Judging Freedom - Aaron Maté : Is the US a Criminal State Like Israel?

Episode Date: September 10, 2025

Aaron Maté : Is the US a Criminal State Like Israel?See 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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That's an equivalent to $15 a month. Limited time new customer offer for first three months only. Speeds may slow above 35 gigabytes on unlimited. plan. Taxes and fees extra. See Mint Mobile for details. Hi, everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Wednesday, September 10th, 2025. Aaron Matae joins us now. Aaron is always a pleasure. My dear friend, thank you for joining me.

You have a very important piece. I read all your work, but you have a very important piece on your substack post about Israel and the U.S. using diplomacy for aggression. Is the United States as culpable as Israel for the bombings in Doha earlier this week? I think so. Trump tried to feign innocence that he didn't know about this until the last minute, which just strange credulity. Israel is carrying out an attack, not only on another sovereign country, but a sovereign country that hosts a U.S. military air base. And I don't think Israel carries out any action. act of aggression without a U.S. endorsement.

That's been the case for a very, very long time. And I don't think that this was any exception. I think Trump was in on this from the start. And look at the timeline. Trump last week submits a new proposal to Hamas, says this is your last chance. You better meet our demands or else. So then Hamas gathers to study the proposal, which Trump has submitted, and then Israel goes ahead and bombs the Hamas meeting.

By the way, Hamas claims that none of its senior leaders were killed, but six people were confirmed. dead, including some Qatari security officials. So I don't think Israel could have gotten away with this, or would have done this without Trump's blessing, just as Israel wouldn't have bombed Iran without Trump's blessing, where again, just like this time, Trump pretended to engage in diplomacy with Iran, and using that as a cover, Israel carried out this act of aggression. That's also a playbook, by the way, that Trump used in his first term, when Qasem Soleimani,

the Iranian general, went to Iraq. He was on a diplomatic mission to try to brook. peace with Saudi Arabia, which the U.S. claimed to support. U.S. took advantage of that visit and assassinated Qasem Soleimani after he arrived in Baghdad. So this is Trump following his own traditional playbook of using the cover of diplomacy to carry out aggression. Didn't, I mean, couldn't you make the argument, and maybe you just did, that Trump personally lured Hamas to these negotiations by saying here's our highest and best deal take it or leave it absolutely but that's what i think happened um if you look at the timeline it's impossible to come to a different conclusion

given how close trump has been with israel at every single juncture uh recall also that back in march after israel broke the ceasefire imposed a starvation siege trump then made a direct appeal to Hamas through his so-called hostage envoy, Adam Bowler, and said, if you free Israeli-American soldier, Aidan Alexander, we'll do our best to lift the blockade of Gaza and will also, you know, push for good faith negotiations to end Israel's mass murder campaign. Hamas, as an act of goodwill, release Aidan Alexander, and Trump did nothing in return. He only increased his support for Israel's starvation siege and mass murder rampage. inside of Gaza. So Trump is a long record of this now. He's played Hamas before and it looks

like he played Hamas again. Tell me if you think this denial is credible. It's about 40 seconds long. You'll see Trump with the Vice President of the United States, the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of State standing behind him like mannequins smiling at his snarky one-liner. or one wonders what they do for a living or what he thinks they do, that they can stand behind him when he gives these pressers. Nevertheless, tell me if you think his denial is credible. Cut number 16. These Israelis drink earlier today. Well, I'm not thrilled. I'm not thrilled about it. I don't have to do that. I'm just, I'm not thrilled about the whole situation. It's not a good situation.

But I will say this, we want the hostages back. But we are not thrilled about the whole situation. way that went down today. Do you know how you advance? Mr. President, and Israel's helping you advance? No. You were caught by surprise, sir? I'm never surprised by anything,

especially when it comes to the Middle East. How did she worry about this up? No. I'll be giving a full statement tomorrow, but I would tell you this. I was very unhappy about it, very unhappy about every aspect, and we've got to get the hostages back.

But I was very unhappy about the way that went down. I think his no and nope were credible at all. Were you surprised by it instead of saying no or yes? He said, I'm not surprised by anything Q, laughter, the vice president, laughter the secretary of Vets, Rubio's on the other side of Higgs out there in another camera angle. You can't see it from this one. Did you find him credible?

No, no, no. But the reason why he had to throw out some words of regret, I'm not happy about that somewhat thrilled is because Qatar is a U.S. ally. There's a U.S. military base there hosting 10,000 U.S. soldiers. And by the way, did that air base activate its air defenses when 10 Israeli war planes entered Qatari airspace? No, because the obvious reason is that Trump and the U.S. were in on this. That's why their air defenses weren't activated. What was was Doha in on it? Did they know that the planes were coming and that their air defenses that they rely on wouldn't work.

Some people can certainly, some people have speculated that. I mean, Doha has made the decision to host a U.S. military base, so basically putting them in the realm like Israel of being a U.S. client state. So people will speculate that Doha was in on it. I haven't seen evidence to support it,

so I can't go that far. But just by virtue of deciding to be a essential, a U.S. proxy, hosting a U.S. military base, hosting military assets are used to facilitate directly or indirectly, Israel's genocide and Gaza.

In that respect, the Qatari government is complicit. But that's something for the Qatari people to design. Trump has certainly sent a message that whether you're a U.S. ally or not, you're expendable. It's Israel first,

and all the other client states are of secondary importance to the point where the U.S. will facilitate, an act of aggression on their territory if that's in Israel's interests. Was the government of Qatari used by Netanyahu to funnel money to Hamas when he was promoting and funding Hamas? Yes, they were. Yes, they were. That was the open policy. I mean, for Netanyahu, the aim was very clear. He wanted to prop up Hamas because he wanted to use the international reputation

of Hamas as a militant group, as an intractable organization you can't negotiate with. He wanted to use that to basically undermine any prospects of a Palestinian state. That's sort of at the heart of Israeli strategy to keep Gaza on the West Bank physically and politically divided. So you have a sort of collaborationist and a corrupt, ineffective Palestinian authority. And you have Hamas in Gaza, which is known as being more extreme, even though in recent years, Hamas tried to moderate its positions, it changed its charter. It tried to even endorse nonviolent protest, the Great March of Return in 2018, which Israel responded to by gunning tens of thousands of innocent Palestinians protesting nonviolently down with U.S. made weapons. So this has all been a part of Netanyahu strategy with U.S. support. Yes, to prop up Hamas in Gaza.

And he thought before October 7th that they were happy to play that role of just having control over Gaza while still not offering Israel any armed resistance. and, of course, October 7th shattered that. Has there been any significant geopolitical response from heads of state over this? Not that I've seen. No, I mean, the Gulf states will voice words of protest, but they're all in the pocket of the U.S. I mean, they all pretty much host U.S. military bases. The UAE is a part of the Abraham Accords with Israel,

which essentially normalizes with Israel while asking Israel to do nothing for Palestinians. which previously had long been a stumbling walk. So, yes, there's been words of protest and people are upset, but, you know, what do words matter anymore, especially after two years of genocide? This 100-word document offering Trump's proposals, I'm chuckling because I thought that Max was putting a little spin on it when he said 100 words, but it was 100 words.

It sounds like Netanyahu dictated it, to trump i mean it was written in a very uh truncated uh way as if he wrote it down in the back of a napkin and a bar it was disclosed by drop site news which quoted a senior hamas official saying that this reads like it was written by israel because basically it was calling on hamas to give up all the remaining captives in exchange for a 60 day ceasefire but there would be no guarantee that the genocide would end and there was some unspecified pledge of more humanitarian aid, but that pledge has been made many, many times. And of course, people of gods are still living under a starvation siege. And the U.S. stance, it's impossible to keep track

up because it keeps shifting. For a while, the U.S. and Israel were only saying there could be a partial ceasefire deal. Then they started demanding that there'd be a full ceasefire deal. And whenever Hamas offers its acceptance, according to one Qatari official, the latest Hamas acceptance met 98% of Steve Wickcoff demands. Deep more than it happens, U.S. and Israel changed their stance. Because basically, the overriding goal here is not a ceasefire deal. And Hamas, I think, made a strategic mistake in thinking that Israel cared about saving its own people. Israel showed that by killing its own people on October 7th with the Hannibal Directive.

And it's shown that sense by refusing all ceasefire or all but one ceasefire opportunities, all but two ceasefire opportunities to continue mass murder in Gaza. And their strategy was laid out right after October 7th. There's an Israeli document, intelligence ministry document, from October 13th, not even a week after October 7th. Our options in Gaza are threefold. And the optimal option is to displace most of the Palestinians into the Sinai Desert. And that's the strategy that they're still pursuing today.

How could Trump possibly claim to guarantee that the Israelis would, negotiate in good faith. First of all, the Israelis never negotiate in good faith. He doesn't negotiate in good faith. And yet I'm one of those napkin things. I'm saying napkin. It could literally have been written on a napkin. It said, President Trump, not the U.S., President Trump will guarantee good faith negotiations. Well, you're right. In practice, Trump has shown the opposite of good faith. But in theory, if the U.S. stance actually changed in terms of putting pressure on Israel and leveraging its massive influence over Israel, especially through its supply of weaponry,

then actually I do think Trump could offer that guarantee. In May 2021, when there was a Israeli attack on Gaza, it lasted, I think, about two or three weeks. Biden put it to an end by calling him Netanyahu and saying it's over. Time to stop. Netanyahu had to back down because his government relies on U.S. sponsorship. And when Trump was coming into office and he didn't want to, have the mass murder in Gaza distracting from his inauguration, he got Steve Wickho

to tell Netanyahu to accept a ceasefire. So whenever the U.S. actually exerts its leverage over Israel, Israel backs down. So in theory, Trump could guarantee a good faith negotiation, but he has made the choice to not do that at every single turn because he's ultimately committed to Israel first. It's not in his, I don't want to say, genetic makeup or personality, but I think he likes this, because he's employed it so many times, these deceptions, it was deception that resulted in the assassination of Nazarala. It was deception, Trump's deception, deception that led the Iranian negotiators to believe that they were going to a bona fide negotiation, whereas the B-2 bombers were coming the other way.

And now this, in which he was personally involved. I totally agree with that. He seems to take some delight in tricking Iran, in tricking Hamas, and using their gullibility to carry out aggression. He loves to humiliate people. And that's bipartisan, too. I mean, again, the response to October 7th should have been, Israel is waging this decades-old illegal military occupation of the Palestinian people. It's time for it to end or else we're just going to see violence like this forever and ever and ever. So let's put pressure in Israel to end the occupation and the siege of Gaza and grant Palestinians their minimal rights to self-determination.

Palestinian had previously accepted a homeland and just 22% of the land that Israel stole from them, the West Bank, Gaza, East Jerusalem. That should have been the response. But because Israel and the U.S. are fundamentally committed not to peace and security of everybody, but to Jewish supremacy, the response was we have to teach these people a lesson. You've shaken our aura of power, as the New York Times put it, Israel's aura of power was shaken by October 7. So therefore, they have to simply be wiped out. I think Trump very much has put into this idea that the natives of the region have to be taught a lesson, which means

unrelenting aggression at every single turn. Did Mossad as recently as two days ago assure the Qataris that the IDF would never attack them? Before the attack on Qatar by Israel, yes, the Mossad relayed a message, according to Israeli media, to Qatar that don't worry, we're not going to launch attacks on your soil. And that gave then, Hamas, the confidence for everyone to come meet for this gathering to discuss Trump's ceasefire proposal, which was used as a trap to try to kill them, which according to Hamas did not succeed. A couple of minutes ago, Colonel Wilkerson, a big fan of yours, as you know, opined that Israel and therefore the U.S. will be at war with Iran before Christmas. Does that sound reasonable to you?

it does sound reasonable to me Israel and the U.S. are obsessed with destroying Iran because Iran is the most credible deterrent to Israeli hegemony in the region. So this has been a longstanding campaign that explains Trump's conduct in his first term when he tore up the Iran nuclear deal.

It explains his behavior after taking office when he had campaigned again on stopping the endless wars and being against regime changed immediately going even beyond Biden and supporting Israeli aggression in going after Iran. And that score has not been settled.

The government in Iran survived. It looks like the population even rallied behind the government. So therefore, the government's domestic standing might have even improved after the Israeli-U.S. assault. So, yeah, as far as the U.S. and Israel are concerned, that's unfinished business. So I think it's totally plausible to expect a new round of Israeli-U.S. violence

against Iran. Notwithstanding that clip that we just watched of Trump with the Heggsetham Rubio and Vance standing behind him and notwithstanding his rather tepid denial. Is there any question in your mind, but that the United States gave Netanyahu the green light to do this, to attack civilians in a civilian neighborhood in the capital of another country?

Absolutely. Just like they've given Israel the green light to destroy Gaza City, which is the last part of Gaza that is livable. They've been destroying residential towers, leveling them, giving people almost no notice, if not no notice at all, to flee because the aim is to make Gaza unlivable

and to force everyone or as many people as possible into exile. So yes, everything, every act of Israeli aggression since October 7th, and long before it, has a U.S. green light. And by the way, on the point about Iran, One of the reasons why Netanyahu attacked Iran when he did earlier this year was because he knew, and this was disclosed by the Washington Post, he knew that Iran was rebuilding its air defenses, and so he only had limited time to do that. And I do believe Netanyahu and the U.S. are on the same clock now. They know that if they wait too long, Iran will restore its defensive capability.

So all this talk from Netanyahu and Trump about Iran is weeks away from a nuclear weapon. That was simply a lie to try to cover up the real fear of the head, which is that Iran is simply rebuilding its defensive capacity. And I have no doubt that the same imperative is driving U.S.-Israeli thinking today. I'm going to play a clip for you. And when I saw it, I thought of you, not because this person in any way reminds me of you, but because you'll appreciate what he said. He once was able to whisper these things into Trump's ears, but no longer.

this is steve bannon on the influence of the israelis today watch this chris number 19 the world's best ally i i don't i don't want tom cotton and lindsay graham you're going tell me that again you're the world's best here's what an ally does they're a protector they're not an ally they never fought shoulder to shoulder with us anywhere okay they get us into messes like in iran where they tried to have regime change and lied about it Netanyahu and his government are destroying not only the state of Israel and going to turn it into a Jewish Pakistan, they are hurting the Jewish community throughout the world and turning the world against the Jewish community. Full stop. Who was it that said the greatest driver of anti-Semitism in the world is Benjamin Netanyahu?

Well, I'm not sure who said that, but it's true. I mean, and again, as Max Limithal often points out, this is the essence of Zionism. Zionism requires anti-Semitism in order to justify Israel's existence as in Jewish supremacist state. To make the world unsafe for Jews, therefore create this so-called safe haven where security for Jews is provided by them ruling over the people whose land they stole. That's the essence of Zionism right there. So Zionism as long promoted anti-Semitism, and that's what Israel is fomenting today. I mean, what else are people going to do when you see the self-proclaimed Jewish state, acting the name of the Jewish people, acting the name of the Jewish tradition, carrying out a genocide, carrying out the most cruel acts people have ever seen, one the worst crimes in human history? So there's no doubt that Israel is the number one driver of anti-Semitism.

Is the United States morally culpable for Israel? Israelis crimes. You and Max and I have referred to Israel as a criminal state. That would make the United States a criminal state, or at least under Joe Biden and Donald Trump. Well, I would say going back to 1967, the U.S. is liable for Israel's crimes because that's when Israel became a client state of U.S. because it smashed Arab nationalism, and that's when U.S. leaders recognize that Israel had value to U.S. egemony, sort of a way to police the Middle East and keep down the natives and make sure that oil resources. of the region are under the control of the U.S. and its clients.

So every crime that Israel has committed since then, I think the U.S. has been complicit in. And that's why we're seeing now, there's been this token effort by some states, including France and the U.K., to recognize Palestinian statehood. This is supposed to be what the U.S. supports, a Palestinian state. That remains official U.S. policy, or at least it did under Biden. And what did the Trump administration do? They banned the visas for Palestinian authority officials. to come to the UN for that session recognizing their token statehood.

And it's extraordinary because who's the Palestinian Authority? They're a corrupt regime in Ramallah with no popular support. They've been acting as a subcontractor for the Israel occupation, which was the point of the Israeli-U.S. So, even the U.S.'s own collaborators are deemed to be non-grada in the U.S. if they dare take part in a symbolic recognition of Palestinian self-determination, which, and that effort to destroy Palestinian state has been going on for a very, very long time, under all presidents, including Bill Clinton, who inaugurated the so-called peace process.

So absolutely, I think every Israeli crime is a joint U.S. production as well. Aaron Monta, thank you, my dear friend. Thanks for this great piece on your substack post in Qatar, in Qatar, attack israel and u.s again used diplomacy for aggression i commend it to everybody and we look forward to seeing you next week all the best to as well judge thank you thank you coming up shortly at three o'clock this afternoon on all of these topics mainly israel professor john meersheimer judge nal palatana for judging freedom Thank you.