The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Behind The Headlines On The Middle East.

Episode Date: October 30, 2023

Janice Stein is with us again for an important conversation that goes beyond the headlines in the Israel-Hamas war. Context is everything in the Middle East and that’s the goal of this week’s discussion. We start on the mic talked about hostages for prisoners swap.

And hello again, Peter Mansbridge here. You are just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge, behind the headlines on the Middle East story. We're lucky enough to once again have with us, Jana Stein. That's coming right up. And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. It's the Monday episode of The Bridge. And for the last, well, almost a month now, for that time period, we've been lucky enough to have Janice Stein with us to try and understand what exactly is going on in the Middle East.

Janice, of course, University of Toronto, the Munk School, kind of a global affairs analyst specializing in the Middle East. Janice, of course, University of Toronto, the Munk School, kind of a global affairs analyst specializing in the Middle East, specializing in conflict management. And she's been good enough to join us to try and go beyond the headlines a bit, right? And the headlines on this day are not in any way encouraging. Death toll keeps going up. Over 1,400 deaths in Israel, almost 8,000 in Gaza.

On the Palestinian side, it has been a depressing story for this past three or four weeks. But there are more stories going on as well in this. You know, you have this morning's headlines. It talks about Jordan asking the United States for Patriot air defense systems amid fears of regional escalation. In other words, the war spreading beyond Israel and Gaza. You have Israel striking military infrastructure in Syria. Now, that has happened before.

And the Americans have struck certain military institutions in Syria as well. But nevertheless, every time something like that happens, you start worrying about whether this is going to spread beyond the borders of Israel and Gaza. The UN warning of growing hunger and desperation in the Gaza Strip. Breaking into warehouses in Gaza on the part of people who are desperate for food and medical aid. The UN Security Council is going to hold an emergency meeting today.

Gaza's second largest hospital suffering extensive damage. This is one of those hospitals, one of those areas where the Israelis are convinced that Hamas has buried deep beneath the hospital in this case. They warned people and they warned the hospital to get patients out. I don't know where they were supposed to take them, but nevertheless, they warned them. Israel appears at this point to have advanced over two miles into Gaza with its various forces. Iran says Israel has crossed the red line in Gaza.

So all these stories, you know, they go on and on. Paints a horrible picture, but when you just hear the headline, it's good to try and put some things into context. Try and go beyond the headlines. And that's the whole idea with our visits from Dr. Sein. One of the other stories that has been circulating for the last few days, and this is how we're going to start off with Janice today, is this idea of a swap, hostages for prisoners.

Could it be possible? Is it likely? What would it do if, in fact, it happened? These are questions I can't answer. But Janice is willing to take a run and try to answer them and try to explain what in fact is going on on this. So a lot more. Another fascinating conversation with Dr. Janice Stein.

Let's get right to it. Janice, I want to start on the hostages for prisoners question. It's kind of an all-for-all that seems to have developed over the last couple of days, and there seems to be some belief that this is possible. And just once again, an all-for for all would be the hostages a couple of hundred hostages for upwards of 6 000 prisoners the israelis hold um what do you make of that i mean we've seen prisoner exchanges before top you know in an unequal balance like that um but on this occasion do you think it's possible this would be the the really big one peter uh because this was the purpose um of the original attack was to get enough hostages to

release all the palestinian prisoners being held in israeliails. And there are 6,036 women, some kids, 16, 15, who threw stones. So this was really the goal of Hamas. It lost control of the operation to some degree. But this was the goal. And why is this possible? Because there has been, in the last three weeks, huge efforts by the families of these 239 hostages in Israel to organize and put pressure on the prime minister. And we've seen real movement in public opinion. About 50% of the Israeli public supports an all-for-all exchange. And that's only in three weeks. So the prime minister is under tremendous political pressure. It goes without saying that the ground operation jeopardizes the safety of

those hostages. All too easy for the government of Israel to say, we're going in to do a ground operation that's going to eliminate Hamas and we're going to save hostages. In fact, those two are contradictory goals. And that's exactly the dilemma that the Netanyahu government faces right now. Now, one thing that's not being reported about the hostage talks, they're being run through Qatar, as we talked about last week. Hamas is demanding a ceasefire, not a humanitarian pause, but a ceasefire as well, which tells you something about where Hamas feels it is right now. It is worried about where things are going. Were a ceasefire to be part of that package, it would be very difficult to resume the fighting.

So everything is at stake here for Hamas in these negotiations. It would be a huge win for Hamas in the Arab world. It would free political prisoners, which nobody else has been able to do. It would get a ceasefire, and it would do something that Arab armies have not been able to accomplish. Is the Israeli cabinet, do we have any sense of where they are on that? And as you explained last week, there's kind of two, there's the inner cabinet, which is the war cabinet, which is what, five ministers, and then there's a larger cabinet. Would they be, would either one of those two be

split on this idea? Because as you said, Netanyahu has been hard against this idea from the beginning. He may be softening up now because he may be getting pressure from all kinds of corners, not just inside Israel, but outside. But did we have any sense of where the Israeli cabinet is? It's so hard to know. The larger cabinet, the cabinet that was in place when this war started, frankly, will not be decisive in all this. The decision-making power is concentrated among those five. two are very experienced, former chiefs of staff in the Israeli army, Benny Gantz and Gadi Iskanat. So hard to know where they would be. But you put your finger on it, Peter, there is tables, a long table in Tel matter of weeks saying this takes priority.

But pressure's also coming from the United States to release these sausages. There are Americans, and right from the beginning, the Biden team has put a lot of weight on doing this. It's working hand in hand with Qatar to get this done. What's different from this deal, Peter? And it's interesting to think about before the ground operation really got going, just before there was a women and children exchange being discussed on both sides. No ceasefire, women and children, much more limited. This so-called ground incursion starts on Friday, and the deal, the size of the deal really escalates to an all for all, which is now, I think it's on the table,

let me put it to you that way. What I find puzzling, I guess, is, as you said, if this went through as described, all for all, plus a ceasefire, it's hard to look at it any other way than a win for Hamas. What does Israel get out of that, aside from the end of the conflict, at least for now? I mean, they would still have 1,400 dead from the original attack. There are hundreds dead from the conflict that's been going on, you know, in terms of their army casualties. They've got, you know, a good deal of the world kind of demonstrations are against them.

Not all of them, but most of them seem to be against Israel and pro-Palestinian. So what does Israel get out of it? What does Netanyahu get out of this? Well, he doesn't get anything out of it. But you're right. It's a defeat for Israel. And that's, of course, why Netanyahu was opposed, right? That's why you're hearing that hardline rejection of the deal.

And there's always this other factor going on too, that personally, it is a terrible defeat for him. And he doesn't have a personal interest right now in an early end to this war. Because if there is an early end, what starts the day after is a commission of inquiry, which he has every interest in kicking down the road as long as possible because his own leadership is at stake. So it's a personal defeat and it's a major political defeat for Israel as well. How do you frame that among those who would in the cabinet, in the war cabinet, who would urge

that Israel do this? I think you make, nothing really covers up the defeat, Peter. It is a defeat. But how it would be framed, we put the hostages first. This is what we've always done, which is true. As you know, they exchanged 1,000 prisoners for one soldier, Gilad Shalit, not long ago. They responded to the needs of the families. I think there's a third factor here. And I've been saying this from the beginning, they do not have a coherent strategy, really. If there were a ceasefire, does that mean that the struggle against Hamas would end? I think you used the phrase, they have a very long arm,

and they might use this opportunity to regroup and rethink what they're doing so that the vulnerabilities that we've talked about would be less. No gainsaying. This is a huge win, would be a huge win for Hamas for it to happen, not only against Israel, which we've talked about, but this is the last thing that many Arab governments want. This is not what Egypt wants. For them, the Muslim Brotherhood is the arch enemy, and Hamas is part of that. It's not what Jordan wants. So this will cause ripples far more tragically than the attack against Palestinian civilians. This is something that Arab governments would be very, very unhappy about

and would not like. We've witnessed another weekend where there have been, and kind of hinted at it a little earlier, but there have been a lot of demonstrations in different parts of the world and some of the major capitals of the world, including Canada and the United States, in support of the Palestinian cause, as opposed to being in support of Hamas, being in support of the Palestinian cause. There have been some demonstrations in support of Israel, but they have been outnumbered by the Palestinian demonstrations.

Is one left to believe, given that, and the latest kind of tone about what may be the way out of this, at least initially, does that suggest that the Palestinians have won the PR campaign, if there's such a thing? It sounds crass to even say PR campaign, but they... It matters. It matters?

It matters. You know, it really does matter. I don't think it's crass. Peter, there is, you know, opinion. First of all, opinion in democratic countries matters over the short term and over the long term. So I would never dismiss it. You know, what's new and what's old in what we've seen on the streets in the last two weeks, really?

Well, what is not new, Peter, is large scale demonstrations in favor of Palestinians. That is a recurring pattern in all the wars. And it's part of what has always pushed Israel to get its military campaign going, because it knows it's got a limited time. And the limited time is a function of support in the streets for Palestinian civilians, which is real and justifying, and also pressure from the United States to end the fighting. This is a recurrent story. It follows a script, and it's not new. What is new, I think, are two interesting shifts in the way this is playing out. One is a generational shift that we're seeing younger people much more openly

supportive of the Palestinian cause. And Palestinian cause means support for Palestinian civilians that are trapped in this conflict. You know, really interesting poll, Peter, that came out in Gaza just before the attack in which 67% of them supported some kind of political solution, did not approve, did not support Hamas in its call for violence to destroy the government of Israel. Now, where they are after these horrific three weeks is an entirely different question. But there is, these Palestinian civilians are absolutely trapped. They have no voice. They are locked in. They have nowhere to go. There's no

safe haven for them. You know, there is a desperate shortage of humanitarian aid and fuel. And look, Hamas had a year to plan this, stockpiled the fuels. And, you know, a Hamas official acknowledged that there are large stockpiles of fuels that are in the tunnels because you need fuel to run the generators for the ventilation in the underground city that they built. And they are not releasing the fuel,

even under these dire circumstances. So if you're looking at this from an outsider perspective, you see this human tragedy. And younger people especially simply can't support it, can't condone it under any circumstances. I think that is a generational change, which is important. And it's happening in the West, in democratic countries, where support really matters, as distinct from other parts of the world. So that's a change. I think the other change is, and this is probably in part a function of social media, but it's a change, is the rise in hate, both anti-Muslim and anti-Jewish, which is not, you know, there is a difference.

You and I would separate Hamas from Palestinians with no difficulty, and we would separate a national movement from religious beliefs. There is a difference between Israelis and Jews. If you look at, and some of it's on the streets, and some of it's in graffiti in neighborhoods, which we haven't seen before to this degree, there is a rise of what we would call um hate against muslims hate against jews which is actually escalating um the tension the anxiety the fear

among these communities outside of of israel and g. It's interesting. That's new. I don't know how you put that one back in the bottle, Peter, once it's out, frankly. Well, I agree. You know, one of the other things that I find interesting about this story is that the Middle East was the focus of the world's media for so long until about, I don't know, five, eight years ago when Western news organizations especially started pulling out of the Middle East.

They found their audiences just, you know what, we're tired of it. There's never going to be a solution. It's never going to work out. Give me something else. And people were turning off their televisions and not reading articles that were coming from uh from the middle east generally um especially in western news organizations especially in north american news organizations i witnessed it and we've witnessed the americans out from there. This happens, the attack happens on October 7th, and suddenly the world is once again focused on the Middle East

in huge numbers. You know, the ratings sky high, everybody. That started to fade again in the last week from what I'm told and from what I've read. Same thing. They're never going to resolve it. These two sides hate each other. They're never going to resolve it, and I'm tired of it.

So I don't know whether that sort of is, you know, the generational shift that you talk about is apparently having real impact, especially in the States, especially on Biden. Now, let's not forget Biden in that first week was all in for Israel, no questions asked. Now, it's kind of like the conditional thing. We got to be careful here. We got to hold back the rage. We learned in Iraq, blah, blah, blah, all that. So, I don't know the overall the overall picture is at times confusing always horrifying uh given what we've seen in three weeks uh but what the end game is who knows well that's really the issue uh you know and and what you talked about peter was a sense of just fatigue right because it's like a recurrent nightmare for many many people they see it over and over and over and

it never gets solved and that's what you're seeing and i think that's when people turn away um when there's this sense that there's no way out of this trap. And you see this story over and over and over again. And it always ends in some forced ceasefire. And they go back at it five years from now. And it's only worse. And frankly, that's where we are. What we've seen over the last three weeks does not change that narrative arc in any sense. People are radicalized now on both sides. You've probably injured what was left of the left and the peace party inside Israel

for 10 years as a result of that first day in which 1,400 civilians were killed. It was the attack, interestingly enough, Peter, you know, was among the element of Israeli society. It was most open to peace talks with Palestinians. So many peace activists are among the hostages. So this is a game-changing political event, seismic event inside Israel, among the very group that was most open, opposed to Netanyahu, you know, out in the streets for months. That's the part of the country that took the brunt of the Hamas attack. You know, not clear whether Hamas understands

these fine distinctions or not, but that's what happened. And so the fatigue that you're talking about, it is there in the world, and people just turn away. Now, will young people stay focused much longer? I'm dubious. I'm dubious in an age of social media and short attention spans. You know, on

Biden, which you brought, we'll see. We'll see on Biden. I think there's a bit of a misread of Biden here in this sense. Biden said everything, he said everything all in in public, but did that, but then went and had very, very, very tough conversations early on in private. So I think in some sense, Biden's a sophisticated political operative. He's seen it all.

He's seen it all before. And he has a very, very capable team around him. So what they did was they built the political capital that they needed to then go in hard. And what's going on? He went in and cautioned. They sent a general. Just imagine that.

From U.S. Special Forces, they sent a general to Tel Aviv who sat there for five or six days reviewing operational plans with this war cabinet. That's not exactly an expression of confidence when you do that. And the ground incursion, which we've seen since Friday, almost three weeks, much longer than they delayed it and delayed it and delayed it. And much more limited than what was on the table at the beginning. So the Biden administration has had a significant impact on slowing the government of Israel down. And it's made itself the

indispensable actor again in the Middle East. You can't go around the United States again. Who would have thought that after the withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan? It's a pretty sophisticated strategy. Okay. I have one last question on the situation in Israel and Gaza, and that is this question about Hamas and its leadership. Who is it and who leads it? We know all about Israel. It's much more confusing trying to figure out who's really running the show in Hamas. Is it all done remotely from whether it's Tehran or Qatar or wherever the Hamas leadership is hiding out or believed to be right now?

But on the ground in Gaza, who's running it? So it's a really fascinating story to see how a group like this organizes itself. Basically, Peter, there is a political wing and there's a military wing. That's the easiest way to explain this. The political leadership, with one exception, is all outside of Gaza. They're in Doha, in really beautiful villas, I can tell you. They are not living in hardship. They're in Lebanon.

They're spread throughout the region. They're organized with political bureaus, and they have hostage negotiators and ambassadors. One was just in Moscow last week, and they're organized. The really influential people are, because they're on the ground, are inside Gaza. And they're really two, I think, that we should pay attention to. First one is Mohammed Deif, who very, very careful, you know, it's almost impossible to find a picture of him. Peter, he runs the Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing inside Hamas, inside Gaza. He is on the ground. He has operational command, and there's no question that he planned the October 7th attack. You don't see him. He

must be doing this from a command center inside one of those tunnels. He's so careful about his security because he knows he's a target. But he's enormously influential, of course, because he's on the ground. First of all, he's there, unlike the others, who don't bear the brunt in any way, don't take the risks. He does. And he's a very effective operational military commander, totally wired in to field intelligence and getting it in real time. So he's one. The other one is interesting because he's from the political branch, but he's in Gaza. And because he's in Gaza, Yaya Sinwar, who, by the way, was released in that exchange that we talked about earlier for the one Israeli soldier. He was among the prisoners who was released. He's in Gaza.

He's very influential. He's in the political wing. But because he's in Gaza, he's in close touch with Mohamed Deva. And he can stay in touch with the political leadership that is in Doha. The name that would be most familiar to our listeners would be Ismail Haniyeh, also well-known, very visible. But it's those two in Gaza. What's apparent from all of this, Peter, and not surprising, the military wing of Hamas is in the ascendancy. It's been increasingly radicalized in the last two or three years. And let me just give you one example.

Hamas was very careful not to take women and children as hostages. You had to be a male and you had to be over 18. And they did that because it was consistent with religious beliefs and they also understood the public relations loss, frankly, because public relations matter, that they would experience if they took women and children as hostages.

Well, in the last two or three years, there's been interesting debates, and we know this from captured documents, there's been interesting debates. One, there's a debate that being the government of Gaza has actually distracted them from the real goal, which is destroying Israel. And so they've turned away from some of the governance issues in Gaza. And secondly, of course, they've been getting a ton of money. They engaged in a very successful deception strategy. Half a billion dollars has flowed in with Israel's acquiescence. That was part of Netanyahu's strategy from Qatar to fund, and a lot of that money siphoned off to stockpile, apparently six months, food, fuel, armaments, so that they could sustain a much longer war against

Israel. This was obviously coordinated with Iran, but the operational planning was done by DEAF. So this is a semi-autonomous organization that has been radicalized, that has invested for a year to two years in a strategy that it hoped would provoke Israel into an all-out response. But the real goal is to get Hezbollah in full time in this war and to simulate an uprising in the West Bank. That's the plan. And where are we on either of those two points? Oh, that's the thing to watch for this week, right? I think we watched two tracks, Peter. We watched to see what happens with the hostage all for all. Do we get the ceasefire?

It's not so much the exchange that matters. It's the ceasefire in that package. Because then for Hamas, it's not the victory they wanted, right? It's not the victory they wanted. And there's huge, huge damage in Gaza of infrastructure and loss of civilians. We don't really know yet the numbers of dead in Gaza. And if Hezbollah stays on the fence,

despite all this, that's a defeat for Hamas as well. So we could be in a situation with a ceasefire, where it is a huge loss for Israel and a significant defeat in Hamas's terms for Hamas as well. Man, there's so many different ways of looking at this.

Just in this half-hour conversation, we've seen Hamas' victory, Hamas' defeat. Within, in many ways, the same result causing both those things. Right. And I think what it would be in Hamas, Peter, it would be defeat of the more radical wink. Right. Right? Who shifted the strategy in the last two or three years. Okay. I want to check on just a couple of other things with you that have got nothing to do with the Middle East.

But let's take a quick break and we'll be right back with that. And welcome back. You're listening to the Monday episode of The Bridge. Janice Stein is our guest. She has been the last few Mondays on dealing with the Middle East situation, and we're grateful she's here. You're listening on Sirius XM channel 167 Canada Talks or on your favorite podcast platform.

All right, Janice, let me you know, when Brian was with us until he started writing his book and you came along fortunately on this story, you've been terrific on it. until he started writing his book and you came along. Fortunately, on this story, you've been terrific on it. And Brian's off on hiatus finishing his memoirs. Don't we all wish we could do that at some point? But what he was so involved with talking to us for the last year and a half has been about Ukraine.

Now, suddenly it's like Ukraine's dropped off the face of the earth as a result of our focus, everybody's focus, on what's happening in the Middle East. Has the last three weeks changed anything on the Ukraine story? You know, we're in a stalemate, Peter. That is for sure. The front lines on the ground have barely moved. Two developments I think are worth talking about. One, the United States finally gave in and shipped to Ukraine what are called

Atakams, which are just longer range missiles that are armed with cluster bombs, little missile bombs explode in clusters. But what does this give Ukraine the capacity to do? Attack behind Russia's lines, jump over the lines, at least in the air, and attack the supply lines coming from Crimea. That's what Ukraine has been doing in the last two weeks. It's going to force the Russians to pull back their supply lines. And so the Ukrainians are really doing that, getting ready for the spring offensive next year. So there is recognition this war is not going to end in 2023. It will go into 2024. They're going to fight through the winter. And the Russians recognizing that have actually been putting tremendous pressure on Ukrainian forces further north in order to force ukraine to divide its armies um so the the big picture is still stalemate but this is a stalemate that is moving all the time as each side seeks to get an the whole war peter um poland you wanted to mention there's a i did because i was looking

really hard for a good news story um and poland is just poland is really a good news story uh it had a government that you know very similar to what the Netanyahu government had done. But it had succeeded. It had repressed its judiciary. It had replaced many of them. It had passed anti-abortion laws. It had pulled back on climate change. It was the bad child of the European Union along with Hungary.

And wow. And a poster boy for populist governments, frankly. And their government had been in office since 2015, I think, almost eight years, and it looked invincible. Well, the opposition got their act together for once, right? And in an election, the civic platform, it's called Donald Tusk, you may remember, once the prime minister,

that coalition won a majority and the Law and Justice Party is out. So this is an example of a country in Europe, eight years of populist government, where the public finally stood up and said enough. It's worth the government. Now, who did it? Peter, this ties back to our earlier theme, huge turnout of young people, huge. I mean, we would love this in Canada, right? Something like 80%, just imagine, of voters between 18 and 29 turned out and voted. That's unbelievable. 70% or more turnout in the election. So what this is, is a story of get out the vote. Good old fashioned mobilization to get out the vote. And it should encourage everybody that populism is not forever. And that what you and I would know as organizing the ground game can really make a difference. It can.

You know, it's interesting because in 2015, eight years ago, it was that youth vote and the Indigenous vote that really helped push Justin Trudeau in a majority position in that election. Ironically, he's facing that same demographic as a potential big issue, big problem for him in whenever the next election may be. So that'll be interesting to watch. Last place on our kind of what are we missing tour here, our mini what are we missing tour, Venezuela. Yeah, that's a good news story too.

What happened this week in Venezuela? And Maduro has been in power. Everybody tried everything. The United States and Canada led sanctions against Maduro. No impact. Except to further impoverish

the population. The opposition parties came together and a fiery woman candidate maria machado won an overwhelming victory a version of the same story among 10 opposition parties she got 90 of the vote which is an amazing feat. It really is. And she's going to run as the presidential candidate opposed to Maduro. Now, he's already declared her as an illegal. Illegal. She's illegal. She cannot run. So the battle is going to be heating up. The United States, interestingly enough, has reduced its

sanctions. Nobody's been paying attention in exchange for larger supplies of Venezuelan oil on the market to keep the price of oil down. So we are in now for the first real chance over this coming year to change that government in Venezuela. Again, not through sanctions, not the ways that we tried and failed to do things so often in the past, but by Venezuelans themselves coming together, uniting the opposition, and putting forward a really effective candidate. It's going to be very interesting. If he refuses to let Maria Machado run, I expect that the sanctions will snap back. So this is all out stakes now for the future of Venezuela.

The good news about these two stories, Peter, change came from within. That is good news. And from mobilized young people. And that's good news. Sure, it's good news. It gives you belief that things are possible. And I'm so glad we chose to do it this way because there's so much depressing news out there right now

and we're dealing with it as best we can. It's nice to end on a couple of notes that give you hope for the future. And who better to bring it to us than you, Janice. So as always, thanks so much for this and we'll see where we are next week. We will. And it's always great to be in a conversation with you, Peter. and gravity almost every day. We'll see where it goes this week. Okay, some sense of where we're heading for the rest of this week. Tomorrow is kind of an open book at the moment.

There's, you know, I talk about the end bits. I've got a stack of them right now from the last couple of weeks that I just haven't got to. And sometimes it's interesting to go to that pile because it gives us something different to think about in a world that at times feels so complicated and so difficult as we've just outlined in the last 40 minutes or so with Janice. So I might do that tomorrow.

We'll see. Wednesday, which is November 1st. Can you believe it? We're into November in another, what, 36 hours. Wednesday is Smoke Mirrors of the Truth. Bruce will be by. Thursday, your turn. So once again, don't be shy.

Send your thoughts in to the Mansbridge Podcast at g turn. So, once again, don't be shy. Send your thoughts in to the Mansbridge Podcast at gmail.com, the Mansbridge Podcast at gmail.com. And as I always say, it's an opportunity to discuss stuff. You don't have to agree with me. You do have to respect the bounds of decency. And that includes not insulting people, right? We don't go there.

But I'm happy to read what you have to say on any number of different topics, and you're always good at doing that every week. So don't be shy. The Mansbridge Podcast at gmail.com. That's where you send your thoughts. That's Thursday, plus the Random Renter, of course, on Thursday. Friday is Good Talk with Chantel and Bruce.

That's it for this week. Not this week. That's it for this day, for this Monday. We open up a new week on the bridge. I'm Peter Mansbridge. Thanks so much for listening, and we'll talk to you again, well, why don't we try in 24 hours?