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Moral Maze

Was Israel right to launch strikes on Iran?

Moral Maze

BBC

Society & Culture, Religion & Spirituality

4.4623 Ratings

🗓️ 19 June 2025

⏱️ 57 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Self-defence, as a justification for war, is much more difficult to argue if you strike the first blow. The Israelis say their devastating pre-emptive strike on Iran is a special, truly existential, case. A regime, long committed to their destruction was, according to Israel, within weeks of developing nuclear weapons, just one of which could effectively wipe out their state and most of its citizens. How far does that justify the abandonment of diplomacy, the targeting of leaders, the collateral damage and death? And, by the way, why is it ok for some countries to have The Bomb- and not others?

Witnesses: Sir Richard Dalton, Jake Wallis Simons, Prof Mary Kaldor, Prof Ali Ansari

Panellists: Carmody Grey, Giles Fraser, Inaya Folarin-Iman , Mona Siddiqui

Presenter: Michael Buerk Producer: Catherine Murray Assistant Producer: Peter Everett Editor: Tim Pemberton

Transcript

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0:00.0

BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts.

0:04.6

Good evening. Death to Israel. Iran's supreme leader said not long ago is not a slogan,

0:10.5

it's a policy. The Jewish state, he said, was a cancerous tumor to be uprooted and destroyed.

0:17.1

His military commander, responsible for arming the proxy militias on Israel's borders,

0:22.3

threatened Israelis will not even have a cemetery in Palestine to bury their own corpses.

0:28.0

The enmity was not exactly a secret.

0:30.7

That commander was one of the top generals and nuclear scientists killed in Israel's devastating preemptive strikes on Iran.

0:40.4

Self-defense is more difficult to argue if you land the first blow, but Israel says it has a special truly existential case. According to the

0:47.4

Israelis, Iran was within reach of being able to produce a nuclear weapon. Israel is a small, largely urbanized country.

0:56.5

Just one nuclear warhead could all but wipe it out. Israel itself has the bomb, of course,

1:02.0

or so it's widely believed, but even the doctrine of mutually assured destruction,

1:06.8

which has held nuclear powers in Czech for 80 years, might not apply to an Iranian theocracy

1:12.0

that actively celebrates martyrdom. How far were, are the attacks justified, the abandonment

1:19.4

of diplomacy, the targeting of leaders and scientists, the collateral damage and death, the risks

1:24.8

of a wider war? And incidentally, why is it okay for some countries to have the bomb, but not others?

1:31.3

That's our moral maze tonight, the panel, the commentator and campaigner, Inaya Fularen

1:35.2

Iman, Carmody Gray, Professor of Integral Ecology at Nymigan University,

1:41.8

Mona Siddiqui, Professor of Islamic and inter-religious studies at Edinburgh

1:45.2

University and the priest and polemicist, Charles Fraser. Jars of Christian theology got much help

1:50.9

in this, turning the other cheek. It doesn't really cut it with nuclear weapons.

1:54.6

Well, nuclear weapons are a whole other category of wrong, and Iran is run by an apocalyptic

1:58.9

death cult, hell-bent on wiping Israel from the map,

...

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