The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Seven Days to Make A Deal

Episode Date: May 6, 2024

It's crunch time for Israel and Hamas. This could be the week that a ceasefire is reached in the bloody war between both sides in the Gaza conflict. If there isn't a deal, the fear is the war could get a lot worse. Dr Janice Stein is with us again for her regular Monday discussion about the Middle East and the Ukraine-Russia conflict.  

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You are just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge. The seven days that could lead to a ceasefire in the Middle East. Dr. Janice Stein, coming right up. And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. Welcome to Monday. And Monday's means Dr. Janice Stein from the University of Toronto, Munk School, as we explore two of the major conflicts, the two major conflicts that are threatening our world these days. And that is, of course, one, the Middle East, the Israel-Hamas situation, and two, Ukraine, the Ukraine-Russia situation.

We have new developments on both those fronts today. We'll also take a look at Haiti, a new look at Haiti. Perhaps things are improving there, a hint of improvement. We'll talk about that as well under the guise of the what are we missing story. But before we get there, some news about Thursday's edition of Your Turn, question of the week.

Remember last week's question of the week, which was, name the one teacher who had a serious impact on your life. And as has often happened since we started this question of the week idea at the beginning of the year, there has just been a flood of entries. It's really quite remarkable. Last week, we had so many from people with memories, passionate and emotional memories of teachers in their life, some going back 70 years, some going back just seven years. So we had a real range of age groups and opinions on this subject. But we had so many letters, so many letters, that we're stretching this one into two weeks as well,

because I've got lots left over. And I look forward to reading those on Thursday, this Thursday. And then perhaps we'll move in for a week on, as many of you have asked for this, a what's on your mind question. That'll be next week, okay? Next week, don't send anything in this week. We're good to go for this week.

Believe me, we're really good to go, but we'll look at that for next week, what's on your mind. Okay, let's get to the issues at hand for a Monday. This has been a very popular episode for, well, we're into the third year since the Ukraine war. Remember, Brian Stewart was with us initially, but then he's checked out to write his memoirs,

and we're wishing him luck. They're going to be great. Obviously, I've known Brian for a long time, almost 50 years, and he has so many great stories and great memories of the different things he's covered over a lifetime of extraordinary work as a foreign correspondent. And correspondent. So we look forward to Brian's book.

But since Brian loved to focus solely on finishing his book, Janice Stein has been with us from one of the founding directors of the Munk School at the University of Toronto. And Janice has been terrific and has made this episode, as Brian did, extremely popular with many of you who just want a sense of, you know, an expert analysis of what's going on. It doesn't mean that you always agree,

and some of you don't always agree with what you're hearing, but it's provoking you to think about it all. And that's the whole idea behind the bridge, right? I should mention, and I'll mention it again at the end of the show, but tomorrow, on tomorrow's episode of The Bridge, Paul Wells, a great journalist, reporter, writer, author, will be by. Tomorrow is publishing day for his new book,

Justin Trudeau on the ropes. And so we'll, we'll talk to Paul on day one of his book entering the market. Look forward to, to hearing from Paul tomorrow. All right, let's get to Dr. Stein and her thoughts this week on the big conflicts that we are monitoring and watching around the world. So here we go, my conversation, my latest conversation with Janice Stein. All right, Janice, let's start with the Middle East. This, you know, I know we've said this a few times before, that we seem to be at a crunch time.

But this really does seem like this next seven days is going to be really important as to whether or not we're going to see some kind of ceasefire happen. But it's like crunch time for this to happen now. Is that right? I completely agree with you. I think we are in the end game here in the sense either we get some sort of deal or the funding escalates. And it could escalate in two places. So both in the north against Hezbollah and against Rafah, the stakes are very, very, very high for everybody right now.

And you have the United States and the Egyptians going all in right now to get a deal. And so paint that picture to me. How do they go all in? At the moment, Hamas is at the table. Israel isn't at the table, but I guess is, you know, is conve a great leak of the draft that the Egyptians are really spearheading. And it's classic Middle East stuff. What's on the table? Three phases.

So the first six weeks, you exchange the women, the elderly, and the Israelis have way upped the number of prisoners they'll give in return. And one other big concession, which is really interesting, they're going to allow, with very few restrictions, people to go back to northern Gaza. Now, that's what Hamas has been asking for, but it's a double-edged sword because if you want to keep that Rafah option alive, Palestinian streaming north to go back actually works for both sides here. And that's why the deal's crafted that way. The second phase is even more interesting,

and this is Egypt. Hamas wants a permanent end to the war. Netanyahu does not. What's the phrase in the draft? A period of sustained calm. You know, Henry Kissinger was a master at this kind of stuff. He would call it strategic ambiguity. So you find a phrase which allows both sides to say, well, we got what we want.

And that's what the Egyptians are working very hard on. And that could last a year. And during that period, additional hostages are exchanged and then there's a third 40 day period which who knows if we get to it frankly but where the Egyptians are going let's get this first phase going

because that's the goal and just provide enough cover right now for both sides to appease their own constituencies. What else is going on? The United States, which asked Qatar to get involved originally. This is, you know, again, contrary to a lot of the stories,

it is at the U.S. request that Qatar got involved and provided homes for Hamas people in Doha. The U.S. is now openly saying to Qatar, if Hamas doesn't take this deal this time, this round, we're no longer asking you to be the host, which functionally means that Hamas would be expelled from Qatar. And that's why you're seeing the political wing of Hamas take this as seriously as they are, because they know the Egyptians and the Qataris are now insisting on a deal. What's the wild card here? There's two. There's the ISMAR,

not at the table. Who's the military wing of Hamas? He's the military wing. He's the one who planned those attacks on October the 7th. He is sitting in a tunnel somewhere, surrounded by hostages, allegedly 15. He has to sign off on this. So we're watching the internal struggle now between the political wing and the military wing of Hamas play out. And on the Israeli side, Netanyahu issued, frankly,

the most inflammatory statement he could have earlier this week when he said, it doesn't matter if we get a deal or not, that operation in Rafah is on. Anthony Blinken gave a really interesting answer when he was asked about that. He said, don't pay attention to the words. Pay attention to the deeds. Smart answer. That statement was really designed for his own right-wing constituency that he is trying desperately

to keep at the table. Two of the people in the War Cabinet spoke out. One is the Defense Minister, Gallant, who's from his party, and the other is Benny Gantz, who said explicitly, getting the hostages back is more important than any operation in Rafa. There's no way Netanyahu can force this down their throats, not against these two guys. Okay.

Let's talk positively for a moment. Let's assume that something is going to happen in terms of a ceasefire anywhere from 40 days to a year as you talk. That's the longest horizon we could think about. Right. Tell me what would it look like? What would it actually mean if both sides agreed to something and we went into a situation of a ceasefire?

What would the on-the-ground situation be? All right. So just before we go to that, let's say we get an announcement sometime in the next two or three days that the parties have agreed in principle. Then they have to go back to the table and they have to negotiate the actual details of how these arrangements would look like

on the ground. And that could take weeks. We've seen this before. And I say this only so that we have the right time horizon, even if we get that announcement. What would that announcement do, though? It would stop any possible operation in Rafa. That's what it would do. But we would still be weeks ahead of the two sides

fighting to the death over words in the agreement. We've seen this before. Now, what would it look like? The first six weeks, we would see, first of all, the RDF withdraw from that corridor that they built, that bisects Gaza into two, that east-west road across the strip, which is about six miles long, that's all. It would pull back closer to the Israeli border. There would be minimal checks on Palestinians coming back to northern Gaza. And that's a lot of people. That's a lot of people. That's three quarters of a million to a million, depending on how many want to come back. And most do, even if they're coming back to destroyed homes. Thirdly, what we would see is the target would be,

and they wouldn't move to the next phase until it's met, at least 500 trucks a day of humanitarian assistance going in, especially to northern Gaza, whereas Cindy McCain, the widow of John McCain, who is the head of the World Food Program, said famine is already in northern Gaza and could move quickly to the south. So getting a ceasefire would make a huge difference because you can distribute the aid, which is at least half the problem here, that it's very tough to do

in wartime where there's no security for the trucks moving through. So those would be three obvious visible things we would see. Anywhere between 30 and 33 hostages would come home to Israel. They would be returned. And about halfway through that six weeks, Peter, Hamas is obligated to provide a list of all the remaining hostages. And what that would do is provide information to the families. And these would be men, soldiers, and male civilians who were taken hostage.

Are they alive or are they dead? Because, frankly, nobody knows. Nobody knows. Once you get through all of that. That's the first six weeks. That's the first six weeks. And then one assumes that some kind of reconstruction begins at some point or sometime cleaning up. Probably in the second phase, because the worry would be that we would get through those first six weeks, but that they wouldn't be able to move to the second phase. And we saw that last time.

We had an agreement. It was extended once for two days. Now, it was not of this order at all. to start, there has, you know, who is going to pay for this is the big question, because we're talking billions and billions of dollars. And the estimates are that it would take up to 2040 to reconstruct. And again, what do you do? Do you just reconstruct or do you take the opportunity now to rebuild in much more sustainable ways that would allow some economic opportunities for Palestinians living in Gaza? And there are Palestinians working full time on planning on how you do this reconstruction. But the Saudis, the Qataris, the Emiratis, the ones with the money, are saying they will not do this again unless there is a permanent ceasefire. And I think they are doing this explicitly to force the parties off yet one more temporary ceasefire,

one two-years break in all of this, or three-years break, and a return to the pattern that's been going on for the last decade, where you rebuild and then it's all destroyed again. So I think that will not come until the second phase. And Israel would have to agree, by the way, in the second phase. And Israel would have to agree, by the way, in that second phase, an end to the war. An end to the war.

Yeah, which Netanyahu keeps saying he won't agree to. But whatever he's saying now, I assume it's like the other side. Exactly. That's why they're negotiating. You started off today by saying keep your eye on the northern border as well.

In other words, Hezbollah, the Lebanese border. Why? Why are you saying that? And does this, if there is some progress made here, does that end that threat? Yeah. I think it does, or it postpones that threat. Let me put it to you that way. Why? Because to give credit to the Biden administration, Peter, and they don't get much credit, but

to give credit to the Biden administration, they have stopped this war from escalating twice. Once on October the 10th, when the defense minister wanted to launch a preemptive attack across the northern border. And Biden intervened and stopped it. And then again, of course, over the kind of Israeli response to the Iranian attack. It was just under huge U.S. pressure that Israel scaled it back.

Right now in the north, there are 90,000 displaced Israelis that were evacuated during those early days. And you can imagine a tremendous lobby. They want to go back to their homes. And unlike the people who were displaced in the south, because there are those two, they actually have homes to go back to because they were not destroyed in the way that that strip of communities were destroyed by Hamas. It's six, seven months. They want to go back home, and they are putting tremendous pressure on the government. There is a political process going on there, too, French-led,

which asks that the sharp end of the Hezbollah spear, the Ragwan militia, withdraw 10 kilometers from that frontier to make it more difficult for them to surprise those communities with the kind of attack that Hamas did. If we get a ceasefire, there will be terrific momentum. And we have a U.S. mediator and the French actively involved in this to get that done. And that's what the Lebanese army wants. That's the thing from what Hezbollah wants. If we don't get a ceasefire. And it's clear, by the way, that the problem is SINWAR, not Netanyahu.

And it could be either of them. But if it's SINWAR, that would remove all the pressure on the IDF to refrain from escalating because the status quo is just not sustainable politically. The highest stakes poker we are watching right now, the highest stakes. You know, I hear you and I understand what you're talking about. You give credit where credit's due on the American side for some of the things they've been doing on the negotiating front. In the meantime, in the States, campuses are in flame. You know, we haven't seen anything like this.

You and I are old enough to remember the 60s, and we saw a lot of this stuff then. You know, this is bad, and it's really bad politically for him, for Biden, and for the Democrats. You know, with the claims that there's anywhere up to 35,000 Palestinians have been killed in the various Israeli attacks on Gaza. Now, those numbers are, you know, they're coming from the Palestinian health authorities, and they haven't been vetted or verified by everybody but some international bodies are saying

yes, those numbers are accurate. But that's why these people are protesting across the United States and Canada and elsewhere in Europe. Does that stop?

So full disclosure, we have an encampment on the front campus of the U of T this week, right in my university, University of Toronto. So I know exactly what you're talking about. And the why is really interesting. So obviously the why is really interesting. So obviously the why. And I know these students because I had them in my class this year and more credit to them, frankly. They're just appalled by the pictures that they're seeing of suffering and hunger and displacement coming out of Gaza.

And you want students to be appalled by that. You really do. But that's not the only issue here. They're drawing a line. And again, this is what students do because they're young and they're motivated. So for them, this, they don't really, they see this as a continuous threat. Black Lives Matter, Occupy Wall Street. It's all one chain.

And they have a frame of the world which draws a sharp line between oppressor and oppressed, white privilege. And, you know, one of them recently said at the University of Toronto, well, Palestinians are brown and black. And I can understand now, I could see the lineage of that argument, where they were coming from. So this has been a trend for at least four or five years. It doesn't come out of nowhere.

And it speaks to the distrust younger people have of, you know, of governments like the United States. You see it in France. There's no greater revolutionary tradition you take to the street than anywhere in the world in France. So this is different, but yet very, very similar. Does it stop if there's a ceasefire? I think a lot of the motivation would disappear if there were a ceasefire. It's very different. The demands are for divestment and for a boycott of all Israeli institutions.

Those are, in fact, demands that are very unlikely to be realized. We've seen protests at some 50 universities in the last two weeks. There have been two cases of the 50 where presidents have negotiated, one allowing students to present their case, and the second in Portland State University, where there's discussion of breaking ties with Bowen. Now, that's not a lot of political ground. So it's almost as much about the solidarity, you know, expressing anger, expressing their disappointment in the kind of politics we have now. And I think the challenge is, is going to come, believe it or not, at a Democratic convention, which is going to be held in which city? Chicago, Chicago, 68, just like 68 all over again, right? And here's what the evidence shows, which is so confounding and so hard to say this to young people.

These protests elect right wing governments because the vast majority of voters don't like seeing pictures of disorder and chaos. It elected Nixon in 1968, right? We see it over and over again that it elects right-wing governments. And given the high stakes in the United States, and it can do the same thing in Canada, by the way. It can provide fodder for people who don't understand from the outside. This looks like disrespect, disorder, chaos. They don't want any part of that culture. And they vote for right-wing governments at the first opportunity. That's what Macron is banking on in France.

Okay. Moving on. That's our look at the Middle East for this week. Check in on Ukraine-Russia. And I think of the various headlines, most of them are not pretty for the Ukrainians. No. The Russians are taking them pretty hard on the battlefield. But the headline that I found most interesting was that Xi Jinping, the Chinese president, is in France.

Got in, I think, yesterday, and he's there for a couple of days. First visit to Europe in five years. And obviously, we know that he has an enormous amount of influence in the communist world and with Putin, obviously, in Russia. He's mainly in France, I think, for trade reasons, because there's all kinds of big-time trade issues there. But Macron is supposedly going to go after him to try and convince him, you've got to put pressure on Putin, on Ukraine. Any point in

trying that? Good luck to Macron, is all I could say here, right? Look, Olaf Scholz, Olaf Scholz and Germany, you know, China is Germany's biggest trading partner, just to think about how the

politics in Europe have changed, and absolutely crucial to the future of the German economy. Olaf Scholz went to Beijing at a really, really dangerous time when there was real fear that Putin might resort to tactical nuclear weapons. And I know most people at the time thought that was hyped. I tended to worry more about it. And we now have some evidence that not only at the time did the CIA estimate that it was 50% likely, it wasn't based just on what he was saying. They actually saw movements of some of the components on the ground. So that was a very worrying time.

And it was because Schultz went and asked Xi Jinping at that time, speak out against the use of nuclear weapons. That is the only time that any West European has moved Xi Jinping. He did, and so did Modi, and that apparently weighed heavily on Putin at the time. So that Xi Jinping has influence on Putin is indisputable. But so much unites those two to use their language,

their absolute intense dislike for American hegemony, the desire to create a multipolar world where power shared, a post-US-dominated world, that is overwhelming. Xi Jinping is not going to move in his support of Putin for that agenda. The irony is Macron talks the same language. He too.

And for any Gaullists, for the children and grandchildren of the Gaullists, this is familiar rhetoric. And Macron is very much in that tradition. And he just gave a speech. We need strategic autonomy in Europe. We will lose all our relevance if we're dependent on the United States, should there be a crunch. The world is moving to multipolarity. So I'm not going to make an effort, but I think he's astute enough.

He knows it's not going to succeed, but he's happy to play host to Xi Jinping anyway, because it's consistent with its own agenda. Do things look as bleak as they sound in Ukraine, inside Ukraine right now? This is an insurance test, right? Because already the most urgently needed military equipment is beginning to arrive in Ukraine. People were waiting for that authorization. They understood how urgent. So artillery is arriving. That's very, very important. New ammunition is arriving.

And the Ukrainian goal is just to stabilize their front, Peter. That's all. The other thing they desperately need are Patriot missiles. That's slower. First of all, it's harder to ship. You have to ship it by sea. And you don't want to make those visible targets to the Russians. And then Ukrainians have to be trained. So it's it could be two or three months until those really go in.

And that's a wide open window for Russia to attack Ukrainian cities. So the Ukrainians are going to throw everything they have at it now in a purely defensive maneuver. Once, if they can get to the end of this summer without having the Russians break through, that's really the test in any meaningful way. If the Russians can break through their lines, that would be a disaster for Ukraine. But if they can hold them off, then the question becomes what's next when the equipment starts to flow again? Is there one more? And this is, here's where the politics join up, right? Is there another Ukrainian counteroffensive? Or is this the moment when the lines are stabilized?

When Ukraine's allies frankly say, now's the time to start a negotiation. Right. And it might be because if the Russians don't break through, it might be a sober moment for them as well. Yeah. I mean, reading between the lines of the reports from the front over the last week or two, it just looks like the Russians are making mini breakthroughs almost every day.

That's right. So there are many big, you know, it's two miles here, 10 miles here. That's what it is. But in order for them to really make a breakthrough and change the military dynamics here, they have to break through in a large enough corridor, Peter, to send their tanks rolling in the dry season when they can't fight on planes. If that happens, that's a wholly different outcome.

And that's what's terrifying all the East Europeans, that that might happen. Now, anything could happen. I'm cautiously optimistic, given the defense lines that the Ukrainians have been able to build and the equipment that's coming in and as i said you know the clunkiness of this russian army uh but this is their window if they don't go through it now then i think we've got what we would call a stalemated front know, a couple of months ago, Putin was having to do backflips to get new recruits and new force members to the front. They just didn't exist. He couldn't find them.

Did that get resolved? Has he now done that? Well, no. This is still an ongoing struggle because he recruited, as we know, in that first big mobilization, he recruited young men from the eastern edges of the Russian states, from minority communities communities and from convicts. That's what it was. He hasn't recruited from the power centers, Petersburg and Moscow, where obviously, and the reason he hasn't, he hasn't really clamped down. You're worried about political mobilization and political protests. Now, the tip off to me was a story this week. They're recruiting Russian women convicts now to go into the army.

And they say, you don't need any specialized training. We'll train. When you see that, that tells me they haven't solved that problem. And that's in part the basis of my cautious optimism. Are Russian jails that full? They can man and woman an army with the inmates? Well, you know, first of all, they arrested at the beginning of the war. They arrested a lot of dissenters, pulled them off the street, put them in jail.

But the Russians have a very large penal population. That's a characteristic of the regime. And that's what we remember. That's what Prokosin was recruiting from, right? That's where he built his force from. Now, the Ukrainians are having trouble too, but they passed a mobilization law and dropped the age from 27 to 25 and are recruiting from all their big cities right now.

Okay. We're going to take a quick break, and then we have an update from you on Haiti. And as we like to do with the final segment with Janice, we like to try and have a positive spin on the last topic. So we'll see if we can create that out of Haiti. We'll do that right after this. And welcome back. You're listening to The Bridge,

the Monday episode with Dr. Janice Stein, University of Toronto, Munk School. You're listening on Sirius XM, Channel 167, Canada Talks, or on your favorite podcast platform. All right, Haiti. Tell us why we should feel a little upbeat about what is a disastrous situation. Well, if we can find any good news

in one of the worst political and humanitarian catastrophes in the world, Peter, then it is good news. And contrary to a lot of people, including me, who was dubious that this transitional council that was set up could move forward, they have. So this week, they announced a prime minister.

And the prime minister is a relatively unknown, and I think that's partly why he was chosen, because he was chosen by four members of the council, each one of whom represents a different political party in Haiti. And each of these political parties is allied to a different Haitian political figure. You know, some to Boise who was assassinated, some to Ariel Henry who didn't go back to Haiti. But they could come together and

actually agree on a prime minister, Fritz Belizer, whom absolutely nobody knows. And so he hasn't offended anybody, but they now have a prime minister in Haiti. Well, to me, that's really encouraging news. Why is that? Because the Kenyans have said they will not send in their peacekeeping forces until there's a government. Well, there's a government with a prime minister that was not imposed on them by the outside.

This is not a U.S. solution or a CARICOM solution or an anybody else solution. These four political factions came together. Number two, this last week, we've seen a switch in what the Haitian police are doing. The Haitian police are so demoralized by the gang warfare. And we sent, you know, in Canada, we sent very lightly armored vehicles to the Haitian police force. And they were all virtually disabled by gangs or traded by the police force when they encountered the gangs in order to stay alive. Well, this week, the Haitian police force,

and it was partly because the gangs attacked the home of the police chief and torched it. And maybe that was a step too far. They stood up. They took the airport back. So now some humanitarian assistance can come in as well as equipment that the police force needs. And they took the port back. They fought the gangs to get those two critical pieces of infrastructure back. That's not small if we're going to get any deployment of any kind of peacekeeping force back.

Is this the first step? It's the most promising thing that we've seen in Haiti in years, frankly. And it's what the Canadians and the Americans and others have been desperate for is that Haiti deals with some of this issue itself. They can't keep relying on everybody else to come in to try and deal with it and usually up against it when they do for all kinds of reasons. Okay, well, that is encouraging news. Let's hope it continues on that vein for the next little while in Haiti. That's quite the update here today, this week.

It really is. Let's hope that this week can see something on all these fronts. Keep our fingers crossed. Thanks for this, as always, and we'll talk to you again in a week. See you next week. Fingers crossed, fingers crossed fingers crossed exactly another great conversation with janice stein and uh and we appreciate it and i know you appreciate it because every week i get letters um from people about this kind of the

monday conversation and sometimes they want to debate certain elements of it, but the overwhelming thought in most of these letters is, thank you, Janice Stein. Not just for your opinions and your take on certain things, but for the fact you place it all in a way that I can understand it and I can have my own thoughts on it. And that, as we've mentioned many times here on the bridge, that's what we're all about here. Get to provoke you into thinking through these issues yourself.

But you sometimes need some basic facts to do that. And that's what we try to do on Mondays with Dr. Stein. Okay, a couple of reminders as we march towards the end of the Monday episode of The Bridge. Tomorrow, we will have as a special guest on here, Paul Wells, the writer, author, columnist, sub-stack guy, on his new book. Essay, really.

But the publisher's calling it a book. It is Justin Trudeau, On the Ropes. And Paul's covered the Prime Minister for quite some time and has some very interesting thoughts about where we are, where we sit at the moment, but also tracking Justin Trudeau's political history. It's interesting. So we'll have that conversation tomorrow, which is day one of his new book in terms of it being out there in the marketplace. So we look forward to talking to Paul. Wednesday is their Encore edition, as always.

Thursday, on your turn, it's week two, part two, of the question of the week, which was, name the teacher that had the most influence on you. And we got so many letters, we're stretching it into two weeks. So keep that in mind for Thursday's episode, along with, of course, the Random Rancher Friday. It's Good Talk with Chantel and Bruce. They'll be back with their thoughts on the week's developments on the Canadian political landscape.

That's it for this day. I'm Peter Mansbridge. Thanks so much for listening. And we'll talk to you again in, well, roughly 24 hours.