Judging Freedom - Aaron Maté : Israel, While the World Watched Alaska.

Episode Date: August 18, 2025

Aaron Maté : Israel, While the World Watched Alaska.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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2025. My dear friend, Aaron Mote, joins us now. Aaron, a pleasure. Thank you very much for accommodating my schedule. I want to talk to you a little bit about the goings on in the White House now and President Trump's efforts to bring about, he says, peace in Ukraine. And I do want to talk to you about what's been happening in Israel while the world has been watching Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump in Alaska. But before that, you had, you recently had a fascinating interview over on the gray zone with a former French defense ministry official about, I'll use President Putin's phrase, the genesis and origins of the causes of the military action in Ukraine.

What did you learn from this person that used to advise French defense ministers? So his name is Benoit Paray, and for seven years from 2015 to 2022, when Russia invaded, he was on the ground in Ukraine as a monitor with the OSCE, which is a European-dominated group that is there to manage and hopefully end conflicts. And after the war broke out in Ukraine following the 2014 Maydan coup, the OSCE put monitors on the ground to try to especially bring about ceasefires and in C2, the implementation of the Minsk Accords, which was the key European broker agreement that was reached between the U.S.-backed coup government and Ukraine and the Russian-backed rebels in eastern Ukraine.

And what Benoit-Powre told me is that when it comes to the failure to implement Minsk, the failure to implement this peace accord that could have, I think, prevented the Russian invasion, he primarily puts the fault on Ukraine. He was there on the ground, and what he saw, he says, is just repeated Ukrainian violations of the ceasefire. He saw a heavy presence of neo-Nazis inside the battalions. And he saw a refusal to take the Minsk provision seriously, which included the Ukrainian government passing measures that would enshrine the autonomous rights of ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine, which the government tried to do initially. But after heavy, far-right, ultra-nationalist opposition, they pulled back. And what he saw essentially was carte blanche for shelling.

What he also saw was a story, he told me, of a U.S. ambassador being informed of Ukrainian violations and this U.S. ambassador is saying, I'm not interested. Tell me only about violations by the Russian. Was this one of the ambassadors that testified against Trump in the impeachment proceedings? It's a great question. I didn't actually ask the name, but I can follow up. But I wouldn't be surprised because we know during this period while the Dombas war was going on, This is the year leading up to Russia's invasion in February 2022, that the U.S. was encouraging Ukraine not to implement the Minsk courts.

The top U.S. diplomat in Key, William Taylor, he told Zelensky, after Zelensky came into office, that Minsk was a terrible idea, and you shouldn't do it. So the U.S. was absolutely encouraging the Ukrainian government to ignore Minsk and keep attacking the Donbos. And the picture that Bonois-Aparais paints is simply that Russia was provoked. And when you couple that with refusing to take NATO expansion off the table and you couple that with the U.S. tearing up arms control treaties with Russia as happened under the Bush administration and then under the First Trump administration, you have a very clear picture. And what's striking is this is coming from a Western voice. He's a French national, as you said, a former French defense ministry official. And there he is on the ground in Ukraine confirming what a lot of critics of the proxy were, including many of the guests in your program, have been saying for a very long time.

I wonder if, again, before we jump to Israel, because your answer is so fascinating, I wonder if Zelensky is still subject to the ultra-nationalists, you know, the people that Pepe Askapar calls Nazis, if he's still subject to them because they're not going to be reasonable. They're not going to recognize that the army and the Ukrainian army military is on its last legs they're driven by a blind hatred of russia and an extraordinary nationalistic ideology that you agree with me i do and so do ukrainian officials there was an article in the financial times not too long ago saying that one of the major problems that zelensky faces is the ultra-nationalist

right in fact let me quote it for you i have it right here uh zelensky's quote biggest domestic problem might come from a nationalist minority opposed to any compromise, some of whom are now armed and trained to fight. And the article quotes a Ukrainian official who says that entering in any negotiation with Russia, quote, could be a trigger for social instability. Zelensky knows this very well. And then they quote the chair of Ukrainian Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee, Alexander Maresko, who says this,

there will always be a radical segment of Ukrainian society that will call any negotiation capitulation. The far right in Ukraine is growing. The right wing is a danger to democracy. Wow. We've been Ukrainian officials acknowledge this. And this has been the problem that Zelensky's face from the start. He has domestically a heavily armed, heavily emboldened,

far right minority. And plus he has his bigger backer in Washington, never having his back to make peace. And this has been the quandary he's always faced. Now, now in Donald Trump, he might have something different. Trump appears to be switching his position. Recall that Trump was insisting for a long time now that Russia must agree to a ceasefire.

After meeting with Putin on Friday, Trump dropped that. He came up with the ceasefire thing as recently as on the flight from Washington to Anchorage in a Fox News interview that he did. I suspect the lecture he got from Putin on the genesis and causes of the Ukraine war, it's the first time he heard that version of history. You have more faith in Trump's attention span than I do. He has no attention span. I can tell you that personally.

So I don't think he had time for a long Putin discussion of the origins of the war, but I do think he heard from Putin the reality of the war and the reality from Russia's perspective that they've invested a lot in this war now. Ukraine had a chance to make peace more than three years ago in Istanbul when they reached a deal with Russia. They walked away from that and made a very fateful choice to listen to Joe Biden and Boris Johnson. So Russia has then made an investment ever since

in taking the territory of the Donbos that was subject to years of shelling by the Ukrainian government as the former French OSCE monitor Benoit-Péééé talked to me about in the interview at the Grey Zone. so now Russia's not going to give that up and that's what I think Putin told Trump and that and Trump can choose either to either accept that Russia's position is what it is and try to work around that or go back to the Biden position of just army Ukraine with tens of billions of dollars and weaponry which he never wanted to do which he also knows is futile at this point because

Ukraine is running out of people to sacrifice so what is Whitkoff talking about he used two phrases that one piqued my curiosity, the other put me down on the dumps. First, I thought that Trump had thrown the neocons under the bus. And then Chris found that General Kellogg was there in the Oval Office today with President Zelensky. There he is. He's next to Scott Bessett, the Secretary of the Treasury, who's next to Pete Hagseth. And even though it's a disjointed shot, it's really the same. they were just a few feet from the president.

I thought Kellogg had been banished because Kellogg is the one who's preaching ceasefire. Kellogg is the one who's preaching NATO security guarantee. So this brings me to the phrases that frustrated me. One, land swaps. What are they talking about swaps? And the other is security guarantee. Putin is never going to accept NATO as a security guarantor,

and he's not going to accept the nations of NATO, even if they don't call themselves NATO as a security guarantor. So is, is, is Whitkoff misreading Putin? Or are they saying what they hope will happen? Well, that's a good question. Look, what I do know is that in Istanbul, three years ago, according to Alexander Chale, who was a senior Ukrainian negotiator, he's the one who famously said that we managed to find a real compromise in Istanbul.

And Putin did everything possible to make peace. He wrote a paper a few years ago saying, that Russia was receptive to Ukrainian demands for security guarantees. Now, there wasn't a lot of detail about who exactly it would be, but there was some mention that it would include Western states. It also would include countries like China and, crucially, Russia, that Russia would be involved in this. So look, I think it's actually possible that possibly a European state could be a part of a security guarantee to Ukraine.

Trump has talked about that NATO would not itself be a part of it. this. So I don't know what Russia would accept or not. And I don't know what they would come up with to maybe give the appearance that the U.S. is a part when really practically they are not. But according to a Ukrainian negotiator in Istanbul three years ago, Russia was receptive to some sort of Western involvement in a security guarantee for Ukraine. As for, you know, it being similar to Article 5 like NATO, I agree with you. I strongly doubt that. But given that there is some predicate here, that there was talk of this three years ago, I wouldn't be surprised. if Putin and Trump talked about this on Friday

and reached some sort of understanding. So Colonel McGregor points out something that I didn't know, which is that the treaty between Russia and Austria at the end of World War II, which provides for Austria's permanent neutrality, has a security guarantee. And the security guarantors were the Soviet Union. And the Soviets actually had an official

in the government of Austin. full-time pursuant to the treaty, making sure that they stayed neutral. I don't know if Russia still has such an official there, but look at the Austrian model how well it has worked. Of course, and the same thing for Finland as well, until Finland decided to blow it up and join NATO. Why they did that is beyond me when it was working for them too. And this is the problem. You know, people in the U.S., like the pundits and the political media establishment, they keep talking about, you know, it's Ukraine's right to join any military alliance that they want.

Well, we'd never grant Canada or Mexico the same right. If Canada and Mexico even thought about joining a Russian military alliance, they'd be blown off the face of the earth. And Ukraine also, what everybody overlooks who supports Ukraine joining NATO, is that Ukraine's declaration of state sovereignty back in the early 1990, when it became an independent state following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. It called for Ukraine to be a permanently neutral state. If you look at polls in Ukraine over the last three decades,

the majority of the country has supported being neutral because it was working for them as well. They didn't want to join NATO. And that's one of the reasons why the U.S. backed the overthrow of Yanukovych in 2014 is because he had made moves to enshrine neutrality with a parliamentary resolution. And so once you do that, then you can know. longer be pulled into NATO. So that's why there was a coup there. So this idea that, you know, the Ukrainians want to join NATO, it's not even borne out by their own history and their own polling. And now, according to the latest polls, two-thirds of the population want and negotiate

it into this war. Before we jump to Israel, I thought that one of the really classy things that Donald Trump did on Friday, and this seemed to surprise everybody, was to invite President Putin to drive in the beast with him, just the two of them. That must have been a translator or some other human being back then, but we only saw the two of them. But not everybody agrees with you and me on that. Chris, do you have this clip? So I think you could see on Putin's face, he felt very, very comfortable.

And the fact that he was given a ride then in the presidential limousine, The Beast. I certainly hope the Secret Service has swept that vehicle very well in terms of any type of, a small microchip that might have been put in the vehicle. But then in the press conference, Putin looked chipper. He looked upbeat. Agreed that he looked chipper and upbeat. I can't imagine that while he's sitting there in the presence of the president

and whoever else was back there, and if you ever seen it, it's huge. You could almost play billiards back there. I'm exaggerating a little, that he would plant some sort of a microchip. The fact that this idea comes from the form. head of the CIA, John Brennan, tells us so much about the intelligence of our so-called intelligence community. And it also helps explain why there's been such a mess in Ukraine.

When the coup happened in 2014 in Ukraine, which kicked off this whole mess, who was the head of the CIA was John Brennan. And who did the new Ukrainian military intelligence chief immediately call upon taking up their position after the coup? They called the CIA. And we know from the New York Times, that article that came out earlier this year, that the CIA then basically took over Ukraine's intelligence service and built 10 new bases inside of Ukraine. We also know that in 2016, when John Brennan was pushing the Russia gate hoax to frame Trump as a Russian agent and to accuse Russia falsely of launching a massive interference campaign to put him in office, Brennan used Ukrainian intelligence to make his allegations. And so the fact that Brennan can now go on

MSNBC and speculate that Putin dropped a microchip in Trump's vehicle, and for that to be taken seriously, it speaks to why we're in the mess we're in. By the way, there was a major revelation in Russia Gate last week. I'll just mention it briefly because it's very important. You know, the heart of Russia Gate was the allegation that Russia hacked Democratic Party emails and gave him the WikiLeaks. Seven years ago when Trump and Putin had their first summit in Helsinki, right before the summit, Robert Mueller dropped his indictment of alleged Russian intelligence officers for allegedly hacking and leaking the emails. And this was a huge thing.

And already the Russia gate thing was casting a shadow over Trump. But now with that indictment, it just basically defined the entire weekend. And when Trump stood next to Putin and said, actually, he believed Putin's denial of interfering in the election, there was a meltdown. John Brennan called him a traitor. John Brennan said that Trump was nothing short of treasiness. So fast forward seven years later, and what did we get last week? More evidence that this allegation that Russia hacked and leaked these emails was a complete. U.S. intelligence fabrication because what will we get last week? Tulsi Gabbard declassified an email exchange

between Mike Rogers, the then head of the national security agency. In December 2016, he wrote to John Brennan, James Clapper, and Jim Comey, just as they were putting the final touches on this intelligence report that was going to accuse Russia of a massive influence plot right before Trump took office in January 2017. And Mike Rogers said, hey, guys, my guys at the NSA, we're being shut out of the intelligence process. You're not letting us review the underlying intelligence that you're using to blame Russia for hacking, leaking the DNC. And if you're going to keep doing this, we can't put our name on this report.

And what does James Clapper say in response? He says, sorry, we can only give you so much and we can't compromise on time. We have to compromise our normal modalities. And then he said, we all have to be in the same page, in the spirit of it's our story and we're sticking to it. No, boy. So Klepper was acknowledging that he was involved in a fraud.

A story. Every one of your answers provokes another question in my mind. And I've got to jump to Israel, but I have to ask you this. Trump should be wary of the intelligence community if he cuts a deal, which throws the neocons under the, to end the war in Ukraine, that throws the neocons under the book.

boss. The CIA is so invested with MI6 in this war. Do you think they're going to go home with their tails between their legs? I agree with you, especially given the fact that in the first term, they went to the lengths of framing the president of the U.S. as a Russian agent. Right. So if they're willing to do that, then they have more tricks up their sleeve. So I think that that is definitely worth keeping in mind. Why has the United States State Department stopped granting visas to Ghazan children who have need for emergency medical services in the United States. Pure evil, pure sadism that I just can't even put to words.

It's just so cruel. So we keep this genocide going. We give Israel the bombs that kill people by the tens of thousands that maim children. Gaza has the largest cohort of child amputees in the world. And now Trump's State Department, led by Michael Rubio, just announced they're not going to allow in young Palestinian children who are maimed and seriously wounded from coming to the U.S. for medical treatment. And what prompted this far-right online activist, Laura Lumer, who has an ear at the White House, right to Donald Trump, complained about seeing videos of children from Gaza coming here to get medical treatment. And lo and behold, Marco Rubio immediately sprung into action and banned. these kids were coming in and said we're reviewing the program. And Mark Rubio was all over the Sunday morning news shows yesterday. He was on ABC News. He was on NBC. He was on CBS. He was on Fox. Only CBS asked him about this, about this policy of banning medical visas for Palestinian children. And it was only one answer. And Marco Rubio said, well, it's not just the kids who are coming here. It's also adults. And we're concerned that the adults and the groups that are bringing them over might have ties to Hamas. So yes, children with their limbs

enough aren't coming here by themselves. An adult has to escort them as if that's somehow a threat to the U.S. It's just, it's unbelievable. And then that, and then like, and then that was it. And then afterwards, a Democrat on CBS's Face the Nation, a Democrat, Jason Crow, he was on, he was asked about this.

And his answer was just basically, well, we haven't seen any evidence for this. But if this is true that these people have ties to Hamas, then yes, this is a real threat. So even the Democrats so far aren't making an issue out of this. This is unbelievable sadism. really is just it takes the words out of your mouth because how do you define this cruelty it's it's it's unspeakable israel now an international pariah in the eyes of the global population i absolutely uh yeah um they should be i mean everyone can see what's going on

and how can you possibly support the genocidal state whose whose officials continue to make openly genocidal statement. A former intelligence chief of Israel, he just said that basically killing 50,000 plus civilians in Gaza was necessary and, quote, required for future generations, for everything that happened on October 7th, for every person on October 7th, 50 Palestinians need to die. It does not matter if they are children. That is right out of the SS handbook. One person escaped, so we're going to kill 50? 100%. It's an openly genocidal, Nazi-like statement. And that's the Israeli government. So people around the world, to the extent that their media

covers this, because of course, here in the U.S., we have a still of the media that really covers up for Israel. But people are aware. But unfortunately, the Trump administration is taking over the Biden policy of giving Israel the full green light for mass murder. I wonder if you know this author. Chris, cut number 17. There's growing numbers of reserves who simply are refusing to show up within Israel. I'm not talking about the 18-year-olds who simply refuse to serve because they're utterly opposed to the occupation and the genocide. They have people I deeply admire.

Sadly, there's too few of those. I'm talking about the hundreds and hundreds of reservists who have fought in Gaza and I suspect have committed numerous war crimes. They're refusing to show up because they see the complete futility of what Netanyahu and his cronies are trying to do in Gaza. The idea of fully occupying Gaza indefinitely, which frankly has always been the Israeli plan, is guaranteed to be akin to Vietnam, where you have overwhelming Israeli military force, but you have an insurgency.

And Israel, like the US was in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, are utterly vulnerable to that, let alone the moral cost, the ethical cost. You cannot occupy and other people indefinitely forever, as Israel has realized in the West Bank and Gaza, collapsing your society morally. And that sadly and tragically is where Israeli society has developed over the last years, long before October 7, but certainly since. Is Anthony Lowenstein or know of him? I do. He's a wonderful guy. He has great work. And he's done a lot of work exposing the profiteering off of the occupation and genocide of Palestinians and how basically Western corporations have used Gaza as sort of a

laboratory for their high-tech killing machine. So, yeah, he does wonderful work. Particularly, who are those creeps? Palantir. Palantir, right. But, you know, someone might listen to Anthony's analysis there and say, how will Israel possibly face a Vietnam-style guerrilla war in Gaza after they've spent nearly two years destroying the place?

And, you know, that's a question I would have asked, too, because I didn't expect Hamas to hold out. at all, just given the overwhelming military dominance that Israel has and given that people of Gaza are in a concentration camp. But then you think about the fact that Israel for the last two in two years has not been doing that much fighting. There's been some battles occasionally and, you know, about one Israeli soldier, I think on average dies per day, maybe less. But overall, there haven't been that many battles. It's just been Israel following its standard military practice of just massacring civilians from afar.

That's what Israel prefers to do. And that's why a lot of these soldiers in Israel don't want to show up and fight it because they actually aren't used to fighting. They're used to just killing people from afar. And so actually, quite, Anthony might be right that if Israel tries to invade Gaza, there will still be a large insurgency,

especially given that Israel's helped Hamas recruit so many more people to fight. Because that's what happens when you commit mass murder against a imprisoned defenseless civilian population, you will increase support for the resistance and increase people's determination to inflict damage on the aggressor. So it is actually quite possible that if Israel does a full ground invasion

as they're mulling right now, that they will face a insurgency that has not been defeated. Aaron, thank you very much. Thanks for your time. Much appreciated. Thank you for letting me take you across the board from Russia Gate to Ukraine to Gaza

I love being able to pick your brain, and I love when your answers provoke more questions. Thanks for having me, Chad. Good to see you. All right. All the best, my friend. Thank you. Coming up tomorrow at Tuesday at 8 in the morning, Ambassador Chaz Freeman at 11 in the morning, our new dear friend, Colonel Bill Astor, at two in the afternoon, Scott Horton,

who wrote the definitive book on the origins and genesis of Ukraine called Provoked. And at 3 o'clock, Colonel Sunshine herself, Karen Kutkowski, Justin O'Paltano for judging freedom. Thank you.