Inside Lebanon: A war within the war

Sky News, the full story first.

Hello, it's Yelda and I'm currently in Beirut.

And me, Richard and I'm in Tel Aviv.

The leadership is gone, the Navy is gone, the Air Force is gone,

the anti-aircraft equipment that they have, the radar they have,

it's all gone, everything's gone.

In the last 48 hours, Iran targeted a civilian area.

They're doing that as a mass murder weapon.

Luckily, no one was killed, but that's due to luck, not their intention.

Their intention is to murder civilians.

Why the Israel's?

No, no, I think I only heard it.

This is a serious subject.

This is a serious, my question.

Why don't, this is a war in peace here.

So President Trump says talks are underway with Iran to end the war.

But the Iranian military and government are calling it fake news.

So is President Trump just buying time as more Marines head to the region?

Or is he serious about winding down the war?

And the big question, where are the Israelis in all of this?

I'm currently in Lebanon where bombs continue to fall over a million people have been displaced.

Over a thousand people killed more than a hundred children within that thousand killed.

So we're going to be talking about that in a moment.

And of course, that extraordinary exchange which you had with Benjamin Netanyahu.

I mean, there were so many rumors swirling conspiracy theories that he wasn't alive.

And so I want to hear all about that from you, including that entity.

I'll tell you what happened inside the room and how it all happened as always a lot to get into.

Welcome to the World Podcast.

Y'all, welcome back to the region. So how are you?

I'm good. I'm good. I mean, we've been trailing this war for the last almost four weeks.

We've entered week four of this conflict. And so far I've been to Israel.

I was in Riyadh briefly. I was in Doha.

And now I'm in Beirut because we really felt like this story wasn't getting the coverage that it should be.

You're in Israel though. And before we...

With no air travel, by the way.

Very little air travel. But we're talking driving across borders.

Truly driving through the desert.

Yeah, exactly. But before we get into all of that, which we will do,

I really just want our listeners to hear more about that incredible exchange you had with Benjamin Netanyahu.

Talk us through Richard from the very beginning, how it all came about.

And then, you know, we could dissect that exchange you had.

Sure. So it wasn't an exclusive interview.

I got a call in the last moment.

I should say our office here in Israel got a call in the last minute.

Saying, we want Richard to come to this press conference. Only two people.

Very limited. And we only had a tiny bit of notification.

We had to get there and we had to come now.

And a few foreign reporters who were here and there's lots of journalists in the country,

but they selected a few who they wanted to be in the room because they had something clearly to say to the foreign media.

So jump at a car, finish up a couple things, jump at a car,

and we go there and go through this security and get into the room.

And it was a pretty, pretty small room.

And I was told that I would get a question. So they sat me in the front row.

And we, he comes in shortly there afterwards.

And I asked one of the questions. And the basic question was,

okay, so what do you, what do you want to accomplish out of all of this war?

Good to see you again, Mr. Prime Minister.

And thank you for meeting at this historic and I would say very dangerous time.

You have wanted a war against Iran to change regime, as you yourself said, for many years.

Many Americans do believe that Israel dragged the United States in this war

and is now pulling the rest of the world along with it.

How do you see this ending?

Well, I think we have concrete goals, how to do it, how to end it.

As I said, decimate the ballistic missile program which we're doing,

decimate the nuclear program which we're doing.

I think that those are goals that are achievable.

But I'm not going to put a schedule or a stopwatch on it.

I think we have goals that have to be achieved and we're not counting the days.

But I will say this, this canart that we drag the United States into it

is not just a canard, it's ridiculous, it's just ridiculous.

I mean, I think President Trump said it best and I said it as well many times.

There's always a danger in acting.

But in conditions of existential threats, there's a much greater danger in not acting.

What do you think would have happened if America did not act now?

Just imagine what would have happened in a few months' time, no more than a year.

How many of you still alive would have ordered the beginnings of the new nuclear program

and the reconstructed ballistic missile program to move underground.

Now, it'll take them a little time, maybe a few years.

But you can't reach those programs and they develop intercontinental ballistic missiles.

That means missiles that can hit Chicago and New York and Florida and Texas and California.

Oh, but they don't have it yet, that's what people said, right, let's wait.

Just let them do it, just wait, wait and let them do it.

So there he is, Benjamin Netanyahu, he's often described as some kind of magician

because the way in which he's able to convince different presidents

to sort of do as he wants.

And again, we've seen another president dragged into a war in the Middle East

and he was sort of, you know, really kind of talking you through why Israel went in,

what its objectives are, which frankly are different to the objectives of the Americans.

It's funny, you mentioned that because if you notice the way I asked the question,

many Americans do think that Israel dragged the United States into the war

because I believe the reason he called this small gathering of foreign reporters

was to address this topic specifically because a lot of comedians in the United States,

politicians who don't support the war, average American people, online chatter,

the general consensus was building that this was Israel's idea, that this was Netanyahu's personal idea

and he wanted to say, no, no, no, no, no, this was something that President Trump wanted to do

and we are an ally and that he didn't take convincing that, yes, sure,

we talked, we meaning Netanyahu and President Trump, that the two of them talked

but he said it was Trump who brought up the nuclear issue

and there was no convincing involved and he said it's the U.S. leading this campaign

with Israel as an ally.

So he distinctively put himself in the, I don't want to say in the back seat,

but he was trying to say clearly and emphatically, we're not driving this.

The Americans are.

I tell you that there is enormous risk in not acting, much greater is than acting

and if you think that the oil markets are in trouble today,

think of Iran with nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them,

then think of the blackmail that you would endure.

I didn't exactly ask, however, why the Israel's, no, no, I think I only fared at it.

This is a serious subject, this is a serious question.

Well, you don't, this is a war in peace here.

There are oil fields around the world that are burning.

Gas prices are going up.

The war is popular here in Israel, it is not popular with many Americans.

So my question was, how do you see this ending?

Not why, not even when.

What do you imagine the day after will look like?

Well, we have achievable goals and I'm not going to speak about the full battle plans

that we have with the United States.

We're well coordinated with them.

I will say this, that once we achieve our goals, then I have argued,

I think, and Americans understand this very well because we're real partners.

I think that what has to be done is to have alternative routes,

instead of going through the choke points of the, of the Hormuz Straits

and the Babel Mandib Straits in order to have the flow of oil,

just have oil pipelines, pipelines going west through the Arabian Peninsula,

right up to Israel, right up to our Mediterranean ports,

and you've just done away with the choke points forever.

That is definitely possible, so I see that as,

I see that as a real change that will follow this, this war.

I mean, it's, it's quite something, isn't it Richard?

I just want to get your thoughts on listening to Benjamin Netanyahu talking about

his bigger grandest strategy for the region because as far as, you know,

from what I can see, what we do know is that there are going to be certainly

these early stages, clear winners and losers of this conflict.

And one of the winners, of course, is, we've talked about this on the program.

We've talked about Ukrainians and the Russians, but Israel is clearly a winner in all of this

because, you know, when you look at Benjamin Netanyahu and when I talk to people in the region,

they say that they're not dealing with institutions, not in Israel, not in the United States.

They're dealing with characters and they're dealing with a Benjamin Netanyahu and a Donald Trump.

And Benjamin Netanyahu has managed, and you can tell us more about this,

but, you know, there is popular support for this war in Israel.

He's managed to shift the attention away from Gaza and put the focus back on Iran in an election year.

He's managed to really show his security and economic strengths through this war.

And frankly, for these Israelis, their ambitions are very clear.

Whether or not they have regime change in all of this, they want to weaken Iran.

What's sort of unclear in all of this is, what are the Americans and their objectives in all of this?

Because they've thrown all these resources and now we're seeing the U.S. President trying to get himself out of this mess.

So, I think it was clear from his answer and that he has a multi-generational plan,

a long-term vision of how Israel should develop once this Iranian regime is overthrown,

the Islamic revolutionary regime that has been in power since 1979,

or as we can to a point that it is no longer a factor in world politics,

sort of carving up the Persian sphere of influence or the Iranian sphere of influence.

I think that's what Israel's long-term play is here.

Now, what happens to mainland Iran?

U.S. troops are still coming.

They're talking about occupying certain islands.

They're sending what is called a Mu, a marine expeditionary unit that does only one thing.

That does beach landings and takes islands and takes ports.

They have one basic function.

It's soldiers at sea who get off big boats onto little boats and who take coasts,

Normandy type stuff.

Those troops are coming and they could take either one island,

Harg Island, or a variety of islands and that's still in play here.

So, what we could be seeing is the divying up of the Persian Empire,

the modern Persian Empire, the Persian Empire that was created by the Islamic revolutionary government in Iran,

which is again very different from the ancient Persian Empire, which has historic roots.

So, do Israel and the United States have the same goals?

I can't see that they could no two parties ever have the same goals,

but I think all of the parties, including the Arab states that are behind it,

are probably united in somehow seeing a benefit in the destruction of this Islamic revolutionary empire

that the government of the Ayatollahs had created.

Israel to create a buffer state for the U.S. oil and for the Gulf countries,

particularly Saudi Arabia, is to turn the Persian Gulf into the Arabian Gulf.

Richard, I mean, what we're seeing from the U.S. president, though,

is that he is looking for some kind of off-ramp to wrap this up,

declaring victory one minute and then saying the next minute that he's going to be managing

and controlling the Strait of Hormuz along with the Ayatollah.

We have seen so much flipping and flopping from this U.S. president.

And in the lead up to the end of the weekend and Monday,

we heard him say that he had given a 48-hour ultimatum to the Iranians,

saying if you don't open up the Strait of Hormuz because of the impact it's having on the global economy,

then we are going to target your power plants.

The Iranians didn't pull back.

In fact, they were escalating and sort of not showing that they were going to,

you know, give in or cave into his 48-hour ultimatum.

And in the end, Donald Trump had to come out and say,

we've been talking and negotiating with the Iranians.

And I've decided to take this off the table for the next five days.

So the discussions took place yesterday.

They went into yesterday evening.

They want very much to make a deal.

We'd like to make a deal, too.

We're going to get together today.

And if it goes well, we're going to end up with settling this.

Otherwise, we'll just keep bombing our little hearts out.

We're not speaking with Mr. President.

A top person, don't forget.

We wiped out the leadership phase one, phase two, and largely phase three.

But we're dealing with the men who I believe is the most respected and the leader.

You know, it's a little tough.

They've wiped out everybody.

No, not the Supreme Leader.

Well, nobody's ever, nobody heard of the second Supreme Leader of the Sun.

I want to kind of break this down.

Exactly that point that you've made.

This isn't, people were jumping up and down and saying,

oh, this is Donald Trump trying to wrap this war up.

And I spoke to some Israeli security establishment sources that I have.

And one of the statements they gave, which I'm going to read to our listeners.

And, you know, someone said to me, I'd approach this cautiously with a grain of salt.

It's early Monday morning in the US, the start of the trading week.

Markets open tire largely is expected following the weekend reports on the negotiations

and the latest statements by Donald Trump.

That said, I wouldn't view this move as a final step.

We saw a similar pattern last week.

Oil prices have also declined supporting the positive sentiment in the short form.

For now, it appears he's bought a few more days roughly into week four until the Marines arrive

and complete their initial deployment and organization phase.

The Iranians are already denying it.

So the Iranians are saying, we're not talking to Trump.

There are no channels open.

We, you know, he can give us the 48-hour ultimatum or take it away in terms of attacking our power stations.

But he's just trying to manipulate the markets, which is very much in line with what Israelis were saying to me.

That this is Donald Trump's attempt to buy himself time,

whether it's for the Marines or whether it's to control the oil prices or the markets.

Because frankly, the global economy has taken a hit.

And when I interviewed the Katari Prime Minister, he said to me, this isn't just about energy infrastructure.

It's about things like fertilization, about food security.

You know, this war and the closing of the Strait of Hormuz is impacting Gaza.

It's impacting Afghanistan, it's impacting Sudan, it's impacting Yemen.

It is impacting some of the most vulnerable places on the planet.

So I work primarily on the U.S. Times casual.

And the news broke just as I was getting ready to do our morning show.

And I'd written a script about this threat that he had made over the weekend.

And he had said, if within 48 hours Iran doesn't fully and without threat reopen the Strait of Hormuz, he said a time.

At 7.44 p.m. Eastern time, the rockets were going to fly and the Iranian oil power infrastructure was going to burn.

Then he put out a statement just as I was going on air.

So it was right a few minutes after 7 a.m. to say, okay, we've extended that threat five days.

Well, five days is a five business days.

And B, then you know how President Trump has made these phone calls.

He likes to call reporters.

That morning, he called two business channels, CNBC and Fox Business.

So he broke the news before the markets opened.

And then he made two of these quick phone calls to business reporters.

And he set the five day time limit because the US stock markets are closed over the weekend to coincide with a work week.

That's one thing.

In terms of the unintended consequences, they are enormous.

They are enormous.

Every country you just mentioned is impacted.

And then I was in Jerusalem a few days ago now.

And a warhead from an Iranian missile, an apparent shoot down because the thing just sort of plummeted from the sky,

almost exploded right now.

It did explode right next to some of the most holy sites in the world.

If it had blown them up, this war could have become some sort of global religious conflict.

And that could happen any day.

Any day we could have one emotional event that turns this into something completely different.

What we are seeing and hearing though in the last sort of few days is this idea of negotiations because of course the region is now scrambling.

They want to wrap this up.

And a couple of days ago I was hearing from some sources in the region that perhaps Pakistan was going to take a leading role.

And then of course we heard from the Turks as well that they were going to be involved in these negotiations.

But do you think that these talks are real?

So Pakistan might be a mediator.

I'm curious to hear why Pakistan.

I was surprised by that.

So I'd look to hear your thoughts on Pakistan.

But do you think really that he's looking for an offer?

And I don't know.

He's talking about it.

He's trying to calm the markets down.

I'm sure a lot of people around him would like to wrap this up.

But if this is the recarving up of the Persian Empire and there's still what I'm calling the new, the Islamic Republic's revolutionary Persian Empire,

then the troops are still on the way.

Then is this is this buying time?

Is this just is the way and and why Pakistan?

Please help me understand why Pakistan?

So a couple of things.

First is I think this is quintessential classic Trump.

I almost want to make a comparison to the trade wars that he started when he was using tariffs as leverage.

Where he basically bullied everyone and they all sort of bowed down and agreed to what he was saying except China.

And then in the end he had to bow down to China.

We're almost seeing that similar sort of playbook here with the Iranians where he's pushing and pushing and pushing them.

And when he finds he can no longer push them because they're pushing back.

He almost retreats and gives in and caves in and starts to talk about, you know, negotiating with kids.

Yeah, a little bit.

So, you know, I do think though, the region is on edge.

It's concerned.

They can see the impact it's having not just regionally but internationally.

So key players are coming out and wanting to get involved.

Is there a doubt of the threats of desalination plants?

Yeah, of course.

And you know, because it's their livelihood.

You know, in terms of Pakistan, well, why is Pakistan's name suddenly emerging?

Pakistani is part of a handful of countries that frankly has a good relationship with the Iranian regime.

The new Ayatollah Mushtaba Khamenei, the son of the slain leader, talked about Pakistan in his later speech.

He talked about it having a special place in his heart.

And the supreme leader who was killed talked about having Pakistan close to his heart.

So, they respect Pakistan.

Pakistan has, after Iran, the biggest share Muslim community on the planet.

And when the supreme leader was killed, we saw all those protests breaking out.

People dying, setting themselves alight in Pakistan, dramatic images of demonstrations in Pakistan.

After the supreme leader was killed.

Pakistan has us in Munir.

The field marshal has very good relations with Donald Trump.

We've seen the Prime Minister Shebhaz Sharif tweet out that Pakistan is ready and willing to be part of any kind of lead, any kind of negotiation.

Or allow Islamabad to be part of the base where these talks take place.

Donald Trump has just reposted that.

So, Donald Trump has good relations with us in Munir with Shebhaz Sharif.

He likes Pakistan, he's talked about liking Pakistan.

Pakistan has good relations with the Iranians.

And they also have a defense pact with the Saudis.

So, they're invested, they rely on golf, oil and gas.

They're invested in this is going to have a huge impact on their economy as well.

So, they need this resolved, hence Pakistan's involvement.

Thank you very much, Yalda Keem.

That was very illuminating to me, I appreciate it.

And blessed are the peacemakers, as they say.

Let's hope they have some success.

Let's take a quick break there and Yalda, when we come back, I want to hear all about what you are seeing in Lebanon.

We have not focused on that enough.

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Welcome back to the World Podcast, Yalda.

You are in the Lebanese capital, Beirut.

What is it like now? What are you seeing?

Well, Richard, you and I were both here in 2024 when War broke out.

And we saw ground troops here in Lebanon, in the south, Israeli ground troops.

You know, Hasbulla has really put itself at the forefront of trying to defend Gaza back then.

And you and I witnessed the way that the Israelis said they had decapitated Hasbulla.

From its leadership, Hassan Nasrallah was killed.

You know, the top leadership was a strike by strike.

What we're seeing in Iran was a playbook.

A pager in hand, and then the walkie talkies, and then the strikes that took place,

where we more or less believed that Hasbulla had been decapitated.

Their leader had been killed.

Let's remind everyone, so this is 2024.

So Israel had done Gaza, not that the war there is ended,

that it finished its major, was finishing, it was major combat operations,

and now Israel was shifting north.

So the attention of the Israeli military was suddenly on Hasbulla,

and they were doing these intelligence-led operations on the ground,

with airstrikes and pager strikes, and they were also sending troops into the south Lebanon.

That's the 2024 war.

Yeah, and so what we saw over the last 18 months or so after a ceasefire was called,

was that the Israelis were continuing to hammer Hasbulla areas,

and where they thought they were operating from.

Strike after strike for 15 months or so.

And when I would question Israeli officials about this,

we thought you had decapitated the leadership.

Hasbulla is not what it used to be.

Has been weakened. Why do you keep bombing southern Lebanon?

You know, why do you keep trying to attack these different areas in the south?

And they continue to say, well, they're rearming, they're regrouping.

And what we saw after the supreme leader was killed by the Americans and the Israelis,

and the war in Iran began.

Hasbulla started firing rockets into northern Israel,

which meant immediately Israel responded, and it responded hard.

And within the last three or four weeks, what we've seen is,

I mean, the numbers, Richard, are staggering.

A million people, 20% of this country's population,

small country, five million people, 20% of its population have now been displaced.

Here in the capital, scenes like what we saw in 2024,

families sleeping in their cars, families, you know, trying to take shelter.

What's different about this particular time?

And this country has seen its fair share of war with Israel.

What feels different is how random the attacks are.

I went to a building site in central Beirut,

just five minutes away from downtown, right?

Downtown is where the government buildings are.

I know Beirut. Well, I lived there for three years.

Yeah, so close to downtown Beirut in Beshera,

there was an apartment block that basically was attacked, you know,

Israel struck it, and it collapsed.

The entire apartment block within a minute's gave way.

Extraordinary pictures.

Luckily, no casualties, because Israel does issue evacuation orders.

And people who lived there evacuated and left the building.

The people in surrounding buildings also left.

Israel claims that there was a smaller infrastructure inside the building.

Things like gold, for example, they claim was inside the building.

So they knocked the building down. Gold bars are going down.

Gold bars. Yeah, gold bars, gold coins.

They said that's what they were looking for.

Apparently they'd be looking for this for years.

Another building went down.

But it's just minutes away from downtown Beirut,

which, you know, is the heart of the city.

So what feels different for people this time is usually the strikes

are in the southern suburbs of Beirut.

Again, an area that, yes,

has well, operates from there.

Yes, Hassan Nasrallah, their leader was killed there.

But it is also a place where rent is cheap.

You know, there are a lot of families who live there.

There are schools in there. There's malls in there.

There are restaurants in there.

Shisha bars in there.

This is a sprawling area of southern Beirut

where many people live there.

And now hundreds of thousands of people have been affected

because they've all been evacuated to complete ghost town.

I want to ask you a question based on the way I'm seeing it from here.

So I'm in Tel Aviv at the moment.

And in 2024, this would be two years ago.

It feels like it was two centuries ago.

2024, after leveling Gaza, Israel turns its attention to the north.

Attacks, Hezbollah, troops go in.

They never leave.

It was supposed to be temporary.

And the feeling was always that it would be temporary

until the Lebanese government could stand up

and assert its autonomy.

And then the Israeli troops would basically leave.

And there would be a new birth of Lebanon.

That was always the promise that the 2024 war was kind of

to do the Lebanese government and the Lebanese people a favor.

That's how it was sold.

We're going to get rid of Hezbollah for you

so that you can stand up on your feet.

This time, when you listen to what the top Israeli officials

are talking about, they're not talking about leaving.

They're talking about staying.

They're blowing up the bridges over the Latani river.

And Israeli minister says, that should be Israel's new border.

They're sending in more and more ground troops.

Is this sense there in Lebanon that what Israel is doing now

is not just a war against Hezbollah,

but that it is trying to carve off a piece of southern Lebanon

and that the people who are now sleeping in the streets once again

might not be able to go back to the South.

I saw this extraordinary image of a man from the South

bringing all of his farm animals into Beirut.

Is that what it feels like there?

Yeah, there is a level of uncertainty

and fear about what Israel is planning.

And I've spoken to government officials

over the last few days whilst I've been here.

And they have said the President has reached out to Israel,

has said, let's start negotiations.

Let's talk this through. Let's use diplomacy.

The President, President Owen, is a former general, right?

And called Hezbollah criminal organization.

Absolutely. And he said that I warned Hezbollah

if you try and attack Northern Israel again,

they're going to hit you and they're going to hit you hard.

So what we need to do is disarm you.

You need to stop attacking Israel.

You need to stop what you're doing.

So there are many Lebanese who are divided on the question of Hezbollah.

There's a lot of anger here at Hezbollah

for dragging the country back into this conflict.

Many are saying to me, for the last 15 months,

Israel has been launching airstrikes

on southern Lebanon.

And yet, as well, I was quiet.

They didn't try to avenge the killing of the Lebanese and the South.

As soon as the Supreme Leader is killed, they're back in the mix

because they're taking their orders directly from Iran.

The decision to enter this war was an Iranian decision.

It wasn't a Lebanese decision. It wasn't a Hezbollah decision.

And I think what we're seeing this time around Richard,

which is a point I really want to make,

is how targeted the Shia community in this country feels.

They feel that it's not just about Hezbollah.

It is about wherever the Shia community is.

Here in Beirut in 2024, when the displays arrived,

many people opened their homes.

People were taking those who have been displaced into their homes,

giving them shelter.

There is worry now, though,

because if you bring a Shia family into your home,

are you suddenly fair game for Israeli targets?

This is a country that has gone through sectarian warfare in the past.

So the government, the president, the prime minister,

are trying to contain this crisis.

There's also an information vacuum from the South.

We're seeing these bridges and the infrastructure being completely destroyed.

They want to send their ground forces in.

They are conducting operations on the ground.

But they're moving very slowly.

They're launching attacks on certain villages,

trying to take over certain villages along the border.

But also Hezbollah is, you know,

what do they do best?

Gorilla warfare is what they're best at.

So they do want to lure in Israeli troops,

so they can take them on the ground, not just from the air.

And this could turn into a bloody, bloody war.

It could easily.

I've never understood why Lebanon or the peacemakers

who ended this Lebanese civil war decided on this sectarian system,

a division of power, in which,

because Lebanon had a terrible civil war during the 80s.

Lots of different groups involved.

We don't have enough time on this podcast.

Although we should do a podcast about the Lebanese civil war

and a whole old series on Lebanon.

Lebanon is a fascinating country,

and I really enjoyed living there.

But at the end of the civil war,

the agreement was they're going to share power

among the different religious faiths.

The Christians would get the presidency.

The Sunnis would get the Prime Minister,

so the sort of functions of the government.

And the Shia would get the Speaker of Parliament role.

That was the division of power.

And then you came and then enter this mix,

which was, I think, was always strange why it should be faith-based.

Enter this mix, you have Hezbollah,

which is a Shia militant group

that, for many ways, really ran the country

and this division was kind of on paper only.

So now, you take away Hezbollah.

I can imagine the Shias are terribly worried.

Well, what about us?

They always got the weakest position anyway,

if you talk about the President,

the Prime Minister, and then the Speaker of Parliament.

So their third share was always kind of the weakest piece, if you will.

And then Hezbollah is gone and they're being targeted.

There is a possibility you are restoring the sectarian pot

in a country that has had a lot of terrible burns

and experience of terrible experiences

because of that of people stirring that sectarian pot

in a country as fragile as Lebanon.

Yeah, absolutely.

And I think we need to keep focus on the situation here in Lebanon

because there is concern that this is going to turn into a war of attrition

and we're going to lose interest in this if Iran

and the United States find a way to negotiate out of this mess.

But that might not happen here for the Lebanese.

So they're incredibly concerned.

You know, as always, fascinating.

This is from Tel Aviv to Beirut.

It used to be a famous Tom Friedman book from Beirut to Jerusalem.

So we did it in reverse.

Yes.

Great to talk to you, as always.

Really enjoyed it.

Thank you, everyone.

I hope you enjoyed our conversation and we will see you next time.

Your country is in big trouble.

The world is a pretty confusing place right now.

How long does it take to learn about Andrew and Stegh?

I'm Neil Patterson and after 20 years reporting and presenting for Sky News

one thing's become clear.

People don't just want to know what's happened.

They want to know why.

Our new daily podcast takes one story at a time

explains what's really going on and why you need to know.

This is why.

Listen, whatever you get your podcasts.