The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Netanyahu and the Missing West Bank

Episode Date: September 9, 2024

Janice Stein is back for her regular Monday discussion of the two main international stories - the Middle East and Ukraine. Today emphasizes Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to leave the West Bank off his televised map of Israel. What was that all about?

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You are just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge. Why does Benjamin Netanyahu ignore the West Bank? That and a lot more on this regular Monday edition with Janice Stein. It's coming right up. And hello there, welcome to Monday. Peter Mansbridge here. Yes, Monday means Janice Stein, and we've got lots to talk about on today's edition. But before we get there, a couple of housekeeping notes, mainly a sense of what to expect for this Thursday's Your Turn, as you realize that program is all based on your answers, your questions, your thoughts,

as you write to themansbridgepodcast at gmail.com, themansbridgepodcast at gmail.com. We're going to ask one of our questions this week. Question of the week is this, and it's kind of timely, seeing as there's so much talk, there certainly was last week, about politics in Canada. So our question this week, listen closely. If you were running to be Canada's next prime minister, This week, I'll listen closely.

If you were running to be Canada's next Prime Minister, what would your most important election promise be? Okay, very focused question. If you were running to be Canada's next Prime Minister, what would your most important election promise be? That promise that you'd make to the Canadian people if you were running to BPM. Now, once again, I'm looking for one promise,

not a series of promises. Not say, oh, you know, I just can't decide. There's like four different ones that I want to make. I just want one. So here are the rules. If you enter more than one, the only one that can possibly end up on the program is the first one. So you can write as many as you want if you want, but the only one that's going to count is the first one.

Okay? But why don't you think of it this way? Of the various promises you might make, what do you think would be the most important one? Okay, I'll repeat the question at the end of the program today. But there you go. Include your name and the location

you're writing from. Keep it short. What's the most important election promise? And why is it the most important election promise? You can fit that all

in two or three sentences. Okay? So I look forward to hearing from you on that. Tomorrow's a big day here at the bridge. We have Ted Barris is with us. Our feature interview of the week.

And Ted is talking about his new book on the Battle of Britain and the Canadian connection to the Battle of Britain. It's fascinating. Now tomorrow night, if you're like a lot of others, regular listeners to The Bridge, you'll probably be staying up to watch the U.S. presidential debate, right? Donald Trump versus Kamala Harris.

You know, I don't know what to expect. I really don't know. I've read lots of things in the last few days about the different strategies each side might use, but you never know what happens when that red light goes on and suddenly everything's live. So that's tomorrow, and I'm sure we'll end up talking about it during the week. Maybe not until Friday on Good Talk, but you never know.

I'm really looking forward to it. Now, some of you know I'm in Scotland this week, so it'll be a middle-of-the-night viewing for me. It won't start till 2 o'clock, 2 o'clock in the morning, local time here. So I'll have to be ready for that one. All right, that's a look at a couple of housekeeping notes and primarily the question of the week. So think about that one.

But first of all, we've got Jana Stein, as she appears and has for the last year, on Mondays to walk us through a couple of things on the foreign affairs front. And those two things, of course, are the Middle East situation and the situation in Ukraine with the war versus Russia, which isn't just in Ukraine now. As we know, it's also in Russia. Interesting points to talk about on both these things now. So let's get right at it.

This week's conversation with Janice Stein. So my first question today is actually based on a number of letters that I got, mail that I got in the last week and following our show last Tuesday, I guess. And this is the question. You raised last week, and we've seen them again since using the same map, Netanyahu standing in front of the map of Israel, but it's not the normal map you see. And the most distinguishing fact of a number of them,

the most distinguishing fact of a number of them, but the most distinguishing fact is the West Bank is not there. Now, why would he do that? Well, it's hardly to me a subtle signal. I saw that literally when he first lifted his hand with his pointer. But this plays to the people that he needs to help him stay in power throughout this whole period. That is their core issue. You know, there's a lot of talk about Gaza and how some of these coalition partners, the most extreme right-wing French, are talking about building settlements in Gaza. That's not their core issue.

Peter, their core issue that drives everything they do from the judicial, so-called judicial reform on down. There is no such thing for them as the West Bank. This is promised land, literally. And even the secular nationalists will use that language, and they talk about Judea and Samaria. This is part of ancient Israel. It's theirs. And that map reflected that. So that plays into the hands, as you say, of those who need to support him in the parliamentary coalition. But does it also not play very much into the hands of those settlers who are taking land in the West Bank? And not just taking land, but there are firefights and people are dying.

Does it not play right into their hands too? It sure does. And again, there's very close links. You know, settlers are organized. There's a council which represents different elements who are on the ground in the West Bank. They're politically organized, Peter. They have very close links into,

it's hard to separate sometimes, to Ben-Vir's party and Smotrich's party. One is the finance minister, the other is the minister of security, national security, which is all about the West Bank. And however you count it, if you count East Jerusalem or not, but even if you don't count East Jerusalem, we're talking about 350,000 people. This grew up in part because, and this is a very familiar story to Canadians, in the early, early days, it grew up because housing was too expensive.

And so people moved just over the border for cheaper housing. So a chunk of these people would be movable, but the hardcore moved for ideological reasons. And did so literally days after the 1967 war. And these people vote in Israeli elections. They are the driving force behind these right-wing parties. And so everybody saw that map. Everybody read the symbolism of that map. Well, if you're living in the West Bank and you saw the symbolism of that map. Well, if you're living in the West Bank and you saw the symbolism of that map, does it go beyond symbolism for you? If you're living in the West Bank, do you feel,

you know, less safe than you did the day before we saw that map? Or do you feel, you know, more tense in terms of the situation? How do you assume they feel? So let's assume, of course, because there's a large Palestinian community who've lived in the West Bank for generations and generations and generations. And look, you know, this is not the only conflict we could say about this, Peter. It really matters when you start the historical clock, right? It's always true. And who is Indigenous, and not in Canada, obviously,

but in other kinds of conflicts, who's Indigenous is a matter of when you start that clock. And for that reason, it's not a very fruitful path to go down. It leads you nowhere except to more fighting. So if you're Palestinian, and one of the things we haven't talked about, Peter, is since October the 7th, when the army turns, the professional army turned its attention largely to Gaza, the act of lawlessness and violence against Palestinians in the West Bank has erupted. You know, some 600 plus Palestinians killed in confrontation with the West Bank. Ben-Vir distributed assault rifles to settlers using the argument that Hamas was able to do what it did

to border communities inside Israel, just over the border from Gaza, because people were not sufficiently armed and prepared. So that is just like throwing a lit match into a stack of hay. So a lot of that violence and lawlessness and seizure of land and burning of olive groves that belong to Palestinian families has taken place when the majority of the Israeli population is distracted. But it's intentional. It's deliberate. It's in furtherance of a strategy of absorption. So for Palestinians, it's terrifying is the

right word with no exaggeration. It's absolutely terrifying. You know, I started this by asking what was he thinking by doing that, and I get it. I understand the way you've answered that question. What I'm wondering now, I guess, is does he – one assumes he must understand the match that he's lit with that and the potential consequences of it. He must be weighing that as well as the other fires he's got, whether they're Gaza, whether they're in the northern border. You know, it's so difficult right now to understand Bibi Netanyahu's thinking and his calculus of risk.

There's a disconnect, Peter, between the Netanyahu that was before, not October the 7th so much. It started earlier. Before he was criminally charged and faced the prospect of going to jail for three separate cases. He then forms this extreme ultra-right government, the most extreme in Israel's history, in part to form a government so that he wouldn't be prosecuted while he's in office. So it's his own personal fears with respect to being in prison. And Israel imprisons former leaders, unlike many countries.

It really has several times, and not for a day or for a month. And so once October the 7th happened, Prime Minister was so cautious. People actually called him, you know, cowardly, afraid to use force. All those limits seem to be gone. Gaza and with respect to the northern border, where his defense minister and to some extent Netanyahu, I think are looking for an opportunity to engage over the border because there are 100,000 displaced Israelis who are also exerting pressure on the government. But even more importantly, toward Iran. He came very close. That was probably the riskiest decision he ever made.

He came very close in 2012, was stopped by the United States. He wanted to launch a strike against Iran before its nuclear program was as developed as it is now. I think all those constraints are gone, Peter. He's driven. This is his last act. Let me put it to you this way. This is a political leader who's not worrying about the next one. He needs one thing, which is to survive until November and hope that President Trump is elected.

That's the one plan. And all the other constraints are gone. You know, I heard somebody say the other day, a Middle East analyst say that the only thing that Netanyahu wants now is Sinwar dead. Sinwar being the Hamas leader who's still in Gaza in a tunnel somewhere. Yeah. I thought about that for a while. I can understand why he wants that. He managed to eliminate the political leader of Hamas already.

And Sinwar is kind of the brains, if you want to use that term, of all the military operations that have happened, certainly in the last year. But at the end of the day, what would that get him anyway? It wouldn't. Other than, as you rightly put it, some psychological satisfaction, it really wouldn't, because somebody else will take his place. Now, I have to say in this case, you know, if we think about, for example, Osama bin Laden, right, who headed al-Qaeda, what happened when he was assassinated? Well, the visionary, charismatic ideologue that kept that movement together was gone. Al-Qaeda fractured into several wings. But it is true that it never, it was replaced by ISIS. That captured the attention of angry, young, I mean, disaffected young Muslim men who had no hope in the societies

in which they live. So you can imagine that Senwar is unique in his way. He's probably the most, and I'm going to use the same kind of words, he's without limits. He is obsessed. He is absolutely without limits. And as we've seen from some of the leaked notes that we now have between him and his commanders, he justifies his strategy by saying it doesn't matter how many Palestinians die. It's all worth it. So it's a very different calculus from the way we think about it here.

So there's an argument that Hamas would be very different under anybody else. Nobody else, including Haniyeh, whom the Israelis assassinated, has that obsessive, single-minded quality. from the Israeli dentist and doctors who took care of him when he was in jail and developed personal relationships and had these conversations with him, which he made it very clear. He didn't hide it. That given his view and his deep, deep religious beliefs, if he dies and thousands of other Palestinians die,

it doesn't matter. Not everybody in Hamas is like that, just as not everybody in Al-Qaeda is like that. But that having been said, even if Bousymour is eliminated, Netanyahu still faces those criminal trials, those prosecutions. The absolute imperative to retain his role as Prime Minister, that doesn't go away. That doesn't change. You mentioned that what he's hoping for is hanging on until November.

Yeah. I mean, you know, in case Trump wins. Well, what if Trump wins? That doesn't get Netanyahu out of his, you know, the charges against him or any of that. No. But I think the one area of foreign policy where there's probably the biggest difference

between Harris and Trump is Israel-Palestine. I think there is really a significant difference there. She comes out of a legal tradition. She's a believer in the rule of law and following the rule of law. And she and Tim Walz have made it very, very clear that an end to Palestinian suffering is an imperative for both of them and that they take it very seriously in a way that Trump clearly does not. Trump is so transactional. And I think Netanyahu thinks that he will have far more scope and far more room with Trump,

and that will enable him to avoid making the one decision that would bust up this coalition, which is an end to the war in Gaza, leaving Simor and Hamas in place. That is the one decision that ends this war. You know, people have asked why Netanyahu, in that speech with his pointer at the Philadelphia border, the border that you and I talked about last week at the very southern tip, the border between Gaza and Egypt.

Why this sudden obsession? It wasn't there, right, at the beginning. Why now? Well, because there's some captured intelligence, Peter, that Yeltsin war's escape plan, when he reaches the point where it's clearly, he recognizes that they're very close, it would be to escape through those tunnels

into the Sinai Desert with a number of hostages and from there to go to Iran. That's enough. That's enough to elevate this completely tactical issue. And that's all it is. It's the biggest strategic imperative for not proceeding with a ceasefire. I love it when you tell us about secret plans. Elite documents, you know, elite documents. That's all the information is coming from. They capture documents. Let me just ask you one last question on the Mideast situation,

Israel in particular. I was surprised this week, and you probably wouldn't be, but you might put it in some context for us. The BBC did a piece trying to analyze where is Israel getting all its arms? And not surprisingly, I think it was around 65% comes from the United States. Yeah. I think if most people were asked, okay, where do you think the next, who the next country would be? Probably a lot of people, in spite of their hesitancy of late, would have

probably said UK. They're not even in the game. They're not. They're not even in the game. And we're not in the game. We're definitely not in the game. But number two, you know. Number two is German. Right. By a long shot from number three. By a long shot. Right.

Now, tell me about that. I'm not surprised by that. It is worth stopping for a second and saying, look what Germany's not doing in Ukraine, not doing in Ukraine, right? And it's held up, it's made commitments, it hasn't fulfilled them. And Ukraine is right in its backyard. And Olaf Scholz is not doing it. But the arms vote to Israel has still continued. So I might not surprise Peter.

This relationship goes back 75 years. You know, the Germany that comes out of World War II, which really, it doesn't emerge right after the war, but it does by the late 60s and early 70s. And Germany, more than any other country, has come to grips with its history and really grappled with it in ways that almost nobody else who had fascist movements in Europe at the time has. And Germany begins reparations payments earlier to Israel.

And every German leader, except the AFD, the alternative for Germany, the right-wing party that just did so well in two state elections, has really said this is a moral imperative for Germany, regardless of who's in power in Israel or in Germany, because we can never fully. And these words like atone, that's a religious word as well as a as well as a moral word for what happened. So there is criticism now in Germany, certainly as Palestinians die in unprecedented numbers. But there is it's about the Germans. That relationship

is about the Germans themselves rather than Israelis or Palestinians. Still continues to be that way. A big chunk of that number, by the way, it's almost 30%, comes from Germany, arms sales. A big chunk of that number, by the way, it's almost 30%, comes from Germany, arms sales. A big chunk of that is three new submarines. Yeah. And I looked at that and I thought, submarines? Why does Israel have submarines?

I'll tell you, and it's really interesting, because submarines have played a very important role in this whole story. The biggest, most consequential criminal case against Bibi Netanyahu is that he got a kickback on the contract for those submarines. The other two are much smaller, but that's the big one. So submarines are wrapped up. Why does Israel need submarines? Because this is all about Iran. And because it is a small country with no strategic depth whatsoever. If you deploy the most advanced technologies somewhere in the Mediterranean, way offshore, that's the closest thing Israel will ever have to a second strike capability.

And for Israeli military planners, it's not if Iran goes nuclear, it's just when Iran goes nuclear. Okay. That all makes some kind of sense. Yeah, no, I can understand that. I get it. Okay. That all makes some kind of sense. Yeah, no, I can understand that. I get it. Okay. You touched for a moment on Ukraine. And I just want to do I just have one, one question on Ukraine, because I'm saving a bit of time for us today to talk a little bit about what will be tomorrow night's debate in the United States between Harris and Trump. But my question on Ukraine is actually about Viktor Orban. Now, he's the, they have a rotating president for the European Union. Yes, yes. And he's currently the president.

So in the last couple of days, he gave a speech or he was answering questions where he said that the major issue right now he sees it for the European Union is their lack of defensive ability. Now, you know, they're members of NATO, Hungary. You know, so technically they're on the side of Ukraine in the war with Russia, but, you know, he's a pal of Putin's as well as being a pal of Trump's. So what's he up to with a statement like that?

You know, since he became president of the European Union, and that's a rotating presidency, it's like being chair of the G7 or something like that. You're not there long, but you're there a year or something, six months, it depends. I can't remember quite which one it is. He's taken on the role of peacemaker, which is stunning, really, for Viktor Orban, who is Putin's closest ally in Europe,

but not what you'd think he would be doing. So he's gone on international tours to talk about how you can bridge the gaps between Ukraine and Russia. There was a lot of speculation. Was he acting really as Putin's pawn here? Was he exploring what the limits were, if there were going to be any informal negotiations? But that last statement, Peter, is really a center. Because no matter what you're trying to open up in terms of some space for Putin and Zelensky to engage in any back-channel negotiations, advocating for more defense spending in Europe is not on Putin's agenda. That's for sure. So why is he doing this?

It's a real irritant. It's a real poke in the nose to the Germans and the other underperforming members of the European Union who talk a big game, but from Orban's perspective, are not doing very much at all. Just a good thing we're not in that group, Peter, or he'd be all over us. How much are they doing very much at all. Just a good thing we're not in that group, Peter, or he'd be all over us. How much are they doing? Hungry.

They're, you know, I'd have to double check on this, but as a member of NATO, there are about eight that are not fully at the 2% level, but he's not far off it. He's not far off it if he's not at it already. I'd have to double-check, though, for all our listeners. I was just wondering, I mean, if he wants to, you know, poke Germany in the eye, he's got to be standing in a position

where it doesn't look a little... Yeah, exactly. Yeah. He's not at the bottom of the list, that's for sure. And I think he used this, really, because otherwise it makes no sense. I think he used this to poke Germany because Germany claims to be a big contributor. And, you know, it hosts the Ramstein process where all the NATO leaders come together,

the defense ministers, they just had a meeting that's in Germany to coordinate response to Ukraine. But boy, has Olaf Scholz ragged the puck on fulfilling those commitments. It's funny, you know, the more I read of what he had to say, and it was kind of a Q&A session, I was starting to think, wow, this is really something, until he said, you know, we can hope that if his other friend Donald Trump wins in the fall,

he says we can hope that if Trump wins, he will succeed on his peace mission to end the war. And I'm thinking, like, what's this guy's name? In a day. What is the peace mission exactly that Donald Trump is on? What is he trying to do? In a day. In a day, Peter.

That's right. 24 hours, right. In a day, remember? We better stay up on January the 20th, because by January 21st, he's going to have it done. That's right. He said, I can pick up the phone and call Zelensky and tell him just to stop right now, or that'll be it from us. Exactly.

Well, by the way, we should add, Vladimir Putin doubled down this week, spoke at an economic conference, and often that's where he speaks most freely, when he was in that economic conference and said, the highest strategic priority is the Donbass. Don't worry about Kursk, folks. We'll get to that. Our highest strategic priority is the Donbass. Doesn't sound like a guy who's going to take a phone call from Donald Trump.

Right. Who knows what those guys, any of them. Yeah. Okay, we're going to take our break here and come back and talk a little bit about the strategic importance of the debate tomorrow night and the impact that it could have. So we'll do that right after this. And welcome back. You're listening to The Bridge, the Monday episode.

That means Janice Stein is here. You're listening on Sirius XM, channel 167. Canada Talks are on your favorite podcast platform. All right. Tomorrow night, Tuesday night, we have the debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, the two nominees for the U.S. presidency. Everybody is looking at this as kind of critical for the way things will then unfold over the next, well, less than two months now until the election.

Obviously, if Harris does well, it continues her momentum, which has kind of stalled a little bit in the last week or so, but still it would be very good for her if she's obviously the winner of the debate. The debates don't usually have obvious winners, but because of the last one a couple of months ago, we tend to think... But he lost. He lost, Peter. There was no winner. Oh, yeah, I know. We had a loser. That's right, exactly. If Trump wins, then, you know, look out.

The next two months could be, well, it could be quite interesting. If it's the likely scenario where it's basically a tie or, you know, people have split decisions on it, it may mean just that things are going to carry on in an extremely tight race. But aside from that, the way we tend to look at it in terms of the commentators, there are going to be, certainly in some key capitals around the world, people who are looking at this very differently,

trying to understand what positions these two people would take on the key issues that face the world right now. So tell us a little bit about that aspect of tomorrow night. So it's really interesting because I don't think there will be any capital that will not be tuned in in real time to that debate, even if it's three in the morning or four in the morning that people are watching. Generally speaking, a really pivotal debate like this doesn't have a lot of foreign policy in it, Peter. Elections are not won or lost in the United States on foreign policy issues,

except when there's an active war going on. And there are no American troops overseas right now. So that takes the heat out of foreign policy issues. However, does that mean they won't talk about it at all? I could think of two issues at least that I think could likely come up. One, of course, is Israel Gehassa. And as I said, I think there are significant differences on that issue. Kamala Harris will probably take the opportunity, if she gets it, to underline her sympathy and her commitment to an immediate ceasefire, but more than that, to do something for Palestinians. That's both, I think, very real on her part and with Tim Walz as well.

But beyond that, there's Michigan, which has the largest number of Arab American voters. And they are still and they are crucial. They are crucial in this election. And they are many of them are still saying much better than Biden, much, much better. But we're still on the fence. We want to see something concrete. So I'd be surprised if she didn't try to, even in the tone and the rhetoric, push that issue further than she's gone in the past. Because it's a dead heat, as you just said. The second one is, we'll see what happens here. But the second one is trait. In those swing states,

Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, she has to win them, frankly. She's not doing well enough in Nevada, the other ones. She's got to win these. The biggest issue is how trade has hollowed out middleclass jobs and factory jobs. It's that old-time Rust Belt. It's still true. And these are the voters that have deserted the Democratic Party. Obama was the last one to win them.

They are gone, especially men who've lost their jobs and have moved into the service economy and you know we're making 35 an hour making nine or ten now without permanent jobs those are the voters she has to get back and the culprit for many of these voters, NAFTA, USMCA, it doesn't matter what you call it. We call it COSMA. That's the culprit. Now, in fact, it's probably not. It's much more likely to be China coming into the WTO, and also much more important, advanced technology and what that's doing.

But that's not what these voters think. They think it's trade. And when Trump said originally, NAFTA's the worst trade deal ever in history, that's when those votes shifted to him. She's got to find a way to talk. She's got to find to be really direct she's got to find a way to talk to white male voters if she's going to win these swing states white men on the foreign side i mean we tend to think, okay, you know,

Trump is either liked or supported or used as a useful idiot by Russia, China, you know, Hungary. Iran. Iran. And elsewhere, there's a fear of Trump returning. This is at least the assumption that a lot of us make. And when we're talking about elsewhere, we're mainly talking about Europe. Yeah.

Now, is the assumption correct? In Europe. Is it true in London? Yes, absolutely. The new British Prime Minister, Labour Prime Minister. Big nightmare for him. He would much, much rather

have Kamala Harris. Macron, I think it is true. Because he had the pleasure of getting to know Trump. And I don't think he wants to be invited back to that party again. So I think it is true.

I think for Olaf Scholz, although how long he remains chancellor because he's so weakened is not clear. I think for him it's true as well because although, you know, in Olaf Scholz's case, it's more complicated. He is looking for a way to take crack to rehabilitating his relationship with Russia. For him, regardless of what Germans say publicly, I don't think Trump would be the worst result. I really don't. For Poland

and the Baltic states, wow, nightmare. Because they are on the front lines of that conflict, and they are the ones who are most worried about Russia. Well, it's going to be interesting. You know, obviously any debate can be quite interesting.

This one tomorrow has so much riding on it, and after the summer in U.S. politics, I mean, they should be selling tickets to watch this. Are the days gone? Remember, was it Gerald Ford who thought Poland was, didn't realize Poland was in the Warsaw Pact? That kind of a blunder can cost you big time. Are we past those days? I mean, are these two, say what you want about them, are they past that? They passed that. So I think for sure Trump's passed it because that's not what his that's not what his 46 percent are listening for. Right. And don't forget, he's got to get four or five more. That's all. And that's a gross generalization, of course, because it depends where he needs them in very specific states. But he's not been able to grow out of that yet, Peter, beyond that. 46 is a very high

number, but you still have to break out of it. And I don't think the undecided voters, that'll be the critical determination if he makes any kind of mistake. Frankly, I don't think Kamala Harris is likely to make that kind of mistake. She's been in the White House for four years. She's traveled. She's said it on every security briefing. I think that's an area of strength. You know, the one that I personally am thinking about as I think about this debate, what's the hardest thing for her to do here? How does she respond if Trump does the equivalent of stalking her like he did to Hillary Clinton, right? How do you do that as a woman candidate for president?

That has to attract male voters. Is there a win there for her? And if she does nothing, not good. If she does something, most of the things that I could think of that she might do, not great either. That I think is going to be the, and that's not necessarily going to be what she says. It's going to be how she handles that issue.

That was the one in many ways that undid Hillary. That's the picture of the debate, right? You know, as we get ready. That's the one we see over and over, right? The thing I think, having learned the lessons from the last time, I agree with you. She goes for the jugular on him. That's going to probably backfire. But knowing, I have a certain comfort level knowing that David Plouffe

is there as the senior advisor. And I'm sure they've gone over this particular moment many times as well as others. But I don't know what his answer would be, but I bet he had one and has one. And if she's wise, she'll follow it because he's a pretty smart guy. So good. But I have to say, he's so good. But I have to say, that's what I'm watching for in this one.

That's the hill for her to climb, frankly. Okay. You know, everything changes, Peter. Everything changes and nothing changes. That's right. That's right. Okay. Fabulous conversation.

I know you'll be watching tomorrow night. I will be watching. I know a lot of people across the country will be watching as well. Until next week, take care and we'll talk then. See you next week. Dr. Janet Stein from the Mug School at the

University of Toronto. Always great to hear from Dr. Stein. By the way, she sent me an email minutes after that because she wanted to check to make sure she hadn't been wrong about Hungary's position on its payments to NATO. You know, the aim is 2% of your gross domestic product. She said it was around 2%, approaching 2%. In fact, it's just over 2%. It's almost 2.5%, actually. So she wanted to make sure that listeners were aware of that.

Brief reminder before we sign off for this day, for this Monday, the Your Turn question of the week for Thursday. So get your answers in now at the Mansbridge podcast at gmail.com. The question is, if you were running to be Canada's next prime minister, what would your most important election promise be? Once again, your most important election promise. In other words, one election promise. If you submit, as some people do on these things, a bunch of different answers, the only one I'm going to accept is the first one. Okay,

that makes it easier and we can get more and more responses in from across the country, as we often do. Remember to include your name and your location that you're writing from. All right, I'm Peter Mansbridge. Thanks so much for listening today. We'll see you again in almost 24 hours.