of hello and welcome. just few hours ago the iranian consulate in damascus came under a missile attack and it was completely raised to the ground. so far, what we know is that at least five people, three of them are...

iranians have been killed in this attack and according to the iranian foreign minister and iranian sources as well as the iranian ambassador in damascus, israel should be held responsible for this attack, which is of course very big red line crossed by the israeli regime uh according to both of these officials and this will be the topic of tonight's show. i'm gisum shahmed. and you're watching the spotlight. we will be discussing this attack with our guests, jamal wakem, professor of international relations from the lebanese university, joining us live from beirot, and also saeb shath, author and west asia expert who was joining us live from belfast. thank you very much to both of you

gentlemen for joining us. now uh, this was the big news of the day, making the headlines and of course uh attracting lot of attention uh, and of course it should, definitely deserves that much attention, because although we've had israel uh undermining syria's sovereignty time and again attacking different targets in syria soil. this time it crossed very big red line by attacking the consulate. of iran right next to its embassy in damascus, raising the whole building to the ground. so mr. jamal wakim, in your opinion, why did israel choose to attack uh the iranian councel at this point in time? well, first we need to understand the uh nature of the objective targeted by israel, which is the iranian consulat, considered as uh... iranian territory, we know that

embassies and consulates all over the world are considered as territories of the country that they represent, so this is a big red line that israel is crossing. in addition, it's targeting of course iranian diplomats other than the iranian military commanders, which is another factor that needs to be taken in consideration, so why at this time israel is going into such escalation, i believe that it's trying to achieve something a time when it's dragging on, the war is dragging on and it's not being able to achieve tangible results against the on resistance in gaza, nor against. against the

armed resistance in lebanon and it might be that the israelis want to turn the attention of the whole world, especially the west away from gaza onto a side conflict that it's trying to drag iran to in order to justify its continuous war against gaza on one hand and in order to to silence the criticism, some of the criticism against it in the west, especially among some governments which are voicing their concern, western governments, which started to voice their concerns about the human tole in gaza on one hand and who are considering withdrawing their support to israel in this aggression on the other. okay, so mr. shath, our guests from beirot believe... that israel is trying to deviate

attention at this point in time from the ongoing genocidal war on gaza, uh now before we get into what's going on in gaza and... what is exactly the position of israel right now in uh gaza and whether or not it has been able to achieve any of its military objectives there uh let's uh look at some other uh issues that could be taken into consideration and one of them is the fact that israeli media have been uh stating that they intended to attack a car that was parked. in front of the consulate and not the counsulat itself, so uh, first of all, aside from the fact that this could not be considered legitimate excuse because the consulatate building has been completely raised to the ground. uh, what does that mean? is israel afraid of any kind of

escalation, because as our guest in beirout just mentioned, uh, this is very serious provocation. yes, it is very serious provocation, but of course. from what i witnessed lately, the united states of america or the zeness institute, they don't give a damn about what the public opinions internationally is concerned or not, and the the only thing, even his own public opinion, we see the administrators for the release of their own hostages or they don't give a down, they want to continue war, netanyahu, for him, the war is life. he can stays in power and he can be immune, so in a way i agree with jamal about the failures in gaza, they cannot even justify any anything to their own public opinion or to the united states of america or the western supporters, they want

to move forward, especially after last night when the iraki resistant manage to attack elat name the base and devastated it, actually we seen the smoke, we seen the panic and the ambulances all of that that direct hit, and the same thing we see the how the palestinian resistance are still in control, and the zionis and the americans and the western forces who's taken part in there, because we know there is a french on the ground with a dual citizenship, there is american expertise, there is what they call it surveillance. uh british drones and fighters in the in the region uh and all of that we see the palestinian is still showing a formidable resistance and in yemen uh as well the resistance camp in yemen it's it's extended its influence and made the american

armada from air carriers uh fighter jets carriers and ships looks like absolute in the region and it's extended the influence the targets we said will reach from the arabian sea, the red sea, the the the indian ocean even to africa, so after the any any zin ships or in or going the des ship, so they seen all of that and they still know before few couple of months ago they were talking about devastating syria to isolate syria totally from the supply. chain as they call it of the resistance and that's why we seen how they sneak with their fighter just from the tenuf which is supported and protected that region by american radars and american surveillance system to go and hit in in alipo

and the same thing uh we see the resistance as well is increasing its own activities to target. and keep the momentum high to target the z entity. if you can see there is the iraqies hit as well in in in haifa and in it and the yemen as well and the lebanese resistance escalating with using a new weapons and new techniques, all of that, but the american hegemony in that region in a question, and this is why we see there is consensus in the west in supporting design entity even. not even complicit in genocide with it, but even party to the genocidal war, so targeting an iranian property and an iranian sovereign piece of land like the embassy and the consult in there, it's escalating that because they believe

themselves without the iranian technology and transfer the know how to the resistance in gaza or in in yemen or in in lebanon they w or in iraq they won't be able to uh to direct such blows so there is escalation here and the the israel is already raised the uh the alarm to all of their... embasses around the world uh to to be on the guard. okay, so mr. wakim, uh, before we delve into the issues that were just raised by mr. shath, has israel achieved any of its military objectives, the ones that it stated before it started the war on gaza. uh, so far, israel didn't achieve any of its declared objectives, it couldn't, destroy the resistance there, it couldn't free the prisoners of war and it couldn't expelled the

palestinian people out of gaza strip onto sinai as it intended. the only thing that israel was able to achieve there was to target civilians, destroy gaza, the whole infrastructure, the target civilians and kill ' more than 35000 civilians so far, most of them are children and and women, and of course it's trying to terrorize the the civilian population as mean to render what was considered as victory achieved by the resistance into a very... coastly victory, that's what the israelis are trying to do,

and of course this is part of their tradition, part of their culture, to to commit genocide against the arabs, and this was this is not the first time that they massacre civilian people, we we have hundreds of evidence throughout the arab israeli struggle, as as far as it concerns, for example, the military strikes against lebanon and syria, they have been able to target some high ranking officials and this is due to the bitterness they feel in their conflict against the resistance both in gaza and in southern lebanon and of course uh against the his and the resistance in iraq because they think... that it it's iran that is supporting all these resistance factions and a common

cause against the israeli occupation and colonization of palestine, so this is what's going on and this is how we could understand uh israeli actions. so uh, mr. shath, as our guest from beirot just clearly stated, israel has not been able to achieve any of its military objectives, the one that it had stated at the beginning uh of this war, and on the other hand, like our guest said, we have over 35,000 palestinians killed, more than 75,000 injured in these attacks that is now being called a genocidal war. israel has a court case in the icj against it, the investigations are ongoing. "it even has provisional uh ruling that has been issued uh, we are seeing demonstrations in countries

that uh were traditionally the allies of israel, now we're seeing people coming out chanting slogans against the israeli regime, where does this leave the zionist entity? the zionist entity, let's see it historically put it in a perspective, from the time when the french..." revolution came with the slogan of jewish emancipation, it was an idea to cleanse all the the jews from europe and put them in in palestine, and this is when the french led their campaign and occupied egypt and tried to occupy palestine in 1799. ponapart failed in creating this entity which is today is there and to make it as a tool for his own domination of the world. the english then achieve that goal and that so the zinus entity all along it was a colonial

project, it doesn't matter the lies these uh the zianist secular or religious factions of it they can produce, we notice the zist factions, the right wing was allied to nazi germany and organized with hitler, their own evacuation of of jews before the holocaust to the to... to to palestine and they left of the zianist like hagana and all of that factions of the terrorist groups were allied to the british so they were bitting in the in the in in in the two horses in the game, if the german wins, the nazis, they are with them winning, and if the the the the united states of america and the british and the soviet union won, they are with them as well, so this is what we see, it's it's always the they put themselves as to be the prize of the the winner in there and to function as its

own military base there, and so in the this is what they are, so israel doesn't give a dam shield by the uh international law and they think they are above the the law because they are so, i'm sorry to cut you off right there because we have a limited amount of time, but uh we can conclude by what you and our guests from beirut just said that israel is its weakest point ever in history uh because it has a un resolution against it, it's a staunch ally the us abstained from voting this time uh it has been isolated politically. from a diplomatic point of view, it has definitely lost the propaganda war uh, and whenever israel is at its weak point, it usually carries out these attacks. it's not the first time this is happening to iran, uh, we've had uh razi musavi general brigadier general razi musavi, another irgc commander that was targeted uh just four months ago, so

uh, mr. wakim, uh, what do you think this attack means considering uh all the issues that? just raised uh, well this attack is a big infringement on iran's sovereignty, and of course israel is trying to uh pull iran into a d direct conflict. well, if i put myself in the shoes of the iranian officials, they are in a very dire uh situation, because if they... retaliate, if they react, they will be, they might be playing the game of israel, and if they don't, they would be, let's say embarrassed internationally by israel, so it's a very delicate equation here, would iran retaliate right now or leave

it to another opportunity, especially that the conflict is open uh and it will drag on in the future uh we shall wait and see, but i believe that iran uh has been hit hard and maybe uh it needs to retaliate to react to such an aggression. okay, so mr. shoth, i see that you were uh shaking your head at some point in disagreement with our guest from beirot and looking at iran's record, well it's not the first time that iran has been put on the spot by israel uh where uh it was provoked to uh carry out some kind of attack where um create some kind of escalation in the region and when we look back in history every time iran has responded to these attacks but in a very strategic uh manner and

with uh definitely uh consideration great consideration for the long-term. consequences of whatever it does, so mr. shath, although we had the uh iranian ambassador clearly stating that iran will be giving decisive response to this attack, what could that decisive response entail, considering iran's history? you see, this is a significant escalation in its own, and by targeting sovereign as... said territory of iran which is the embassy we when donald trump targeted the martur first letenant uh muhandis in in iraq when he was brokering peace at the time himself and was officially invited to the country uh the iranian government didn't wait

and they devastated asad the biggest american um military base around the world which is in iraq, they didn't, they didn't wait, it's it means a lot to the country to see its act and straight away take, it's not about tit and tat kind of activity, it's it's here, it's the dignity of the nation, the dignity of the people, it's the marters need to be revenged before as the the arab would say before the their blood dry on the ground, so that is kind of a... aggression is need to be responded to when how that is up to the iranian people and the syrian government as well since this is happened on syria's ground syria. as well, i see is partly responsible, we know all the syrian air defense was destroyed from the the terror and takfiri war

washed by the western and dislionist countries in syria when they dismantle the supposed to be revolutionary, the raiders and the anti-air missiles and that and kept syria is open and this is the result of their operation which is organized by designs and the americans at the time. syria cannot defend itself, not not even 10%, i don't want to say more from after 35 and sophisticated american weaponry, so the united states of america since the day it's put sanctions against iran from the day of the islamic revolution in 79 till today, it's put iran as the bsai as they say and it's target and the iranian people and the iranian. government and leadership understand that very well. iran today is hundred times stronger than before and iran's today is scared them in the region because iran leading a resistant camp

is on the wind and putting the their projects of higem and the zionist project on the reverse so the the resistance or iran won't be afraid of of of revenging the the the the martterdom of its own. uh people okay, so mr. wakim, we don't have much time left, but why do you think uh, and this uh recent sentence by mr. shath, which it totally echoed the comments made by the iranian ambassador to damascus, that iran is not afraid of israeli atrocities, um, where do you think this courage comes from, and what exactly does that mean? well, of course iran has been able to build its power over the four, the past four decades or even five decades now, and it has sophisticated weapons, it was able to build its economy, despite the sanctions and despite the boycott imposed on it by the

west, and lot of powers, not only in the region but worldwide are relying on iranian weapons and technology now, but the the that's why the iranians are so confident. in their stance and this has been experienced before, especially in confrontation with the united states, but so i believe that iran has the capability to react and to retaliate, however it's all about the timing, what would be the best time that iran would choose to retaliate? this is uh, this is the question. well thank you very much. i'm afraid that's all the time that we have. jamal wakim, professor of international relations from the lebanese university joining us live from beirot and also saib shout author and west

asia expert joining us live from belfast. thank you very much to both of you gentlemen for sharing your thoughts and views with us on this edition of spotlight. and thanks to all of you viewers for watching this edition. this is sarayava, a country that shares borders with serbia and croatia, and has survived years of genocide. this country has managed to keep islam alive by itself in europe. ovdašnjeg čovjeka na poseban način. ovdašnji čovjek od od davnih vremena u mjesecu ramazanu uči vrlo intenzivno kuran.

petra has had an important impact on preserving the religious and cultural identity of bosniak muslims over the years. i believe that uh working together we can make his street.

islamic revolution guard course as israel's attack on iran's consular building in damascus is a result of a reparable defeat it suffered in gaza. iran urges the un security council to strongly condemn israel's attack its consular building in syria calling for an urgent meeting on the regime's violation and israel's indiscriminate strikes kill several foreign aid workers in gaza as death tool from regime's campaign of genocide near 32,850.