Judging Freedom - Aaron Maté: Can Netanyahu Survive Trump?

Episode Date: January 22, 2025

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Thank you. Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Wednesday, January 22nd, 2025. Aaron Mate joins us now. Aaron, as always, it's a pleasure, and I appreciate very much your time in letting me pick your brain. Is the agreement in which Hamas and the Israelis have entered, a written copy of which has yet to be released, which is another question I want to ask you about, is it a ceasefire or is it just an inauguration pause? Great question. This seems like an inauguration pause to me because Israeli attacks are continuing.

I've heard reports of Israel still killing people inside Gaza and Netanyahu launched a brand new operation inside the occupied West Bank. So it seems that Netanyahu basically cannot go a day without having some sort of operation that terrorizes Palestinians. And so it's clear that Trump did not want this distracting from his inauguration, just as Barack Obama, when he was first inaugurated back in 2009, also told Israel to knock it off, one of their massacres that was then going on in Gaza. But I would not be surprised at all, especially if after more Israeli hostages are released, Netanyahu picks it back up even more. The very disappointing state of affairs, Aaron,

that the IDF is still killing people. This is not a ceasefire. It's a hostage exchange, although the people coming out of Israeli prisons are called prisoners, and the people being released by Hamas are called hostages. We all know why,

because the Zionists control the narrative. Nevertheless, is it true that the IDF is still killing people in the West Bank and in Gaza? Yeah, I've heard from friends in Gaza that there was an attack just very recently in Rafah that killed, that was deadly. And certainly in the West Bank, there have been ongoing operations by the Israeli military with the complicity of the Palestinian Authority, the U.S. and Israeli-backed force, a collaborationist force that rules over some areas of the West Bank on Israel's behalf. So certainly this is the playbook.

And the Trump administration, which is filled with people, pro-Israel extremists who deny even the Palestinians exist as a people, are certainly fully on board with this. One of the first things Trump did when he took office was he lifted some sanctions that were imposed on a very small number of extremist West Bank settlers just to give the signal that they have the full blessing of this new administration. This may sound like a naive question and some of your colleagues who appear on the show would roar with laughter when I asked them, can Netanyahu be trusted? Well, just look at his record. This is someone who ascended to the prime minister's office in the 1990s by inciting the murder of the sitting prime minister, Yitzhak Rabin. Yitzhak Rabin was not killed by a Palestinian. He was killed by a fanatic Israeli who was upset that he felt the so-called peace process was giving too much to Palestinians, even though in real life, in reality, it was

actually just a mirage in which Israel would pretend to negotiate peace with Palestinians while still stealing all the land that it wanted and the occupied West Bank. And so Netanyahu, though, being part of this right-wing movement, even thought that this fake peace process was too generous to Palestinians. So he incited the murder of Rabin by basically calling Rabin a traitor and ginning up the kind of extremism that led to Rabin's killing. So that's how Netanyahu started his career. He negotiated some peace agreements with the Palestinian Authority in the 1990s, but nothing very significant.

And his goal has always been to basically stay in power, enrich himself, expand his power, and deny Palestinians their right to self-determination. And so anything that is going to put, I mean, not as if there will be any pressure on him now, but say Trump wanted to put pressure on him to basically give Palestinians even some limited self-determination, then yeah, who will oppose that? So no, of course he can't be trusted.

Talk to us, please, about Smotrich and Ben Gavir. What is the latest with them? Are they in the government? Are they out? Are they pressuring Netanyahu? Where do they stand? Ben Gavir resigned in protest of the ceasefire deal, because as he acknowledged... He's the one that was the equivalent of the head of the FBI.

Yeah, yeah. He was a national security minister. He resigned in protest of the ceasefire deal because as he admitted, it was Israel that was delaying a ceasefire deal. That was a refreshing acknowledgement from him. It was accurate. And it undermined the claims of Antony Blinken and Jake Sullivan that Hamas was standing in the way. So did he resign

from the Knesset or from the work council or from the government or from what? He resigned from Netanyahu's cabinet. Okay. Did he pull out of Netanyahu's coalition in the Knesset? That's

a good question. I don't think so, actually. I think the coalition for now is still holding, but he himself stepped down from the cabinet because he doesn't want to serve in a cabinet. This is how extreme Israel is. You have an extremist prime minister who

wasn't extremist enough for his national security minister because he reached a deal that paused the genocide and allowed for the release of some Israeli captives and will allow for more. And for Ben-Gavir, that was unacceptable because for him, the job of destroying Gaza hadn't been sufficiently fulfilled. So his coalition still stands, but he's no longer in the cabinet with Netanyahu. And how about Smotrich?

Smotrich, last time I checked, was still there. Still the finance minister, still in the cabinet, and obviously still in the Knesset. Correct. Yes. Okay. I'm going to play a clip. This is yesterday, almost immediately after he returned to the Oval Office. He let reporters in, and Trump was asked,

do you think the ceasefire will hold? And he said no. And then he goes on to say some stuff about Gaza that I'll be anxious to hear your thoughts on. Sonia, cut number seven. How then are you, Mr. President, that you can keep the ceasefire in Gaza and conclude the three phases of the deal. I'm not confident. It's not our war, it's their war, but I'm not confident.

But I think they're very weakened on the other side. Do you support the two-state deal? Gaza, boy, I looked at a picture of Gaza. Gaza is like a massive demolition site. That place is, it's really got to be rebuilt in a different way my mind you know guys is interesting it's a phenomenal location on the sea best weather you know everything's good it's like some beautiful things could be done with it but it's very interesting but some beautiful things could be done with it, but it's very interesting. But some fantastic things could be done with Gaza.

How do you see the future in governance for Gaza? Well, it depends. I can't imagine you could have. Well, you certainly can't have the people that were there. Most of them are dead. The last part is absurd, but the admiration of the geographic location and climate conditions. Do you think he's talking about the Trump organization developing Gaza? Or do you think he's talking about the United States and the West helping to rebuild Gaza for the Palestinians? I don't think he's talking about the U.S. government spending money to help rebuild to the Palestinians. I don't think he's talking about the U.S. government

spending money to help rebuild to the Palestinians. That's just not in his line of thinking. He doesn't care about the Palestinians, just like his predecessor Joe Biden didn't care about the Palestinians. I think he's referring more to something along the lines of what Jared

Kushner talked about. There was that clip of Jared Kushner from last year at Harvard talking about how valuable the beachfront property is in Gaza and how a lot of Gazans will have to leave and maybe something could be done to build up that land for Israelis and wealthy international investors. I think that probably is what Trump has in mind. And the last line there, he says, most people are dead. I mean, it's hyperbolic, but there's truth to it. I mean, Israel slaughtered so many people.

And Trump doesn't really seem to care about that and doesn't seem to have any interest in doing anything that can provide for and give a meaningful life to the people who've survived, who are now returning to their destroyed homes and finding people buried under the rubble. Our dear friend and colleague Max Blumenthal pointed out, I didn't know this, I didn't know who the hell she was, the presence of a Mossad asset on the dais with Trump at his inauguration. Seated right behind Hillary Clinton was Mary Maddison. Oh, yes, sure. Yeah, she had an amazing seat.

Yeah, Chris has the picture, if we can put it up. Yeah. There she is, that older woman with her hands clasped right behind Hillary, who's next to Bill. I mean, that's kind of profound that she would be there. My question is, do you think that Trump would be any less subservient to Netanyahu than Biden was? Or is this presence of Mrs. Adelson right there an indication that Netanyahu, who's not there, should be rejoicing? Well, Biden was so subservient to Netanyahu that I do think it's possible that Trump could be less subs observant, but that's not a

positive commentary on Trump. That's just a reflection of how horrible Biden was giving Netanyahu everything he wanted with the exception of pausing one shipment of 2000 pound bombs after ensuring that Israel already had enough of them to level most of Gaza. So it's possible. And again, this has gotten a lot of discussion on your show. Trump did share that clip of Jeffrey Sachs in which Professor Sachs did criticize Netanyahu and basically blamed him for so much of the carnage we've seen in the Middle East. Why do you think Trump did that? Well, the hopeful interpretation is that he saw Netanyahu as someone who was trying to

drag him into more carnage and more catastrophe. Unfortunately, the skeptical interpretation, and I've heard Max Blumenthal say this too, which is that Trump only heard the part where Sachs criticized Barack Obama and faulted him for starting the dirty war in Syria, which Trump in the past has been critical of. And then once he heard the magic words of Obama being criticized, that was enough for him to press send and share without maybe listening to the Netanyahu part. I don't know. But if we're being hopeful,

perhaps Trump is tired of all this foreign carnage and doesn't want to be a part of it. And so in that if, and it's a very, very big if, that could give us some hope that he would be less observ serving to Netanyahu. Here's by the way, here's somebody else that was on the day as you just referenced him. Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner. That clip is February 15, 2024.

So it's just about a year ago. Here he is coveting the real estate. Once Gazans leave Gaza, Netanyahu is never going to let them back in. Maybe, but I'm not sure there's much left of Gaza at this point. And so my sense is, is I would say, how do we deal with the terror threat that is there so that it cannot be a threat to Israel or to Egypt, right? I think that both sides are spending a fortune on military. I think neither side really wants to have, you know, a terrorist organization enclaved right between them and Gaza's waterfront property. It could be very valuable to,

if people would focus on kind of building up, it's a little bit of an unfortunate situation there. But I think from Israel's perspective, I would do my best to move the people out and then clean it up. I guess he forgot to say, steal the real estate, develop it and sell it. That really is the face of Zionism right there. Declaring on behalf of, you know, over 2 million people, what should be done to their land after we've helped destroy it. Presuming that Israeli Jews with their foreign backers have the right to build it up

the way they want to after a genocide. It's just a purely genocidal statement and it's treated as totally normal here because we've normalized genocide. We've normalized the live stream of genocide. We normalized this ethno-supremacist government in Israel declaring that they have the right to all the land and the indigenous people of that land don't have the right to it. And Jared Kushner is fully on board with that, and he's treated as being a normal voice inside the Beltway.

All these people are off the charts in their extremism. Kushner, at least Stefanik, Trump's nominee to represent the U.S. at the United Nations, testified yesterday that she refused to say, under questioning from Chris Van Hollen, that she believes Palestinians have the right to self-determination. Imagine someone saying that about Jewish Israelis, that they don't have the right to self-determination. Imagine someone saying that about Jewish Israelis. They don't have the right to self-determination.

That would be disqualifying. Inside Washington, D.C., that's a virtue. She is about to be confirmed as the United States ambassador to the U.N., which she has blasted as a nest of anti-Semites instead of as an instrument of peace. She even suggested that the United States should not be in the UN. I don't know that we've ever had an ambassador who said that. John Bolton infamously fantasized about... Oh, good God, how could I have forgotten about John?

Go ahead, Andrew, you're right. Tossing some floors of the UN into the Hudson River, you know, brick by brick. Right, right. Yeah, at least the phonic is certainly making John Bolton proud. You know, one of the executive orders

Trump signed on Monday affected John Bolton. I didn't realize that he has had Secret Service protection for all four years of Joe Biden's presidency because of the Secret Service perception that the threats against him were from foreign sources and were real. Trump terminated that protection as of the end of the day on Monday. Are Israel and Iran preparing for war with each other as we speak? Before I answer, let me just comment on John Bolton losing his- Oh, please do. I know John very well. I worked with him for a couple of years at Fox. He's a very smart guy. He's a killer.

He's a maniac, but go ahead. You know, either Trump pulling that secret surface protection for John Bolton means that he doesn't care if John Bolton gets killed, or there actually is no credible threat to John Bolton's life

from Iran, which was the pretext for him getting secret surface protection. And I'm going to go with the latter. This idea that John Bolton's life from Iran, which was the pretext for him getting secret service protection. And I'm going to go with the latter. This idea that John Bolton was under threat from Iran, I think was always evidence-free and was actually used as part of a playbook just to drum up tensions with Iran and help justify aggression towards it. And so John Bolton losing his secret service protection, I don't think is a credible threat to him. That means that there's a threat to his life. I think it's an acknowledgement that

all this was a scam. And then Trump should take that further and see how John Bolton has used these sorts of allegations to manufacture consent and to just promote animosity towards Iran. So I hope Trump takes this further than just his own personal animus towards John Bolton, because John Bolton said mean things about him. This could be a moment for Trump to actually say, this is a new presidency. We're not going to be basing ourselves around hostility towards all these foreign actors. We're going to try to engage in diplomacy and see where it lands, rather than just presume that these are our mortal enemies

trying to kill all of us and we have to be confrontational towards them. Whether Israel and Iran are preparing for confrontation, again, a lot of it comes back to the U.S. What is Israel's main benefactor, sole benefactor of the U.S. going to do? If the U.S. were to pursue a path of diplomacy, Israel would not be able to engage in military confrontation with Iran, and Iran would have no reason to engage in military confrontation with Israel.

U.S. intelligence officials have long acknowledged this, that Iran's fundamental posture in the region is not offensive. It's defensive because of the threat that it's faced from Israel and the U.S. going back many decades. The U.S. first helped overthrow Iran's government back in 1953, and that's carried on ever since. So if there could be a genuine reversal under Trump, there wouldn't be the need to talk about war between Iran and Israel. Here's President Trump's favorite member of the Senate encouraging him to bomb Iran. Cut number four. This war will never end with Hamas in charge of Gaza, politically or militarily.

Their days are numbered. And the next question for the world is what do we do about the Iran nuclear program? That's where we're going to move to next. There's diplomacy. There's a one in three chance you'll degrade the Iranian nuclear program through diplomacy. There's a 90% chance you'll degrade it through military action by Israel, supported by the United States. So the next topic I will be engaging in with President Trump is to take this moment in time to decimate the Iran nuclear program because they're so exposed, help Israel deliver a knockout blow. What does that mean? You're going to urge him to have Israel bomb Iran's facilities that are underground and

would require U.S. military support to actually be effective? I'm going to urge the decimation of the Iranian nuclear program. I don't think diplomacy works. This is a religious Nazi regime. They want to destroy the Jewish state. They want to purify Islam and drive us out of the Mideast. It would be like negotiating with Hitler. I am hoping there will be an effort by Israel to decimate the Iran nuclear program supported by the United States. And if we

don't do that, it will be a historical mistake. Aaron, I'm sorry. It is so difficult to listen to him ranting did not start any wars. He almost did when he killed Qasem Soleimani. But compared to Biden, he was restrained. And let's hope that that carries over to this administration. He does listen to people like Lindsey Graham. But look, I want to try to be positive a little bit. Trump has appointed some people already who are not bad. Someone who just headed to be the top Pentagon official for Middle East policy, Michael Domino, comes from defense priorities, which is a rare think tank in Washington that is not neocon. Domino has advocated restraint toward Iran, diplomacy. That's someone who's filling a pretty important position. It's not obviously going to decide everything, but that does say to me that at least Trump

is not fully staffing neocons everywhere. And that to me is encouraging. And so I don't know. Yes, Lindsey Graham can go on TV and be treated as a really important voice. But when it comes down to it, is Trump going to listen to him? Trump's certainly been briefed on what Iran's military capabilities are, how they could do damage, not even necessarily to Israel, but to

certainly U.S. allies in the Gulf, which Trump has an interest in protecting. So let's hope that reason perseveres, that Trump will not let Lindsey Graham and the Adelsons and all the other fanatics in his ear sway his thinking. Aaron, you're optimistic and I applaud you for that. I'm not that optimistic, but you have a better finger on the pulse of these things than I do. But thank you very much for your time, my dear friend. Thank you for enduring a minute and 20 seconds of Lindsey Graham being Lindsey Graham. We'll see you again soon, my dear friend. Sounds good, Joe. Thanks for having me. All the best. And coming up later today at one o'clock, former British diplomat Ian Proud. At two o'clock, Anya Power and Pull. You all know who that is. At three o'clock, Phil Giraldi. And at four o'clock, the always worth waiting for,

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