The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - When Will The United States say "Enough"?

Episode Date: December 11, 2023

The US government continues to be pressured to speak up louder against the continued Israeli invasion of Gaza and the thousands who have been impacted by it. At the same time questions are being asked as to why the world is ignoring the sexual violence charged against Hamas during the October 7th attacks. Dr Janice Stein has strong views on both issues during her regular Monday appearance on The Bridge. Plus is Putin now winning the Ukraine war?

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You are just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge. When did the Americans say, enough? That's coming right up. And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here in Toronto today. Monday, opening up another week of The Bridge right here. And the Monday topics, as always, are Middle East and Ukraine with Janice Stein. We're going to get to that in a minute. Just wanted to let you know, if my voice sounds a little hoarse, it's because the book tour is finally over. And after talking about our new book, that's Mark Bulgich and myself, and How Canada Works is the name of the book. After talking about that book for the last 10 days in

places right across the country, you know, different spots, Halifax, Winnipeg, Calgary. We're supposed to get to Ottawa, didn't make that weather-wise and some issues with the aircraft that day. But also through all kinds of spots in southern Ontario. Over the weekend, Kitchener and Orangeville. Last week, before we went traveling by air to a couple of spots in the country, it was Sarnia, London, Oakville, Burlington, and, of course, in Toronto.

So it's been a busy last 10 days. Lots of speeches, lots of getting the opportunity to meet with those who'd come out to events in all these locations. And some big ones, a couple hundred, 300, 400 in one spot. And that's great. That's really wonderful to see and to witness and to be involved with. The people came out to hear about the book, ask questions about the book, but also just generally to, you know, have the opportunity, I guess they were looking forward to the opportunities, talking to me and asking me questions about different things, including the media these days, journalism these days.

And that's always great. I like that opportunity to have those conversations. I was, I was, I got to tell you, I was taken aback by the number of those who came to these events who said they listened to the bridge. And they have their favorite, you know, moments on the bridge each week. Could be the random renter. Could be Janice Stein. Could be the random ranter. Could be Janice Stein. Could be Chantel and Bruce.

There was a lot of that. And to have that opportunity with people of, I've got to tell you, all ages. There were young people, middle-aged people, elderly people. And they all talked about having become kind of fans of the bridge. And that's nice. Some new fans just heard about the podcast in the last few months. Others who'd been there since the beginning, almost three years now. So all of that was really nice to see. Really nice to have the opportunity to meet these people and to hear that. And it made me feel good about doing the bridge, the opportunity

that I have thanks to SiriusXM and thanks to you as well. So we'll keep it going. Enough on that. Of course, you can still pick up the book. It's a great Christmas gift. And you can find it at your favorite bookstore or you can get it online. How Canada Works by myself and Mark Bulgich. Okay, the Monday episode of The Bridge. We have been trying to focus and have focused on Ukraine for the last almost two years now. But since October 7th, we've also been dealing with the situation in Israel and Gaza. And that story is not going away.

And it's a difficult one to follow. It's a difficult one to watch. It's a difficult one to watch. It's a difficult one to read about. So we've been awfully lucky to have Janice Stein, Munk School, University of Toronto, Middle East analyst, conflict management analyst, somebody who's talked to by governments and businesses literally around the world

for her understanding and expertise and knowledge on these situations. So we have her with us again today, and we're going to get started with that conversation right now. All right, Janice, where are we now as we enter the third month? I still think, Peter, that this active fighting phase, we are in the last few weeks of it.

You know, there are leaks all over the place, as there inevitably are. And I'm certainly hearing out of the Biden administration three weeks more at the most within a real push on Israel. And this is going to be a story when it happens. back, which Israel has said it will not do, but to pull back and launch raids, targeted raids to go after individual Hamas leaders. They're saying three weeks. You and I know there's some slippage there, but we are in the final phase of this act of fighting, Peter. It doesn't mean that the issues will be resolved, but I think we're, I'd be shocked if this is still going

by the end of January, frankly. So they're losing patience, but what is the hammer they have? Is it all about money? Oh, they have a huge hammer. They have a huge hammer, and it's so interesting. You listen to the rhetoric. Tony Blinken was on the Sunday morning shows this morning. You listen to the rhetoric and it's, well, we never tell our allies what to do, except.

When we tell them what to do. When we tell them what to do. Right. And he's telling them what to do. There's an almost steely quality in his voice now that wasn't there. First of all, there's, as you say, money. But that's the least of it. Secondly is ammunition.

And you saw them just short circuit the normal process in Congress to get ammunition resupply. That's urgent. It always is. And thirdly, they veto resolutions in the Security Council. They have a huge hammer. If they were, frankly, if they run into opposition, and

this has happened before, they don't use their veto. That in itself is a game changer, frankly. I don't think Blinken wants to come to that. And fortunately, it's not only Netanyahu, there's Benny Gantz as well, who would not want to see it come to this.

And it's interesting, Peter, because when you asked me this question, I only had one other piece. There's two wars going on, at least. There's the war above ground, in which Gazan civilians, Palestinian civilians are paying just this horrific price. of their top people are in tunnels. And fighters pop out, you know, and that's what has been going on these last few days where you get fierce battles when fighters pop out, but the leaders don't. And if I know this active phase is coming to an end, the top leadership of Hamas knows it's coming to an end too, and their strategy has to be just wait this out underground, wait this out another three to four weeks.

What I find hard to understand, I guess, is, I mean, Gaza has descended into this living hell. Absolutely. You know, there's thousands of deaths. The humanitarian aid process is not working in any level as well as it needs to work. So when we say another, that the Americans will kind of put up with it for another few weeks, I don't understand how they can put up with it for another few days. I mean, they are, they are both not only Israel,

but the Americans losing the PR battle on this. You can just see it in the streets of America and to a degree Canada, that it is not going their way. And I just don't understand how they can keep it going. You know, Peter, you're right. They are losing the information war, and the reality is awful. It's not only the images.

The reality is just awful. So how do they frame this? They frame it the following way, and this connects up two conversations you're going to have. You know, an ally of theirs was attacked. So it's all about the message that the world gets. If they curtail Israel's capacity to respond to an attack, what message does that send to Russia over Ukraine? What message does that send to Russia over Ukraine? What message does that send

to China over Taiwan? So for them, especially for Jake Sullivan, it's situated in a much larger context. So they keep walking this fine line. Yes, Israel has a right to respond, but how they do it matters. And that's true, but it ignores the reality that you and I just talked about. There's a war above the ground in the most densely populated place on earth, literally, and among the poorest, and there's a war underground. So when the Americans talk about, look, we did better in Fallujah, or we did better in Mosul, yeah, they were fighting block by block, but there was no underground. The underground is a real game changer in this war, which limits the capacity, frankly, to succeed,

as we've said right from the beginning. So I think now it's a question of when they think it's, their message will not be misunderstood internationally because the political costs for the biden administration for this to keep going are astronomical frankly within his own party and they want this to stop let me ask you a question about it's the old question of what to believe and who to believe really but it boils down to two things in in terms of numbers you have the health authorities in Gaza who are controlled by Hamas putting out a number that says it's upwards of 17,000 now who have been killed in Gaza and many of them women and children. You have the Israeli Defense Force saying that they have killed 7,000 Hamas fighters,

terrorists, call them what you wish. Do you believe either of those numbers? So hard to know, frankly. So, you know, what I say to you and to our listeners, these are trustworthy numbers. No, no. And there's no, there's not a lot of capacity on the ground. But let's for a moment, believe the numbers, right? Let's justas has at a cost of two to one for every fighter, you're killing two civilians, because that's 10,000 civilians for 7,000 fighters killed. Well, I'm not wholly surprised by that, Peter, given that you're fighting in what is a large city, right?

A city of shacks, that's really what it is, and low-rise buildings built. And you have some of us fighters fighting underground, coming out of these tunnels to fight. The ones who survived go back in, and the leadership never comes out. That's the nature of the battlefield, and that's when I think Israel, the IDF, clearly underestimated, and they shouldn't have because they had really good intelligence about the underground tunnels. But that's what even the United States, I think, has gotten wrong here. What are they looking back at?

A nine-month fight for Fallujah right with no underground tunnels where you could take your time and you could evacuate neighborhood by neighborhood that's just not possible here frankly so we're having a kind of honestly fictional dialogue here right which i you know and, and the real casualties are Palestinian civilians. Well, as so often happens in war, and it happened in Iraq, and it happened in Afghanistan, and it happened, you know, in every war we can think about, where, you know, they call it technically collateral damage. But we're talking civilians.

That's right. We're talking women and children and the elderly who are and you know one of the things that's so clear now that we knew before it gaza's the young palace you know palestinians and gaza youngest population on earth 40 percent of the population palestinian population gas are kids right so if you So if you're killing two civilians, if there are two civilians dying for every fighter, that means one child because it's 40%. And so that's why the numbers are more or less make sense to me

when I look at the underlying demographics here. But there's no win in sight here, Peter, right? more or less make sense to me when I look at the underlying demographics here. But there's no win in sight here, Peter, right? And, you know, one other thing we might add to the story, I mean, I've been arguing right from the beginning, there was not a win here for Israel military strategy. There's not much of a win for Hamas either, although there's a lot of argument going on in the Arab press and Palestinian press about this.

Because on the one hand, you hear, well, this is a huge victory for Hamas because it destroyed this myth of Israeli competence, military competence, both in the surprise and in the response. And look, Hamas leaders are going to survive this attack. You know, at least half of them will survive this attack. That's an enormous victory. You're hearing somewhat different murmurings coming out, and largely on Twitter, from Palestinians when they get connectivity in Gaza. And the storyline there is a little different. It's Hamas doesn't care one bit about Palestinians. That line, there's a war above ground and a war below ground, actually comes from a Palestinian living in Gaza who says they're not fighting, they're protected, they're in tunnels.

They have food, they have fuel. It's a population, it's a Palestinian population. They don't care. They're not interested in welfare. And those voices are louder now than I've heard them largely because Hamas is not on the streets, right? The fighters are in the tunnels. So you can say things like that and feel less frightened about saying it than you normally would.

I want to, just for a minute, go back to something that the Israeli side and those who support Israel have said has been overlooked, basically covered up about October 7th. And that was the sexual violence that was used. And there seems to be overwhelming evidence that it was used by Hamas against young Israeli women who were captured and killed and murdered and raped on October 7th. They tried again this week, this past week, in New York and elsewhere, to try and show evidence of this to people and to interested parties and to the UN. But their feeling is that this element of what happened on October 7th is just being overlooked, ignored, basically by everybody, including the media. Although CNN has done a heck of a job in trying to put this story forward.

What is the problem here? Why is this issue overlooked, if in fact it is? There's no question, Peter, that this has been overlooked. It is a horrific story. I was asked to watch some of the videos that came from the body cameras of Hamas fighters. And they were authenticated. And I had to stop. I had to stop. I have to say I've never seen anything like this.

And I had to stop because I knew if I didn't stop, I would have those images and it would be really really difficult so how the UN women for example could not make this an issue because rape to rape is an act of war right rape until the woman, because that's what went on. And men, some men were raped too.

It wasn't only women. How they could not raise that right from the beginning. So we had an incident in Canada with a woman who's the director of the Center for Sexual Violence who had trouble acknowledging this. How do you explain this? I think you started us off when you said Israel's lost the PR war, right? And so there's a story of oppressor versus oppressed here that is pervasive. And it blinds people to the fact that Israel and Israeli women can be victims, that hostages that were taken and their families can be victims, just as much as Palestinian civilians can be victims. And it's astonishing to me, Peter, that you can't hold

those two thoughts at the same time, right? That you can't say it is horrendous what has happened to these women, beyond horrendous. It's horrendous what is happening to civilians in Gaza. And in that sense, I really worry. I think we've lost our way if we can't say both those things at the same time. You saw we had an explosion as a result of three presidents, Harvard, MIT, Pennsylvania, who testified before Congress. You know, there's a matter of law, and then there's a matter of leadership. It's a failure of leadership. It is a failure of leadership. I think when all was an international prosecutor, who put this on the global agenda. I think this will be one of the single worst episodes because it was so deliberate. It was planned. It wasn't just out of control soldiers, unlike other cases. And it

was unremitting. It was unremitting. They knew what the objective of the rape was. It was, in many cases, until these women died. All right. After that, we've got to take

a quick break and shift topics to the other thing that we've been trying to keep our eyes on, and that's Ukraine. And a quick question on that. But first of all, this. And welcome back. You're listening to the Monday episode of The Bridge. Janice Stein is our guest, as she has been for the last couple of months, on both the Mideast story and the Ukraine story. You're listening on Sirius XM, Channel 167, Canada Talks,

or on your favorite podcast platform. All right. Janice, I want a quick question before we leave for the day on the Ukraine situation. You know, as the Americans keep dancing around the U.S. Congress on aid and arms to Ukraine, there's an increasing feeling that this delay, if not an outright failure to deliver, is shifting the whole tone of the war. And you've seen in the last few days some commentators and analysts writing, Putin is winning and Putin is going to win.

That everything has changed in the last six months and certainly in the last three months since the focus so much has been on the Middle East. But it's changed to the point where Zelensky and Ukraine is in trouble in terms of carrying on this fight. And, you know, maybe even too late to try and find a compromise to get out of it. But Putin is winning. I've worried about this one. I was never optimistic that this was going to be easy for Ukraine because there's such a difference in size and depth. But after the failed counteroffensive, and Ukraine hasn't used everything that it's gotten from the Americans.

They've still got stuff in reserve. But not to be able to get the aid. Again, Peter, that's a signal, right? That the Republican wing, the right wing of the Republican party's dug in on this. And that's a signal. And that's what's worrying. So what's happening on the ground? The Russians are now moving into offensive positions in three or four parts along the line, prepared to fight in the muddy season. The Ukrainians are moving into a defensive position. That's not good news. It's not. And I think here's the really worrying factor. It's not that if Ukraine doesn't get this aid, it will just go into a defensive crouch and wait it out until next spring.

That's not the Russian script. There's presidential elections in March. Putin would like nothing better than at least a breakthrough on one part of that line. And so much of war is message, morale. It's just as important, frankly, as the things we count. And if it looks like Putin has the momentum here, there's no replacement for U.S. military. The Europeans, the United States has given more than half, single-handedly, a loan to Ukraine.

And if the United States is seen to falter, I think Putin would have every incentive to throw what he has at the battlefield and then just to sit tight and wait for the U.S. presidential election in the fall. And Zelensky is very concerned. And as you see the battlefield shifting, where's the battle going? Right into the politics. So the former mayor of Kiev has come out and criticized Zelensky, and all of a sudden he's fighting two wars at the same time, one on the domestic front and one with Russia.

It is very tough. What about Western Europe? So Western Europe, and again, you know, there's Western Europe and there's Eastern Europe or Central Europe, and they feel this war very, very differently. I think the Germans would just breathe a sigh of relief, frankly, so they could get back to business if there were some sort of agreement. I think, you know, the Brits will do more. The French will do a little more. But the Poles, the Latvians who really feel this, you know, those smaller countries can't make up the deficit, Peter.

And so they're looking at this. And this ties us back to where we started earlier this morning. They're looking at this and they're saying, what's the message for the future? Is the United States a reliable ally that we can count on? Because if they come to the conclusion the United States is not, there's only one of two options. You make your peace with Russia, which is the land power in that part of the world. You don't have a choice. Or you ramp up your defense spending and your industrial production because you're very concerned about what lesson Putin draws from this. That's why messaging matters.

Yeah, I'll say. Okay, well, you know, nothing good in what we've had to talk about today i mean it's uh both situations are are difficult and and seemingly at a you know kind of hinge point i i think the one in the middle east for sure is at a hinge point the hinge isn't going to move fast enough but it's at a hinge point. And Ukraine, the biggest risk is that this stalemate now breaks against Ukraine. That's the worry. Okay, we'll leave it for that this week. Janice, thanks so much, as always, for this, and we'll talk to you again in a week's time.

See you next week. Janice Stein, Munk School at the University of Toronto. And, man, oh, man, she's so good. And she's so appreciated by 99.9% of you who write in and talk about these Mondays with Dr. Stein and her interpretation and analysis of what's going on, both in these cases of the situation in the Middle East and in Ukraine. It's a difficult story to cover. It's a difficult story to convince everybody that you're being as fair and as unbiased as you possibly can in talking about it and analyzing it.

There are always going to be some who are upset about what they hear, and I get that. I understand that. I've heard that for, well, ever since I first started covering the Middle East, especially for the last 50 years. But I'll tell you of all the people, all the analysts I've talked to in different parts of the world, I hold Janice up as the example of trying to do her best

to help us understand this story and the stakes of what's going on. Listening to her talk about the troubles she had watching those images from October 7th, you know, well, you know what I'm trying to say. It's a very difficult story to cover. Okay, we have a bit of time, and so I want to really change the temperature, bring things down a bit with a couple of hand bits to give you something else to think about on this day.

Here's one. You know, I don't know about you, but some of my favorite, you know, childhood memories about the season that we're heading into, the holiday season, the Christmas season, involve, you know, around the tree. And, you know, the purchase of the tree, the decoration of the tree. I think I was probably, I don't think it was until we came to Canada. I was born in England and, you know, we spent a few years in Malaya in Southeast Asia.

Either we never had a tree in those days or I was too young to remember it. So my first memories of a tree were growing up in Ottawa, living on Holland Avenue in Ottawa. And, you know, when we came to Canada, like I had no idea of anything in terms of how, you know, you kind of looked after your garden. I mean, I was so excited to be able to cut the grass

that I made my parents let me use some scissors to go out and cut grass for the first time. We didn't have a lawnmower yet, so I was out there with a pair of scissors. But the tree, you know, having the tree come home, you know, having picked it out, a little tree lot. In those days, you know, you could buy a tree for a buck. I mean, they weren't very expensive, but it was exciting, you know, and trying to get a stand where the thing would be straight and worrying about how you're going to get water for it and all that.

I mean, those were wonderful, you know, kind of family moments. And for many people, they still are, although trees cost a lot more than they did then. That's for sure. But I saw this story as an end bit. New York Times got a lot of the stories other than New York Times, no doubt about it. Not exclusively, not only that. I'm assuming we read, we all read most of the Canadian papers, so I don't want to read stuff you've already seen

before. But the New York Times wanted to try and determine what the situation is between real trees and fake trees. So they sent one of their reporters out to do the definitive Christmas tree story. And Alison Kruger was the one who got the short straw on that assignment. But she did a terrific job. Here's some facts in it. According to polling by the American Christmas Tree Association,

I never knew there was an American Christmas Tree Association, but I do now. But in the research the ACTA did, they found that 77% of people who have at least one Christmas tree this year are going fake. They're getting a fake tree. 77%. The data found that people like how easy fake trees are to set up, that no maintenance is required, and that the trees look consistent and pretty throughout the holiday season. Ben Fruman of Wirecutter, which is owned by the New York Times,

said its guide to the best artificial Christmas trees was one of its most read product reviews last month out of a catalog of more than 1,000 reviews. But the popularity of fake trees isn't necessarily great news for the environment. Bill Lindberg, a horticulture expert at Michigan State University, see, I told you she did her research, right, said there were environmental and economical benefits to having a real tree. Artificial trees are made of plastic that will eventually end up in a landfill.

Real trees are renewable resources and can be mulched up and returned to the ground, he said. But if you're going to opt for an artificial tree, he said, the best thing you could do is use the same one over and over. There was a study done that compared the environmental impacts of a real tree versus a fake tree. It showed that if you kept your artificial tree for eight years, that is basically when you start to break even. If you keep it for longer, he added, this is our friend Bill Lindberg if you keep it for longer you could be helping the environment other factors also drive fake trees popularity

some people like how cost effective it is to buy one tree that can be reused for decades a real Christmas tree that was 6 or 7 feet was $300 said one of the people that the Times talked to Our real Christmas tree that was six or seven feet was $300, said one of the people that the Times talked to, which would be an expensive annual tradition. Our fake tree was $500,

and then we get to put it in storage for next year. There's also the fact that many fake trees now look remarkably real. Home Depot's Grand Duchess is an artificial seven- a half foot balsam fir that comes with 250 color changing lights. It became known as the viral Christmas tree on TikTok. Company says it's already sold out for this season. What do you use? I can't believe 77%. I don't believe that number. I know that in our home in Stratford,

there is not a chance that Cynthia would have a fake tree as the main tree, you know, the tree where you sort of gather around at Christmas. There is not a chance. It is a major moment of the calendar year when Cynthia goes out looking for a Christmas tree. And then the whole thing of, you know, bringing it home,

getting it into the house, onto a stand, et cetera, et cetera. It is a thing. Now, we have a fake tree, not that she agreed to it, but a fake tree for use if we're kind of trapped in Toronto in our little condo here because we have to have, you know, a lot of work assignments end up in Toronto. So there's a fake one there or here. But it, well, we're not allowed to talk about it. Anyway, so I, you know, how do you feel about this tree issue?

Because that number to me, I wasn't even, I wouldn't have even mentioned this story except for that number, according to the ACTA, the American Christmas Tree Association, that 77% of people who have at least one Christmas tree this year are going fake. All right. Time for one other end bit. You've probably seen this over the years, over many years. Basically, every year since the end of the Second World War, the places in Europe and the United Kingdom,

you know, when they do a construction site, they find something that looks like an old bomb that was dropped either by the Luftwaffe on the UK or by the RAF or the US Air Force or the RCAF over different parts of Europe that didn't explode upon impact. And so there's a big deal. They shut off the area. They bring in the bomb disposal people and try to excavate the thing

and then go blow it up somewhere. So here's a story from the BBC. Catherine Evans of BBC News writes this. A couple who kept an old naval shell as a garden ornament said it was like the passing of an old friend when it was detonated by a bomb disposal team. It had been outside the home of Sean and Jeffrey Edwards in Milford Haven, Pembrokeshire,

and has sought to date from the late 19th century. The couple had thought it was a dummy with no charge. The Ministry of Defense said it removed a 64-pound bomb that was a naval projectile. Mrs. Edwards said she used to bang it with her trowel to remove earth after gardening. But last Wednesday, yeah, last Wednesday, a police officer knocked on the door to tell the couple he'd spotted it and would need to alert the Ministry of Defense. An hour later, he told the shocked couple the bomb squad would arrive the next day. It was a sleepless night for Mr. and Mrs. Edwards, who had been told the whole street might need to be evacuated. We didn't sleep a wink all night. It knocked us for six, said Mr. Edwards. I told the bomb disposal unit we're not leaving the house. We're staying here. If it goes up, we're going to go up with it.

Tess proved it was live, but with only a tiny amount of charge. It was taken to a disused quarry in Wallens Castle, covered with five tons of sand and blown up. After living in the street since he was three years old, 77-year-old Mr. Edwards said he was sad to see it go. It was an old friend. I'm so sorry that the poor old thing was blown to pieces. Now, you don't just get any news right here on the bridge. You get the important stuff.

And there you go. We've got another one coming up at some point this week. I love this one. You know me in aviation. Here's the question. Well, it's not the question. It's the answer. Almost half the men surveyed think they could land a passenger plane

experts disagree we'll tell you that story somewhere somewhere this week I'm not sure when but I love this story that's it for this day. Tomorrow, we got a special More Butts conversation, and it's a classic. I recorded it this weekend. It's really good. Gerald Butts, former principal secretary to Justin Trudeau, James Moore, former cabinet minister for Stephen Harper. If you've listened to the More Butts conversations over the last year and a half,

they are good. These two gentlemen who can be, in most of their lives, extremely partisan, back off from the partisan game and try to take us inside the world of politics. And they do it by being extremely informative, but also by telling us anecdotes of past experiences that underline the topic we have for the day. Tomorrow's topic is going to be about polling and how it impacts inside the political parties.

It's a really good discussion, and I hope you'll be there to listen to it. That's tomorrow. Wednesday is Smoke Mirrors of the Truth with Bruce. Thursday, your turn. So if you have some thoughts on anything you've heard today or tomorrow, drop me a line at themansbridgepodcasts at gmail.com, themansbridgepodcasts at gmail.com. The Mansbridge podcast at gmail.com.

Random Ranter is by on Thursday as well. Friday is Good Talk with Chantel and Bruce. And if you have a moment to spare this week, head to the bookstore. How Canada Works. Mark Bulgich and myself. It's our new book. It's been on the bestseller chart for the last two weeks since it was released, so we're pretty proud of that fact, and we hope you get your

opportunity to read it as well. I'm Peter Mansbridge. Thanks so much for listening today. We'll talk to you again in 24 hours.