Judging Freedom - Aaron Maté: Danger for Journalists in Israel

Episode Date: October 17, 2024

Aaron Maté: Danger for Journalists in IsraelSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Save $80 with code SPACE80 at Talkspace.com. To be continued... Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Thursday, October 17th, 2024. Aaron Maté joins us now. Aaron, thank you very much for your time. Always a pleasure. What is the latest news on your colleague, Jeremy Lafredo, who was arrested by the IDF, but freed by two Israeli judges? First of all, let me thank you, Judge, for shining a spotlight on Jeremy. I know you've repeatedly been discussing him on your show, so your support is much appreciated. This is an American journalist. Yeah, he is getting a lot of press in New Jersey. I didn't know he was from New Jersey. And I'm happy to do anything I can. What has happened to him shouldn't happen to any

journalist or any person. But thank you for thanking me. Yeah, so the latest as far as we know is the Israeli government has set that deadline of October 20th by which they're going to have him leave the country. But until then, they've been interrogating him. He's gone through several sessions. They have his phone, obviously trying to look for anything that they could use to paint him in an unfavorable light, but there's nothing there because he's just a journalist doing his job. And that's been made clear in the court hearings where twice judges have ruled

that he did not break the military censorship rules established by Israel because other outlets in Israel have featured the same reporting, which simply was him going to the targets of Iran's strikes on Israel recently and pointing out what everybody else pointed out, which is that Iran targeted military sites. So I'm hopeful that Jeremy will be freed. There has been an outpouring of support. We appreciate it.

It should never have happened to him. Just like no journalist should face this kind of persecution, but it also has to be stressed in the spectrum of what Israel does to him. Just like no journalist should face this kind of persecution, but it also has to be stressed in the spectrum of what Israel does to journalists. What Jeremy is going through doesn't compare to what Palestinians in Gaza go through, which is outright murder by the dozens.

Did they abuse him physically? Other journalists have been who were detained with them did allege abuse. I don't know what Jeremy's personal experience was, and I'll let him speak to that when he's finally free. Did the State Department, the United States State Department, come to the aid of this American from New Jersey? Well, unless there's something going on behind the scenes that I haven't seen.

To my knowledge, the State Department has not been very helpful. There have been U.S. officials at the hearings with him. But, you know, compare just publicly the outpouring of anger over Russia's arrest of someone like Evan Nagorskiewicz of The Wall Street Journal with Israel's arrest of Jeremy Lefredo. And it's night and day. I mean, there's been a very muted response, nothing really public yet in support of Jeremy. And that just reflects the different standards that apply depending on whether the government arresting a journalist is an adversary or a friend. In the case of Russia, that's an adversary. So therefore, Evan Gershkowitz, everybody knew his name, is Jeremy Lefredo now is arrested by a friendly government armed by the U.S., so therefore the U.S. has stayed pretty quiet. Do you think that the IDF would arrest you or Max or Anya if you're reckless enough to go to Israel? Well, you know, I know that, you know, I don't know.

I mean, certainly I know plenty of people who have been turned away at the airport in Tel Aviv or at the border crossing between Jordan and the occupied West Bank. I haven't tried in more than 20 years. I don't know what would happen. circumstance just based on my disgust at what they've done to Gaza. But maybe we'll try someday. Max, I can't speak to. I know that Max was in Israel reporting for his incredible book, Goliath, and also was there for another book he did on the 2014 Israeli assault on Gaza. So he's been through there before. But who knows what would happen if we try to come back today? Does Israel continue to use, and I mean use in the pejorative sense, the Western media to further its propaganda war? Absolutely. the best case I can make for why is elucidated in Max Blumenthal's recent documentary, Atrocity, Inc., which just goes through all the ways in which the Western media has served as a sonographer for Israel and its U.S. enabler, starting with all the atrocity propaganda

for October 7th and covering up the fact that Israel killed its own people on October 7th by employing the Hannibal Directive, which is a fact that you still can't really acknowledge in U.S. media. It's acknowledged now belatedly in Israeli media, but in U.S. corporate media, that fact and very salient fact that Israel killed its own people with tanks and Apache helicopters, it's basically not allowed to exist for obvious reasons. It's because Israel and its apologists continue to use October 7th to manufacture support for a year-long plus campaign of mass murder. Are you able to put your finger on the pulse of the Israeli response to the Hezbollah killing of four IDF special forces? They were very young for special forces. There were 19 and wounding between 70 and 80 others while they were having dinner at a

secure military facility deep inside Israel. The Israeli response to Hezbollah's operation against an Israeli military base has been to turn to killing Israel's traditional targets, which is Arab civilians. Israel recently blew up an entire village in South Lebanon. The State Department basically shrugged when asked about it. How could that possibly be justified, blowing up an entire village? Well, it's not justified if you treat humans as equal,

but the U.S. has adopted the Israeli view that it's a supremacist state with the right to kill whoever it wants, to maintain a monopoly on violence. And as part of its doctrine, it targets civilians. The Dahya Doctrine, which we talked about before in your show, deliberately trying to punish and target Arab civilians to get them to turn against the people in their midst to resist Israeli aggression and hegemony. And that's what Israel continues to do in Lebanon, unlike Hezbollah, which actually tries to abide by a doctrine of targeting military sites. And that successful strike on an Israeli military base is one example of that. Here's Matt Miller, again at his worst,

being grilled on this at the State Department. Cut number 11. Blowing up an entire village in southern Lebanon. What do you make of that? So I've seen the footage. I cannot speak to what their intent was or what they were trying to accomplish, what their targets were. I don't know what they were. All right. I'm not sure I understand what you're saying.

I cannot speak to what their intent was or what they were trying to accomplish. Isn't it pretty clear what their intent was? Whether they had a specific target in mind or not, blowing up an entire village, that seems to be pretty self-revelatory. So I don't know what was in those buildings. I don't know what was potentially underneath those buildings. That's when I say I can't speak to what they were trying to accomplish. Well, have you asked? We have been in contact with them about this very incident. I don't have a report back to share today, but we have been in contact with them about this incident. Okay, maybe not a report, but what

did they say? Did they say, yeah, maybe not a report, but what did they say? Did they say, yeah, we're looking into it? Or did they say, no, we did it and we're – I don't have a readout of those conversations. Looking into it, that's really going to find out what happened. How do the reporters tolerate him? That's a great question. One reporter who finally couldn't tolerate it is my Grayzone colleague, Liam Cosgrove.

Oh, what Liam Cosgrove said was terrific and it went viral. who just cannot tolerate and cannot countenance seeing this State Department spokesperson constantly spin and deflect and excuse the inexcusable. But that's his job. That's what he's doing. And people, unfortunately, who have to be in that room with him have to endure that every single day. It can't be an easy job. Chris, put up the full screen, please, from new york times uh what can you tell us about this aaron israel using palestinian prisoners obviously against their will as human shields

when they uh entered when they enter dangerous uh neighborhoods and buildings this is the new york times just confirming what palestin Palestinians have been saying for a long time. And human rights groups have also documented. This is nothing new. But it just takes the Times forever to admit the truth because the Times acts as a sonographer for power. And so, therefore, the time between which it can acknowledge the truth after it comes out is just there's that much more of a lapse because that's what the Times does. But this has been known for a long time. This is standard Israeli practice. It goes through all the major Israeli massacres inside Gaza going back many years.

And you'll see groups like Amnesty International document their use of human shields. What do they do? Just take Palestinian prisoners and hold them in front of them as literally a shield? Yeah, or they send them into areas that they don't want to go into first themselves to conduct scouting for them. There's a Grayzone uh that interviewed somebody who was abducted by israel and forced to do this and it's harrowing um basically being used so that uh to you know so that israeli forces might not get fired on or in case israeli forces uh fear that there's a booby trap set up for them send a detained abducted palestinian in there first to bear the brunt of any explosives that might go off here's a reporter i think a different reporter grilling miller again but about this subject cut 14. the practice

is routine commonplace organized conducted with considerable logistical support, and the knowledge of superiors on the battlefield. The detainees were handled and often transported between squads by officers from Israeli intelligence agencies, which shows – I mean, we've been asking about this before, but it shows here it was more organized, it was more within the knowledge of higher command in Israel, and it's still going on. Do you have any comment? MR. Yeah, I also saw that report, and I can tell you we found it incredibly disturbing.

If the facts as presented in that report are true, they're completely unacceptable. There is no reason, there can be no justification ever for the use of civilians as human shields. It would be a violation not just of international humanitarian law, but of the IDF's own code of conduct. What is the U.S. going to do about it? Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. The only news here is that the Times got around to admit it. Yeah, exactly. There was recently a report in Politico which said that at a meeting in August, the top U.S. official handling humanitarian aid for Gaza told a group that no matter what Israel does,

Israel will not face a cutoff of U.S. weaponry. So Israel will do whatever it wants. The Washington Post revealed, which may mean the CIA wanted the leak. Tell me if I have this correct, that the U.S. said the opposite, that the U.S. said if aid doesn't get into Gaza in 30 days, I don't know how many people can starve, die of malnutrition or disease in 30 days, but if aid doesn't get in in 30 days, we would consider a halt to the weapons. Is that from the Biden administration? Is that from the Defense

Department? Is that from the White House? You know, that's the White House trying to put out a leak before the election to falsely portray itself as doing something about Israel's human rights abuses and deliberate starvation siege of Gaza. When if you read the actual letter from Antony Blinken and Lloyd Austin, it lays out all the ways in which Israel is blocking aid, or I mean, some of the ways, it doesn't capture the full story, but it acknowledges that Israel is blocking aid to Gaza, which should in itself automatically trigger a cutoff of US weaponry, because US law says, you know, you cannot arm people and support people who are denying humanitarian aid. And Blinken has repeatedly gone before Congress and lied in saying Israel's not deliberately blocking humanitarian aid. Here he is finally in a letter admitting that Israel is blocking humanitarian aid.

But rather than telling Israel we are cutting off weapons, all the letter says is that we might do something to take action against you. And of course, the deadline they set is 30 days, which means after the election. So basically the message to Israel is do whatever you want. Maybe give us some token food deliveries and everything will be fine. So it's a completely empty threat, just like every other threat that the Biden administration has thrown Israel's way for more than a year of mass murder. It's all just performative to cover up for the U.S. role

in being complicit in Israel's genocide. Is Israel preparing to attack Iran? Well, sure they are. Yeah. And the question is, to what extent will the US be complicit? Well, there's an early indication that they are because of the deployment of the THAAD missile system. The fact that Biden is consulting with Netanyahu on what kind of targets they're going to hit, it's amazing. This is treated as some sort of normal routine occurrence that the president of the US would be consulting with a foreign power on how to bomb another foreign power. Why isn't Biden telling Israel that the US would oppose military action and trying to broker peace? Because Biden is fully on board with this war

for Israeli supremacy. That's all this is, all this mass murder in Gaza and Lebanon, and now aggression toward Iran. It's all to reinforce Israeli and US hegemony and supremacy in the region. So that's why Biden's consulting with Netanyahu rather than trying to constrain him. Today, obviously, the news of the day is Israel's killing of Yair Sinwar, the leader of Hamas. And you'll hear now from Biden and Kamala Harris that now this is finally the opportunity to reach a ceasefire to bring the hostages home. But what have they done to this point to secure that goal? All they've done is pretend to be upset at Israel's mass murder or blocking of aid while arming it and enabling it every single turn.

How fanatical is the Israeli government? Is Netanyahu himself a fanatical Zionist, or is he playing one to keep his coalition together? Well, as Norman Finkelstein says, Israel is already an extremist far-right country. So the only question is, to what degree is someone a far-right extremist inside the Israeli political establishment? Because they all are. Even Netanyahu's critics inside the establishment themselves support mass murder and starvation. So does that make them moderates because they criticize Netanyahu even when they support you know these massive crimes against humanity

they're all extremists but yes you know he does have people inside his cabinet or even more extreme than he is but in terms of what that means in real life they're all just off the deep end and they have the endorsement and the support of the bipartisan u.s establishment so they can pretty much do whatever they want but yes netanyahu inside the context of his own cabinet, you could consider him to be, he's certainly not the most extreme. Does the Israeli establishment fear the involvement of Russia if it attacks Iran and Iran has its back to the wall? Well, that's a good question. Russia has been developing closer ties to Iran in recent years. And there's indications that Russia is helping bolster Iran's defenses.

But Russia also has a relationship with Israel. There are, you know, about a million Russian citizens inside of Israel. And Russia has always tried to maintain good relations with Israel, despite being critical of it at four, like the UN Security Council over the assault on Gaza. They've also maintained pretty good relations. And so, for example, when Israel routinely bombed Syria, even though Russia and Syria are very close allies, and Russia even has military troops there, Russia has not really acted to support Syria in deference to Israel. So Russia is playing a balancing act.

Would Israel be afraid of a direct fight with Russia if it attacked Iran? I don't think so. I don't think it has to worry about that. But certainly, Russia is playing, I think, a more active role in Iran's defenses than maybe is even being publicly disclosed. Here's a text from our friend Alistair Crook about Senwar, who, as you know, is now dead. But apparently Senwar was found, I'm reading this now, above ground wearing a combat vest and a helmet with an AK by his side together with two of his bodyguards. He was not hiding in a tunnel, nor was he hiding amongst civilians or Israeli hostages. He was beside his own fighters right at the line of confrontation with the IDF. After all these months, he was not killed by an

airstrike or a targeted assassination. An Israeli soldier found his body by complete coincidence after firing mortars at the Hamas fighters with whom he was fighting. Yeah, it certainly carries a lot of symbolic value, this image of Sinjar rather than being killed, you know, hiding in a tunnel as Israel claimed he was doing this whole time. He's killed out in the field fighting Israeli soldiers. And the images, I think, will, you know, carry a very heavy symbolic value amongst the Palestinian resistance and certainly, you know, undermines the characterization of Sinwar that Israel and its apologists put forward. You know, as for Sinwar himself, whether he advanced or hurt the cause of Palestinian liberation, I have my own views on that, but it doesn't matter what I think. I'm not living under occupation. Hamas is a resistance force fighting an occupation and people in the West and judging Sinwar, I mean, I think the most important thing is we're responsible for our own actions, our own violence. And in our case, it means being involved in one of the world's longest

running military occupation, an occupation that Hamas was founded to resist. And it's our obligation to end that occupation. And Senwar will be judged by his own people, whether or not he hurt or helped their cause. When Israel kills these leaders, Senwar or, there's a picture of him, or Nasrallah, does this create some euphoria in Israel? Does Netanyahu and company boast about it, even though it's militarily insignificant because they'll be replaced immediately? Oh, of course they boast about it. Netanyahu already gave a speech today. And this goes, you know, go back to the 1930s and you can, you know, read about Zionist celebrating the killing of a Palestinian leader and thinking that this does a, you know, lands a fatal blow to the Palestinian national movement. I mean, this goes back a very, very long time. What every Israel

leader has found is that, you know, resistance is that the spirit of resistance is not confined to one person. It's not determined by whether one individual is dead or alive. It's in the spirit of the people who are determined to fight for their liberation. Whatever you think about Hamas, that's what they were doing. Their goal was Palestinian liberation. And by the way, there were elements of Hamas, including sometimes Senwar, if you pay attention to what he said, who were willing to accept a major Palestinian compromise of a state just within 22% of historic Palestine, the West Bank and Gaza, which happens to be the international consensus. It's Israel, which is so extreme,

that refused to even accept a Palestinian compromise, which basically put Hamas in the position where something like October 7th could happen, concluding that there was no hope at all for negotiations with Israel. Netanyahu was openly vowing that there would never be a Palestinian state. Netanyahu thought he could use Hamas to word that goal by splitting the West Bank from Gaza and propping up Hamas and making it sort of the symbol of the Palestinian struggle, therefore making it off limits to the rest of the world. And that's why October 7th happened. And it didn't have to be this way.

If Israel had seriously engaged with not just the global consensus, all the Arab states have offered Israel this, Iran supported this, even members of Hamas, including Ismail Haniyeh, supported a Palestinian state. If Israel had engaged with that and negotiated seriously for a Palestinian state, October 7th likely never would have happened. Can the United States ever say no to Israel? Well, they have historically sometimes when Israeli interests diverge from that of the U.S. So, for example, a while ago, there was talk of Israel doing some major military deal with China, and the U.S. basically vetoed that. So sometimes, yes, the U.S. says no.

But certainly, over the last year, is there one example of the U.S. standing up to Israel? I mean, there are reports that Antony Blinken even went to Egypt and Jordan and tried to lobby them into accepting mass ethnic cleansing from Gaza, into accepting, you know, a mass new Nakba of Israel expelling Palestinian refugees from Gaza into the Sinai Desert. And apparently Egypt said no to that, despite Egypt also being in the pocket of the u.s and israel right so there's just every indication that uh the biden administration has at every single turn done israel's bidding there's that one action where biden paused 2 000 pound bomb shipments to israel once but even then had already delivered a number of 2 000 pound bombs as we're seeing being used in gaza and

lebanon so even the one time when you can say that it did stand up to Israel or do something punitive to Israel was completely toothless and meaningless. Aaron, I'm going to say thank you very much for your time, my dear friend. Much appreciated. Look forward to seeing you next week. Thank you, Judge. Of course, all the best. And coming up at 5.30 this afternoon, midnight in Moscow, Pepe Escobar, Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. Thank you.