Major Western powers condemn Israel's West Bank settlement project

0:00Hello, I'm Sean Lay. Thanks for downloading the BBC's World Tonight podcast from Thursday 20th August. The UK and six other countries have urged Israel to stop settlement construction in the occupied West Bank. Our correspondent has been to Kadeem, where Israeli settlers have returned for the first time in 21 years. I've been asking the mother and brother of a school shooting victim in the United States why they think the parents of teenage killers should take the rap. Friday's the deadline for students who paid fees during Covid but who say lockdown denied them what they'd paid for to sign up for a joint legal action.

0:33We'll hear from two of the 300 ,000 people who've signed up already. And the former New York detective known as the Hip Hop Cop has died. We'll hear how Derek Parkey used his knowledge of the stars to try to prevent confrontations between them and their entourages. And the drone to stop you drowning. Find out about that by staying with us. The British government and others have repeatedly called on Israel to end the expansion of settlements in the occupied West Bank Under international law, Israel's presence in the territory is illegal. But in recent days has come the announcement of Israel's plans to open up tenders for the construction of some 1 ,200 settlement homes in a strategically important part of the West Bank.

1:16That planned settlement, called E1, has sparked fresh condemnation. And in a joint statement today, the governments of the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Canada, the Netherlands and Norway called the decision unacceptable and urged Israel to retract the plans immediately. They added the following warning. Businesses should not consider bidding for construction tenders. They should be aware of legal and reputational consequences. Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband said the UK government won't stand back and accept the destruction of the two-state solution, the creation of a Palestinian state, being something the UK now formally supports.

1:53In response, Israel's Foreign Minister Gideon Saar posted on social media that there has been no new decisions regarding development, adding the tender process has been underway for several months. A little before we came on air, I spoke to our Middle East correspondent, Lucy Williamson, who's in Jerusalem, and I asked her first about the E1 proposals and the reaction to them. Well, it's been in the works for a very long time, but it's also been stalled for a very long time. It's been incredibly controversial, largely because it seemed to break up the occupied West Bank. It lies between Ramallah and Jerusalem.

2:31And in the words of the statement that was put out by several countries today, it would drive a wedge through the West Bank. So that's the reason really why there's been so little movement on it by successive Israeli governments. But of course, that's all changed with the current Israeli government now. So there is a move by the government there to go ahead with this settlement. And it comes at a time when there is really quite visible signs of the tension, the long existing tension between Palestinians, who the international community say should be on the land, and Jewish settlers who the international community and international law see as occupiers.

3:11Yeah, I mean, the reason that the E1 project has become controversial again this week is because the Israeli government is being seen to rush through the process of offering tenders for moving ahead with construction in that territory. And, you know, as I say, if construction went ahead in E1, it would break up the West Bank and undermine the possibility of a future Palestinian state is how several European countries have put it. So I think there is a lot of pressure on Israel already internationally over its settlements. But this adds another layer to that. And yes, you're right. This Israeli government has been unprecedented in the scale and speed with which it's expanded settlements across the West Bank and also supported the outposts that are illegal, both under international law, as all settlements are in the West Bank and also under Israeli law.

4:09And Lucy, I think you've been in one of those other settlements in the West Bank earlier today. Yes, we've been visiting the area around Janine in the far north of the West Bank. And this is a slightly special case. So Israel's current government is seen to be pushing forward very hard, as I say, at an unprecedented rate and unprecedented scale with settlement expansion across the West Bank. It's approved more than 100 settlements across the West Bank since it came to power. But the area around Janine is a slightly special case because for the past 20 years, Israeli settlers have been banned from that area around Janine.

4:46And that was the case ever since a previous Israeli government hauled out, evacuated four Jewish settlements in that area. Now, this current government has overturned that ban on Israeli settlers and has also reopened all four of those settlements, as well as 15 other new settlements that it approved in the northern West Bank. So today we went along because the fourth of those old settlements was reopened, Kadim. So the media weren't allowed into that opening ceremony, but we saw cars moving along the road, taking settlers back into the settlement. There were government ministers standing there side by side with settler leaders, all of whom were heralding the reversal of what they called this mistake of expelling settlers from the area.

5:37So there's been a real expansion into that far northern part of the West Bank. Israeli military sites being constructed around the area as well, including for the first time on land that is fully under the control of the Palestinian Authority. so there's real changes happening at speed in that area as across the rest of the West Bank and it's something that activists and those who watch the settlement activity of the government here in Israel say is part of this wider race to put in place as much as possible before the Israeli elections in October. And something that a lot of people listening will be aware of because it's been widely reported in the international media Lucy is a kind of uptick in violence and in confrontations between settlers and Palestinians.

6:25There's been a rapid rise in settler attacks on Palestinians across the West Bank, but certainly in the areas around Nablus particularly and in the far south around Hebron. And what's been driving a lot of that is this expansion in settlements, but particularly in outposts that are, as I said, illegal under Israeli law, as well as being illegal under international law. That being said, this Israeli government is also finding ways to funnel state support to those outposts, providing them with electricity, for example, or security. And as those outposts have mushroomed across areas of the West Bank, they've become closer and closer to Palestinian homes.

7:11And speaking to Palestinians in those villages, many of them just feel they can barely leave their homes at the moment because the attacks have grown as the outposts have grown. Lucy Williamson in Jerusalem. Well, earlier today, the Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband summoned an Israeli diplomat, the Sharjah d 'Affaires, to complain about the tender for the proposed E1 settlement. Mr Miliband also announced that in the coming weeks, the government will set out a comprehensive set of measures, as he put it, to respond to Israeli government policies. So what might they be? Well, earlier in the summer, more than 140 Labour MPs called on the government to ban trade with Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

7:49One of the signatories of that open letter was Dr Zabir Ahmed, the MP for Glasgow South West. And he's with us now. Dr Ahmed, thank you for being with us on The World Tonight. Good evening to you. What do you think the British government should now do? Well, first of all, Ed Miliband, our new foreign secretary, has done exactly the right thing in the statement that he's produced today. and in summoning the charged affairs, what is happening right now is further evidence of the Israeli government piecemeal annexing Palestinian land, undermining the viability of a Palestinian state, not only going against international law, but you now have an Israeli government going against its own laws in supporting and funneling money to these settlers and basically influencing terrorism on those areas and on Palestinian foreign Palestinian people.

8:39There is a general election taking place in Israel at the moment. Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister, has made no secret that he is opposed to a Palestinian state. In the end, shouldn't we wait for the result of that election before deciding and then seeing what form of government emerges from that process? Isn't it perhaps unwise to do something that to a lot of Israelis might look like interference in an active election campaign? Well, not at all, because as many Israelis I speak to every single day that are just as appalled as everyone else watching from the outside as to what their government is up to.

9:12And what the government is up to is pandering to the most extremist terrorist elements inside that government. Fine, but that's for Israeli voters to respond to it. And using Palestinians as a pawn in that, and as they're doing it, day by day, when they're doing it with presumed impunity, we are reducing the viability of a two-state solution. And at that point, it is our responsibility to intervene and to stand up for international law. And in this case, actually, Israeli law and to support Israeli voices, including that of former Prime Minister Ehud Elmert, which calls this ethnic cleansing. What does the UK have in terms of leverage that it could apply?

9:47I mean, for example, the Foreign Secretary talked about trade or you and your letter, I should say, talked about trade with the West Bank settlements. There can't be a lot of that. There is enough. And I think there's two elements to this. There is trade, there is services. There is also companies that could be a lot more vigilant as to who they're trading with and on what terms. And we are now in a situation, because of this quasi-annexation of land, just as it was in Crimea, I think we're in a situation now where we can start compelling companies that do any trade with Israel to say you can't do that unless you are very vigilant and forensic about the fact that you're not trading inadvertently with Israeli settler terrorists.

10:30So it's a distinction between trading with companies in Israel and trading with Israeli companies or those who take products from the West Bank. Yeah, I mean, I think there are non-governmental organisations that can have the technology and the wherewithal to do that, to separate those things out. I think the British government can also do that. And I'm really heartened by the foreign secretary and the words of our new prime minister in relation to this. And I think this letter today and the statement today, you know, says what we mean. If we mean what we say, we do have to take the next step, I think, as well on sanctions.

11:05Gideon Saar, the foreign minister, said that Mr Miliband was being patronising. He didn't like the tone of the response. I wonder if we do actually have much influence with this government now. Well, I think we shouldn't underestimate our global leadership position. We're a member of the P5, we're a G7 country, and the very fact that Gideon Saar went on a massive diatribe on Twitter the minute Ed Miliband put out his statement tells you that they do take our words and our actions seriously, and we should follow up our words with significant action. Just last thought briefly, Do you think this new government, Andy Burnham, will take a tougher line?

11:42Well, you've seen already from the new prime minister, even before he became prime minister, the statements he made on the Palestinian situation and the fact that he does want to take a more muscular approach. This is evidence of the fact that we want to take a more muscular approach. But let's not forget, even before Andy Burnham was prime minister, in the first two years of a Labour government, there was a Labour government that recognised a Palestinian state. It was a Labour government that allows the ICC to do its work and investigative work in Israel. So we are making progress, but there's a lot more to do.

12:10Dr Zubia Ahmed, MP, thank you very much for joining us. To the United States now, where mass shootings, which the law there says have three or more victims, are frequent. The ones that attract most attention are those which take place in schools. Attempts to change the law and to restrict gun ownership have largely failed, in part because of a constitutional right for American citizens to bear arms. There is a new approach in trying to deter school massacres, prosecuting the parents of the juveniles who've committed them. Last month, there was a legal first, the conviction in Georgia of a school shooter's father for murder.

12:45Professor Nila Bala at the University of California, Davis, told The World Tonight about the shift in prosecutorial focus. There's definitely this societal sense, this outcry from society that we should hold these parents responsible because this was criminally negligent. I mean, this isn't just your everyday kind of bad parenting. On the other hand, we have to ask ourselves seriously whether criminal liability really is the best way to respond to a situation like this. Does it actually change or deter parents or children in this situation? That's Professor Nila Bala talking to us last month. Well, two years ago, James and Jennifer Crumbly, whose son Ethan had killed four people at a Michigan high school in 2021, were convicted of involuntary manslaughter.

13:32Ethan himself later told a court he alone was responsible for the crime, but prosecutors argued his parents failed to safely store a gun in their home and to address their son's worsening mental ill health. Jennifer Crumbly offered this in her defence. We were good parents. We were the average family. We weren't perfect, but we loved our son. This could be any parent up here in my shoes. Ethan could be your child, could be your grandchild, your niece, your nephew, your brother, your sister. Families of the victims also attempted to sue the school, saying it was negligent for ignoring warning signs right up to the morning of the shooting.

14:10I've been talking to the relatives of one of the victims of that case in Oxford Township in Michigan. Jill Suave's 17-year-old son, Justin Schilling, was shot in the back of the head. Her younger son, Clay, Justin's brother, hid from the teenage gunman. I've been talking to them about that day and how they think justice has been served by prosecuting the parents as well as the shooter. Jill first. I decided to go to the grocery store and on my way back, I got a text from Justin and all it said was there's a shooter at school. And within a minute, I just saw ambulances, helicopters, fire trucks, police cars just flying down the main road.

14:53and I knew at that moment this is real. I just reversed my car and started heading toward the school. It was like being in an absolute war zone. I mean unbelievable nightmare. I was not hearing back from Justin. I was able to get in contact with Clay. Clay did let me know that he was hiding, that he was okay. That gave me some comfort. And I just thought maybe Justin is hiding. Maybe he dropped his phone. And I think that's just something my mind told myself so that I could physically drive. Clay, when the incident started, what happened? Presumably because of what unfortunately happens in too many schools in America, you guys had a procedure.

15:40You knew what you had to do and your teachers knew what they had to do? even my teacher didn't think it was real at first like it was just a drill and so we we stayed in our seats and everything until eventually we're like oh this is real and we have to go and hide right I was in my art class which thankfully had a utility closet inside of it so we were able to night lock both of the doors and then also the closet doors Jill when you got to the school did you get more information about Justin or was that something that came out later They said, just go to Meyers, which is our local grocery store, very close to the high school where everyone was evacuated.

16:19And I remember standing there and we could not find Justin. I was reunited with Clay and that was a God sent moment. When that last bus came, some kids ran there, some kids were on buses. That last bus came and Justin wasn't on it. one of Justin's other close friends Jake had been calling his phone relentlessly and the nurse in the hospital picked up and let Jake know which hospital he was at that's the only way we knew where to even go and you got to the hospital to learn that Justin had not only been shot but he was in a very grave grave condition yes um i remember just getting to the hospital and going into this very small room with the doctor and only close family and the doctor was explaining he was explaining that justin had been shot in the back of the head and it had severed his spinal cord and that um i just remember falling to my knees and just crying take me You know, just begging God to let me switch positions.

17:32You know, no parent or family should have to ever endure. Justin was a senior in high school. He was a top-lettered athlete. He was one of the top 10 honor students in the entire school. He was so popular and loved and fun and full of life and hardworking. just a bright star energy of a kid. Clay, when you think of your brother and what he meant to you, I know it's hard to put these things into words, but can you perhaps give us an idea of what Justin meant to you? Justin was basically like the token older brother, so he was always there for me. And he was also annoying because, I mean, that's how older brothers are.

18:17I know. I'm a younger brother. I know. but he was also always there and he would like bring me along to when his friends wanted to go on bike rides and he knew that my friends were being mean and he was also one of the first people to be accepting of when I initially came out he was just the best big brother you could have really Jill after the shootings and when the circumstances emerged when people found out the background they found out that his parents had maybe done things or failed to do things that they should have done they were prosecuted for involuntary manslaughter and they were convicted how how important was it to you did it I mean nothing brings your child back nothing takes away the pain that you and your family must have to live with all the time but how important was it for you that that element of accountability was achieved that the state prosecutors did go after the parents yes it was very important i mean we were still in the hospital when we you know learned that the parents were being charged and then they were on the run and then they were apprehended so the whole town was enraged finding out that the parents not only failed to secure that gun and lock it with a gun lock or a safe, but that they actually purchased the gun for their 15-year-old child who was showing signs of mental distress.

19:52So to everybody involved, it was a no-brainer that these people were so negligent and irresponsible and selfish and self-absorbed, and they were the first stop on the line to this tragedy that they could have prevented this. And so the fact that they were both convicted meant so much to me personally for justice for my son, Justin, and also as a way to help prevent and set a precedent to other irresponsible, selfish parents who are not tending to their kids' mental health. The last thing you should do is buy a child a weapon who is struggling, who has Nazi coins in his room that you can visibly see, who is being left alone and saying there's, you know, ghosts in the house.

20:45It was important to set that precedent. What we have right now is a toxic environment. We have children who are obsessed with violence. We have children who do not have any social village connection. They're all alone, scrolling on their phones. and we have access to guns. It's a deadly toxic combination and we cannot go on this way. Is there frustration among parents like you that, for example, it's almost impossible, I think I'm right in saying, to consider, for example, any legal action against gun manufacturers or the people who retail them or the gun clubs or indeed the schools or the state authorities that in a sense, kind of maybe the parents are a bit of an easier target for the anger and the lack of accountability for what happens in these incidents.

21:39I don't feel that way. The parents were absolutely justified in being charged and convicted. The shooter absolutely is accountable. The parents, yes, they're accountable. And the school we don't have justice for. Clay I want to ask you finally what are your ambitions what do you hope to do in the future I'm looking at microbiology and then shooting for the stars really because I want to work for NASA and study astrobiology that's fantastic Jill you must be very proud of Clay just as you were as we could hear so proud of Justin you know by the grace of God and just being there for each other, we cope.

22:19But our lives are changed forever. That was Jill Soave and her son, Clay Shilling. Underwater drones are being used by paramedics in London for the first time in the hope of reducing drownings. London Ambulance Service has acquired four specially adapted drones, training paramedics to use them in lakes, reservoirs and canals. Sam Burton from the LAS told BBC London how, and this might surprise you, in hot weather paramedics have less time to get people in difficulty in the water. That's because in very cold water the brain requires less oxygen and can tolerate the lack of blood foam for a much longer period.

22:56When a body of water is six degrees or below we've got 90 minutes that we can continue that rescue phase for before we go into recovery. However when it rises high during the summer over six degrees that reduces down to only 30 minutes of viability of rescue phase so it's absolutely imperative that we can get this in the water as quickly as possible to try and rescue as many people as we can. Just the right time then to launch these underwater drones. Steve Rains from the company Alpha Geo spent a year working with London Ambulance to make the underwater drones fit for use in the capital. He's been telling me how they work.

23:31It's a Chinese product that is capable of going down to 200 metres depth in total if needed, but it has a camera on board so the operator can see on the controller that they're using, the image that they're seeing under the water. Obviously in UK waters it can be quite turbid so you do have the option to add sonar to it as well if needed at a later date. So if you've got visibility problems, if the person is kind of underwater but you know there's someone there, an alternative way to be able to identify exactly where you need to direct the drone to? That's right. So if you can only see a meter or two meters in front of you with the standard camera then with the additional sonar option that you can put on top you could then see another 40 meters through that turbid water right that's quite impressive range yeah so you get you get a much wider image then of what's down there and a body would would show up quite quite well now once the operator directs the drone what does the drone actually do the drone itself can angle the camera in any direction so the camera itself can point 90 degrees down or up slide left right forward back and with the claw on there as well you can then navigate down to that person and then clamp hold of them and then using the tether you can then pull that person back to the surface so the ambulance service operator themselves doesn't necessarily have to enter the water if it's hazardous they can just move the rov down to where they need it to be Now, London is obviously a big city, but it's not on the coast.

25:05So what sort of water is this going to be used in? This is more lakes, rivers, reservoirs, that kind of places. Unfortunately, we've had a lot of deaths over the last two years that we've seen in the news. The London Ambulance Service first contacted me about a year ago saying that they needed to be able to see under the water to retrieve these people. So you've sort of been working with London Ambulance on the actual spec for this particular drone and what it needed to do and getting that model right. Exactly. When I first spoke to them a year ago, they were looking at something that was more of a toy.

25:40It was just a camera that would go underwater down to about 15-metre depth, but it was only that. Difficult to control, and I sort of said to them, I don't think that's the right product. We need to be looking more at the product they've ended up with. These are small, lightweight, quick to deploy. A single person can carry it from the car to the water's edge. It can be turned on and be ready to go within about a minute. Everybody that's had a go with these units has picked up how to use it in less than five minutes. Now, I think, is it four that London Ambitant Service now has? Correct. But you've trained quite a lot of people in order to be able to operate those four, because presumably a lot of these men and women work on shifts, so there's no guarantee that the right people are always going to be around.

26:22I believe they've got 120 people now that they've trained up, and then they've deployed it to the vehicles recently. London's a very big place. There's a lot of water, canals, rivers and so on, lakes. How do you get it in the right place at the right time? Because if there are only four pieces, getting that equipment to the location could take too long. I believe the ambulance service and the fire have the first 90 minutes to recover a person. Obviously, the quicker they can get there, the better. We've heard stories of that a person has been recovered back to full health after being under the water for 75 minutes.

26:58That's Steve Rains from the company Alpha Geo. Tomorrow is the deadline for former university students whose education in England and Wales was disrupted during the COVID pandemic to join a class action for compensation. 300 ,000 people have already signed on to the student group claim. Back in February, University College London settled a claim brought by 6 ,500 of its former students with£21.25 million. I've been speaking to two of those who've joined this group action. Callum Glennie was a student in international politics and military history at Aberystwyth. Zoe Barton was studying photography in Plymouth.

27:34Zoe first on how much things changed on her course in lockdown. My first year, essentially, I had access to all the print studios, all the editing suites, all the photography studios with all the lighting setups. I had access to all the equipment so you could rent out cameras and lenses and everything. so it was very very practical very like on-campus based as well as like in-person lectures and tutors basically when the lockdown kicked in basically all of that was taken away so it ended up being a very practical course to being you know I was using the very minimal equipment that I had at home with no more access to any of that.

28:21So it was quite a dramatic change. Callum Glennie, you were at Aberystwyth doing a subject that on paper at least might seem more adaptable to the loss of face-to-face learning. You were doing, I think, international politics and military history. Yeah, I mean, admittedly, it first starts off that you're spending most of your time looking through dusty books. But that's difficult to do so when even the library is closed. A large selling point for my university was that I would be able to go and see experts in these fields, that people would come from all over the world to come and talk to us, that having that sort of in-person relationship with people who were Nobel Prize winners that previously visited the university in the years before was lost.

29:04So in its place, you got what? Zoom meetings and emails. Right. which were of varying quality. Some teachers and lecturers were phenomenal in transferring what they had online. Many of them had produced PowerPoints, had recorded things, were great at it. Others hadn't a clue what they were doing. The other question I suppose to ask about is, and perhaps this is more difficult to kind of pin down, but Zoe is the kind of loss of what one might call the university experience, interaction with other students, the experience of kind of mixing with people, of socializing, doing the non-study stuff? Comparing my first year to my second and kind of third year as well, it did become quite isolated.