldn't get over the hump. And the bottom line was, is that when they lost their funding from the public investment fund of Saudi Arabia, that was the last straw.

26:09Now what they hope to do is change that. Well, yes. I mean, can they restructure it and re-emerge? Do you think Liv will survive? I think Liv will survive in some iteration. The question is what that iteration will be. Will it be a John Rahm, Bryson DeChambeau-led$20 million purse every month or whatever it is? the answer is no. Will it be something lesser than that? Probably. Then the question is, can that lesser product survive? And that's a very, very difficult question. They certainly, they have PIF money coming in for support. There's about$41,$45, I think, million dollars that PIF is putting in to support them.

26:57There's BC Partners, which are interested in putting in something around 250 to 300 million dollars once they come out of bankruptcy um so they have some money coming in and it was imperative that if they wanted to stay live that they needed to file this bankruptcy reorganization not only in the united states but they've also filed a similar one in the uk as well yeah do you think the players who went over to live will stick by it i think some players will in my conversations with some of the players and i don't want to say better players, lesser players, but I'm going to go with lesser players.