The Paikin Podcast - World on Edge: Canada Recognizes Palestine, What’s Next, & the End of the UN

Episode Date: October 2, 2025

Conservative Party MP Shuv Majumdar joins Janice Stein to debate Canada’s decision to recognize the state of Palestine, what exactly this entails, and what happens next. Then, a look at Trump's and Netanyahu's remarks at the United Nations General Assembly in New York. And, as the UN turns 80 years old, is it still relevant in the world today? Or are we witnessing the end of the United Nations as we know it?Follow The Paikin Podcast: YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/@ThePaikinPodcastX: x.com/ThePaikinPodINSTAGRAM: instagram.com/thepaikinpodcastBLUESKY: bsky.app/profile/thepaikinpodcast.bsky.social

There's a great debate happening in the world these days as to the value of several countries, including Canada, indicating that they are prepared to recognize a Palestinian state. Does it mean anything? Is it for real? Are the conditions associated with this commitment so onerous to make it not particularly useful? Does it reward terrorism? And, as the United Nations observes its 80th anniversary this month, how relevant is that body still? These questions and much more on this week's edition of World On Edge on the Paken podcast, coming right up. Always happy to welcome back to our program, Janice Stein, Director of the Monk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto. And this week's special guest, Shuvalloy Majunder, who is the Conservative MP.

for Calgary Heritage and currently serves on the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee. Janice, excuse me, it's great to see you again. And Shiv, a pleasure to have you on. How are you doing today? Great to be on. It's a beautiful day. Beautiful. Okay, let's start with this.

Shove, I want to put you to work right away. What do you understand the commitment to recognize a Palestinian state by the Canadian government to mean? It's a, to me, it's a betrayal of our basic core values of human dignity and the rule of law. we all know that this is virtue signaling on a grand scale by governments that don't have the courage of their convictions to stand by the Oslo process and the idea of a two-state solution that would have to be negotiated between the Israelis and the Palestinians. What we have seen as a build-up to this is a drumbeat of Palestinian recognition designed for domestic audiences, but it also makes a perilous situation about precedence. I mean, none of the conditions that the government, that the Carney government had laid up for, itself had been met. Even one of those conditions was set for next year, some future performance of a Palestinian election that would not involve Hamas. No hostages have been released. No progress

has been made in the internal reform of the PA. So profound questions are now consequences of these decisions, meaning, does this state have borders? Does it have a capital? The PA, PLO, and Fatah all have terrorist instruments as part of their institutions. Do those institutions constitute now a state sponsor of terrorism? What of the refugee program? Has that now come to a conclusion as a result of the Palestinians being rewarded a state? I find it to be an extraordinary mess without having actually thought through the basic decency that should be afforded to the eight Canadian families that have to deal with murdered souls to the 1,200 Israelis that were massacred on October 7th. And it has what it has done ultimately, if I might conclude,

include, it has emboldened the ancient hate with a terror state, or at least the promise of one. And it is something that has not contributed to the solutions that I think we all want for both the Israelis and for the Palestinian people. Janice, how much of that do you want to sign on to? How much do you want to disagree with? I think it's clear that we cannot understand the Canadian government's decision to recognize the state of Palestine as a legal act in the way that Shoev outlined it. It was, and I said this to you, I think, Steve, it was in fact a desperation with the situation on the ground, the absence of progress on ending the war on getting a ceasefire

that led a group of countries to come together. And so I understand the several countries that recognize as doing so to send a signal that the time for the war to end is now. Interestingly enough, since the General Assembly met last week, at that same General Assembly the next day, Trump met with a subset of Arab governments in the Gulf. And we now have seen in the last four or five days more progress, concrete progress on a practical grounded proposal toward getting a ceasefire than we've seen since the war started. So the argument that recognition is going to get in the way of a ceasefire, in fact, I don't think we'll stand up, whether it had a positive impact in pushing some of those Arab governments. and in pushing the government of Netanyahu, I think is questionable. But we do find ourselves, as this week at the General Assembly comes to an end, with a concrete, very specific 21-point proposal,

which gives something to everybody, to every party to this conflict. We haven't had that kind of proposal before. We'll come back to that in a bit. But, Shuf, I want to ask you whether Canada is a relative, enough player in the region so that if we come out and say something, the likes of which Mark Carney has done, it actually matters. I haven't seen a single capital indicate that Canada's leadership is something that they choose to follow. In fact, the opposite. What I've seen in the General Assembly is that on the margins of that, the states that decided to contribute toward building

a peace through the horror of this war, which has been painful and difficult for so many families were the united arab emirates who forged an abrahamic peace with them and have stuck through it the kingdom of bahrain morocco even the leadership of indonesia with a lot of qualifications has recognized the need for uh has recognized the validity of zionism of the legitimacy of the israeli state and the israeli people to their indigenous homeland uh none of these capitals have turned to ottawa to say hey listen what's your view and how are you going to handle the situation I think that we've seen a decline in Canadian influence in the region for quite some time. When I rose to speak on this in the House of Commons on Monday last week, the Parliamentary Secretary for Foreign Affairs, Rob Oliphant, compared the decisions that were made by Mark Carney to the Suez process and the leadership of Pearson.

I mean, I'd have to think that, I'm an admirer of Pearson's, I'd have to think that even Pearson would be rolling in the grave because that was relevant diplomacy with Dulles, with Ben-Gurian, with the former colonial leadership of French and British statecraft. This is nothing of that sort. This is not that relevance. And we have not contributed one iota of an actual solution to bring hostages home to get justice for the Israelis, to foster an environment for Palestinians to find the basic education and the basic food supply that would create a basis of a long-term peace between these states. Janice, not to put too fine a point on it, but you're the only one of the three of us who was actually alive for that Suez crisis in 1956. But I was a baby, Steve.

You were a child. Of course you were. But is that pushing the comparison as the PAEG, Oliphant suggested, that it is. So this is not that. No, this is not that. And who I think would agree with this. This is not that because the world is so different. What happened in 56?

Let's take a moment, just did he mystify it, was Canada found itself confronting the risk of a deep, divisive conflict that could escalate between the United States and Great Britain. It's two most important partners. And Lester Pearson would highly motivate it to stop that conflict between those two. If you look at his diary, he's very clear. That's what he was trying to do. And so we stepped in with a very creative proposal to prevent the situation of getting worse. We Canadians have built a myth about peacekeeping from that act when really what it was was a Canadian government saying, oh, my goodness, my two closest allies are on a brink of a devastating argument.

The peacemaking was between the United States and Great Britain. That's what it was. built an industry around it. It bears no relevance to what's happening in the Middle East trade now. Shov, I take your point that, well, let me put it this way. Do you think the Israelis can really continue to oppose a Palestinian state when now about 80% of the world's country's favorite, including four of the five permanent members of the Security Council save and except for the United States? I mean, there is a lot of momentum behind this right now, right? It's basically the shift you've basically seen is everybody's saying the quiet part out loud. It's not like any of this was a surprise to anybody that so many of these governments are leaning in that direction. And all governments want a two-state solution. All parties want that. But let's take a minute to think about the context of this. Why is it that Israel is perpetually forced to defend itself and sue for peace in the aftermath? In this case, a long and grueling war that is affecting Israeli life at every level, politically, economically,

personally is having a huge cost. But the scale of the attack of October 7th shook a sense of Israeli security and confidence to the core in a time in which Israeli peace was being normalized across the region and well beyond. And the price that the families of Israelis, the Israeli families have had to pay is horrific. Now it has been complimented. Remember, on October 8th, before the IDF took any defensive measures, we saw on capitals around the world, this genocide in Gaza claim, this fake claim of genocide in Gaza. And it has been traumatizing and terrorizing Jewish diaspora around the world in a way that should never be acceptable. You know, I used to think about how reading about the Second World War, how a country could and a society

could become so craven as to knowingly permit the genocide of an entire people. Today when I look around the streets and I see how callously that our established institutions, our mainstream institutions dispense with logic reason and dignity and fact and and follow the fashion of what has been presented through propaganda online and elsewhere to be extremely disturbing and so you know to to your question i i really fear for how how much pain this has caused in canada to canadian jewish life we've seen an increase of hate crime up 250 percent over the last decade 75 percent 5% of hate crimes in Canada is focused on less than 1% of our populations. This is not the rule of law.

It's mob rule being unleashed in our institutions. It has to be confronted. Well, Janice, I should ask you, how much more do you think Israelis are prepared to sustain in terms of economic and diplomatic consequences? I mean, pariah status. We've talked about this before, that you believe Israel has become a pariah state around the world. Do you think they can sustain much more of this to oppose a Palestinian state?

So I'm going to pick up on something, two things, actually, that she said. Steve, first let me affirm that we have an epidemic of anti-Semitism, which has grown. You know what? It's inconceivable, but 75% of hate crimes should be directed to just a small proportion of the population. There's frankly no excuse for it. It's as simple as that. There's no excuse for it. And whatever Israel is doing in the Middle East or not doing in the Middle East is no more justification for anti-Semitism in Canada than there would be justification for Islamophobia as a result of what Hamas is doing.

It's just not acceptable in Canada. And I think we need stronger leadership than we've had on that. So let me just do you. What does that mean? Stronger leadership means what? We need our political leaders to come out openly. and condemn, it is an epidemic of anti-Semitism right now. There's long-standing problems with Islamophobia, and I'm not to be the last person in the world to diminish it.

But one form of hate is rising faster right now than anything else than that is anti-Semitism. We need our premiers, we need our prime minister, we need our academic leaders to come out and use the voice that they have to talk about the fact that whatever is going on in other parts of the world does not justify this kind of indulgence in any way of anti-Semitism and can. And I would say, you know, in the wake of the Hamas attacks, there was an increase in the wake of 9-11. We all know that there was an increase in Islamophobia. It was no more acceptable then. If Canada is going to continue to thrive as a healthy pluralist democracy, we cannot allow conflict that are happening in other parts of the world to infect our own communities.

And we cannot make excuses for age. Well, I'm sure we all remember back in the days after 9-11, President George Bush, George W. Bush, coming out and saying, you know, this is not a time to attack our neighbors who happen to be Muslims. And, you know, he did make a strong statement about that. Shoeva, have you seen? That's leadership, Steve. That's exactly the kind of leadership. Then we need to see.

Well, I was going to ask Shoev, are you seeing it here? No, I'm not. If anything, what we are seeing with the way in which people choose to condemn Israel for its self-defense and then single out individuals in Israel, whether it's a prime minister or otherwise, is just a foil for their conditions. continued Jew hatred to pander to the idea that Jews should be hated in their land of Israel or Jews should be hated in our democracy of Canada. Here you have anti-Zionism unveiled as anti-Semitism. And I don't see a distinction between those two ideas because they kind

of go back and forth in how they indulge that, whether they disproportionately endorse criticism of the Israeli state, but reserve no criticism for mass killings occurring in other parts of the world, whether it's Sudan or elsewhere. You don't see any of the same type of intensity or actual governments committing actual atrocities and horrors, not in self-defense of a democracy that is torn amongst itself, trying to find its footing in a very traumatic time. So for me, I see when you ask the question in responding to what Janice has said, what we have seen is that all of our institutions around the world and here at home have been gripped by an ideology that brings in a hierarchy of colonial grievances,

but they start history at the middle, not at the beginning. They pick and choose which facts they choose to feature and highlight. They are emboldened by state-backed networks, Katari or otherwise, around the world. And what it is doing in our Western society is tearing us apart, polarizing, polarizing us, dispensing with facts and reason and replacing it with indoctrination. It is that fight for critical thinking, free thinking, defense of human dignity, remembering that words like genocide were created in the aftermath of the Second World War to have meaning in law and in moral, moral leadership. That's something that has been completely broken down. And it is, to Janice's point, a fight that needs to be fought ferociously.

Well, let me come at this from the other side of things. Janice, to you first on this, if you believe in a two-state solution, which so many people do, I think, I think, Everybody on this call believes in that. But at the moment, the Israeli government, the current Israeli government, shows absolutely no interest in advancing the two-state solution formula. What, therefore, is the harm in recognizing a Palestinian state? That's exactly the argument, Stephen. Let me just add one comment to what Chuf said. There has to be space in Canada for legitimate criticism of what the government of Israel does.

That's really important. And it's a hard line often. As there is in Israel. There's nothing that's been said in Canada that hasn't been said with much louder voices and much more ferocity in Israel. And that's, in fact, such an important point to make, Steve, because that's ultimately the resilience and the strength of Israel, that it makes so much space for dissent and criticism and people are free to take to the streets as they have. And they will hold an election in the next year. And if we believe the polls today, and there's nobody better than you, Steve, who knows, polls a year before an election, don't mean anything. You've told me that many, many, many, many times.

But if we do- Polls are for dogs, Janice. Poles are for dogs, especially when they're a year before the election. But if we believe them now, Netanyahu does not have a pathway to victory in that election. Well, he's been told that before, though. Yes. But 75% of Israelis want him gone and want it in. to this war. Let's just understand. Now, that's different from support for a two-state solution inside

Israel, which has dropped through the floor in the wake of the Hamas attack. And it is going to be a long process of rebuilding. And that does explain why, despite your comment shoo, it does explain why some governments who are fully aware of the international legal requirements for recognition, nevertheless move to do it. They were trying to signal support for a two-state solution. Now, let's talk practically for just two minutes. What's the pathway to that? All right? And what are the next steps? First of all, there has to be a transitional arrangement. Two things have to happen. And we maybe get both if there's any luck. The first thing that has to happen is Israel cannot annex the West Bank, which is precisely what some of the radical extremist members of the

Israeli government want to do. Trump put his thumb on a scale for once with conviction. And the reason he did it is that people asked him to do it with the Saudis and the Emirates. That was the deal that underlay the Abrahamic Accords. No annexation of the West Bank. okay, we normalize relations. Trump actually said in a believable voice for once, I will not allow Israel to do this. And even Netanyahu got that message. Let me just interrupt for one second.

Shiv, do you support Israel annexing the West Bank? No. Okay. I just want to make sure that's on the record. Janus, continue. So that's not small. You know, that is not small, because if there were annexation, it's over. There is no two-state solution.

Second thing we need on the other side, and this is what has deadlocked this for a year because this war should have stopped a year or 15 months ago, is what kind of transition can we have in Gaza? Because where Netanyahu has dug himself in is no Palestinian authority as the leader of the transition over. Well, there's a plan on the table. Now, Tony Blair. Tony Blair has stepped up. And this is not fake news because it's almost unbelievable. But he was brought into the White House over three months ago. This is somebody who has built two decades of relationships with three people. Not really mad. One is he has an excellent relationship

with Nathaniel. Two, he has an excellent relationship with Abbas, the president of the Palestinian authority. And three, he's built a credible relationship with Trump. The plan that is now being talked about puts Tony Blair in. And this is, even the language, you know, is throwback to trusteeship or other arrangements of that. So what will he be? The administrator, the trustee. We did it in Kosovo. We did it in Kosovo. We created a trusteeship when it was impossible for the parties to get together. But he's apparently agreed. The Saudis have agreed. The Emirates have agreed. The Egyptians have agreed. The Jordanians have agreed. A bus has agreed. Two parties have not yet agreed, Hamas and Israel, but there are promising signals coming from both. Let me give you just one.

Okay. Hamas, a day ago, and this came from an Arab source, not an Israeli source, so I tend to believe in, has asked for immunity if it leads Israel. In other words, has asked the Israelis to commit not to hunt them down and assassinate them. That's the first time this demands has come out of Hamas. We may just may. Well, so much could go wrong here, and this is a complicated 21-point plan. I won't bore you with it all. So much could go wrong here, but there's a possibility that it could go right. Shuf, let me get your take on that. The possibility of Tony Blair heading up some kind of trusteeship that could at least temporarily create a little space for some potential negotiations and positive things to happen. What do you see? Well, it's been percolating for some time in terms of how Gaza could be administered. And I want to kind of pick up from where Janice left off a little bit.

really it's about what party would Israel negotiate with in a two-state solution. Israel gave up Gaza 20 years ago. And as we have all seen over 20 years, they've not done any development of their people. They've done the development of the infrastructure of terror. And in the same time, immediately after October 7th, it's not like the West Bank has been, Janaya Samaria, has been in some rosy paradise where people are working in common cause to provide for the security of Israel, Israelis, and for themselves. Instead, it's been a full out war on that front as well. Janine and other places have been riven with all kinds of conflict. And so for me, it's kind of looking at who the partnership piece actually are. Over the last decades, there have been five

very serious attempts in which Israel cut itself to the bow. own and providing options for peace to the Palestinians. Palestinians walked away every single time. Here you have parties both in the West Bank and in Gaza who are perpetually committed to terrorism as an instrument, whether it's through pensions for people who have murdered Jews. You know, we know that we know that that policy has not come to an end. I'm encouraged to hear what Janice is revealing here in the sense that there might be some opportunity that Hamas maybe has had enough. But for me, the administration, the administration

is less of a question. For me, the bigger question is, what will be the curriculum provided to young Palestinians in Gaza and in the West Bank? What will be the curriculum that they can turn to that would actually get them focused on channeling ingenuity toward creating a wonderful life for themselves, for their neighbors, for their communities, rather than participating in a death cult uh through the indoctrination we have seen through all types of efforts what i found in as a colonel in the 21 point plan of interest is how the emirates and others now have curriculums that are actually really significant in terms of teaching young people about how to um about how to be good human beings rather than recruit them as child soldiers into a death called uh cause so

So I don't know, to be frank, whether the Blair proposition will work, but I am very encouraged to think that now people are putting some real proposals forward for how we get out of this. And once the Palestinians present a party that is actually committed to resolving the disputes they have had with Israel and building a future of peace, then a two-state solution can emerge. So while I say that I support a two-state solution, I don't support a solution in which you have a democratic state side-by-side, a terror state. And we have to be very, very focused on ensuring that there's no opportunity for that terrorism to continue to foment. Well, let me ask a much more basic question, which is, Janice, the government of Canada, and we've seen others around the world as well, so many, the United Kingdom more recently

as well, have put out the word that they're prepared to recognize a Palestinian state. but I frankly don't know what that means. Does that mean a Palestinian state with the borders of existing Gaza and West Bank? Does it mean back to the lines of 1967 when East Jerusalem and West Jerusalem were two separate entities? What are we signing on to if we agree that a Palestinian state should happen, according to Mark Carney? Yeah. So I think, Steve, the event of these proposals have come to the UN. and elsewhere over the last month is they're deliberately vague, right?

What they are really meant to do is create an opening. So what has to happen? And I'm sure my friend Chute isn't going to agree with it. We have to stop the war. Humanitarian aid has to get in to the Palestinians and Gaza as fast as possible. So a ceasefire is the urgent goal. We can't have a meaningful ceasefire that's going to allow humanitarian aid to go in without a security force.

So for me, the first big question is, who's standing up the security force? Well, as you've knows, there has been discussion for the last two or three months about the Egyptians who are training a security force. And part of this plan is that goes into backstop Tony Blair, all right? Then there's a massive issue of reconstruction in Gaza. All you need to do is look at the satellite pictures. There's an opportunity for those governments that recognize. in a very general vague way, the state of Palestine, there was an opportunity for the United Kingdom, for France, for Belta, for Canada, for others to make huge contributions that are going to be necessary to the reconstruction of Gaza, and not the Gaza that was before, frankly, but a Gaza, which can do some of the things that you've talked about, that can have a really

functioning health care system that creates an educational system with a far better curriculum, not only on the issue, you know, Zionists as devils, but actually creates a curriculum where there's some science, whether there's some math, where there's the opportunity for young Palestinians to create futures for themselves that are going to be meaningful. Is this a one-year problem or a two-year problem. There's no expert on the Middle East that I know, and I know most of them, who doesn't believe this process is going to take a decade, frankly. So when I think about this, I feel an urgent sense to stop the fighting because I'm looking

at what's happened to innocent women, kids, families who are living in Gaza and the horror of their experience, as well as what's happened inside Israel. everybody loses now from this war going on. The imperative is to stop it. And we may, I can't say I'm optimistic because the wheels can't come off the bus so easily and they have so many times. But we may just, and it's always like that in the history of international negotiations. If everybody, everybody, including the president in the White House, if everybody gains from it, that's when there's a chance.

Shoeh, let me try this with you. Mark Carney has said that Hamas can play no role in the future of a Palestinian state. And my question is, who's supposed to ensure that that doesn't happen? Yeah, good luck with that. It's a great question. You know, even the idea of Hamas itself, right? It's not just its personnel, it's military or its spokespeople in Doha. Even the idea of Hamas, which Mohammed Sinwar curated behind the attacks of October 7th,

now lives rent free in the consciousness of two peoples, both the Palestinians and the Israelis. And the cravenness around Sinwar's thinking and knowledge of the Jewish people and the Jewish state has weaponized the debate about how to deal with this in Israel against itself to demoralize and to attempt to try and divide Israeli society. society itself. But I think we are underserving the debate a little bit, Steve, if we keep talking about it through the axioms of the past. I mean, our UN-based system, our multilateral system has set up instruments that focus specifically in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through unrun the refugee agency, the Middle East peace process, and its rapporteurs going back and forth between capitals and negotiations. But more widely, after October 7th, here's where this particular conflict of Gaza now rests. We have seen a seven-front war alter the entire political

landscape, the security landscape of the Middle East. We have seen Iran defanged both in nuclear and ballistic terms, in Syria, Lebanon, in Yemen. We've seen people who have been purported to really try and undermine instability through Iranian support be diminished vastly. Hamas is is being reduced and degraded every single day, even as it comes to the short strokes of what we all hope is the final leg of this horrific war. What I'm trying to tell you is the reconstruction of Gaza does not sit isolated as part of a conversation between Israelis and Palestinians. It sits more centered in a conversation about an economic corridor that goes from

the Indian subcontinent through the Middle East. it sits amid a huge conversation about the Western model versus the Beijing model of development for these connective geographies of Central Asia, the Middle East, the Red Sea region, and the Indo-Pacific. And I think much of what we are trying to resolve in Gaza, in the West Bank, and with the conflict that Israel has had to fight on behalf of all of us, are the terms for how the next half century might look. And in that, you know, a lot has to be carefully considered in terms of how that Palestinian partnership will emerge. It cannot be permitted to sit in the corruption it has been basking in through Ramallah and Abbas for the last decades,

nor can it be permitted to sit with the terrorism that Hamas has waged. So whatever form of government or representation is achieved for Palestinians, It has to defeat the terrorism behind the Hamas ideology or Islamic Jihad or the Alaksa Martyrs Brigade or any of the cacophonia terrorist groups that exist to deny and destroy the state of Israel. Janice, want to add anything to that? Look, that's why we need a process. And this, I think it's important to say that all those. You know, all three of us support a two-state solution.

It is not tomorrow. There is a long process ahead, and maybe we're not doing enough. And the leaders did not do enough to explain. I think if you look at Palestinians in Gaza, they were caught in this struggle. And usually I say this. she let's see you say what does she mean by that before October the 7th support for Hamas in Gaza was at its lowest step

there was I can't remember it was the Arab barometer that does this regular polling which is extremely reliable it's really it's a it does good work I can't remember exactly whether it was 55 but it was it had dropped precipitously because young Palestinians living in Gaza are no different from young people anywhere else. They want opportunities. They want access to education.

They want access to a better life. And they understood that the ongoing, you know, repeated three-year cycle of conflict with Israel, that Hamas was responsible for sparking at that point was, in fact, putting a lid on their own futures and what they could hope to achieve. When the war starts, you get this paradoxical result very quickly when the, when the ferocity of the Israeli response becomes obvious to Palestinians inside. Support for Hamas drops again. Where does it shoot up? It shoots up in the West Bank that we're not bearing the brunt of the conflict. Interestingly enough, support for Hamas has dropped now in the West Bank.

And to the extent the polling, I think, inside Gaza is much less reliable now because who gets inside and how can you do it? Meaningful, what, but to the extent we're getting anything, there is support for Hamas inside Gaza is an all-time world. Now, does that mean that we haven't in, as a result of the war and the violence of this war, created a whole generation of radicalized young people inside Gaza? that is certainly a possibility. That's what violence does. It radicalizes. And that's why it's so important to stop fighting. But the violence has been so terrible in cancer.

And I will agree with you on something else that I think it's poorly understood outside the region. The trauma of the Hamas attack, which is focused. And again, we know this from Mr. Choir, is that really focused. It's focused on the widespread. fear that women have, no matter where they live in the country, that somebody is going to come and invade their home at night and rape them. Now, this is not unique to Israeli women who, they're, it's not aberrant. We know this.

We know the long-lasting residual fate, you know, consequences of that kind of rape used against women to do two things. things to promote violence by the men. You try it out on anybody you know. You ask a friend of yours what their reaction would be if their partner were raped and you'll see it viscerally in front of you. It does that, but it also instilled a longstanding deep feeling of insecurity that in the night there will be an infiltration and women will be raped. So you're dealing now with two deeply traumatized populations, to be honest. It may be difficult for the world to understand it to compare, but the evidence of trauma is very strong in both communities.

There is a process. Everybody needs time now when, and that's why stopping the violence is so hugely important to me as far as I'm concerned. Everybody needs time. Let's take our remaining moments here and just focus on the United Nations, which is observing, I won't say celebrating, but at least observing, it's 80th anniversary of its creation. Steve, can we talk about the escalators at the UN? I think Donald Trump would like to talk about the escalators at the United Nations.

That's for sure. And actually, I heard not a bad line about that, which was somebody made the observation that if only the escalator 10 years ago coming down in Trump Tower was broken, maybe the last 10 years would have been a little different. But anyway, that's a different story for a different time. I want to focus on, I want to start with a specific and then broaden out to something more generic. The specific I want to start with is Shivv, a bunch of countries had their representatives get up and leave when the Prime Minister of Israel came to speak at the United Nations. And obviously, we've heard two different views on this.

One, that that's a rude thing to do and the place where you're supposed to be able to talk. You know, you should stay and listen to what they have to say. and the other is how else do you register your opposition to something you think is intolerable if not by walking out? Help us understand how we should resolve that conundrum. It's anti-Zionism. It's anti-Semitism.

It's Jew hatred by officials and diplomats who... Is that going too far? I mean, is it not possible? It's just anti-Beebee. We went way too far a long time ago. I mean, and no, I don't... It doesn't matter if it's Bibi or somebody else who's the Prime Minister of Israel.

It doesn't matter. What you saw was a disgusting display of Jew hatred, of refusing to do the jobs that these people are supposed to be doing in these institutions, which is dialoguing diplomatically about the terms of a peace to come. And walking out on that dialogue, turning their back on the Jewish state, is anti-Semitic, it's anti-Zionist, and it's disgusting. What I pay attention to... But some people are going to say, sorry, Shiv, I'm going to jump in here, because some people are going to say, you are conflating an opportunity. to this particular government of Israel with the Jewish people in general, and you can't do that. I'm saying that's what they're doing. That's what they're doing. I'm saying that they are delegitimizing the Jewish state who has every right to self-defense and who has been prosecuting a very difficult self-defense gallantly. They're intentionally virtue signaling to the world what they've been saying in, you know, the whispers to each other for the last decades. This is nothing that should surprise anybody. What I'm impressed with are the ones who

stayed in the room and the ones who are serious about resolving the conflict, making the lives of Palestinians and Israelis better, and figuring out a solution for the long term. So to me, Barbara stayed in. Canada's ambassador stayed. You're okay with that. To his credit. To his credit. Canada stayed, the United Arab Emirates stayed, the Kingdom of Morocco stayed, the Indonesian state. these are the Indians say these are massive populations all who will be participating in you know look our world is disrupted on so many levels with the rise of authoritarian's and multipolarity with populism which includes condescension of the left and anger on the right with technological disruption that is changing the terms of how conflicts are managed or how

prosperity will grow and this is a time in which we actually need a serious conversation about how two very distinctly competing models, the Beijing model of development and the Western model of development, are being tested. And this is an institution where it needs to be done. So this performative nonsense around things that the United Nations has actually endorsed, meaning the state of Israel enjoys more legitimacy than most states because of the United Nations and its recognitions and its processes for the recognition of the state of Israel, as much as it has been victimized by the United Nations for being singled out and held to a totally different

standard than every other state in the world. So, you know, if it sounds very strong in terms of what I'm condemning here, it's because it is what it is, anti-Zionism on full display, people walking away from the institution and its standards that they're supposed to uphold, and it's blatant Jew hatred has to be condemned. Well, okay, I'm going to come back at you one more. Sorry, Janice, just give me a second here. I really want to try this one more time because, you know, Presumably you agree that you should be allowed to criticize the government of Israel, the country of Israel, Israelis, without necessarily being told you're anti-Semitic if you do so. Surely there's a difference, right?

Walking out from listening to what the state of Israel has to say about these troubling times is not criticizing it. It's walking away from it. Janice, where are you on this? So I don't agree with Shoe that it's anti-Semort. But I do have a lot of trouble with delegations walking out when their colleagues come to speak. And, you know, we've been debating this. We, TIF has had this debate.

And let me take it away from Israel for a moment. But two years ago, it was a decision not to show a Russian film that was made by a Russian documentary and about the experiences of Russian soldiers along the front line. I profoundly believe that film should have been shot. We could all have learned from it, and I would have liked to see it. The argument was it was propaganda. And given the equities in this case, because Ukraine was invaded by Russia, it was naked aggression with no justification.

How could I make that argument? Because if we cannot sit and listen to arguments that we profoundly disagree, if we can't sit in the room and listen and then engage in debate the ugliness, the horror of the wars that we are seeing now, let's ten-x that. How are you supposed to indicate your profound opposition to something short of walking out of the room. Because every delegation of the UN gets a chance to speak, right? So everybody has voice.

Everybody has a chance to put in their speech. If they are opposed to the way Israel is waging war in Gaza, and I am one of those who are opposed to the way Israel is waging war in Gaza, that when the delegation gets a chance to speak, they say so. And the Israeli delegation stays in the room and listens to that, just as the other delegation should stay in the room. Walking out, Shoev describes it as walking away because of anti-Semitism. I describe it as walking out and removing the possibility that debate and the search for a solution can take place through nonviolent means. that's what it means to me and that is not a healthy thing they didn't do it for any other government

they didn't do it for any other government they've done it for other governments in the past but this but this has happened in the past and they've done it and being Jewish has not been an issue it's not a new technique let's finish up on this I have heard for example our ambassador to the United Nations Bob Ray say that if the United Nations did not exist we would have to create it. We need something that lets the countries of the world. We need some kind of place where they can come together and argue and stay or walk out or whatever. We needed to it exist. We've obviously heard the other side of the coin this past week where Donald Trump got up to the podium and, you know, in his own unique style, say the place is completely broken, totally

useless. And moreover, he's upset that he didn't get the renovation contract back in the day. Yeah, I got in charge you for one minute because he made, it's so good, because he made two comments about the escalator and the teleprompter that didn't work. Yes, that's right. The escalator, apparently one of his security staff jumped on the escalator going the wrong way, and that's why the escalator stopped. And the teleprompter, for what it's worth, is responsible, responsibility of the delegation that's speaking to provide. Okay, just for the right. That's good to have that clarified. Anyway. Okay. So last question to each of you. Shiv to you first. You know,

okay, so here we are. The United Nations is 80. We need something. Do we need this? Is it doing anything remotely close to what we need it to be doing in this day and age? What do you think? That's a huge question. And I, forgive me for saying, I feel a bit intimidated trying to answer it in Janice's company. because here's a person who's an expert of the topic in ways that I am not. But let me take a stab at it. Since its founding, it has survived the Cold War. It has survived the period of Pax Americana, in which entreaties were made to rivals in Moscow and Beijing

on military and economic reconciliation, which then backfired after the wars on terror in Iraq and Afghanistan in which neo-conservatism, neoliberalism rampaged, I would say irresponsibly across the Middle East and elsewhere, and now finds itself in an era in which a very patient Beijing has occupied critical choke points of how international decisions are made across the UN system itself. So much of the UN's highest aspirational bodies on human rights, on economic and social development on standards for how people can live better and more peaceful lives are completely co-opted by actors who are focusing on creating rules against the basic freedoms and norms that

the UN was founded, I believe, to promote. And so it is at a massive crisis today. You're right, it's one place where everybody meets. But beyond that, the value of the United Nations and reconciling the conflicts of the last decades can be questioned quite deeply it wasn't it wasn't successful in so many environments and instead through its development organizations is mired in corruption and waste it creates a group think around uh language and norms whether it's energy and environment or peacekeeping and peace building rather than actually resolving issues and marking progress forward. The word sustainability tends to be more about perpetual welfare rather than economic growth and jobs as the antidote to poverty. So for me, it's an existential

point in terms of what it can and cannot do. And you can see it being replaced with experimental smaller arrangements around the world, whether it's the quad in the Indo-Pacific, whether it's the double I, double two, India, Israel, UAE, United States, and the Middle East, whether it's trading arrangements that are set up between like-minded nations, even how NATO has been transformed with the participation now of Norway and Sweden, rebalances an Arctic conversation that challenges the nature of the law of the sea and how states that are subscribed to it will negotiate their borders and delimitation. So you see a lot of other arrangements trying to emerge in a place of where the UN has failed.

And, you know, I think taxpayers around the world have every right to question, why do we keep paying into a system that perpetually fails and actually sets us back rather than creates a sense of progress. Janice, does the UN still have value? Yeah. But we have to understand what the value is. Let's just understand what the value proposition is, right? It's because everybody shows up in September and lots of good stuff gets done.

on the sidelines and it would be hard to do it unless everybody else shows up but let's understand what it is it's a meeting place that's what it is where i think we've gone wrong in canada is we mythologize the u.s it's be you know it's it's better now that it used to be but it used to be a pillar of our foreign policy how you make a big convention center a pillar of your foreign policy has always been something that confounded me. Now, you know, our current ambassador Bobbery well aware of where the UN fails when he talks about. He's chairman of the economic and social council. Shoev, he's done that for the lot. And, you know, some of the specialized agencies really do great work. They really do. And I don't know what we do without them if we didn't

have them. But there is a stodginess to them. Some of them are terrible. Let's be honest. Some of them are absolutely terrible. Some of them are really good. But there's not a capacity to innovate to try new things. And you're seeing that happen now outside the UN system and its family entirely. So I'm all in favor of everybody showing up in September. We should continue to do that. But let's stop talking about it as anything but an elaborate convention center with good facilities, good restaurants connected to good hotels. And we need to show up once a year. but that's what it is. That's a very different view of the UN than many Canadians.

Well, they've got their own rules there to be sure, but I'm glad that one rule was adhered to here, which is civilized yet passionate discourse, and neither one of you walked out on the other. So that's a beautiful thing. Never. Never. Shivalow Majumder, the Calgary Heritage Member of Parliament from Alberta and member of the Foreign Affairs Committee,

the House of Commons, Janice Stein, director of the Monk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto. my thanks to both of you for such a wonderful and civilized discussion. Thanks so much, you too. It's a pleasure to be with the two of you. Thank you. And a reminder, if you want to comment,

the Paken Podcast at gmail.com, the Paken Podcast at gmail.com. Peace and love, everyone. Bye, everyone.