The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - After the Hostage Rescue, Does the Gaza Situation Change?

Episode Date: June 10, 2024

Four hostages were rescued from Hamas over the weekend by Israeli special forces, but does that change the situation in Gaza at all?  In fact, does it force an even longer war? Dr Janice Stein has her regular Monday analysis on this and on the Ukraine-Russia war where things may be about to change. Plus the latest on elections in India and South Africa.

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You are just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge. The hostage rescue operation. Does it change the Gaza situation at all? That's coming right up. And hello there. Welcome to Monday. Peter Mansbridge here with The Bridge, our Monday episode. As always, Dr. Janice Stein will be joining us in a few moments to talk about the latest situation in the Middle East, to talk about the latest situation in Ukraine, and a couple of other important notes that have happened in the last week or so. We want to touch base on those as well.

But first, some housekeeping, as we say, on a Monday morning, as we launch a new week of the bridge. And, you know, only two weeks to go before our summer break. So there's a few things we want to get in order. One of them is the question of the week for this week. And it's pretty straightforward. It goes along with some of the ideas that we had earlier in the year with the question of the week,

looking for certain Canadian things that, you know, operate for you anyway. They are important to you. Important on a kind of a lighter vein, right? It's not like some of the weighty issues we deal with every week, but, you know, we've had your favorite vacation spot to go to, your favorite book, et cetera, et cetera. This one is along those lines.

What's your favorite Canadian song of all time? So how are we going to describe that and define that? Is it written by a Canadian? Is it sung by a Canadian? Those are kind of the two important elements, right? Written or sung, or preferably both. So there you go. There's your question of the week.

What's your favorite Canadian song of all time? You know, the one you'll be humming or singing in the car when you're driving around on your holidays this year, if you're taking holidays this summer. So the rules of the game are pretty simple. Get your entry in before 6 p.m. Eastern time on Wednesday. All right, 6 p.m. Eastern time Wednesday. So you've got a couple of days.

Remember to include your name, your location you're writing from in the country, or in the world. What's that favorite Canadian song of all time for you? Keep your answers short. You don't have to go along with this.

It's pretty straightforward. And therefore, we can get as many in of these as possible. Favorite Canadian song of all time. Wednesday, 6 p.m. Eastern Time. Name, location, keep it short. You can write to themansbridgepodcast at gmail.com. themansbridgepodcast at gmail.com. themansbridgepodcast at gmail.com. Tomorrow's program, Stephen Mayer, author of The Prince,

the new book on Justin Trudeau. He'll be joining us for his thoughts on his book, what it says about the person who is Prime Minister of Canada at the moment. So you'll want to listen to that. But let's get to today's topic and today's guest. As always on Mondays, Dr. Janice Stein from the Monk School, University of Toronto joins us. And there's lots on the platter for today, but I want to let you know something that's important contextually.

Dr. Stein's traveling this week and I think next week as well. So trying to get time with her is tricky. So this interview we did yesterday for today's program. And there's one thing, significant thing, that's changed between the time we did the interview and airing it now. And that is Benny Gantz, who is a member of the Israeli War Cabinet,

who had threatened to resign, or had threatened to make a statement that seemed to indicate he was going to be stepping away. On Saturday, he postponed that. So we were in that sort of interim period when we did the interview. But I was going to just edit out Janice's answer, but I don't think that would be helpful because there's some pretty good context in her answer. Clearly it was a postpone, not a cancellation.

So the likelihood of it was still going to happen, the question is, what impact would it have? And so people are still debating that today. But at the time that I asked Janice about it, he had not resigned at that point. So if you can keep that in mind, everything else is fine. In fact, it's a really good discussion on a number of really important points because things are happening on both the main stories that we've been covering for the last year with Dr. Stein and that of course the Middle East and the situation in Ukraine with Russia. So

that's enough from me. Let's get to our conversation with Dr. Janice Stein. Here we go. So we are in need of the Dr. Janice Stein analytical mind here because it's been another week of developments on both the big stories that we've been covering, Israel-Hamas and Ukraine-Russia. But let's start on the Israel-Hamas situation. And I need some guidance in what to take away

from what's happened in the last couple of days. You have an Israeli hostage rescue operation that seems to have gone right in terms of the target hostages for them. They got them all out and safely. But in the wake of that, there are, depending on who you believe, somewhere between 100 and a couple of hundred Palestinians who were killed. So, you know, what are we supposed to make of that? Big picture, I think this makes a ceasefire deal harder rather than easier. So it's a local boost

for Netanyahu at home and for Israeli public opinion, and you could see that. It tells you a lot, Peter, about what's happening inside Gaza. If we pause for just a moment to unpack that story. Where were these hostages? Inside a refugee camp, right? Nusrat, guarded. There was commando-style raids. As soon as it became apparent that there were Israeli special forces on the ground, Hamas opened fire.

So there's a capacity still to track and open fire in an organized way. The civilian casualties, as you said, are large for this kind of operation. Because what happened once Hamas started to fire, helicopters came in, and Hamas had the capacity to use missiles, anti-aircraft missiles of low range against these helicopters. That tells me really two big things. There is still organized capacity on the part of Hamas to respond. The stories about Hamas being embedded in and among civilians, accurate in this case. Hamas's willingness to use human shields, accurate. And to open fire in the middle of a civilian community, accurate.

And all of this, in a sense, works against a ceasefire right now. An empowered Netanyahu, a feeling of success inside Israel, a lifting of the mood, and a story of organized capability inside central Gaza, which was presumably cleared before, not supported by the facts. So in a strange way, it's emboldened both sides. That's right. It's emboldened both sides. And that's why I think we've taken a step back. And, you know, if we need any evidence of this, Benny Gantz had scheduled a press conference

for Saturday night to announce that he was leaving the War Cabinet, something that members of his own party, he heads the second largest one in that opposition coalition, had pushed and pushed and pushed. The press conference was scheduled. This news broke yesterday morning, Saturday morning, rather, inside Israel. He postponed his conference. So the militants inside Israel, Hamas itself on the other side, emboldened, as you rightly said.

On the Gantz situation, postponing is not the same as canceling. No, it is not. And the reasons he gave for finally walking away from this government were, we need a deal on the hostages. That is the most important thing. The number one priority has to be rescue these hostages. What will come later will come later. All kinds of ambiguous language. Well, when you pull off this kind of operational success, which is hard to do, it is hard to do. It's interesting.

They had this intelligence for weeks. You know, they built mock-ups. They trained for weeks to get these four hostages out. But all in all, Israel's rescued seven. In the first negotiation, seven. That's a small number. In the first deal, which was much easier because it was women and children, and those were a liability for Hamas but 100 were released

but again this says to the hardliners we can do this we can do this we've got we've got the organized capability and so it's because the issue that he was going to resign on, there's now another story in the public. This issue of how they trained for this particular operation, I guess that's not surprising. I mean, we've seen that happen for the bin Laden thing. When the Americans got bin Laden, there was weeks, if not months, of planning once they got the tip, once they were somewhat confident that he was in this place in Pakistan.

On this situation, there's upwards of another 100 hostages possible. There's great fear that many of them are dead, but we're still talking 100 to 130 other hostages. You know, who knows how many of these operations are being planned as we speak, perhaps, but they're obviously in small numbers. If they knew where 20 or 30 of them were, they would have probably done that first. But, you know, who knows where, I mean, this is all speculation.

But I do want to ask you one thing about hostages, because I remember when, back in the fall, you talked about and others talked about at the same time, that, you know, be careful here, they're not, it's quite possible that they're not all hailed by Hamas. Yeah. There are different groups, you know, within Hamas, and there are different groups outside of Hamas that could be holding these hostages.

You never hear that talked about anymore. No, I think it's still accurate. I think it's still accurate. I think it's absolutely accurate. And the last time we heard about that, Peter, was just a few months ago when these ceasefire, endless ceasefire negotiations were going on and they got close because there are these moments, you know, it's approach avoidance. You get close, an obstacle comes up, you pull back. When they got close, Hamas said, we don't know where all the hostages are. Well, that's cold war, Islamic jihad. Other small groups have some, and we don't know exactly where they are. And that's why we don't know

how many are dead or alive. I think that's very much the fact. I'm also not surprised that the first group that they would actually launch an operation to get would be held by Hamas, because it's more organized. And paradoxically, it's easier to get intelligence. So this intelligence had to have come from prisoners, from people that were captured in the fighting. There's no way you get this kind of granular intelligence unless it's from forces that operate on the ground, take prisoners and interrogate the prisoners and with everything that means, frankly.

This is a hard and brutal kind of game that goes on. But you wouldn't get this kind of intelligence otherwise, and you're just more likely to get it on Hamas operations, because they're bigger. It's too early to tell what kind of shape these four are in, other than the fact they're saying, the Israeli officials are saying, they're all in good condition. They look in good condition. Yeah.

They did not look thin, Peter. I was really surprised. And they didn't look, I mean, clearly they were happy to be reunited with their families. We get that. But they seemed okay. We're not doctors and we can't tell these things. But it's going to be interesting as their story comes out, if does come out about the way they were treated

and the way they were handled you know i know what you're saying because particularly when i look at the young men um their muscles didn't look wasted which is what you would think um they would look like after eight months of being out. And you know all the stories of what POWs can do, how they can walk around a room for hours and hours and hours in order to keep fit. And these were all young men. One of them was over 40.

The other two in their 20s, security guards. So even granted that they would make a terrific effort to stay in good shape, I was still struck by that. Now, I think the stories will come out. They always do. They leak and we'll know more. And that plays both ways, right? As you think about the next steps, the argument the hostage families have been making, time's running out, time's running out, time's running out, it's desperate. People will die. And so we have to put the hostages ahead of everything else. When you see, particularly the men,

looking like they were able to cope. That also makes it less urgent to reach a deal on the hostages, no matter what the price, frankly. From everything we know from what the Americans are saying, of those 130 that you talked about, Peter, more than a third are dead. And so the conversations are all around returning hostages and returning bodies. That's what the Americans are saying based on what they know. And it gets, you know, as you just mentioned a few moments ago,

it gets confusing when it's unclear as to who's holding whom. That's right. That's right. It has to be worrying for Hamas, too, Peter. It was good intelligence. You know, if you look at this whole terrible story since October, one of the big failures has been getting really good intelligence. Right from the beginning, there were intelligence failures. There were operational intelligence failures.

You know, how many times have we heard senior Hamas leaders, where is Yahya Sinwar? And the feeling was, well, we know where he is. Well, in fact, nobody knows where he is. So if this has to worry Hamas, somebody who is very closely connected to Hamas broke or spoke. It's one way or the other. Intelligence is a tricky thing. broke or spoke. It's one way or the other. Intelligence is a tricky thing, and assuming you're getting it, you know, can sometimes lead you down the wrong path. I mean, these four were not in tunnels.

They were underground. They were above ground. And from every indication is they've been above ground all along in an area where, you know, as you said, in central Gaza that they thought they'd cleared. Yeah. In buildings that were in a refugee camp, frankly, in adjacent buildings. And I can understand why the female was above ground. Interesting that they would keep, especially those two young men in their 20s, those are the highest value prisoners that you get, that they were above ground and together.

So what does that tell you? Are they having problems coordinating, finding security people to guard these. They were guarded. There were firefights with the guard. She was guarded, and they fought their way through that. And the fire was returned. That's why you had so many casualties. This was an all-out firefight on the ground between the commandos and Hamas fighters.

That's really what happened there. And clearly a lot of women and children got caught in the crossfire through this as well. Okay, last point on this story. Is anybody listening to the Americans and others at this point as a result of what has happened in the last couple of days?

Look, I think there's two groups that need to listen here, right? There's the right-wing coalition of Netanyahu has two parts, as we've said, the religious and the nationalists. The religious have given him carte blanche, go make a deal for the hostages. So there's a split in that coalition. And

interestingly enough, the leader of the opposition whose goal is to unseat Netanyahu and finally get rid of him from the Israeli political whose goal is to unseat Netanyahu and, you know, finally get rid of him from the Israeli political spectrum, has promised him a deal that he can stay in office for a year, that he will not move against him if he reaches a deal on the hostage. So we're talking about now a tiny slice across the spectrum that is not listening to the United States.

Let me put it to you that way on the Israeli side. You know, Hamas is just harder to read. It seems like there are those in the political wing, especially those in Doha, that are listening, that want a deal. But they have to reach all the way back in. And Sinwar has to approve. The Americans put the pressure on in the last week, and they put the pressure on the Qataris. The Qataris said, yet again, we will expel Hamas.

If you don't make a deal, we'll seize your assets. That really matters to Hamas. It's always follow the money, frankly, when you look at how organizations like us manage to buy the military equipment, the guns that they need, you have to follow the money. So the pressure ramped up and you got this you got this theater, frankly, all week. Well, we're looking at this with great interest and it's very positive. But what are the Israelis doing? Well, Netanyahu is not going to be the first one to say no. And that ball was bouncing all week until this rate, which just changed the channel, frankly, for both, I think.

Okay. I think we're further back than we were last week, Peter. All right. We're going to change the channel on stories now, too, because I want to go to the Russia-Ukraine story for a moment. Last week, you know, the world's attention was focused on Normandy for the 80th anniversary of the D-Day celebrations. And, you know, I've been to a lot of those over the years, and they're always emotional and they're always impressive. And this one was you

know quite possibly the most so it was so it was you know they they started really organizing these well well with reagan on the 40th in 84 and it was spectacular you know and he gave a great speech and a great visual backdrop uh all of that at om Beach. But this one, the visual that has caught a lot of people's attention, and not surprisingly, was how Zelensky was there. Yeah. Invited by, you know, the different allies who landed on the beach that day, the Americans, the Canadians, the British, and different regiments from Poland and elsewhere

who were involved in that day as well. But the Polish resistance. Now, Zelensky was, you know, was cheered loudly, and partly because the veterans embraced him. They saw in him what they were fighting for 80 years ago, right? And there was an incredible scene there, in one particular case with one veteran veteran with Zelensky.

And if anybody needed, you know, some reason to be feeling better about things in the last little while, it's been Zelensky. But this comes also at a time when, you know, I know that we have suggested more than a few times in the last couple of months that things were going more Russia's way than they were going Ukraine's way. But there's starting to be a turn somewhat in some of the reporting on that now. I read a piece by Bloomberg over the weekend.

The money now is starting to flow coming in from the states. And the Russians have not made the gains, and you've mentioned this actually in the last month or so not made the gains that they were had been hoping to make and things were starting to turn around they're even russia's now having to you know set up barges to blockade around crimea because they're worried about what might happen there um so are is something happening on that friend i mean are things now starting to in this this this war that's been back and forth and and and overanalyzed and underanalyzed at different

times is it starting now to the potential that it's swinging back in ukraine's favor i think there is you know just before i go to that i i just want to you know echo what you said peter so i watched the ceremonies and there was that moment with the veterans these veterans are 100 and close to 100 one side or the other, right? And there's a feeling this is maybe the last D-Day celebration for so many of them. And to see the embrace of Zelensky and political leaders spoke about it, which was interesting.

The tone of this one was so different because Biden, but not only Biden, McConnell too, which is so interesting, drew a thread which connected D-Day to Ukraine's fight. And so brought it into today in a very relevant living way. These fights are not over

with the argument they made. There's the same battles going on. To the extent that Western political leaders can make that believable, that makes it much easier to continue to support Ukraine, which is an ongoing struggle in the democratic world in Europe and in North America. So I think even those visuals that you talked about, they're an important part of the story. Now, on the battlefield, things are changing,

but in a moderate way, all right? So what's happening is it is a desperate fight for Ukraine to stabilize the lines. That's really what's going on now. It's defensive. The equipment is starting to get to the front line. That's what really matters. The artillery, the shells, that's beginning to get there.

The drones, which is domestically produced, Ukraine has been able to ramp up. And as you and I have been saying now, there was a window here for Russia, and they could not exploit it, which tells you something about the capacity of the Russian army to take advantage and literally break through lines and move forward. They're simply not well enough trained. They're not mobile enough, and there's not enough leadership lowered down the ranks because that's what you need in a highly mobile army.

They simply don't have it. I think the moment here was one that we might want to talk about for just a minute, was when Blinken went to Ukraine and came back and said to the White House, look, you've got to authorize the use of longer range missiles over the border into Russia where troops are massing. Biden has not wanted to do that right from the beginning. He did finally, and they did it in the narrowest way. You can use these missiles just over the border from Kharkiv where the Russian troops were massing. And two or three of those attacks happened with U.S. missiles. And what did Putin do? Which is always the barometer.

Started a rattle of the nuclear sword. This last 10 days have been one after the other. He said to the European countries, you know, some of you are very densely populated. That's a veiled threat. You are an easy target. He warned again about fatal consequences if the United States allowed its weapons to be used against Russian territory. When do we get this from Vladimir Putin? When he feels the tide is turning, when he's worried that Ukraine and Western allies may be able to get a battlefield advantage.

That happened in October 22. That rhetoric went away until June 24 when it came back. That tells me he's aware of the fact this window's closed. The United States, France, Britain, and Olaf Scholz following in behind as long as the United States is there first. Olaf Scholz and Germany will come in behind. He's aware of the fact that NATO has solidified what it's going to do. And I think those ceremonies at D-Day were the concrete evidence of that story, frankly. So maybe Putin was more serious than we gave him credit for in the last couple of weeks when he hinted at talks.

Yeah. Yeah. I think that's right. Because he saw his army. You know, he does follow what the army does. Very interesting for an authoritarian like Putin. One of the biggest risks when you have that kind of leadership style is nobody tells you anything you don't want to hear because they're afraid. Not only afraid for their political life, they're afraid for their life, frankly, so

they don't give you bad news. He's gotten the bad news on the battlefield right from the beginning. And he does know what's happening. Generals tell him. And he must have some innate capacity to read these battlefield maps because he gets the message. And those hints and talks were coming because that was these last two, three months when the money was not flowing to Ukraine, and more important, the weapons. That was the moment for the Russian army, and they couldn't make it happen.

So where are we biggest picture? I think the Ukrainians in all likelihood will stabilize those defensive lines, but no counteroffensive, Peter. That story of pushing the Russians all the way back, the Ukrainian army doesn't have the capacity. The Russian story, we're going to conquer it all, don't have the capacity.

You're getting closer to the moment where neither side is optimistic about what they can do in the foreseeable future. That's when talks happen. That's when you cut a deal. That's when you cut a deal. We were just saying they're not there yet in Israel and between Israel and us because events.

But it's getting closer between Ukraine and Russia. I saw Putin was trying to play the political card like he's a Democrat by claiming that Zelensky doesn't have the moral authority to govern because he's gone past his term limit for this particular term and needs to have an election, whereas, in fact, there is a rule in Ukraine that if you're in a state of war, the election gets delayed, which is the process they're in now. And that's not unusual.

I mean, I think the same thing even applies here. Didn't we extend the parliament's term in the First World War? We sure did. We sure did. You got, what, six years or something instead of... That's right. And in the United Kingdom, in World War II, right? Yeah.

You very rarely hold elections in the middle of that kind of war. Just imagine with the artillery shells flying, how do you get frontline soldiers the opportunity to vote? So this is normal practice. And, you know, where did the pressure come on Zelensky, by the way, to hold the elections? When the counteroffensive failed. That's where, you know, Pereshenko and others, you know, the opposition

said, okay, this is not working. This is our chance. Once the line stabilizes, we're not going to hear much of that, Peter, inside Ukraine. That will diminish. Okay. We're going to take our break because we've got two things in the what are we missing category that big ones big ones that we want to talk about but we'll take this quick break be right back after this and welcome back you're listening to The Bridge, the Monday episode. That means Dr. Janice Stein is with us from the Munk School. We've talked about Russia and Ukraine. We've talked about Israel and the Mosque.

And now we're into the what are we missing? And there were a couple of big stories, as Janice said, in the last week. What do you want to do first, India? Because that came as a bit of a shocker. Well, let's talk about India, the biggest democracy in the last week. What do you want to do first, India? Because that came as a bit of a shocker. Well, let's talk about India, the biggest democracy in the world, the fastest growing, the largest population. It's got it all. Okay.

And so they had an election, and we assumed, everybody was assuming that this was going to be the walk in the park for Modi, that he'd have another majority government. Well, here he is now having had to put together kind of a coalition of sorts uh to continue governing what happened well it's an amazing story isn't it um and and anybody who uh just to to totally divert the conversation for one moment anybody who says what's going to happen in the U.S. election in November, I think you and I will both say election campaigns matter. They really do.

They matter over and over again. And that's, in a sense, the Modi story here. When in, all the polls suggested he was going to consolidate his power. What really happened here, two things. One, this is a very authoritarian leader. And let's talk politics for just one minute. So controlling of the party structure that he actually, you know, put his fingers down to the constituency level

in some states and pick candidates. So not a good story, as we know in Canada, when you do that, right? And so even some of his own allies were not happy and didn't make the kind of all-out effort because their own local favorites were not happy and didn't make the kind of all-out effort because their own local favorites were not chosen. It was a bit of a sigh of relief, even with his own party, because there was a fear that he was becoming so all-powerful that he would have total control of the parties as well as the country.

That's number one. So parties matter too. Rahul Gandhi, who's the leader of the Indian National Congress, learned his lesson too. So he did, I think, two or one really important thing in this election campaign. Leave aside the messaging and the walks across the country, which, you know, harken back to the story of India's independence. He made deals with regional parties and he didn't run candidates against these regional parties. So, you know, we, again, have we ever done this in Canada? Well, liberal candidates have occasionally backed out of NDP ridings and vice versa in the effort to avoid splitting the vote.

That's what Gandhi did for the first time. He persuaded his colleagues, don't run in those ridings, and crafted a coalition. I think there are 20 individual parties inside the Congress Party, which Gandhi now leads. And they won big in powerhouse states like Uttar Pradesh, which is the largest, most powerful state, has 80 seats in the Indian parliament. He doubled his seats. Now, again, you know, he's far short of a majority and he's not about to displace Modi anytime soon.

But what, you know, what's the story that everybody's taking away? Modi humbled. Right? Modi humbled. That iron grip that he had over that party is now going to splinter as people, especially at the political level, sense an opportunity here. You know, Gandhi finally delivers. Well, does he really?

You know, he's still far away from majority, but the story, finally, this, you know, the great grandson of this dynasty is delivering. So the momentum is with him. And the biggest story, democracy has roots in India. You push the authoritarian behavior too far, that diverse, spicey country is just going to push back at you. That's the good, big news big news story i think in a year where democracies are not doing well okay so we got south africa who's the other one that's an absolutely amazing story i think um you know um cyril ramaphosa who just you know uh replaced him after a bitter power struggle inside the African National Congress.

It's an interesting story because he campaigned on good financial management, ending corruption after Jacob Zuma, himself a billionaire investor. And it's hard to understand how a career politician becomes a billionaire investor. But we don't really have answers to that one. But it's nevertheless the case. But under the ANC, economic disparities have widened, frankly. You know, the poor element of Black voters who are the backbone of the Congress party have done less well. There was a feeling that there was still corruption

inside the party. And two parties really came out of this, both astonishing to me in many ways. And you couldn't write this script if you and I were trying to write it. The first one to come back here was Jacob Zuma. And look, does this sound familiar to you? Criminally charged, served two months in jail, you know, for contempt of court, for refusing to testify.

Campaigns on a story of I am a victim of Cyril Ramaphosa. Campaigns in the heartland, you know, of areas where he's always been strong and wins. His party comes in third. And campaigns, by the way, on old ANC themes. Nationalization of land and redistribution. The poor are the principal. These are our backbone, and these are people who we have to help. But this is coming from Jacob Zuma, who enriched himself,

there's no question, at the expense of poor voters. The other party that comes in second, so look at the coalition partners that Ramaphosa is now going to have to cooperate with, is it's the Democratic Party, which is the former party. Let me put it this way. It's white-led. It is the only party, South Africa, that has a white leader. Many of the black leaders who are joined in coalition in that party,

the Democratic Alliance, have left over the years. He's campaigning on good financial management. He came in second. So Ramaphosa, to build out this coalition now, and let's just say the ANC dropped 18%, that's a big drop, went from 58% to 40%. That's not a small loss. And to build a coalition, he's got to make a deal,

either with the Democratic Alliance, run by John Steenhuysen, who campaigned on the fact that he would never join in coalition with them the day after, was at the table talking about it. Or Jacob Zuma, who is banned from parliament. The high court in South Africa banned him from running for a seat in parliament because of the corruption charges. So can't possibly be the leader of that party in Parliament. You know, it's been almost 30 years,

or just over 30 years since Mandela was released from prison, since apartheid ended, since Mandela became president. And the fear has always been that after Mandela, they would not be able to deliver on the promise. Yeah. And it's been kind of, that's been kind of the story ever since. Yeah. It wasn't just Zuma, it was the, you know, the Tambo before him.

I mean, it was one after the other, right? And it's been this inequity in the system and how the blacks have suffered and are still suffering on the economic side. So, I mean, let's hope that this kind of forced coalition is going to do something because it's, you know, it doesn't look good. Well, you know, I think that's the bigger, that's really the bigger story here, right? That apartheid ended informally, formally, but structurally, most of the terrible effects of apartheid are still in place. When you look at the poverty statistics, I think, again, from the biggest picture, the story is a good one.

The founding party here that had a monopoly on black public support for so long was humbled because they failed to deliver. look at the coalition alternatives. Zuma and his party are not going to be willing partners in delivering what they couldn't deliver when Zuma was present for years. It did not deliver. Partnering with a white-led democratic alliance, that is going to be hard for Ramaphosa. So I think the challenge, much harder for Ramaphosa in India to put this coalition together than it is for Ramaphosa in South Africa

to put this coalition together than for Modi in India. But we're into coalition politics, Peter. Well, we're leading the way there. We're showing everybody how to do it. Yes, we are. We're exporting governance to the rest of the world, right? Right. Okay, we're going to leave it at that for this week.

You've got a busy week. You're traveling all over the place. But with luck, we'll be talking again seven days from now because that'll be our last one before the summer break. So all these situations have to be resolved and cleared up the next seven days. Well, that's a long shot.

It sure is. All right, Janice, thanks so much. Travel safe, and we'll talk soon. See you next week. Dr. Janice Stein from the Monk School at the University of Toronto. Great to have her with us every Monday. And

as I said before, we ran that interview. We did that yesterday. So there's the one situation, especially in Israel, with the resignation of Benny Gantz from the Israeli war cabinet.

And the questions I will now raise about the ability for the coalition to remain intact. Well, it won't be intact because Benny Gantz is left, but there are enough members left to keep it going and keep Netanyahu in power. And that seems to be the case this morning in Israel as we hear the news from there. But we'll see.

Things can change, as we've seen in the last 24 hours. But thanks to Janice as always. She's, as I said, traveling all this week, but next week she will be here somehow. I'm not sure where we're going to be getting her. I think she's overseas next week. But nevertheless, we will find her because I know how much you count on these Monday conversations. They've been extremely popular. All right. Tomorrow, Tuesday, as mentioned earlier, Stephen Mayer with the new book, his new book, The Prince, about Justin Trudeau.

We'll have to have a good chat with him to see what his take is on Canada's prime minister. The various things that have happened to him during his term as Prime Minister, but also check in with Stephen about what he thinks is the current thinking in terms of Justin Trudeau and his longevity in the job as Prime Minister. We'll see about that tomorrow. All right. Thanks so much for joining us today, and keep in mind the question as Prime Minister. We'll see about that tomorrow. All right. Thanks so much for joining us today. And keep in mind the question of the week. Your favorite Canadian song of all time.

All right? Favorite Canadian song of all time. Send it in by 6 p.m. Eastern time on Wednesday at the Mansbridge Podcast at gmail.com. Don't forget your name, the location you're running from, and keep it tight. We'll talk to you again in 24 hours or just about that. Cheers. Bye for now.

Thanks for listening.