The Munk Debates Podcast - Friday Focus: Israel on the Offensive and Kamala Harris's Foreign Policy

Episode Date: August 30, 2024

Friday Focus provides listeners with a focused, half-hour masterclass on the big issues, events and trends driving the news and current events. The show features Janice Gross Stein, the founding director of the Munk School of Global Affairs and bestselling author, in conversation with Rudyard Griffiths, Chair and moderator of the Munk Debates. The following is a sample of the Munk Debates’ weekly current affairs podcast, Friday Focus. Rudyard and Janice start off the show with news out of the Middle East, specifically Israel's incursion into the West Bank to thwart planned terror attacks. How will its aggressive approach to external threats further harm its relationship with western allies? Next Rudyard and Janice discuss what Kamala Harris's foreign policy agenda will look like if she were to win November's election. Without a lot of experience abroad, they are predicting something close to Obama and Biden's doctrine: American power blended with prudence. In the back half of the show Rudyard and Janice anticipate the Liberal Party's next steps as Parliament is set to resume. Will a drop in inflation and a likely interest rate cut improve their low polling numbers? To access full-length editions of the Friday Focus podcast consider becoming a donor to the Munk Debates for as little as $25 annually, or $.50 per episode. Canadian donors receive a charitable tax receipt. This podcast is a project of the Munk Debates, a Canadian charitable organization dedicated to fostering civil and substantive public dialogue. More information at www.munkdebates.com.Become a Munk Donor ($50 annually) to get 72-hour advanced access to the full length editions of Friday Focus and Munk Dialogues. Go to www.munkdebates.com to sign up. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The following is a complimentary excerpt of this week's edition of the Friday Focus podcast by The Monk Debates. To access full-length editions of each and every episode, along with all kinds of great additional benefits and perks, become a donor to the Monk Debates. You can do that for as little as $25 a year, and you'll receive each and every year 50 Friday Focus episodes at full length. It's all available right now on our website in just a few. few simple clicks. Triple W. The Monk Debates.com. Look for the Friday Focus option in our navigation bar, the top right of the website. Make your donation, and we will send you each and every Friday a link to listen to the full-length edition of this program. Thanks in advance for your generous contribution. Welcome to the Friday Focus podcast. Rudyard Griffiths here, the executive

director of the Monk Debates. I'm joined by Janis Gross Stein, the founding director of the Monk School of global affairs for today's show recording on the 30th of August. Janice, one more day until the mailstorm that is September kicks off. How are your nerves? How are you feeling? I'm feeling tired at the thought, Roger. I cannot believe that August has gone by this quickly and that we are getting into those crisp, beautiful days of September, which in some ways are the most, I think it's the most beautiful

month in Canada, but it is tinged with apprehension about what follows September. Exactly. October and then the sprint to the U.S. election. Well, I want to start the show with what we're trying to do for our listeners each and every week, which is to touch in quickly on events in the Middle East, particularly Israel, Lebanon, Israel, Gaza, Israel, Iran, because it's such a fast-moving story. I think it's important to try to stay on top of it to some extent. So let's begin the show there with the news of the week, which were large incursions by the IDF into specific towns, Palestinian towns, in the West Bank, of stands. to disarm, to thwart attacks by Hamas and Islamic jihad operatives that are in these communities

are increasingly heavily armed and planning attacks on Israelis and Israelis and Israel proper. How did you read this week? It seems like a somewhat risky thing to do in the middle of frotting. hostage negotiations and continuing threats of attacks from Hezbollah and Iran? There's no question, Roger, that it is a broad thing to do. The risk of escalation to a broader regional war in the Middle East is ever present. It's hanging by a threat, and it's really hanging by the willingness of American diplomats. and the defense establishment to engage over and over and over in pushing back against, you know,

both Iran and Hezbo. It sits on a knife edge, frankly. So it's in this context that RDF soldiers go in. These are rates where they were 48 hours. They were aggressive. The reason they're doing this now is because Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad have unprecedented popularity inside the West Bank as a result of the war in Gaza. You know, it's so ironic. Hamas has never been less popular in Gaza than it is now,

but more popular in the West Bank than it ever has been. Abbas, who is the president of the Palestine Authority, is held in contempt. and Iran has also funded, transfers both of money and weapons to the West Bank. And the West Bank has experienced at the hands of the Israeli police, frankly, walllessness and violence since October the 7th, which is unprecedented. So this is a very dangerous situation. The raids have ended. They solve the immediate security.

problem, but that's what it is. It's an immediate security problem. It does not change the larger strategic picture in any way. But it does make it tougher for both Iran and his beloved to stay on the sidelines. And that's what American diplomats were talking about last night. Indeed. And if we step back from a moment and we think about how this potentially inflames the region, is it indicative of a more assertive front foot kind of stance by Israel vis-a-vis various kind of security worries, concerns, and threats? Because something seems to have changed, Janice, in the last month or so, Israel now seems to be acting with greater latitude

with regards to these threats and to a certain extent probably disregarding U.S. intentions and wishes. There's no question about that, Roger. I actually think, of course, the change comes on October the 7th. One of the things we don't talk about is how, and I use this word carefully because it's one of the most overused words right now in our public conversation, how traumatized the Israeli population was by the Hamas attacks. Because those attacks were against civilians, they were a surprise, they invaded border communities.

And so as difficult as it might be for Canadians who really can't comprehend, and this kind of security to allow, that feeling is widespread. I could wake up and find in my bedroom somebody who has crossed the border and I could be the target. That explains, I think, the real, and there's a real change. There is a willingness to preempt. We saw that with respect to the Hezbollah attack. That hasn't been done for 20 or 30 years. Israel preempted that attack on a large scale, there's a willingness to go in with raids,

targeted raids, if they get any intelligence that an attack across the border into Israel is coming, they're not going to sit anymore and wait, they are going to go in first. And this is, of course, how conflict spirals. There's no question. And finally, let's talk about how this all impacts the hostage negotiations. There are reports that there could be a process underway to kind of bring this to a head in that some news outlets are indicating that the Americans are, in a sense, going to go one more round with Hamas and the government of Benjamin Netanyahu

to try to close the gap on some of these key outstanding issues primarily related to the Gaza-Egypt border, but also the transit of Gazans back into the north from the south, and that if these kind of final bridging proposals are not acceptable to one or both parties, the United States would come up with its own suggested bridge to resolve these outstanding differences. And then name and shame the party who does not accept, in a sense,

what would be the final proposal, at least in the context of the Biden administration. What do you think about that approach? We have, on one hand, Hamas now calling for suicide bond. and attacks against Israelis by Palestinians and the West Bank. We have rockets that have come out of Gaza into Central Israel recently. And on the other side of the equation, we have Benjamin Netanyahu up in the polls, seemingly more popular than he was a few months ago, and seemingly set, especially on this issue of an Israeli troop presence in the

Philadelphia corridor to prevent Hamas from rearming through its tunnel system. It's precisely those Hamas calls for suicide bombers from the West Bank to come into Israel proper. That was a factor in the race we talked about before. And that's why I say we are in a loop of escalating violence. You are correct that there is a kind of American stealingness right now. about this. I'm not even sure they're going to go one more rent. I think they are already in the process of putting bridging proposals on the table. They with the Qataris have put these proposals on the table. And if they're not accepted, I think they will go public. Now, that sounds like a real

threat to whom. It does not matter to yes and more one bit if the United States goes public, frankly. It just does not. This is in a sense the trap that Hamas has sat for everyone, that there is one sole decision maker. It is Yaya Sinai. He has to say yes. Or it doesn't matter what anybody does because he still controls militias on the ground. They're underground. They pop up. He is still in control physically. underneath Gaza. And there is nobody who is willing to send in a force, not

the Emirates, not gas, not any international group, and be confronted with Hamas fighters that pop up from these tunnels. So being named and shamed by the United States, I have to say, rings fairly hollow. Now it would bother

Netanyahu more, but not all that much more because he's confident that Simor will say no. And he'll just wait him out. And he'll let Cinewar say no first. And the Cinescid is not in session. So until I believe October. So there's no fear here, actual threat that his government could be brought down effectively by a vote of not confidence.

Well, let's continue to watch this. It's going to be complicated. But maybe we're getting nearer to something, either clarity that this hostage deal. unfortunately will be postponed indefinitely or in the last minute victory will be snatched from the jaws of defeat. Thanks for listening to this excerpt of the Friday Focus podcast to get full-length editions of each and every episode of this program. Simply go to our website www.com. Click on the Friday Focus tab in our navigation on the top right of the site. Make a donation as little as $25 a year or 50 cents an episode, and we'll send you not only the full-length

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