Front Burner - The ceasefire debate

Episode Date: November 14, 2023

Demonstrators around the world are calling for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war, as the destruction and death toll in Gaza continues to climb. Meanwhile, some of Israel’s allies, including the United States and Canada, want ‘humanitarian pauses’ in the fighting. Jonathan Guyer, senior foreign policy writer at Vox, explains the difference, and why the calls for a ceasefire are being rejected. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Gaza is becoming a graveyard for children. Hundreds of girls and boys are reportedly being killed or injured every day. Hi, I'm Damon Fairless.

The way forward is clear. A humanitarian ceasefire now. All parties respecting all their obligations under international humanitarian law, now. This means the unconditional release of the hostages in Gaza, now. Antonio Guterres, speaking last week. The UN Secretary General is among those calling for an immediate Israel-Hamas ceasefire. We demand a ceasefire. How many children are supposed to die for us to do something about this? Around the world, hundreds of thousands of protesters have taken to the streets to demand a stop to the conflict. But the question of rapid ceasefire remains controversial, or unimaginable for many others, including U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

Those calling for an immediate ceasefire have an obligation to explain how to address the unacceptable result it would likely bring about hamas left in place with more than 200 hostages with the capacity and stated intent to repeat october 7th again and again and again i don't think there's going to be a general ceasefire it's not that i don't think i think it will hamper the war effort it'll hamper our effort to get our hostages out because the only thing that works on these criminals in Hamas is the military pressure that we're exerting. It's been over a month since Hamas shocked the world with a brutal attack on southern Israel.

According to Israeli officials, the militants killed about 1,400 people and took about 240 hostages. And in the weeks that have followed, Palestinian health authorities say Israeli strikes have killed over 11,000 people in Gaza, including over 4,400 kids, according to Save the Children. With international pressure mounting to stop the civilian bloodshed and for the safe return of the hostages, today we're talking about the possibility

of a ceasefire, why the idea of it is so divisive, and what we can learn from the past. Jonathan Geyer is a senior foreign policy writer at Vox. He joins me now. Hey, Jonathan, thanks so much for coming on. Thank you so much, Damon. Great to meet you. You too. So let's get into it. I'd like to start with the demand for an immediate ceasefire. So other than UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, who else is calling for one? It's been pretty widespread, these calls for a ceasefire among humanitarian groups,

Doctors Without Borders, World Health Organization. Obviously, there have been these massive protests. Hundreds of thousands of people showed up in London over the weekend calling for a ceasefire. Hundreds of thousands of people, many traveling from other parts of the UK, demanding an end to the killing. The week before was Washington, D.C., massive protests. People like the Pope. A lot of people with moral authority are saying ceasefire now. We're also seeing Emmanuel Macron is calling for a ceasefire, one of the first of the G7 leaders. And then, of course, there's activists across the US and across Europe as well. Absolutely. And I think it goes to a kind of interesting paradox, a tragic paradox of this

moment where the Israelis are saying, we're not going to do a ceasefire until the hostages, the 240 or so Israeli Israeli citizens of international countries are released from Hamas strongholds. And Hamas is saying, we're not going to release the hostages until there's a ceasefire. And that's different than the previous rounds of conflict between Israel and Hamas, isn't it? Yeah. I mean, one thing I want to surface is that, you know, there have been Israel-Hamas ceasefires before, and they've sort of worked. We saw one in 2009, 2012, 2014. Fifty long and deadly days of war, and now this. Celebration to usher in another ceasefire, but this one, unlike the others that failed, is meant to stick indefinitely.

And as recently as May 2021, Jake Sullivan, Biden's national security advisor, went over there, worked with Egyptian counterparts, and hammered out a ceasefire. Minister Prime Minister Netanyahu informed me that Israel has agreed to a mutual unconditional ceasefire to begin in less than two hours. The Egyptians have now informed us that Hamas and the other groups in Gaza than two hours. The Egyptians have now informed us that Hamas and the other groups in Gaza have also agreed. Obviously, it didn't last long enough, and these ceasefires kind of last until they don't.

But Israel and Hamas, through indirect negotiations, through partners such as Turkey, Qatar, and Egypt, have historically been able to negotiate and hold ceasefires. I want to get back to that in a bit, but right now I want to go back to the fact that there's this mounting international pressure, this huge loss of life. What's the public explanation for why Hamas and Israel don't seem to be negotiating right now? Look, it's each side, and obviously they're very different. They're asymmetrical size.

One is a country with U.S. backing and a nuclear power. One is a movement that resorts to terrorist tactics and is running one of the most impoverished territories in the world in which, you know, some 11,000 or more people have been killed over the last month. Each side is seeking their most maximalist goals. And I think that's pretty typical for a conflict. But as we're seeing it in real time, obviously, President Biden, staunch supporter of Israel, probably the most important backer of Israel in the world right now because of the leverage that he has, the amount of military aid, over $200 billion of US military aid has gone to Israel over the years. But what President Biden learned from the Obama years when he was vice president is

keep your disagreements with Israel behind closed doors, protect Israel at the United Nations, keep all the disagreements quiet. And that way, it is thought or Biden's perspective is that you can kind of get things done. And I think, unfortunately, the Biden method of hugging Netanyahu close and kind of whispering in his ear doesn't appear to be working. What are the chances of a Gaza ceasefire? So those calls for a ceasefire are growing much louder. Can you give me a sense of what the Israeli public feels about the Israeli government's commitment to continuing the bombardment?

Well, I think it's important to understand that the October 7th attacks are viewed in Israel as existential and that they've totally changed the calculus, the national security thinking of the country. So whereas previously it might have been possible to have these ceasefires with Hamas that hold up and kind of this dangerous equilibrium, this violent, steady state that continues, that's totally out the window now. And I think that's because of Israel's kind of two-stated aims here, which is to eliminate Hamas. Ain't so easy because it's not just a militant organization, but provide social services, has been running this territory. And also to get the hostages back, which, you know, is complicated when you're bombing a

territory where those hostages are held and we don't have a great idea of what's happening. And, you know, at the same time, Israel is a country with a lot of divergent views. So there has been a doubling down in support of the war aims, let's say, but also a huge criticism of Netanyahu as a leader. How did he not see this coming? How is the military so ill-prepared on October 7th? And also, I think one of the most remarkable things has been the peace movement

in Israel, the kind of protesters of Netanyahu's government, some of whom have relatives, friends who were killed or kidnapped on October 7th are saying, we need a ceasefire now. That's the only way forward. There is, though, fairly widespread agreement with the government's rejection of a ceasefire, though, in Israel. Am I right on that? Well, certainly the war cabinet that Netanyahu heads is not considering a ceasefire. But as you mentioned at the top, there is a growing crescendo of international voices. And I think Macron is perhaps the most interesting right now saying there is no military solution to Gaza. And the kind of immense destruction that's happened over the past month or more is not serving Israel's best long-term interests,

let alone obviously Palestinians, the Middle East, the world. I mean, there's no good outcome from this amount of destruction and death. Over the weekend, there were some reports of some progress made in discussions on a potential hostage release. This is something Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu touched on in an interview on NBC's Meet the Press. Is there a potential deal? There could be, but I think the less I say about it, the more I'll increase the chances that it materializes. And it's a result of pressure, military I think the less I say about it, the more I'll increase the chances that it materializes. And it's a result of pressure, military pressure, the extraordinary work that the IDF is doing, putting pressure on the Hamas leadership.

That's the one thing that might create a deal. And if a deal is available, well, we'll talk about it when it's there. We'll announce it if it's achieved. But there's nothing concrete to report about that yet, is there? I haven't heard anything more than kind of grumblings and gossip. But definitely, that is a huge priority for Israelis to get those hostages back. And some analysts raised the question to me whether that's been a priority for Netanyahu because it is necessarily messy. It does involve indirectly dealing with Hamas, which, you know, he has said they are seeking to eliminate. So we have seen the CIA

director, Bill Burns. We've seen the Mossad, the Israeli spy agency director visiting Qatar, which is a known conduit to Hamas' political leadership. So I wouldn't be surprised if there's movement on that, but I don't have any insider info to share. Okay, so let's turn to the U.S. now. So we've heard U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken earlier explain why the U.S. isn't in support of a ceasefire. He says it gives too much space for Hamas to regroup, that it's dangerous. And that actually echoes the kind of things we've heard from people like former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. When I said you could not have a ceasefire, people didn't understand that Hamas would use it for their own purposes.

And then in the last month, we've heard President Biden repeatedly express his support for Israel's right to defend itself in this situation. Israel has the right, and I would add responsibility, to respond to the slaughter of their people. And we will ensure Israel has what it needs to defend itself against these terrorists. That's a guarantee. I guess what I'm curious is, what do people need to understand about the role of the U.S. in this conflict and its relationship and the relationship between the U.S. and Israel right now? So I think one question I had was, you know, Secretary Clinton, when she was in the Obama administration, helped negotiate one of these ceasefires in 2012. So I was kind of wondering, okay, what's different now? And why didn't that ceasefire or these previous ones work? And sort of what I came to, which is none of these Hamas-Israel

ceasefires were tied to a bigger political framework, a political horizon that could lead to a two-state solution. So what we're seeing now is the Biden administration in its social media postings and in its public remarks is very overtly saying, we're going to need an independent, viable, sovereign Palestinian state at some point very soon. That's the only way this conflict is resolved. And frankly, the US is the only superpower that has the heft to bring the parties to the table and make this work. But how we get there, I don't think anyone within the United Nations, the amount of military aid, the deep connections between U.S. lawmakers and the Congress and Israel, it's really widespread. And basically, public opinion in the U.S. has been remarkably pro-Israel for generations. So

that's something we're starting to see change right now, not only on college campuses, but among voters all over. A new poll by the Associated Press-Norke Center for Public Affairs Research shows nearly half of Democrats disapprove of how Biden is handling the Israel-Palestine conflict. And we've got some new reporting now that Muslim American voters in multiple swing states are threatening to vote against the president next year due to his handling of the situation in Gaza. Muslim Americans voted...

There's real concerns that the policies that Joe Biden is pursuing that are so staunchly pro-Israel, in fact, undermining all sorts of aspects of what Palestinians, Arabs, and Muslim Americans are thinking right now is going to be a huge detriment to him for-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization. Empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections.

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That's because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. So we're not seeing a call for a ceasefire in the U.S. and the G7 nations apart from France, but the G7 nations, including Canada, have called for humanitarian pauses. And Israel has now said that it would pause fighting in the Gaza Strip for a few hours a day. So can we just kind of break that apart?

How is a humanitarian pause different from a ceasefire? Sure. I mean, we don't know exactly what the Biden administration means by humanitarian pause. I don't think they've actually defined it as of yet. But the idea, I mean, I think humanitarian pause maybe is more akin to a humanitarian corridor or a safe zone, less comprehensive. It's sort of a pause in the fighting. And activists partially cynically and partially, I think, with some accuracy, as well as humanitarian experts and leaders of

some of these aid groups are saying, what, you're going to let parts of Gaza get more fuel and food only to be bombed again? And so, you know, people will be killed on full stomachs. Pretty tragically dark, but I think that's the stakes of this moment. And much of the world, especially the Arab and Muslim world, are looking on just with absolute horror and disgust at U.S. policy because a humanitarian corridor, at least according to the heads of aid organizations who I've been briefed by, say that is just wholly insufficient. Right. And so we mentioned earlier that French President Emmanuel Macron has since become, you know, the first G7 leader to call for a ceasefire. I think this is the only solution we have. This ceasefire.

Because it's impossible to explain. We want to fight against terrorism by killing innocent people. Here in Canada, where polls suggest the majority of Canadians support either a full ceasefire or temporary cessation of the hostilities, our foreign affairs minister, Melanie Joly, agreed on the need, I'm going to quote here, she agreed on the need to work for a ceasefire, though she didn't really explicitly call for a ceasefire now. So I'm just curious, more broadly, what kind of impact do you think this kind of international pressure will have? I mean, sometimes the pressure works, sometimes it doesn't. I think it's interesting to think about why someone like Macron, why so many international UN agencies, aid groups are calling for a ceasefire.

for a ceasefire. And I think there's three main reasons people are calling for a ceasefire kind of strategically beyond the sort of catastrophe facing Palestinians in Gaza and the humanitarian crisis. The first is the risk to the hostages. We just don't know where they are, and they may be coming under bombardment. The second is that it's starting to look a lot like collective punishment. It doesn't look proportional. So it's a real quagmire. And I think third and, you know, hugely importantly is the potential knock-on effects of an ongoing conflict. Not only that Hezbollah to the north in Lebanon could start a second front, but the potential unrest and protests against governments like Jordan and Egypt that are seen as complicit and as

U.S. partners in this conflict, I mean, you could really see another Arab Spring-like mass movement of protests the longer this conflict goes on. So, you know, each day, and now I believe it's 38, 39 days, but each day that this conflict goes on, there's a real potential that it spills even further out of control. And that's not to undermine the tremendous catastrophe on its own terms that Palestinians in Gaza are facing. There's another kind of sense of volatility too, like looking to the West, the G7 nations, at least there's a sense that within the US or Canada, G7, even talking about a ceasefire is a lightning rod. Why is that?

Well, I mean, these are countries, the United States and Canada, are so pro-Israel. It's sort of in the political DNA that a whole part of the conversation has often been missing from policy deliberations. And I think we're seeing a massive sea change right now, partially on college campuses, but also in terms of in the U.S., lawmakers' phones are literally off the hook getting calls from constituents. I think the images themselves of what's happening in Gaza are so attention-grabbing, it's hard to ignore. So, you know, there is this longstanding pro-Israel component. It's something that's shaped President Joe Biden's worldview for as long as he's been in office. And I think it's being exposed that he's somewhat out of touch with younger generations who are clamoring for a policy that's more reflective of U.S. values. We kind of mentioned this briefly earlier, but I kind of want to get

into it a bit now. Let's talk about what we can learn from the past. So what do people need to understand about the way Israel and Hamas have previously fought? So before we get into how they fought, I think there's a kind of acknowledgement that needs to be made that although Israel and Hamas are kind of sworn enemies, Israel has kind of relied on Hamas to administer the occupied Gaza Strip. So it's a kind of, you know, what one analyst calls a violent equilibrium where, you know, even if it's indirect negotiations, Israel and Hamas are kind of always in touch in some way. Typically, you know, these conflicts begin with, you know, Hamas sending rocket fire into Israel. Israel retaliates. This happened right before President Barack Obama took office in 2009 and Condoleezza Rice. Then Bush's secretary of state negotiated a ceasefire.

You know, usually it's third parties, countries like Qatar and Turkey and especially Egypt that play really big roles here. They have a big stake in making sure that there is diplomacy. But what's really different this time are the hostages. And I think that makes the entire calculus that Israel is pursuing here incredibly different, that they can't go back to the status quo of indirectly negotiating a ceasefire with the U.S. and Egypt and other parties' help, that this is just categorically different right now. So there really is, to some extent, not quite the same blueprint, so to speak. So there really is, to some extent, not quite the same blueprint, so to speak. Exactly. And also the scale and the scope of the Israeli military operation are just much larger than any time previously. The longest one of these Israel-Hamas wars was about 50 days in 2014.

And we're kind of barreling toward that at this point. But the scale of death of over 11,000 Palestinians in Gaza being killed is just extraordinary. And it also kind of throws out some of the tenets of the old playbook. So it may make answering this question hard though, but I'm curious about if we look at the de-escalations in those previous conflicts, how have those come about? What's been the driving force of that? And is that applicable at all in this scenario? I mean, I think at the end of the day, the driving force of these previous ceasefires

was just that more violence begets more violence. And at some point, the civilians on each side, especially civilians in Gaza, Palestinians, take the worst of it. I don't see that playing out right now from the Israeli perspective. And it's sort of a shocker because it's hard to look at the images of hospitals under fire, of babies in NICUs, you know, without proper medical supplies and not be totally devastated. You mentioned the importance of third parties,

particularly Egypt and the U.S. in the past. Presumably, if we're going to see a de-escalation, that will be how it comes about this time? I think so. I mean, one interesting thing to surface is that Israel has been making these normalization deals, these so-called peace deals with countries like Morocco, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain. In recent years, this was a Trump policy that President Biden adopted, which is we don't have to solve the question of Palestine, but Israel and some Arab states can kind of get along. I want to first thank President Trump for his extraordinary efforts to expand peace, to bring peace to Israel and the peoples of the Middle East. And those countries have been awfully quiet right now.

But there is a big role to be played by Saudi Arabia, which was thought to be the next country that might normalize relations with Israel. Dozens of leaders from Arab and Muslim countries gathered in Riyadh on Saturday for a joint Islamic Arab summit to discuss the Israel-Gaza war. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler, hosted the summit as the kingdom has sought to exert its influence to press the United States and Israel for an end to hostilities in Gaza. And I think there's a real opportunity or a crisis tunity here that maybe Saudi Arabia would hold out,

you know, dangle out the option of normalizing relations with Israel, but only in the sense of there being a kind of bigger political framework, something that results in a Palestinian state, something that really changes the game. Now, that's a bit pie in the sky at the moment. I think everyone is sort of among eight organizations and leaders like Macron are saying, we need a ceasefire before we even think about anything else. But the entire game has changed since October 7th. And it does mean that other countries, probably Saudi Arabia, may step into the fray and provide some creative policy options going forward. So, Jonathan, you mentioned that some of these previous ceasefires haven't been successful largely because Israel and Hamas haven't had a larger political framework to work towards.

And so then they slip back into violence. So I guess I'm curious, have there been rumblings about what a post-ceasefire plan might look like in this scenario? I think we've been hearing every sort of trial balloon floated from international peacekeeping mission to the Palestinian Authority, which has only been overseeing occupied West Bank, now taking over Gaza, to some kind of multinational force. So I don't know what that immediate day after is, but what I was really struck by is what one analyst said, which is there may not be a day after in Gaza. I mean, just the scale of destruction and death is totally altering the fabric of that society. So as we start thinking about the day after and what it's going to look like, it's also important to think about what's happening right now. And that's why so many groups have been calling for a ceasefire. Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and former Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad say that in order to go ahead, parties have got to pursue a two-state solution

once this war ends. This has been echoed by the U.S. and here in Canada. But let's go back to October 6th, the day before the attack. How close were we to a two-state solution at that point before this? So the pursuit of an independent Palestinian state was just not a priority of the Biden administration over the past almost three years. And it was something that Trump just totally threw in the trash bin. And there haven't really been active negotiations between Israel and Palestinians since 2014 under Obama. So, you know, this was pretty much frozen.

Having said that, everybody knows what this would look like. I mean, this has been the most worked over by negotiators and experts and every cartographer and demographer and every possible expert has worked together to make a pretty detailed, nuanced plan. But the lack of political will and the lack of US presidents and world leaders using leverage to say, hey, let's make this happen, have meant that, you know, for decades, it's just been sitting dormant. So again, I'm asking you to look into the crystal ball, because clearly we don't know how this war will end.

But once it does, how likely do you think a two-stage solution is? God, I mean, I think this is probably the most complex and important question. And obviously something I'll be reporting out as I talk to current and former officials this week. But it's one of these kind of catch-22s where it seems like it is, as far as people can say, one of the only viable outcomes for the Israel-Palestine conflict, unless there's a kind of single state with equal rights across the entire territory, which has a huge amount of critics, but maybe is a likely outcome. It's something that U.S. policymakers for over a generation have worked on. The contours of a two-state solution are immensely clear. You have the expertise. It's just the lack of a political will.

So I could imagine that if the political will was mobilized, if President Biden, who appears to be taking the front seat in terms of the nitty gritty day-to-day policymaking of this war, if he were to really say, this is what we're going to do, I mean, I think the president can move mountains. And it is complex and requires the buy-in of a whole lot of parties in addition to Israel and Palestine. But if you look at the alternative, it's more war. All right, Jonathan, thanks so much. I really appreciate you taking time to chat about this. Pleasure. Really great to be here today. Great to be here today.

All right, that's all for today. I'm Damon Fairless. Thanks for listening to FrontBurner. I'll talk to you tomorrow. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.