The Ben Mulroney Show - Breaking down the Gaza peace deal -- what's next?

Episode Date: October 14, 2025

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The whole way? The whole way. Welcome back to the Ben Mulrini show, Tuesday, October 14th. Normally we do this week in politics on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, but yesterday was Thanksgiving Monday. So we have a special Tuesday edition of the panel. We're joined by Mike Burns, the CEO of Canada's Valor Games and Marcel Wheater, president of Aurora Strategy Global, also former liberal strategist. And I may say I have a professional relationship with both Marcel and Aurora. Welcome to both of you. Happy Tuesday. Happy Tuesday. Thank you for having

us. Yes, indeed. Marcel, let's start with you. You and I have had many conversations since October 7th. And we've been beaten our heads against the wall. Sometimes it seems. And here we are on what feels like it could be the beginning of a change in tone in tenor, as well as possibly the beginning of peace in that region for the first time in a very long time. How are you feeling in these early days of what is supposed to be a long, drawn-out peace plan? Bitter sweet is how I would describe it. Certainly, I'm thrilled that the 20 hostages have been released. Four of the deceased have also been released.

There's about 20 more that need to come home. You know, the cost of two years of war has been a huge, a huge, I'm lacking the words because it's such an emotional issue. Yeah. It really has affected not only Israel, but the Jewish communities around the world. We've seen protests that we've had to deal with day in and day out. We've seen synagogues being torched in Australia, you know, firebombed in Montreal, in Vancouver, daily protests throughout the world. And, you know, hopefully with this ceasefire and negotiations, it will help bring about resolution. Yeah.

Mike Burns, I'd love to know your sense of, you know, as Israel was. has demonstrated its willingness to sign their name to an accord and then and then keep their word by withdrawing so long as they got their hostages back, which is what they said was the reason for this since the beginning, give us our hostages back and the war ends. They've demonstrated that. I believe that what that also demonstrates is if you believe that genocide, it don't believe Genocide is a crime of intent, and you have to have the intention to want to liquidate a people. They have demonstrated in this willingness to stay true to their word that there was never any intent to liquidate anyone. And to me, that blows such a hole into the useful idiots and their arguments and the chaos that they have sown throughout the Western world for two years.

I wonder your thoughts on the matter. Yeah, listen, I agree with you, Ben. And I never believed for a minute that this should ever been characterized as a genocide. But, you know, look, it was very difficult yesterday to not be emotional watching the hostages being reunited with their families. It was a great thing to see. It was long overdue, and it was great that it finally came to pass. As for the peace plan, though, I think, you know, it's a mix of both. The ceasefire and the hostages release matter, but this plan is still more about headlines right now than hard enforcement.

And until we see who actually governs Gaza and how security is going to be maintained, it's a truce and not transformation. Well, then, Marcel, what do we do then? Because Hamas has been pretty clear that they are not going to put down their arms, that they want to say in the future government of Gaza. I mean, those are non-starters for Israel. Those are non-stars for the Western world. Exactly. It's a non-starter. And in fact, we're seeing, even though Israel was withdrew, the Hamas people are attacking various clans and revenge on some of their own people in Gaza.

So that sends a very clear signal that they can't govern that territory, that it has to be something else. So what do we do? And I'll stick with you for a moment, Marcel, because the U.S. would not have come this far only to throw their hands up and say, oh, well, I guess it's just a ceasefire if Hamas wants nothing. I mean, if Hamas is going to break this deal, then we're back to square one. I can't believe that Donald Trump and his team are going to let that come to pass. I mean, if push comes to shove. No, I agree with you. So what do you think

if Hamas is true to their word and they do not put down their weapons, and that is the impediment to this thing moving forward. Something tells me that that Hamas is going to F around and find out. Well, listen, what was interesting at the signing yesterday with Trump was Turkey, Qatar, and Egypt. And all those three are acting as guarantors, which, you know, in the case of Qatar, they were basically the patrons for Hamas. And so if they are saying to Hamas, you're not going to participate, then that puts them offside. And so I think, you know, if we have this international stabilization force, which is going to be comprised of Arab states and some foreign, then if they come into Gaza and disarm Hamas as is in vision, then I think that's going

to help transform things. Mike Burns, what do we do with the Canada of it all? I was perplexed and said as much on this show when we, as a nation, recognize the state of Palestine before any of the, quote-unquote, preconditions that were laid out by Mark Carney and his government were ever achieved. Still haven't been achieved. And you had Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State, coming out and saying that countries like Canada, I don't believe he named us by name, but he said that countries that did

so only emboldened Hamas, making the job to securing this piece, made it all the harder. So to turn around and hear members of this government kind of take credit and say that they were part of this process kind of rubs me the wrong way yeah i think that was a bit of a stretch i never agreed uh with uh the government uh announcing their uh their recognition of the Palestinian state i thought it was you know a thank you to humas um but look the reality is is Canada's strength isn't military it's going to be moral and diplomatic and I think you know to you know to give Carney some um uh kudos I think look I think he's playing the long game here. And what I mean by that is positioning Canada, hopefully the trusted bridge

between Western allies and our Arab partners. And we certainly have the ability to bring credibility and capacity, even if we can't dictate the outcomes in the Middle East. Marcel, you want to say something? Yeah. And if you recall, when France recognized the state of Palestine, Hamas immediately broke off any further negotiations and prolonged the war even further and more capital. So, you know, the recognition of Palestine didn't move the art sticks forward. They moved them backwards. I agree. And Mike, I take your point. I take that you want to be magnanimous and he claim he's playing the long game. But it was exceptionally short-sighted to recognize a state that is incapable of being a state in any legal way. They are not a state yet. I want the Palestinian people

to live in their own state. I 100% want that. But you got to take the world as it is, not as you wish it would be. And so to me, it was more of a fantasy land, you know, Pinterest board hope that one day it could be a state, or it could be a state today. If we just say it, if enough of us say it, they will be a state. That's nonsense. And if, as you say, it's the case state, Canada's strength is in its diplomacy, then we kind of prove that we don't, we're not seeing the world as it is.

That one thing that we're supposed to have as a strength is not there. We don't have the military and we don't have the foresight to see into the future just a little bit. And so to me, it's a little rich. I mean, we saw a member of the UK cabinet come out and essentially thank America for participating in this as if they were the ones have the conversations. And then you had Mike Huckabee, the American ambassador to Israel, saying that this woman is delusional. And I think there's a little bit of revisionist history going on. amongst these countries that were very quick to recognize a Palestinian state in the hopes of getting on board on the right side of history, Marcel.

Absolutely. They didn't really contribute much. It was a U.S.-led effort. I have to give credit as much as I'm not into doing this to President Trump and to Secretary Rubio and Secretary Haguezeth and to General – sorry, but just last – but anyways. The U.S. diplomatic team with Jared Kushner, etc., were the ones who drove this. There was no outside participation by the U.K. or France or anyone else.

You know, the Americans talk to the Turks, to the Bahraini, to the other Arab countries, and brought them on site. The U.K. didn't. Yep. All right. Well, we're going to take a quick break. And when we come back, we're going to live in the optimistic world where peace is indeed at hand. The question is, what's next? How to rebuild Gaza, how to turn it into that state that Canada seems to want it to be.

Don't go anywhere. This is the Ben Mulroney show. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show. We're talking. This is pretty much an all-gaza, all-piece plan this week in politics. Special Tuesday edition with Marcel Weeder and Marcell-Whor. Mike Burns. Mike, before the break, there was something you wanted to add.

Oh, listen, I just wanted to say, there's an old saying just about success and what I was going to say was success as many authors in defeat is an orphan. And I think that there's a lot of people that are piling on and trying to take credit for what happened over the weekend. Well, what I find interesting is you've got so much buy-in for this plan from so many stakeholders in the Middle East. and you've got, you know, white saviors over here, cosplaying as terrorists.

I'm going to use all the buzzwords. White saviors, cosplaying, and mansplaining why this is not good for the Palestinian people. Justice warriors. Oh, yes, there's social justice. But, of course, this is not good enough for them. It's not good enough for, even though Hamas has agreed to this. I mean, now, there are caveats to what they've agreed to.

But, you know, I look around, I look around what's next. And, you know, when there's an, the opening of a cafe in Gaza called Cafe Nova, that's beautiful, I mean, it's a good looking cafe, but are you telling me that this is, that something like that could even happen, essentially a cafe honoring October 7th. To me, it flies in the face of this idea that everybody in Gaza is, uh, is innocent at the mercy of the bloodthirsty, uh, a death cult. Like, I'm sorry, there, there are, there are a lot of people there who could have, um, that are not as innocent as we would want them to be. I, I don't know, I don't know how else to say it. They are not as innocent as we want them to be. No, exactly that. And the fact is that,

uh, we're seeing, you know, Hamas play out. It's, uh, it's, it's revenge on people, falsely accusing people of being collaborators so that they can get rid of them. Uh, we've seen executions that were filmed and posted on social media. Well, that's the thing, Mike, you know, the videos of the of the murders of innocence shot in the heads in the streets, that in and of itself is disgusting. Not surprising. We know that this is who Hamas is. They've told us as much.

They've shown us as much. But when you see that and you see how many people pull out their phones to record this, they weren't recording it for posterity. they were recording it to put out on social media, which tells me they know that there are people on this side of the ocean who will make excuses for it. They will find a way to turn that into Israel's fault. Yeah, listen, look, Hamas is a death cult. And what we're seeing this weekend's announcement is that they have no regard for their own people. They're now reemerging. And that's why any peace process that leaves them intact is peace in name only.

They have to be removed from this process. And look, that's why Donald Trump, I think, you got to say he's the right, he's, he's the right kind of crazy to be understood by terror. And I mean that respectfully. Like there are people say, oh, he's, he's insane. You know what? That's an insane, that's a type of insane that terrorists understand, right? And because they know he is not messing around.

And I got to think that he is the reason that you've got Qatar willing to play by the rules. They have been an outlier. They have been funding these guys. They are the birthplace and the home of the Muslim Brotherhood. And this is a moment in time where a guy like him, he's the only guy that they would, that they will respect because they believe that he will do what he says he's going to do, Marcel. Well, when you look at, you know, Trump. the green light to Israel to bomb Iran and then participated in taking out some of the nuclear facilities that Iran had. And then when Israel went into Doha in Qatar, that sent a very

clear message. So, you know, having that, I think those two events helped change the course of things and resulted in this. So are we saying, look, obviously we've got to be cynical. We've all followed, we've all followed, seen this script before, this early part of the script before where there's hope and there are handshakes and there are signatures and they're photo ops. And then we've seen everything fall apart. We've seen it happen before, but that doesn't

mean it just because it hasn't happened before, it can't happen now. What is it going to take for Hamas? Are they just posturing right now? Is this their death rattle Mike? Is Donald Trump, are these are the stakeholders in the Middle East going to tell them put down your arms or we're going to or you're not going to see tomorrow.

I mean, is that a realistic hope? Yeah, look, I know obviously like you and others don't trust Hamas at all. Look, if there's going to be success in this region, it's got to start with security and governance and not cement trucks. I absolutely believe that Gaza needs to be demilitarized and locally led by people, the world trust. you're not we're not just rebuilding the runway for the next round of violence yeah Hamas has got to be removed they have to be removed and you're right there has to be there have to be independent third

parties in charge at least temporarily to de-radicalize the youth who have been sold a bill of goods they've been educated the Israelis are born of of demons and animals i mean they they they they're they've been fed they've been fed an indoctrination the likes of which i've never seen before just look at some of the school books that come from UNRWA that have penetrated through the school system, you're absolutely right. And if you've seen some of the videos of kids, you know, four or five years old, you know, wearing headbands of Islamic Jihad and Hamas and holding toy guns, et cetera, it's unbelievable. And anyone who cares about kids, you know, can't accept that sort of indoctrination. Yeah, it's, and then, but that, that, that is,

essential to this. I mean, just as we denotified Germany, and that didn't take nearly as long as it's going to take in Gaza, that is, that is essential to the path moving forward. But there's part of me, guys, that is optimistic. I mean, I want to believe, I'm choosing to believe that the Americans would not go down this path if they didn't have the courage of their convictions and if they didn't know that things might get a little messy before they get clean, Mike? Yeah, listen, like you, I'm cautiously optimistic that this is going to work. The plan is never perfect, but look, after months of four, even an imperfect piece is worth trying. And so, you know, I'm hopeful that, you know, that, you know, we can face the challenges of the Middle East as a global community and turn this thing around.

but it's going to take a lot of commitment and execution in the coming months and years to make this right. Marcel, the final word to you, my friend. Listen, I share Mike's view that I'm cautiously optimistic. We've seen the script before, and hopefully it has a different ending. Yeah. Well, I want to read a couple of texts from some of our listeners. It is so amazing that millions of people across the world have prayed so much for 20 people they never knew and will likely never meet.

It speaks to the humanity that we believe in and the connection that we have to those within our community. There was beauty in the sadness. I mean, the sadness of what was lost, the sadness in the pain that so many have endured, the sacrifice that so many in Israel have had to shoulder, and yet there was joy and celebration that in and of itself is beautiful.

What did someone say? I went to see Adam Sandler on Sunday night. And as soon as I got home, I put on TV. I didn't turn it off until sometime after 5 a.m. As I needed to make sure all the live hostages were safely back in Israel. And there was something, pardon? That was from Jessica. Also, because I'm a, I'm a narcissist.

I love your show and everything you've said since October 7th. Thank you to all of you. And thank you for your honest and raw feedback. To the both of you, I say thank you very much. And here's to many more conversations that we can have that are positive and optimistic in nature. I wish you the very best in this short work week. Canada's oil sands produce the energy the world needs. the benefits that flow to all parts of our country, like hundreds of thousands of jobs in oil and gas

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