The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - What now? Israel, Hamas and Iran

Episode Date: April 15, 2024

After a wild weekend of developments in the middle east this question looms large -- what now? Dr. Janice Stein joins us for her regular Monday session and gives us guidance on this story and all the connecting lines that intersect because of it -- Washington, Amman, Tehran, Beirut and more.  Plus more information on our upcoming special Your Turn with Housing Minister Sean Fraser this Thursday.

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You are just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge. What a wild weekend in the Middle East. We're going to try and break it down for you, try to figure out what happens next. Janice Stein is here. That's coming right up. And welcome to Monday on the Bridge. I'm Peter Mansbridge in Stratford, Ontario today. Yes, it was a weekend to remember in the Middle East. All kinds of things happening, not the least of which was Iran attacking Israel. That's been the great fear.

What happens now? What happens next in the Middle East? It's Monday, and that means Janice Stein will be by, as she has been pretty much every Monday for the last year and a half, talking about either the Middle East or talking about Ukraine. Today it's the Middle East East because it's right up there in terms of things that have happened over the last couple of days and we need some context and understanding in terms of what happened. So we're going to do that. But before we get started with

Janice, I want to just remind you of what's happening on Thursday of this week. As you know, we've had a question of the week for you to respond to since January, since the beginning of January. It's the new Thursday episodes. This one is going to be a little different. We have the opportunity, and I've grabbed it on your behalf, to have the housing minister, Sean Fraser. You know the budget's coming down tomorrow. They had their big housing plan announcement a couple of days ago.

A lot of you are concerned about this, either for yourselves or for your kids or your grandkids, and you want some answers to some basic questions about the housing situation. And so this is your opportunity. You write me a question that you want asked, and I'll take the 10 or 15 best ones, as many as I can get in in 40, 45 minutes with the housing minister,

and I'll ask them your question. And I will try to ensure that you get an answer. That can be sometimes hard with a politician, as you well know. But he knows that, and he knows what we're doing here, that we're getting questions from the audience, and they want answers. And so I will try, if there's an answer possible, to get it for you. So how do we do this? Well, I announced this last week, and we already have had a lot of letters in already.

But I want more. I want a really good selection from across the country. So you write out your question. The best way to do this is to keep it tight, to keep it short. There's no point in giving a long question to a politician because they'll just look for the element of the question that they can run with. And sometimes that means ignoring the bigger part of what you're asking. All right. So ask a question, something that's on your mind about the housing situation. Could be selling, could be buying, could be renting, could be building.

It could be any number of different things. Okay, so that's what we want. Write out your question. Include your name and the location you're writing from. Keep it tight, as I said. You send it to themansbridgepodcast at gmail.com themansbridgepodcast

at gmail.com There is a close-out time on this. It's noon Wednesday. Noon Eastern Time Wednesday. That's 9 a.m. on the West Coast, right? Got to go with that. And if you come in after that, it's not going to get considered.

I just have to do, I have to set these time situations for you. But you've got a couple of days here, so there you go. Question, your name, the location you're writing from, the Mansbridge podcast at gmail.com. Have it in by noon Eastern time on Wednesday of this week. Okay? Got it? You got it.

Let's hope it works. We'll see whether it does. I'm sure I'll hear from you as to whether it does. I think we're going to give the random ranter the day off on Wednesday. Excuse me, on Thursday. So we can get as many questions and answers in from you and from the housing minister. All right, revert to our topic for today, and it is the various things that happened in the Middle East

over the weekend and where that could be leading us now. It was a remarkable weekend, and who better to talk to it than Jana Stein, Middle East expert, conflict management expert, foreign affairs expert from the Munk School at the University of Toronto. Let's get that conversation underway right now. So, Janice, the last, I guess, the last 48 hours, the whole weekend, there were so many things, obviously the big ticket item was Iran attacking Israel, which has been the fear all along that something like this might happen.

But they've always resisted. They've always allowed the attacks on Israel to take place through one of their proxies. But here they do a direct attack, and it is a humiliating defeat in many ways. You know, more than 300 missiles, 99% of them, if you believe the Israelis, are shot down. And no discernible real damage. What do we make of that to start with? Overall, what do we make of that attack?

Bear with me, I'm going to take us back just a bit, because this is almost a classic example of one miscalculation that feeds on another and that's unfortunately how we get to war the israelis took out seven um iranians in an attack on a consulate april the first, well, that's not going to cause a problem. We've done this before. They've never retaliated. That's not what happened inside Iran for two reasons. The first reason was that the Republican guards put incredible pressure on Khamenei

because this is their third general that they've lost. One Qasem Soleimani under Trump and not much happened. 15 missiles, which shows you the asymmetry here. And then two that Israel has taken out, one in December and this one. And that just broke the barrier for them. And their view is unless it was a massive attack, a serious attack, this would keep happening.

So they spent two weeks crafting a message because this attack, from their perspective, was a signal. It was strong enough to show that they were not a paper tiger, but not that strong that would provoke escalation.

Now, how you could think that lobbing 350 missiles, of which 100 are ballistic missiles, would not be construed as an escalation? It's just simply beyond me, But that's what they thought. And they sent a message last night while the attack was going on. This is concluded. Unless you respond. If you respond, we will retaliate with greater severity.

Now, U.S. intelligence picks us up. Win number two for U.S. intelligence in the last two years and sends a warning. And so there's a lot of time to prepare, which explains this astonishing result. But Biden has a conversation with Netanyahu. conversation um with nathaniel we will support you in defending but we won't support you if you retaliate if you go on the offense that is entirely different and the story that comes out today peter is just astonishing i'm listening this is just i mean my eyes are are, my wife, not Netanyahu, but Benny Gantz, and the former chief of staff,

the other member of the War Cabinet, go to Netanyahu before it starts. Because they had that warning. Because they knew when the launches were taking place, everybody was watching. And they said, let's retaliate now. Because if we retaliate now, the U.S. won't be able to put pressure on us.

We'll get it all over with. The Iranians will be confused if when their missiles are going one way, our missiles are going the other way and they won't be able to respond and we'll have already retaliated. Too cute, but I have. Way too cute. But, you know, I tell you this story because it shows you how contingent it all is.

And what interrupted that discussion? That phone call from biden so this is time number two that joe biden has stopped an attack a retaliatory attack once by yoav galant after three days after october the 7th against hiszbollah and last night that call came just at the right moment to interrupt that conversation. Do you think that that stands as the situation now that there

is no retaliation, at least not in an immediate term? I absolutely do not think that's what stands. I absolutely do not think that's what stands. I absolutely do not think that. There were the cabinet meeting, the work cabinet meeting went on for five hours today. It's not a big group in that room.

What I think is that there is a decision in principle to retaliate, but how, when, where along the spectrum is wide open for discussion. And that I think they see real advantages now in delaying. There are two or three big wins that they will get this coming week. And I think that's really important in how they think about the advantages of waiting. But it's a pause. It is not a decision not to retaliate at all. Okay. Let me go back to the way they handled the Iranian attack.

Because it wasn't obviously just Israel. It was Israel plus the Americans plus the British plus the Jordanians were in. Plus the Jordanians plus the Saudis plus the French. Okay. To me, the two important ones in there are the Jordanians and the Saudis. How did they end up working with the Israelis on this? There have been private discussions

before October the 7th. These were ongoing and they were brokered by the United States as part of the normalization process that the Biden administration was hoping to get to before Hamas disrupted that process of joint air defense. And nothing's written down.

There's no documents. But when the United States discovered on Thursday that this attack was coming now and that it was going to be, you know substantial size um two things became apparent one these missiles would have to overfly jordanian territory on the way and so it was not a hard decision although it was a very courageous decision because iran warned any Arab government that participated in defending against the attack that it would itself become a target. Nevertheless, the Jordanians sent their air force up into the air and actively engaged in shooting down drones. um there is there has been ever since you know this relationship exists since 1948 when even uh during that first original war where jordan was big loser

there there have been shared conversations and shared intelligence between these two countries um when push comes to shove and push came to shove last night this was over flying Jordanian airspace. The Saudis closed their airspace. You know, just on this, just let's take a step back for a second and ask yourself what Netanyahu might learn from this. And what might he learn from it?

That's where you were going, I bet. Just think about this, that when Israel comes under direct attack from an adversary that is genuinely a strategic threat to Israel, genuinely a strategic threat. Hamas is not a strategic threat. Iran is. What happens is that broader collaboration with those like-minded Sunni states, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, really make a difference. What's the cost of preserving those relationships? A pathway to a political solution for Palestinians.

The assumption has always been that part of the reason for October 7th was to try and, you know, scare the Saudis away from those talks that you just talked about. This would seem to indicate they're not scared away from those talks. And it must really set Iran on the back foot. It's bad enough they got humiliated in the attack. But the fact that Jordan and Saudi Arabia were on, you know, working with the Israelis, must really make them wonder about where they go from here. I mean, you could argue that the timing of this attack, Peter, I can understand how the Revolutionary Guards would say to Tom, we have to do something.

We can't let this process continue. But I can't imagine worse timing than this from Iran's perspective. One, the de facto collaboration between Jordan and Saudi Arabia becomes apparent to everybody. That's not what Iran wants here. In fact, there were tensions there. I mean, King Abdullah was complaining bitterly to Joe Biden about Israel and what was happening. That just washed away. Secondly, the relationship between Biden and Netanyahu was on the rocks.

It was boiling. And Iran changes the rocks. It was boiling. And Iran changes the channel. And all of a sudden looks up and finds that Biden's put this aside and comes out with the strongest statement of solidarity in

defense. Not in any offensive action, but in defense of Israel. Why would you want to do that? And then the third was the G7 statement this morning. offensive action but in defense of Israel. Why would you want to do that? And then the third was the G7 statement this morning yesterday on Sunday in which they come out with the same kind

the seven of them, many of whom have been extraordinarily critical of Israel, certainly over the last two months as the condition of Palestinians has deteriorated they come out in strong solidarity. So leave aside, as you say, the military humiliation. This is a political embarrassment for Iran as well.

Let me touch base on a couple of other things that happened over this weekend before we get to the kind of the critical question of where are we now. But there were a couple of other things that happened over this weekend before we get to the kind of the critical question of where are we now? But there were a couple of other things that happened on, on Saturday, the Iranians basically took over a freighter, an oil tanker or whatever it was in, in the Persian Gulf. Yeah.

You know, they, they use their commandos, lowered them down by helicopter and took over this. What does that tell you? You know, again, what a misguided move that tanker is owned by an Israeli billionaire. It's not in Israel. You know, it's not, first of all, it's not a government of Israel flagged ship. It's not in Israel. First of all, it's not a government of Israel

flagged ship. It's private. Secondly, Suez Canal is already operating only at 60% capacity because of the Houthi attacks which have endangered shipping

going through the Red Sea and added at least 25% to the cost of shipping, which is such an important part of global trade. So when we look at how sticky inflation is, you know, we're struggling with this in Canada. The Fed is struggling with this in the United States. It's not a coincidence that when you lengthen the distance between Europe, Asia, and North America

and global shipping, you're going to get sticky inflation. By doing this, that's the second major waterway that will no longer be perceived as safe. The world's oil, not all of it because the United States is the world's largest

exporter of oil now, but 60% of it goes through those waters. The insurers are going to have exactly the same problem with oil tankers that they have with container shipping. And

who benefits by exporting oil, Peter? You're wrong. Okay. It is, again, you know, it is a, it is, you know how vociferous I've been about Israel, that it lacked a strategy. And that is the great failing of Netanyahu ever since Hamas attacked on October the 7th.

I think it's fair to say that intense pressure from the Revolutionary Guards here pushed Khamenei to approve something that was entirely lacking in strategy and ill-considered in its timing. Okay. Here's the other thing that happened on the weekend, two other things, actually. And this has been happening all along since, you know, October 7th, but on the West Bank, Israeli settlers, you know, have gone on a number of rampages, and they certainly had a big one this past weekend.

What is, against Palestinians, obviously, what does that do to the situation that exists at the moment? You know, again, this has been a problem. It's been a long-standing problem frankly but it's um been much more intense since october the 7th partly because two ministers the two most right-wing ministers uh ben gevier uh andresk, who is the finance minister, Ben-Gavir is the minister of national security. I mean, I'm more inept, you know, is really I could say the minister of national insecurity, if I were accurate in describing. He authorized the distribution, widespread distribution of guns.

Immediately after October 7th, making the arguments that the same things could happen on the West Bank that happened on the border between Gaza and Israel and that communities could be at risk and this is necessary for self-defense. In fact, where those guns went, they all went to settlers who are now armed with lethal weapons. So when you get an incident like this, where a teenager living in one of the settlements went missing and was apparently murdered.

You get this eruption of violence against Palestinian communities that live right next to the settlement. Everybody has a gun. And the minister responsible is the one who distributed these guns. So we're seeing a real intensification of this kind of violence. And finally, for the first time on Saturday, for the first time, the Minister of Defense, whether I agree with him or not,

he's acting as the Minister of Defense, you know, denounced the violence and told the settlers it would not be tolerated if they broke the law and the second really good thing that happened is when it became apparent that an attack was coming

from Iran the cabinet met and authorized only three ministers to make the decisions. Gallant, Netanyahu, and Gantz. And nobody else would be consulted. They didn't have to report back to the security committee.

They were authorized to make and finalize all the decisions. So they were these people who are among the most right-wing that Israel's ever had and frankly irresponsible are now shut out of these decisions well while all these different things were going on over the last couple of days talks have also been going on yeah and there there are some hints that the the talk then the talks we're talking about are between Israel and Hamas and the countries that are sitting there at the table with them to try and resolve the hostage situation in Gaza and move aid into Gaza. And there seems to be some sense, at least there was overnight,

that it may be close and that Hamas has changed sort of what its position is. And as a result, Israel may change a little bit of what its position is, and we could see an end to all this in the next couple of days. Now, yeah, okay, give me the reason why I shouldn't think that. You know, I am tended to be optimistic that we were getting close. One thing did happen a few days ago in which Hamas declared openly that it doesn't have, it doesn't know, it said it doesn't know where 40 hostages are and said that it wants a ceasefire before it provides the names because it needs a ceasefire in order to communicate with the other militias that have these hostages.

But there was a leak. And again, how reliable this is, but it's consistent with what many people expect. there was a leak that there were not 40 live hostages, that they can't meet the quota, and that there are something closer only to 27 who are alive. Now, that's a big gap. If we extrapolate that, Peter, three quarters, something less than three quarters of the remaining hostages may be alive. That's a very, very worrying, and it plays in two different ways, right?

On the one hand, it adds urgency. The hostage families are desperate because this information is now circulating widely. They are going to put even more pressure on the government to agree to an unconditional ceasefire, which is what Biden is asking for under this rubric that Hamas needs several days to be in touch with the other militias. But the Biden administration wants an unconditional ceasefire

because it wants to surge the humanitarian aid to the Palestinian community. There is, of course, another side to the story that if there are many fewer hostages who are alive than people expected or hoped, then the incentive might be to go and use tactical strikes into RAFA because the risk is less than people thought

if there are 25 or 30% of the hostages are no longer alive. Plays both ways. But I think the time is running out here for these negotiations. I think that is absolutely accurate. Well, clearly if they're losing live hostages, the time is definitely running out. That's right. We've dealt with a lot of things here in the last 20 minutes that have happened

just in the last three days. Are there dots to connect here? Are some of these things happening because of each other? Yeah. So I think we can clearly connect the hostage negotiations with the impending, with what negotiations with the impending with then the impending attack from Iran

I think there's no question that's in more delayed because what he wanted from the first day that he attacked he wanted Hezbollah to cross the border from

Lebanon and he wanted Iran to join the conflict. And here's the irony, Peter. Iran did not join when the death rate for Palestinians during the intense fighting was

as high as it was. It's dropped way down now. Who knows for how long? Because of disease, which could really impair our population. But it has dropped now. But that's not when they joined. Iran entered the fray only when revolutionary guards were attacked and a small number of revolutionaries. They acted, in other words, on behalf of their own nationals,

not on anybody else's behalf. I think when there's a moment now and here's how they're connected, I think this puts pay to any hope that Sinwar had. That Iran will come to the assistance of Palestinians. And that has to be a sobering moment for him. Because this is what he hoped for. Which is the kind of moment that would suggest that it's time to cut the best deal you can cut.

It's time to cut the best deal, especially if what I fear is correct, that hostages have died. Right. Okay, we're going to take a quick break here. That's a lot to try and come to grips with. I mean, let's face it, if six months ago, if before October 7th, I'd said to you, something's going to happen here,

Iran is going to attack Israel. No way. We wouldn't have thought that 24 hours later, things would be relatively calm. Yeah. First of all, I wouldn't have thought that Iran was going to would be relatively calm yeah first of all i wouldn't have thought that iran was done with i never would have anticipated you know just before we take that break and i know we need the break people but just for one minute when you think about it

you think how contingent all this is right i described those conversations about retaliation which were then shut down by the timing of that call. And then last night, Saturday night, when the attacks were coming over, there was video over Jerusalem of intercepts by jet fighters that were attacking drones. And there was one shot that just stayed in my mind. It was over the Al-Aqsa Mosque. And the drones were blown up by fighter aircraft

and shrapnel was falling and debris. And I thought to myself, it all hangs by a thread. Can you imagine if an Iranian drone had been intercepted and Al-Aqsa Mosque was set on fire? So in some ways, the risk the Iranians took is absolutely astonishing when you think about it. I'll say. Okay, let me take this quick break and we'll come back with something completely different. It's actually a, I don't know whether to call it a good news story or a happy story,

but it actually makes you feel better about some things in life. We'll do that when we come back. And welcome back. You're listening to The Bridge, the Monday episode with Dr. Janice Stein from the Munk School at the University of Toronto. We spent the first, I don't know, 25 minutes or so discussing all the events that have happened in the Middle East in the last couple of days. I want to talk about something different here under the guise of the what are

we missing and these days you tend to miss a lot because things happen so fast right and in our focus of attention goes bing bing bing and you tend to forget about what happened a week ago or two weeks ago or three weeks ago. And in fact, what happened a few weeks ago was a pretty significant earthquake in Taiwan. And, you know, we heard a lot about it over the couple of days. And we saw those remarkable shots of buildings. There was a kind of like on the half toppled over. But then it went quiet.

And one of the reasons it went quiet is a pretty remarkable one. So Janice, tell us about it. It really is a remarkable story. I don't know if you would say, Peter, it went quiet for all the good reasons, right? This was an earthquake that was 7.4 on the Richter scale. This is a serious earthquake. And Taiwan has just this most extraordinary record. It happened in an isolated area of the country, that's true. But seven people, seven people died in an earthquake of that order of magnitude.

And not a single one of the people who died, died as a result of a building that collapsed. These seven people died in rock slides. That's how, now is it possible that because even in Taipei that was still within the perimeter of the earthquake but not the epicenter of it.

How is it possible that not a single person would die? Well they had a very bad earthquake in 1998, not that long ago, 26 years ago. And Taiwan enforced building

codes. They inspected literally every building. They refitted buildings that didn't meet the standards for earthquakes. Every new building that's been built in the capital city,

but throughout the island, meet code. And you described the one building that was shaking. That building had been reinforced, and so it tilted a little bit, and it looks like the Leaning Tower of Pisa. That's the closest way we can paint the picture here. But nobody

died. And within minutes of the earthquake, you know, there are local community groups that spring into action, went through the buildings, took people out, emergency feeding stations, and literally by 48 hours later, everybody was back at work. It's an astonishing story. One of how a country can learn. But to me, and you're going to understand why I say that,

how they execute on what they learn. They didn't announce the building codes. They actually went out and executed and inspected every single building. I think if that earthquake had occurred almost anywhere else, we would have had a death toll. The story would have been in the news for a long time because the death toll would have been of an entirely different order of magnitude. It's astonishing.

What did you say it was, 7.4? Seven people. No, no, no, in terms of the Richter scale? 7.4 on the Richter scale. 7.4. Because a week later, there was an earthquake, unusual as it is, in New York. Yes. New Jersey, I think it was.

But, I mean, the American networks talked about it like it had happened right downtown New York. And there was, you know, quite a lot of coverage, not surprisingly, as a result of that in the United States. But that earthquake was like 4.8 or something like that. And so you assume, oh, well, you know, Taiwan was really only, you know, twice as much. That's not the way it works on the Richter scale. No. It's like considerably more than twice. It sort of goes up by each tenth of a minute.

Geometrically. That's right. That's right. I've each tenth of a minute. Geometrically. That's right. That's right. I've often tried to explain it. I can't explain it. All I know is there's a big difference between like 7.0 and 7.4, like a huge difference.

Enormous. Enormous. Enormous. Good for Taiwan. New York hasn't done what Taiwan has done, frankly. It hasn't retrofitted any of its... Vancouver, let's talk Vancouver. You know, Taiwan is geographically at a point where the tectonic plates meet.

So there's a higher probability of earthquakes. But so is Vancouver. We know that. The enforcement of building codes to earthquake standards doesn't happen in Vancouver like that. So this is a sign of a really disciplined society where community is as important as individual. They both matter, but the capacity of communities to self-organize like that and take everybody out.

They didn't wait for police or firefighters. They practice this stuff. They know how to do it. It's really extraordinary. You know, Vancouver's really extraordinary you know vancouver's actually you know they've done a lot yeah on this yeah yeah i don't want to we don't want anybody else in canada for sure we don't want to leave the impression that they've done nothing they're kind of whistling in the dark waiting for one of these things to come along. Because Ian Hannamansing, or as he's known in the trade,

Ian Handsome Manthing, will be all over us because he's done many stories on it. Okay. But not the same kind of every building, Peter. No. Not every building. And not organizing by block literally so and

you know it's not it's not only the fact that they go building by building it's a social organization and it's just astonishing have you been to Taiwan yes it's one of the few places in the world I haven't been to

but everybody i've talked to who's been there said it's a remarkable country it's an absolutely remarkable place to go uh everybody should visit um you know again it started out this is where chiang kai-shek went when he lost the civil war in china right and whatever else you want to say about Chiang Kai-shek, he wasn't a Democrat. This was an authoritarian ruler. It's an authoritarian society that made this peaceful transition to democracy,

but kept this tradition of community discipline. And it's not an accident, Peter, that the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation, which if you have any kind of smartphone in your pocket, as you're listening to this, you have a chip that is made by the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company. It makes 90% of the world's most advanced ships.

And why is that? In part, because they were smart enough to recruit a Taiwan national who wasn't promoted at Intel and back and invested. But what made this possible was the incredible discipline of the workforce in Taiwan. And you know, just as a

footnote on this, Biden, under the chipset, gave the Taiwanese company $30 million, I think, to open a factory in Arizona two years behind schedule. And yet, as he put it,

the kind of commitment and discipline that his workforce at home has, there's such precision. It just demands a lot of discipline and commitment and attention to detail and precision. There you have it. It all goes together in one package. Well, we're going to leave it on that note.

It was a nice little story, actually. Oh, it's wonderful. It's so encouraging that communities can come together. We'll talk again in seven days. Thanks, Janice. Peter, I hope we have a quieter seven days than the days we just had, right? Yeah, but not too quiet. We'll talk. Thanks, Janice. Dr. Janice Stein from the Munk School at the University of Toronto. Mondays are a treat to

have Dr. Stein with us to help us try to understand some of the things that go on in our crazy world. And the last few days have been certainly like that. A couple of notes. One about tomorrow. Tomorrow a new book is being

released. It's called World's Fastest Man. It's called World's Fastest Man. It's by Mary Ormsby. You may remember Mary. She was one of the great sports reporters of the Toronto Star. Mary's written a new book. It's basically about the incredible life of Ben Johnson, but there's so much of it is about you know what,

what happened in Seoul, Korea in 1988 at the Olympic Games. And there's a lot of new stuff in here. I just got the book last Friday. I read it over the weekend. I really enjoyed it. Learned a lot. And it really makes you think makes you think about what happened in Seoul

everybody knows Johnson was on drugs but did he get a fair hearing through that process that's what the book's about there's a lot of interesting stuff in it and tomorrow we're going to talk to Mary Ormsby about it so that's what the book's about there's a lot of interesting stuff in it and tomorrow we're going to talk to Mary Ormsby about it, so that's tomorrow's

episode of The Bridge and keep in mind, looking for your letters question to the housing minister have it in by noon on Friday Eastern Time make sure your name and your location you're writing from is on that letter. Send it to

themansbridgepodcast at gmail.com. Looking forward to that program on Thursday. Alright, that's going to do it for today. I'm Peter Mansbridge. Thanks so much for listening. We'll talk to you again in 24 hours.