The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - The Israelis Kill Sinwar -- Does It Make A Difference?

Episode Date: October 21, 2024

Janice Stein makes her regular Monday appearance to discuss the Israeli killing of the Hamas leader in Gaza. Does Yahya Sinwar's death make a difference?  Also, the latest on the war of drones between Ukraine and Russia - and should Ukraine get fast-tracked for membership in NATO? Or will that just make matters worse?

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You're just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge. The leader of Hamas is killed by Israel. Will that make any difference to the Mideast story? Janice Stein, coming right up. And hello there, welcome to Monday. welcome to another week of The Bridge. Mondays, as you know, for more than a year now, has been the domain of Janus Stein, giving us a sense of two major stories that affect our world. One, of course, the Middle East story. Two, the Ukraine-Russia story.

Both have been dominant, well, the Ukraine-Russia story, for almost a thousand days now. The Middle East story for just over a year, since October 7th of last year. So Janice will be by in just a few moments time to talk about Yair Sinwar among other things. Sinwar was the leader of Hamas in Gaza.

He was killed by Israel last week. The issue becomes is that going to change the situation? We'll find out. We'll get Janice's thoughts on that and a few other things as well in terms of the Middle East but also we'll touch base on Russia-Ukraine. A little housekeeping, first of all, on Monday mornings, we always announce the question for Thursday's Your Turn program, and we do so again today. The question this week will be, after two weeks of listening to your answers

on the Canadian in history who you'd most like to sit down and talk to, this week we'll go back to our, you know, alternate question every few weeks, which is, what's on your mind? It could be anything. It could be the state of national politics in Canada. It could be the future of Justin Trudeau. It could be the future of Justin Trudeau.

It could be the future of Pierre Palliet. What are your questions? What's on your mind about anything? It could be foreign. It could be the U.S. election. We're getting real close now, and it is zanier than ever. I won't even try to explain the things that happened in this past weekend coming out of the mouth of a former president.

But hey, who are we to say anything? Let's hear what you have to say, whatever is on your mind. So the basic rules remain the same. You have until 6 p.m. Eastern time on Wednesday to enter your answer. Some of you wrote over the weekend some things that are on your mind, and that just may fit. The secret, of course, is keeping it short, right? Paragraph or so. No more than that, please. What's on your mind?

The shorter you are, the more concise you are in explaining what's on your mind and why it's on your mind, the more answers we can get in. And lately we've been getting all kinds of answers. So we're looking forward to having yours. Keep it short. Include your name and the location you're writing from. Okay.

And have it in by 6 p.m. Eastern time on Wednesday. All right. That'll be Thursday's program, your turn and the random renter, of course, will be along as well. As we get closer to the U.S. election, you know, whatever, whatever thoughts you have on that, I'm more than happy to listen to them.

And I know that our listeners, there's a wide range of opinion on this. The polls say most Canadians don't want Donald Trump. But they don't say all Canadians don't want Donald Trump. And clearly I hear from a few of those. So make your argument and happy to hear it and consider it for this week. Alright, let's get

to the issues at hand. And the issues at hand come with the expertise and the knowledge of Janice Stein, the director of the Munk School at the University of Toronto, Middle East analyst, conflict management analyst, and she has been a mainstay for us over this past year, as she has been for others. And we really appreciate Janice's time. So enough from me.

Let's get on with our discussion for today. Here she is, Janice Stein. So Janice, Yaya Sinwar, he's dead. Does it really make a difference? It does make a difference because charismatic leaders in these kinds of guerrilla movements really matter. They're unifying forces, even though he was way at one extreme. He was the most militant of the militant.

So how does it matter, Peter? Because there's a competition for succession afterwards. And very often, these kinds of groups have factions and there's factional infighting, and it diverts them from the main issue. And we've seen in the past that when you lose your charismatic leader, and he's been the leader since 2017, frankly, it doesn't matter what the titles were, movements can lose their edge and internal politics take over. It's like a big political party. You lose your founding leader and then everybody comes out of the woodwork and argues. Is there anyone that we know of who could be the next leader?

One who they should be concerned about, like they were always concerned about Senoir? Well, there's a very interesting divide. And Yair Sunwar called the Hamas leadership that lives in Qatar and Istanbul, he coined really a great term. He called them the hotel guys. Didn't that tell you everything? They were living in luxury suites and villas, and he was underground in Gaza.

And so the biggest divide is between the hotel guys and the leaders that are still left in Gaza. You know, one very well-known hotel guy is well-known to Canadians, Al-Mashal. And why do we know him? Because if we go back 15, 20 years, he was poisoned by an Israeli Mossad operator who had a Canadian passport. Right. Right? Yep.

So he is one of the ones at contention. So he's an old-timer. And interestingly enough, he's interesting because he's more closely connected to Qatar, to Turkey, and not at all to Iran. And people are well aware of that. So were he to take over, the connection between Hamas and Tehran would weaken. There's no question. There's Seymour's brother who's on the ground in Gaza, because the year of war, so many of them have been killed, frankly. There's Abu Marzouk, who's a hotel guy, but with good relationships with Iran, as well as with Gulf states. And they're going to have to go through a process now of choosing a leader. Because if they don't have a leader, they can't agree to a ceasefire.

Exactly. Yeah. Right? You know, we've focused a lot on Iran and Iran's connection to Hamas and to Hezbollah. But oddly, we hear, and you just mentioned it, more about turkey than we used to uh and turkey becoming an increasingly important player in this unfolding story there's no question um and you know under president of Turkey. This started really as far back as the late teens. Again, if we go back just a little bit, in one of the repetitive cycles of wars, which we would now call skirmishes, frankly, in comparison to what we've seen over the last year,

between Israel and Hamas. You remember that Erdogan organized a flotilla of ships and they were boarded by Israeli commandos. And from that time on, Erdogan has presented himself as a champion of the Palestinians, particularly the Palestinians in Gaza. And in that way, he stood against Egypt, he stood against Saudi Arabia, and it's given Turkey a kind of bridge role in the region. He sees himself as partly a bridge, given his geographic location where Turkey is.

It stands between Europe and Asia. And he sees himself as the interlocutor between the East and the West, a member of NATO. But he has really deep connections in the Arabic-speaking world, which is, of course, Muslim. And the Turks were the, they are the descendants of the Ottomans who ruled this part of the world for three centuries, frankly. He has become a very prominent spokesperson for Palestinians in Gaza and is leading the charge that there must be an independent Palestinian state before a ceasefire, has tried to provide financial support to Hamas as well, and there are Hamas leaders who live in Istanbul.

That is the second most favored place of residence. They feel secure there after Qatar. What has that done to the relationship between Turkey and the U.S.? It certainly hasn't improved things. I mean, this is a NATO member, right? This is the eastern flank of NATO. There's a lot of stress between the United States and Turkey. Nobody wants to rock the boat to the extent that Turkey would feel uncomfortable in NATO because it's such a strategic asset given its geography.

And I think in Washington, there's almost a sense, well, you wait him out. Because again, look at, just again, to talk about Turkish politics for a minute, it's a very large and important Muslim country with internal divisions between the secularists who took over a century ago and dragged Turkey into the modern era. And devout Muslims, I would say, rather than Islamists in the same way. They're not militant Muslims, but they're devout Muslims.

And Erdogan has been elected now. Everybody challenges everybody's elections, but there really are some grounds to challenge here. Four times, he represents a revolt against the secular leadership of Turkey, largely the military. He's giving voice to the Muslims, to observant Muslims in Turkey. And so you could see the affinity that he would then develop. I want to go back to Sinwar for a moment, because I'm wondering in the way he was killed, in the way he was basically caught, is there a lesson or is there something to take from that?

Because here, you know, you and I have discussed Sinwar for more than a year now, and we always came to the conclusion that if there was anyone in the crosshairs of the most elite Israeli forces, it was him. But in the end, it was not the elite forces who got him. It was basically a training squad who kind of bumped into him, didn't even know it was him initially. What does that tell us? Is that just one of these sort of freaks of war or what?

You know, I was absolutely fascinated. I have to say sometimes the details tell you so much. And they told me two really important things, Peter. First of all, what was he doing above ground? What was he doing? He knew, right? Mohammed Def had been killed above ground as soon as he emerged from the tunnels

because there's satellite technology and drones that are constantly surveying the battlefield. So why would Tsien Maor? I was stunned. Why would he come out from the tunnels? Well, somebody said, well, you need cigarette breaks. But that's actually not a persuasive answer because they have ventilation in the tunnels. And he knew. He knew he was not going to outlive this war.

So in fact, it tells you that the, I think that the, the water, the food, the provisions in those tunnels are no longer adequate. They didn't plan for a year long war. They didn't stalk these tunnels. And the couriers that were bringing him things, it became increasingly hard, Peter. Because he was walking around with two other guys. That tells you something about the stresses inside on this leadership. We are approaching

the beginning of the end of the viability and the capacity to hide underground. That's no small story when you think about it. You know, in a way, it's kind of similar to Bin Laden, because, I mean, he was in that place in uh pakistan in pakistan um where he was basically always inside in that two or three story home but there were a couple of times he came out to walk you know yeah fresh air cigarette break whatever it might be and it was on one of those that they caught a glimpse.

Yeah. Not a firm recognition, but enough of a glimpse that it pushed the whole plan forward. Yeah. So kind of similar in that sense. Yeah. And similar in the sense that, you know, once bin Laden was gone and then Zawahiri a little bit later, you don't hear about Al-Qaeda the way you used to.

It's a little bit in Africa, but that's kind of a different wing of it all. Yeah. But that bin Laden, Zawahiri group, basically you don't hear about them anymore. No. No, a very similar process, right? They divided, they factionalized, they split, there's competition. Because there are a range of views in Hamas. There are.

There are Hamas leaders who have said quietly, this has gone way too far. This has gone way too far. And he's too militant, not to speak of the opposition among Palestinians in Gaza, to his refusal to accept a ceasefire. So there's politics in Hamas just like there are anywhere else, frankly. You know, from the intelligence side, it's really fascinating

because there's been a unit in the Shin Bet nonstop. That's its principal job, to find Sinhwar. And assisted by the CIA, who was providing satellite imagery, advanced infrared technology to look for traces of him. And they felt they were getting close at the end of August, the beginning of September, because those six hostages were murdered. And it appears now in retrospect as if he gave the order because RDF forces were too close.

And then they found his DNA in that tunnel. So he was with those six hostages. So they narrowed the perimeter of where he was and they increased their patrols, but they didn't find them. And it was a training squad and they didn't know they killed him when they got him. It's amazing. It is.

It is. Now on the flip side, you have a situation in these past couple of days where a drone was sent in, a Hezbollah drone, I guess, trying to target Benjamin Netanyahu's home. Now, it didn't succeed. It got his home. It didn't get him. He wasn't at home.

And whatever damage there was, it was kind of minimal. But that's the first go around on that, where they clearly seem to be targeting him. It wouldn't be the first time an Israeli prime minister has been assassinated, but it would obviously change this situation considerably. What did that tell you, that they would even try that? Well, this comes in the context. He has been much more tightly connected to Iran than Hamas

ever was. And that's why when people would talk about it all as one axis of resistance, I never thought that was accurate. So Hezbollah is the big Iranian investment. So why target Benjamin Netanyahu personally? That's in response, I think, Peter, to the targeting of Iranian commanders of the they succeeded or not, just the message that we can target your home. And what's becoming clear is that these multiple layers of defensive air defense systems, which Israel has built, which are really effective against missiles and particularly ballistic missiles, to a startling degree, frankly, that became apparent from the last Iranian attack, are not as effective against lower flying drones that are cheap to produce, can fly low, often evade radar. And that's what happened with this drone. It did evade radar.

And, you know, it's a five to one ratio in terms of expense to take out a cheap drone. And that's an enduring problem. When you have higher tech armies with advanced technology, they're most vulnerable to cheap solutions that are easy and can be mass produced. And that's what we're seeing here. But they're still in business. Now, again, I don't want to over-exaggerate from one or two drones that get through.

Interestingly, Hezbollah has not fired any of their advanced precision missiles. Right. Which they've got by the thousands in the mountains, and they haven't fired them yet. Either they're holding back or their command and control is not good enough. And what would you think it is of those two? I mean, their leadership is in some chaos as well, having Nasrallah assassinated. I mean, obviously, you've got all these different leaders

on one side getting killed by Israeli forces. We shouldn't be surprised that Netanyahu would be a marked man or any number of his most senior commanders. Right, right. No, and I think that's exactly it, that it's a response to these assassinations. I think Hezbollah is diverted by exactly what we were talking about. It has to find a new leader.

It has to find consensus. And they are not going to use their most valuable assets until and unless they have somebody in control that has the authority to make that kind of decision, Peter, and that's not there yet. So you have both these organizations now disorganized. They sure create opportunities to freelance. Right?

And these missiles, the less expensive ones, the drones, this sort of thing, are always under control of local forces. And if communication is broken up, get local forces that decide to do things. That's what I mean by freelance. And it's not part of a concerted strategy. That's the downside of chaos, frankly. But you're not going to use your most important assets. Let me just ask this last one on the targeting of Netanyahu. We know the Israelis have, you know, for decades had this ability to go anywhere, anywhere in the world to find their targets. And they have achieved success, if you count success by the elimination of these targets.

How sophisticated is the other side in trying to do something like that? Or is the defense structure that Israel has around its leaders, and not just the prime minister, but its leaders, so sophisticated, so good, that it would be impossible to think that they could get inside there? So I'm going to give you the answer here, Peter, of somebody who's studied intelligence services. There's no intelligence service in the world that is not good, that it can protect with 100% certainty its leaders.

There's always, you know, I was going to use a swear word, but I can't do that with you in the room. There's always somebody that's going to mess up, right? There's always going to be a mistake. I mean, look what happened in the United States with Secret Service. And Secret Service is a very stretched organization right now. But, you know, two attempts on Donald Trump and Iranian interference. There's no question Iran has engaged in interference in Donald Trump's campaign. So there's no intelligence service that is that good

but taking somebody out with a drone is not I think going to be the way something like that would ever happen because of the multi-layered levels of defense you know we've had one Israeli Prime Minister in modern times assassinated that was Yitzhak Rabin and that happened from inside the country. That was an Israeli who did that. And from that time on, the security detail,

he's focused really, it's not so much the phalanx of people who are around the prime minister. It's detailed, slogging intelligence work who's six feet away who do we know everybody who's in the room with them who has access to them they do that kind of work in a really dogged way okay we're gonna take um and quick break, come back, talk about the Russia-Ukraine story for a second. We'll be right back after this. And welcome back. You're listening to the Monday episode of The Bridge. Monday means Dr. Janice Stein from the Munk School, University of Toronto.

You're listening on Sirius XM, Channel 167, Canada Talks, or on your favorite podcast platform. Okay. Russia, Ukraine. I'm going to start this not the way I had planned a few minutes ago, but I want to start it because of our focus in these last 10 minutes or so on the question of drones and their use in the Israel-Hamas war. There's no doubt in the Russia-Ukraine war, trains are huge.

There are hundreds of them being flown every day, hitting targets and being shot down. I mean, all you have to do is look at the stock price for drone companies that has soared, soared in the last few months. That this, you know, it's really become the drone war. And as you said, as you said before, it's a lot cheaper to run a drone war than it is, you know, F-16s or what have you and the big tanks and all that. But it really is a war of drones right now. It's incredible, Peter. It really is.

I mean, this is, you know, Ukraine is going to come out of this war as the most it's going to be the most effective fighting force in all of Europe. Just think about that. Small Ukraine on the periphery of Europe is going to be the most effective army. Hardly, and it's Ukrainian innovation,

which we don't talk about enough. They have a, before the war started, they had a really thriving tech community. You know, small startups that were, they were one of the hotspots around the world. They were very innovative. And they have designed and redesigned these drones.

The Russians have actually, in an astonishing way, for such an inflexible country that lumbers along, the Russians have actually innovated in response. We're probably on our sixth generation of drones now. They've changed the whole battlefield. They hover over the battlefield. They're out in front of infantry or put soldiers who are charging forward. You know, they target people. Ukrainian Russian drones now target Ukrainian soldiers who are hiding behind foliage.

They find them. Because as soon as the Ukrainian soldier comes out to launch their drone, their position is revealed. And so the pre-serious fighting, before you get to the tanks, the whole battlefield is shaped by these drones. It's an amazing story. The other day, there was a prisoner swap with Russia and Ukraine. Now, it's not easy to agree to a prisoner swap, but is it that much harder to go further than that

and agree to some kind of ceasefire or shutdown or peace deal or what have you? You know, prisoner swaps matter. They really do matter when you exchange prisoners. Look, in both these conflicts, they have been signally important times when they've agreed to exchange prisoners because you have to trust just enough that the other side is going to stay,

keep their word, and do what they say they're going to do. And you gamble. So I always look at that as kind of the minimum condition for anything else to happen. Zelensky has been going all over Europe and the United States with a peace plan. So self-describe that that peace plan, I think is a word that he's hacked on in a big bow and put on top of the box because it really means Ukraine being

invited to join NATO, Ukraine being given permission to use those long-range missiles, which it's clear now he's not going to get from President Biden as long as President Biden's in office. And that's not, we're not at a point yet where we see any concession, meaningful concession from either side, frankly. But the Europeans, some of Ukraine's allies really want discussions to start. I think what's happened in Europe, Peter, is they've recognized there's no winner on battle. There's no military win for either side on this one. And the only way to end it is to have what the most discouraged people would say is a frozen conflict, where you freeze the border with the expectation they will probably go back at this at some time in the future, or with some sort of more elaborate commitment on the part of Russia that they will stop where the lines are right now.

How credible is that to anybody? But it's clear there is no military win for Ukraine in this war. They cannot withstand the Russian army. And if there aren't some sort of discussions, the creeping pattern, if you look at those front lines, you see the Russians have moved forward, moved forward, moved forward, a little bit at a time. And there's not an analyst's capacity in Russia to keep this going either.

So my sense is we're approaching the beginning of some sort of discussion. There was a hint of a contradiction in your statements here in the last few minutes. Because on the one side you talk about Ukraine coming out of this with this incredible military force. And then a couple of minutes later, you're saying there's no way they can win this war. Yeah, you know, it's interesting because what does this tell you about Europe, right?

What does this tell you about Europe? That even an innovative, high-tech army like Ukraine that got the big equipment mostly that it needed, but innovated on the ground and innovated battlefield techniques, ultimately gets worn down just by sheer numbers and by manpower. The biggest constraint in the developed world is young men. There's not, and if there was just a story in a European paper, I think it was yesterday about a Ukrainian soldier who had repeatedly said we need to be rotated out for rest.

And he couldn't get the senior commanders to listen. So he defected in order to get the attention of the Ukrainian public. There's no substitute for young men in war. Young women would say they're partly a substitute, but it's young people in war. And we're all growing societies. There are more of us than there are young soldiers who are prepared to fight. And that's a big part of the problem Ukraine is having. It's digging deeper and deeper and deeper into its pool of young people.

And if you think about what that means for the future of free Ukraine, it's lost a generation already of young people who would produce the next generation. Now, it's a big problem for Russia as well, but Russia is three times the size, and that's what's telling in the end here. Now, just take that over to France, Germany, who are the oldest countries in Europe. And if Ukraine is the most effective army we have in Europe, just imagine what we did say about the French and the Germans.

If getting to the end of this is trying to find a way to push both sides to the table so that it is actually talk is there any um is there any benefit for zielinski continuing to press in his you know so-called victory plan or peace plan or whatever he calls it that exists right now the number one thing is membership in NATO. Yeah. And, you know, and most of the NATO members are agreeing to that. Now, that's also the number one thing on the Russian side that can't be allowed to happen as far as the Russians are concerned. So how do you get to the table with that as part of the picture? That's the biggest obstacle, frankly, right? And, you know, Europeans say they use language like this.

We'll create a pathway for Ukraine to join NATO. You know, a pathway can be two years. It could be 10 years. There's a lot of flexibility in what a pathway looks like. And I think that is a crucial stumbling block for the Russians. It's crucial. You know, here's the big irony, Peter. You know, Putin went to war to get back ancestral Russian lands, is the way he would describe it.

And says there was no Ukraine, which is just a very particular reading of history. Let me put it to you that way. We can argue who's older, Ukraine or Russia, if we want to dance on the head of a pin. And what happened as a result of that, he now has NATO forces on his border anyway, because Finland and Sweden joined NATO. And one of his big strategic goals was to prevent NATO forces from being up against Russia's border. By what he did, he's failed.

So you might argue, is it that much worse to have NATO forces on Ukrainian soil? Ukraine is a long, long land border with Russia. I don't think there's any way that Vladimir Putin would accept

NATO membership for Ukraine. And NATO doesn't admit states that are in the middle of a war. Just because they would have to go to the defense of that state. It's a collective defense agreement. Last point, and it sort of draws the circle around both these issues that we talk about every Monday, the Middle East and Russia, Ukraine. Do you see any possibility of a breakthrough on either one of these stories in the short term?

And to breakthrough, I mean, you know, some kind of ceasefire or peace deal. Look, the, you know, Tony Blinken is back at it. The Saudis and the Qataris and I think the Turks as well trying to seize the opportunity now that exists I think they're highly motivated in the United States because this would be the capstone

of Biden's career frankly and he has until January to get it done. The biggest obstacle, there's two obstacles. We've been talking about these for a year, right? One is Netanyahu, but this time it's slightly different, I would say, because there is a uniform agreement among the military, senior military command in Israel. They're pushing him for ceasefire now so that they can get those hostages back.

He hasn't faced that in this way before. Now, just as a sidewalk here, you know, he withstood pressure from the military and from Biden in going into Rafah. And had they not gone into Rafah, they would never have found Sanmar, because that's exactly, it was in that broader space that he was. So he's claiming, you know, he's arguing with his own military commanders. You see, I told you so.

You got it wrong and I got it right. But I don't think he can withstand 50% of the population that wants to cease fire now and the senior military commanders that are saying we need to cease fire right now. There's no more strategic wins in Gaza. I think there's a chance everything will depend on the two of them. Can Hamas

find a leader who will be able to put a fig leaf on this and talk about it as a pause? It's got to be a pause. And frankly, we're talking about the same thing in both conflicts, Peter.

There's no way, you know, the biggest picture of all is Israelis will live next to Palestinians and Palestinians will live next to Israelis forever. Nobody's going anywhere. And Ukrainians and Russians are going to live next to each other forever. So at some point you have to say, this is not what I dreamed, but these are my neighbors.

Boy, when you look at it that way, you say this is just crazy that it keeps going on. Well, as usual, we've learned a lot listening to you again on this week, and we'll do it all again seven days from now. Thanks, Janice. Have a good week. Well, what a note to end on.

It's so true, right? They're all going to live next to each other forever. This has got to be resolved one way or another. The other point that Janice makes about Biden trying to finish this with some kind of a deal in the Middle East during his term. I mean, it's true, he's got a couple months left on his term.

January, whatever it is, on the 21st or something, when his presidency ends and the victor of November 5th takes over. Well, if the victor on November 5th is Donald Trump, then really Biden only has a couple of weeks left because nobody's going to do anything, at least from the Israeli side, at least from the Netanyahu side, if they know Trump's coming in. So it's, you know, it is an interesting unfolding of events. Interesting is probably the weakest word I could use.

All right. That's going to wrap that part of the program up. A quick reminder to get your answers into the question, what's on your mind this week? And you send them to themansbridgepodcast at gmail.com. themansbridgepodcast at gmail.com. themansbridgepodcast at gmail.com. Include your name, the location you're writing from, and keep it short.

No essays. Looking forward to reading what you have to say. I'm Peter Mansbridge. Thanks so much for listening. Tomorrow, special guest, Sam Nutt is back. Dr. Samantha Nutt, War Child Canada. You know, we've dedicated parts of our show over the last couple of years to the situation in Sudan, but clearly not enough.

Things are not changing there. It is a hellhole. Sam's been there a number of times. She's going to update us on the situation there and in other areas of the world where there are continuing problems that tend to get overshadowed because there's so much focus on the Middle East and Ukraine-Russia. That's tomorrow's program right here on The Bridge. Hope you'll join us.

I'm Peter Mansbridge. Thanks so much for listening. We'll talk to you again in almost 24 hours.