Canada's recent steps toward conflict resolution in the Middle East, and the latest on Iran, the US, and Lebanon.

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Transcript:

Maytal Kowalski

Hey Jon!

Jon Allen

Hi, nice to see you after a long time.

Maytal Kowalski

it’s been.. it’s been far too long. Luckily, you know, luckily we’re talking about a region where nothing ever happened, so it’s not like we’ll have a lot to catch up on, right?

Jon Allen

Yeah, I think there’s probably three weeks of huge events that we don’t even remember.

Maytal Kowalski

Yes, I know, I know, I know. I wish we could be saying that, because a lot of good things have happened, but a lot of kind of distressing things have happened, but there’s been a few, a few kind of peeks through the clouds as well, and so let’s start, let’s start there immediately, because what we’re talking about, or what we want to talk about, is not only just what’s happening in the region, Israel, Palestine, and the larger region, but also specifically Canada’s role, and where Canada is speaking up, and you know there are times where that just isn’t happening, that is not the case right now. We actually have quite a bit coming out of Canada and out of Canadian prominent Canadian voices, yours included. And so I’m going to like kind of run through a laundry list, and then let’s just see where the conversation goes, because we have the former ambassador’s letter that you are one of the, you are amongst the signatories on it. So I want to hear more about that. I know that you also testified in front of the Senate, so I’d love to hear about that. We also, you also wrote a piece on the flotilla, the most recent flotilla, in which we saw Ethan Mark Benveer post and release this heinous video of his treatment of those who were detained on the flotilla, including Canadians, and we heard testimony from the Canadians as well, once they got back, we know that company spoke to Herzog, and we know that there’s been three announcements from Canada: additional sanctions on West Bank settlers and entities, additional funding for humanitarian aid and reconstruction in Gaza, and this, of course, this international peace fund, along with our allies in UK, in the UK, and Australia, so we start with, tell us the stuff that you were involved in, directly the ambassadors level letter and the senate testimonies, and then let’s expand that into like Canada’s reaction and what we’re seeing from this party government.

Jon Allen

Yeah, I think the interest by the former ambassadors and by the Senate and by the government in its actions have all, in a sense, been stimulated. I don’t, sure that’s the right word, by what’s been going on both in Gaza and in the West Bank, and then to a lesser extent, but always mentioned by the government what was happening in Lebanon, as well as the evacuation of a million people took place, and many deaths in and around Beirut, and in the south. So, the ambassador’s letter, I think, came out of some frustration. We were, we had seen the government do some impressive things. They were involved in some declarations soon after the Prime Minister took over, and then there was the New York Declaration, followed by recognition of Palestine, with sort of post conditions that we hoped that Abbas and his government would meet, but there was still this sense that nobody, not Canada, not Europe, certainly not the United States, nobody was taking action in the light of the increased violence that was happening in the West Bank, facilitated in some cases by the IDF and by the police, I mean, there were so many incidences, I’ve heard it from our representative in Ramallah, we saw it on CNN, where not only was there violence going on, but clearly the IDF and the police were not stepping in, and in some cases it was just the opposite, and so the deaths were increasing, detentions were increasing of Palestinians, no Israeli settlers, especially the hilltop settlers, who were the most violent, were being detained, charged, etc. etc. And at the same time, there was this humanitarian crisis continuing in Gaza. We saw an end to the war. We saw the Board of Peace formed, which, by the way, has collected no money so far we saw the establishment of a technical committee of a political Palestinians, Gazans, who were going to come in and deal with water and urban affairs and health, and etc. We’ve seen people trying to work on disarmament, DDR. But really, nothing has happened in Gaza, and there is a humanitarian crisis going on. This humanitarian crisis was highlighted when I spoke in the Senate by the two other witnesses, one from Medsan Frontier and the other from World Program Program, the WFP, who basically said that Israel is not allowing in enough food, enough medicine. Crucially, they’re not allowing in the material that’s needed to be able to construct accommodation, so that the refugees can move out of these tents in which they are settled. We’re talking about 2 million, almost 2 million people that have moved into an area a quarter of the size of Detroit, and they’re simply not getting enough, we’re not talking about starvation, there isn’t a siege going on, but the amount of food, medicine, etc. required is not getting in, and so these actions prompt prompted 190 of former ambassadors, many of whom had served in the Middle East, others at the UN, et cetera, to say to the government, you know, we know that their Israel is under threat, we know that Hezbollah is a terrorist organization, we know that Hamas is still in control and armed in parts of Gaza, we acknowledge what happened in october 7, but what is going on in, in the West Bank, in Gaza, and to some extent in Lebanon is unacceptable, and we think you should be acting, and we set out a list of recommendations of what they, what they should be doing, actually very consistent with what J Space has recommended in the past to look at the kinds of exports that were coming out of the West Bank and to make sure that they didn’t get to Canada redescribed as legal Israeli exports under the free trade agreement, and we said that our strategic partnership agreement should be reviewed to see whether or not it’s fit for the current situation, and we asked for support for those who are providing protection to settlers, to pardon me, to Palestinians when they’re being attacked by settlers. We called for journalists and NGOs to be allowed into Gaza, so that they can see on the ground what is happening and report without suggestions that you know what’s being reported is unfair and untrue, etc. So that was the letter in my testimony in the Senate, I simply I reiterated that I was Jewish.

Jon Allen

I made it clear that I support the two-state solution, and but then I went on to talk about as I was asked what was happening in Gaza and the West Bank, and in the Q and A, we all were able to expand from our five minute testimonies, so that’s that’s that’s what I was involved in, and you know, then we had, as you mentioned, the flotilla incident, which frankly, between you and I, there have been many flotilla incidents, and I think if Ben Gvir hadn’t been as grossly a heinous as he was and videoed himself, this incident would have just passed without much media, but because he was doing that, and because that the forces, whether they were military or police or border, basically had been given a license to treat these people badly, and were then videoed. It became a huge deal, a huge deal. And, of course, the Israeli ambassador was called in, and our ambassador in Israel complained to the MFA, and that generated a call between the Prime Minister and President Herzog, and my understanding is it was a good call. They had an important conversation amongst two adults who were all concerned about the situation, of course. Herzog expressed his concerns about antisemitism worldwide and in Canada, and undoubtedly reiterated what Netanyahu and Saar had all said, that what Hertzog what. Ben Gvir was doing didn’t represent Israeli values, so the Prime Minister also called President Abbas and talked to him, and that was.. I hadn’t got a readout on that, but I understand it went reasonably well, so yeah, and then we moved on to announcements by Canada, France, and the UK of a $4 million US fund that’s been set up to essentially fund civil society groups that are Palestinian and Israeli groups that are working separately or together to try and build peace in the region, and this has been advocated by ALLMEP, the Alliance for Middle East Peace, which brings together 200 civil society organizations. On the one hand, I think they were happy that a fund was created, on the other hand, they and we were disappointed that it was so small, but nonetheless it’s a beginning, and they’re hoping that other countries will contribute to it, and then finally we had $100 million announced by the minister, $100 million which will be going to various UN agencies, the World Food Program, UNICEF, UNRWA, the Red Cross, not a UN agency, but a separate agency, basically on the humanitarian aid side to try and deal with what I just described was happening in Gaza, especially, but also some money may go to the West Bank, and and then there were additional sanctions, of course, put on some of the settlers, and some in the settler movement, you know, cutting off the settlers from financing, from banking, that is the way to really try and curtail some of his violence, and the very substantial expansion of settlements that’s taking place, frightening expansion.

Maytal Kowalski

Yeah, yeah, so actually a lot. I thought it was going to be a quiet one, but it’s not. But you know, and you know, I think the only thing that I would, that I would add to all of that, I think what you said, in terms of, like, you know, all the condemnation around the flotilla, because of largely because of what Ben Gvir did, and, and, like, let’s not kid ourselves, like, I’m sure Netanyahu was not stoked to have to make a statement and say anything about it, that like it just goes to show that like that you know those those types of figures in the Israeli government has have pushed everything so many steps too far past too far that it’s and now there’s so much international attention on this all of the time that it’s impossible to stay quiet so on the one hand, good, that this has been a constructively, like it’s been polarized in a constructive way, that now people need, we need to see, you know, senior officials and politicians and the Prime Minister saying something about it, but also, you know, just to add to, I guess, your experiences in Ottawa, I was in Ottawa with the co-founder of Breaking the Silence, the current executive director of Breaking the Silence, and one of their testifiers, who certainly just served in Gaza, a 24 year old who did seven months in Gaza, and you know, like hearing those, hearing those stories, and you know, I took them around to meet with members of parliament and bureaucrats, and you know, all the other kind of important people on this issue, and you know, I sat there hearing these stories over and over again of what, what you know, what their experiences were in Gaza and in the IDF, and like, this is also terrible for Israeli society, this is terrible for Israelis, this is terrible for 20 something year olds coming out of the army with these experiences that are horrifying, and not everyone, you know, this guy chose to be a whistleblower. He chose to, you know, from his stories, push back on his company commander and his platoon commander on some of the things that he was doing, but not everyone does that or feel that they can do that, and he also told stories of, you know, other folks that he had served with, who now are dealing with, you know, immense post trauma and moral injury, and, you know, relationships falling apart, and addiction, and all of these different things that it’s like the ramifications, obviously, the ramifications on Palestinians, and to your point, of, you know, people displaced and jumped into these, these ever shrinking areas is orders of magnitude, you know, more terrible, I guess, if you’re going to compare, if you’re going to compare atrocities and suffering, this is not good for, for anybody, and, and, and we have to recognize that when we ask. Canada, whether it’s your ambassador’s letter, your testimony, or when we’re asking for sanctions, like so much of this is also because this is what Israel, Israel is becoming a settlement project that has this pesky state attached to it, as opposed to a state that’s trying to manage the settlement project, and, and I think that we, as you know, as Jewish Canadians, first and foremost, need to ask ourselves if that’s a future that we’re willing to, willing to live with, and I think that I think that anyone really asking themselves that honestly and critically would be hard pressed to say yes,

Jon Allen

and you know, to your point about these soldiers who, in addition to suffering PTSD, you know, a significant number of committed suicide, and as you see, who are really changed by their experience. In addition, we’ve got to realize that Israel’s new military policy has them currently in Gaza, in the West Bank, in Lebanon, and in Syria, they’re actually occupying a portion of Syria. They’re now occupying a significant portion of southern Lebanon, where soldiers have been killed by drones and rockets, and people like my sister, who lives in the north, have been subjected to Hezbollah rockets and drones as well, and there are so many young, young Israelis in the reserves who are now serving 200 days, they’re not in their jobs, they’re not with their family, they’re not contributing to the economy, they’re serving their country, and that’s admirable in one sense, but in the other sense, this this policy that Katz and the Prime Minister have been advocating and implementing is really detrimental on so many grounds. Occupying Lebanon, they occupied Lebanon for 18 years, and Ehud Barak, who was just recently interviewed, saying this is crazy, don’t we learn any lessons at all, especially when you have a government in Lebanon who, for the first time since 1948 says I’d like to talk to Israelis and make a deal. Now we know they can’t control Hezbollah by themselves, but, but you know, why aren’t we? Why isn’t Israel reaching out? Also, Al Shaara in Syria has said he’d like to talk to Israel, but while part of his territory is being occupied, it’s problematic, so it’s, it’s complicated, and all we can wish for, frankly, is come end of October that they’ll, you know, perhaps be a change of government and a new regime that, that wants Israel to be welcomed back, if possible, in into the international community.

Maytal Kowalski

Yeah, yeah, I mean, I think you know the last thing that I’ll say on that, and you mentioned Lebanon, and let’s get to that and tie it into, like, the Iran and US deal, because it plays a significant part there, but you know, I would say that the last thing I think, probably, that hopefully Israeli politicians across all parties are seeing now, prior before this election, is the cat’s out of the bag now, right? Like this global attention on Israel, and what Israel is doing, and Israel continuously further isolating itself, like that’s not ending because there’s going to be a new government or a new prime minister or an end to, you know, the US-Iran war, or that people are going to stop paying attention to Gaza, like this, this international pressure and global attention, I think, is going to be sustained, and you know, the old strategy boosting things like the Abraham Accords, and this mirage of normalization and integration into the region, while ignoring the Palestinian issue. I don’t believe is is is going to continue post what we’ve seen in the past three or four, like four years under this Netanyahu government, and we can only hope that better, saner, cooler heads prevail, regardless of who, of who is the next prime minister.

Jon Allen

Absolutely, this is not a question of communications. It’s not a question of the media, which is all in favor of attacking Israel. It’s a question of policies that are frankly unacceptable and can change absolutely, they do change, then the coverage will change

Maytal Kowalski

absolutely, absolutely. So, on that note, something else that’s gotten a lot of coverage is the emerging US and Iran Memorandum of Understanding. I heard a headline on the news, I think yesterday morning, where they kind of teased it by saying peace in the Middle East, what’s behind this new agreement, and I thought, like, because that is not what this is. I wish I wish it was peace in the Middle East, but it’s not. It is a merely a memorandum of understanding, of which I believe the details are still quite scant in terms of what it, what it incorporates and what it doesn’t, but can you give us a little more insight, and I know you’ve spoken to a couple media outlets as well about it, and we’ll link those in the email about this when we send this, this video out, but, but you know what, what else can you tell us beyond what we’ve said in those interviews, or how things have developed regarding where what exactly, what are the contours of that deal? What does it include? What doesn’t it include, etc.

Jon Allen

Well, to be honest, we really don’t know, because the details of the MOU, which is a preliminary agreement to the much more significant negotiations that have to take place in the 60 day period following Friday, when the MOU will be actually signed, as opposed to Docusign, which it already has been. So it’s that 60 days that is going to be key, because the 60 days is going to be about nuclear, it’s going to be about the enriched nuclear, it’s going to be about the unrich nuclear, it’s going to be about whether assets, Iranian assets, are unfrozen, and how much it’s going to be about whether sanctions are lifted and how much, and it’s going to be about whether or not there’s 100 million, 300 million, I mean, the numbers are just staggering. Reconstruction fund for, for Iran. Just to put all this in perspective, the line out of Donald Trump, I mean, and there are so many that blow your mind, but the line that I heard him say was after 48 years of conflict with Iran, we have to turn the page and start a new relationship. This was the country he was about to obliterate. This was the country whose regime he was going to change, just like he did in sort of Venezuela. This is the country that you know the he and Israel were bombing, obliterating the navy, yes, obliterating the air force, yes, and of course killing people while, while Iran was responding, so all that this memorandum of understanding is doing, as far as I understand, is saying that the US blockade will be lifted, and once it’s lifted, efforts will be made to demine and remove any of the other obstacles, so that the tankers will begin to flow. I think what we will see is tankers, and there are plenty of them. I think over 60 full of oil, they will, they will get out, and they will just begin distributing that oil. The question is whether other tankers that are empty will feel confident enough to go in and fill up again without some more assurances that you know the strait won’t be closed and the Americans won’t be attacking and they’re going to be stuck there. One of the, one of the amazing realities, you know, so many people have said Trump is just fixing what he created. The Strait was open before all that oil was going out, the fertilizer, the gas, the helium, it was all moving out, and he creates this problem, along with Israel, and now he has to fix it. People were asking, why didn’t Iran ever do this before? And the reason they didn’t do it before was because of deterrence. Iran knew that if they did it, they would be attacked by the United States, and you know, probably by Israel, because Israel wanted to attack for other reasons, but they never did it. Once Israel and America attacked, the deterrence was gone, and they used quote the nuclear option, which was closing the strait, and now there are two new realities. One is that no matter what they promise, and no matter what Donald Trump says, they can close the strait anytime they want, and the second reality is they know that Donald Trump, and probably no other president, is prepared to put boots on the ground in her. End, so the end of course, if you translate that to Israel, Israel, all of Israel’s objectives, none of them were met, not one, no regime change, missiles still there. Now we’ve got more than that, we’ve got drones, the regime is still in place, the nuclear stuff is still there, etc. etc. And that, of course, is causing BB no end of problem.

Jon Allen

So it’ll be, it’ll be amazing if the deal sticks, if there are significant and legitimate and, and, and and positive negotiations in those 60 days, but I can guarantee you Trump’s deal is not going to be better than the JCPOA that Obama negotiated, that Bibi Netanyahu went before Congress to criticize, and the deal that Trump basically destroyed, so really a lot of money, trillions of dollars spent overall, and lost lives lost, and us and Israel come out of it, frankly quite weak, and Iran comes out of it strong, and unfortunately, the Iranian people, which they were, they were the reason that this all began, because the Israelis, I think, in some sense convinced Trump that this was the moment to go, they’re in worse position than they were before, frankly, because it’s, it’s a more hardline regime,

Maytal Kowalski

yeah, yeah, and I mean that’s the other, that’s the other piece too, of Trump saying that he was going to obliterate Iran, and then to your point, yeah, now we’re talking about turning a new leaf, and also, you know, what was his, his tweet right when the protest started in Iran, of we’re coming to save you, or whatever, to the Iranians, to the Iranian people, were coming to save you, and we’ve seen he hasn’t done that either, so, so to your point, yeah, what we’ll wait and see what the, what the details are, of course, but it’s hard to believe, exactly to your point, it’s hard to believe that it is a anything better than the JCPOA, or B, that all of this was in any way worth it. And then let me also ask, though, let me tie that into, and I, the last I read, and you can tell me if you have, if you’ve read anything further, but it is still unclear whether or not Lebanon is included in in this deal, and so I’m curious, how Hezbollah and the fighting in Lebanon will be or may be affected by this memorandum of understanding.

Jon Allen

When Prime Minister Sharif of Pakistan announced the deal, he said quite clearly that Lebanon was included, that there was to be a ceasefire and an end to hostilities in Iran, in the Strait, and in Lebanon. Almost immediately thereafter, you know, there was the exchange of fire three drone attacks by Hezbollah in Israel. Israel attacked Beirut, and there was a feeling that the whole deal that had been agreed and was about to be signed was going to fall apart. Donald Trump appealed, told Bibi that this had to stop. The deal did go ahead, it was agreed, and then signed. And I think you, you’ve hit on that, you know, this is one of the key questions. Katz, the Defense Minister, came out saying we are going to be staying in Gaza, in Lebanon, and in Syria. He did not say that they were going to be firing on Beirut. I think Israel retains the right to defend itself, so if there are rockets going their way, they will respond, and so we’re in a situation where Iran has an obligation to control Hezbollah, and they do control Hezbollah. The IRGC is very much in control, and a situation where Trump has to control Bibi Netanyahu, despite the fact this is really hurting him now in the polls, and, and so Israel could throw the whole thing open. It’s, it’s, it’s so obvious that Israel didn’t want the war to end and want, would like the war to continue to. Try and achieve its objectives, but clearly Trump is out of that game, and if Israel does screw things up, you know there’ll be costs to the US-Israel relationship. I think,

Maytal Kowalski

let me put you on the spot a little bit for the last question, then, and ask with all of that, knowing that we are going to see elections in Israel no later than the end of October, and you know, well, there wasn’t an announcement, there wasn’t an announcement yesterday, they were saying potentially September 15, which means they would have had to announce it yesterday, which they didn’t, so we’re probably looking at an end of October election. Do you think, and we’ll have the holidays kind of in it, kind of towards the last few weeks of September, the Jewish High Holidays. Do you think that we will see before those elections one more flare-up? Is Netanyahu going to try to get one more something in there for his own cynical political survival, or do you think Trump’s gonna clamp down on that pretty hard?

Jon Allen

Well, he’s not going to do anything in the West Bank; they’re already decided to occupy 70% instead of 53% of Gaza. You know, a war against Hamas is highly unlikely. Nothing’s going to happen in Syria, so the only venue really is Lebanon, and I think everybody is so aware of this suggestion that you’re putting forth that used to be that he needed a war to keep out of the courts, so that his trial couldn’t continue. Now, you know, he needs a war, either to get the elections postponed or to become a hero, but he’s not going to become a hero, and I think there are constraints on, on, on the Lebanon situation, I just hope that Hezbollah doesn’t provoke, you know, it’s the kind of thing that, you know, they could, you know, we, you know, we want to prove how bad Israel is. We want to prove that we’re going to attack and kill civilians in Beirut, so we’re going to provoke. I mean, that would be horrible, and I’m not sure Israel would constrain itself, but barring something like that, no, I’m certainly hopeful that there will be a free and fair election, and and then we’ll see what’s happening. I heard somebody say that Eisenkot is now in the lead in terms of the polling for the anti-Bibi crowd, and I also saw that the leaders of Standing Together have either to form a political party separate and apart from Standing Together. Personally, not too happy about that, because I think it may take votes away from Yair Galan, but we’ll, we’ll have to see, it’ll be a fascinating election, as always.

Maytal Kowalski

Yes, yeah, definitely. Something we’re going to talk about more in the coming months, maybe we’ll bring on a guest to kind of guide us through some of that. I think that could be really fun, but for now, I’m so happy we reconnected and got to have this conversation after far too long of a hiatus. We’ll keep them going throughout the summer. I’m going to be in Israel in July, so hopefully we can have some interesting conversations there with me on the grant. There’s never a shortage to what to have what to talk about, so I’m happy to always happy to do that with you, Jon.

Jon Allen

Thanks so much, Maytal. Enjoy, be well, and we’ll speak to you.

Maytal Kowalski

Sounds good, Jon. Thanks so much.

Jon Allen

Bye.