Transcript: Israel marks one year after October 7

This is an audio transcript of the FT News Briefing podcast episode: ‘Israel marks one year after October 7’

Kasia Broussalian
Good morning from the Financial Times. Today is Monday, October 7th, and this is your FT News Briefing.

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The outcome of the US presidential election might have a big impact on the country’s debt. And Israel marks one year since Hamas launched its devastating attacks. Plus, the world’s richest man is trying to tinker with the rules governing satellites. 

Peggy Hollinger
Elon Musk now has more than 6,000 satellites in low Earth orbit. And he’s saying, look, these rules limit the capacity that I can actually offer my customers. 

Kasia Broussalian
I’m Kasia Broussalian and here’s the news you need to start your day.

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A new report predicts that Donald Trump would increase the federal debt by about twice as much as Kamala Harris. The analysis comes from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, and it forecasts that under Trump, debt would balloon by $7.5tn over the next decade or so. That’s compared to $3.5tn for Harris. And the difference is in some of their economic policies. Trump wants to lower taxes and increase tariffs on imported goods. Meanwhile, Harris plans to expand tax credits for small businesses and invest more in child care and housing. But she also plans to increase corporate taxes.

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It’s now been a year since Hamas stormed across Gaza’s border with Israel and terrorised people. In the days and weeks after the attack, Israelis received an outpouring of compassion and support. But as the death toll in Gaza gets higher, international criticism has hardened and many Israelis are turning inward. My colleague, Mehul Srivastava, has been reporting on the year that changed the country. He’s with me now. Hey, Mehul. 

Mehul Srivastava
Hi. How are you? 

Kasia Broussalian
I’m all right, thanks. So you’re in Tel Aviv at the moment. What’s the mood like on this anniversary? 

Mehul Srivastava
This is a sad and embattled country as still has more than 100 hostages being held by Hamas right now. And a year into a conflict that’s left it so isolated on the international stage, you find a lot of them asking themselves, why doesn’t the rest of the world care about Israeli suffering as much as it cares about Palestinian suffering? And this has turned the country into a embattled nation that has decided that it is best for the Israeli people to take care of themselves rather than bend to the demands of international opinion. 

Kasia Broussalian
Yeah. And the attacks by Hamas, they were truly horrific. 1,200 people were killed. 250 were taken hostage. A hundred, like you mentioned, are still in Gaza. But in the year since, more than 40,000 people in Gaza have died and basically the entire population is displaced. How are Israelis grappling with the war at this point? 

Mehul Srivastava
You know, the Israeli public is overwhelmingly in favour of this war. They feel like not only are they in a war for national survival, the peace, an existential threat not just from Hamas, but from Iran-backed proxies like Hizbollah and Iran itself. And on its television screens, on its radio, there is a country that is primarily focused on the fate of the hostages, on Israel’s ability to make itself safe, not just the region for now, but in the foreseeable future. And the resolving of these issues consumes the nation in a moment of rage, grief and isolation. 

Kasia Broussalian
And this kind of hardening, this embarrassment that you mention of how Israelis feel about the conflict. How has it influenced the way that Israel wages the war? 

Mehul Srivastava
I think that the expansion of the war in recent weeks to include Hizbollah in Lebanon and then in recent days to include a retaliatory cycle with Iran is primarily possible because Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been able to leverage this feeling of isolation into one that says that the Israeli military, the Israeli government must do whatever it sees fit to keep the Israeli public safe. This marshal mood is not one that existed on October 6th but consumes the nation right now. There is overwhelming support for this offensive that has begun in Lebanon that’s seeing more than a million people displaced and more than a thousand killed. 

Kasia Broussalian
Yeah. And, if anything, an end to the fighting seems a lot further off now than maybe at any other point in the last year. 

Mehul Srivastava
You know, one year into this war, this country, the Palestinians, the Lebanese, they are now caught up in a cycle of violence that doesn’t have a clear ending. The Israelis want to restore deterrence. They want to make sure that in the Middle East, their citizens are not being attacked any more, being held hostage, that nobody can, even in the future, countenance not just a cross-border raid, but this threat that they have from Hizbollah’s rockets or Iran’s missiles. And at this point, it’s clear that none of that has been achieved. The hostages are still in Gaza. Hamas has not surrendered. The battle with Hizbollah has just begun. And today, a year after October 7th, the day that is really start to memorialise the losses that they faced on that horrible day, they’re waiting for the Israeli government to launch an attack on Iran and then brace for the counter retaliation. While people might feel a bit safer from the immediate threat of the cross-border raids. The question of whether or not Israelis feel safe in the region is yet to be fully answered. 

Kasia Broussalian
Mehul Srivastava has been covering the conflict in the Middle East for the FT. Thanks, Mehul. 

Mehul Srivastava
Thank you. 

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Kasia Broussalian
US partners at EY have been told that around 2 per cent of their pay will be held back this year. The big four accounting firm says customers didn’t pay their bills on time and it’s adding to unhappiness with the US leadership team. A big part of the problem comes from the failed project, Everest. That was EY’s effort to spin off its global consulting and tax advisory business, and it basically went up in flames. Now on top of this, regulators gave the company poor audit quality scores. So there’s this general feeling that it’s time to hold these leaders accountable.

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A battle is brewing over control of something you probably never think about: radio spectrum. Newcomers like Elon Musk and his company, SpaceX, are challenging the old guard for more of it. And the clash could have major consequences for everything from telecommunications here on Earth to the space economy. I’m joined now by Peggy Hollinger, the FT’s space industry editor, to explain. Hey, Peggy. 

Peggy Hollinger
Hi. 

Kasia Broussalian
So to start, can you just explain what exactly spectrum is in this context? 

Peggy Hollinger
Spectrum is the band of electromagnetic frequencies on which all wireless data can be transmitted. Essentially, just think of it like a highway with lots of different lanes, and you basically transmit the data from one point to another down that lane of the motorway. But the motorway is only so wide and there are only certain lanes that we can actually use because our technology only allows us to transmit the data on a limited number of frequencies. 

Kasia Broussalian
And how is spectrum, which is limited, regulated? 

Peggy Hollinger
Spectrum is co-ordinated by the International Telecommunication Union, essentially a specialised agency of the United Nations. Spectrum is regulated domestically by each nation-state, but its use is actually co-ordinated by the ITU. And the ITU is a collection of about 190 member states who all agree to come together every 3 or 4 years and review what we call the radio regulations, which is an international treaty on how we use spectrum. And they talk about how have we got enough spectrum allocated to WiFi, for example, or do we need less spectrum for broadcasting? Because the problem is that if everybody’s using particular bands of spectrum in different ways, there’s a risk of interference. 

Kasia Broussalian
Got it. So then explain this new battle over spectrum and what Elon Musk wants to change.

Peggy Hollinger
So the reason why spectrum is back in the news is because we’ve had a rapid development of the new space economy in a region of space known as low Earth orbit. Now, the problem there is that when they’re transmitting signals down to earth, there’s a risk that they might interfere with the signals from those in higher orbits in geostationary orbit. So 20 years ago, when the first wave of low Earth orbit operators attempted to create businesses from that part of space, rules were established at the ITU that said the players in low Earth orbit had to limit the power of their signals. Well, what’s changed now is that Elon Musk now has more than 6,000 satellites in low Earth orbit, and he’s saying, look, these rules limit the capacity that I can actually offer my customers. So you must allow me to transmit at a higher power. So these proposals were first put forward to the international community last November during the World Radiocommunication Conference, and there was a lot of pushback. 

Kasia Broussalian
Yeah. What sort of concerns do people have about his proposals? 

Peggy Hollinger
SpaceX has been able to launch and expand that low Earth orbit broadband constellation more quickly than anyone could have imagined. I mean, just in five short years and now have pushing 7,000 satellites and they’re serving more than 100 countries, dominating broadband communications from space and a critical region of space. So there’s a lot of discomfort about why should we loosen a rule that will make them even more powerful before we even know what the consequences are. 

Kasia Broussalian
So then where do things stand right now when it comes to loosening this rule? 

Peggy Hollinger
Having had their petition sort of kicked down the road at the World Radiocommunication Conference, SpaceX has done what it is entitled to do under its rules. It’s gone to its home market. And it said to the Federal Communications Commission, we’re going to ask you to exercise your rights of sovereignty and to allow us to transmit at a higher power. And by the way, once we proved this, you know, it’ll show the rest of the world that it can be done without harm to the geostationary operators. So if it succeeds, it will put the rest of the international community in a very difficult position and therefore potentially further undermine the business models of the traditional incumbents in geostationary orbit. 

Kasia Broussalian
Peggy Hollinger is the FT’s space industry editor. Thanks, Peggy.

Peggy Hollinger
Thanks a lot.

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Kasia Broussalian
You can read more on all of these stories for free when you click the links in our show notes. This has been your daily FT News Briefing. Make sure you check back tomorrow for the latest business news.