Judging Freedom - Aaron Maté : Netanyahu and His Prosecutors

Episode Date: August 5, 2025

Aaron Maté : Netanyahu and His ProsecutorsSee 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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Taxes and fees extra. See Mint Mobile for details. Thank you. Hi, everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Tuesday, August 5th, 2025. Aaron Matae joins us now. Aaron, a pleasure, as always. I want to ask you a series of questions about the latest involving Netanyahu and his prosecutors and his domestic woes.

But before we do, Friday afternoon, the president posted on his truth, social. a response to some taunts he says he received from russian president medvedev and in in the president's posting actually said he's moving nuclear submarines into an appropriate area in response to what president medvedev had said to him does that move the ball diplomatically when he makes threats and public announcements like that i've heard other guests on your show lay out the dangers of what Trump did ordering the deployment of nuclear-armed submarines toward Russia, which is something out of a doomsday scenario, just because he got trolled by Medvedev on Twitter. And again, Medvedev's comments were actually aimed at Trump's trying to warn him against

the dangers of escalation and saying that, you know, all this was leading to more tensions between two nuclear armed powers. And Trump somehow took that as a threat towards the U.S. and really, I think Medvedev, in his own crude way, was just calling for de-escalation. So this to me just speaks to how incredibly erratic Trump is. He came into office talking about ending the war in Ukraine, yet tangibly has done really nothing toward that goal,

at least not for a long time now, after initially authorizing some talks between his top envoy, Wickoff, and Putin. And now it gets into not just making reckless statements, but actually ordering the deployment of nuclear-armed submarines. It's incredibly dangerous. Did the United States recently, are you aware of this, send nuclear weapons to our allies in Europe? I know that there has been talk about deploying long-range missiles in Germany that was announced under Biden. And that can now be done because of Trump, because in his wisdom, listening to John Bolton, pulled the U.S. out of the INF, the INF treaty, which had banned the very same type of intermediate range missiles that Biden then announced would be deployed in Germany.

And Trump, as I understand it, is continuing that policy that there are plans to do that. And now Russia has announced, Russia has just announced that after unilaterally respecting a ban on such deployments, of basically reinstating the provisions of the INF, that Russia is no longer bound by its own moratorium. So we're in a very dangerous moment. I mean, look at the map. Russia attacked Ukraine because of its efforts to become a member of NATO and the threats to put weapons in Ukraine. Look at where Germany is. Now, Germany is going to put the similar or even more lethal weapons there.

these people are not thinking about the probable consequences of their behavior. I totally agree. And it's bipartisan. Again, it was Trump that got the ball rolling when he pulled the U.S. out of the INF treaty. And then Biden, when he's in office, he has the chance to reach a deal with Russia that would basically, among other things, restore the provisions of the INF. If you look at Russia's draft offers to the U.S. and NATO in late 2021, early 2021, it was trying to essentially have a new INF treaty. And Biden initially sounded as if he was going to agree at the very minimum to not position these kinds of weapons, for example, like Tomahawks inside of Ukraine. But then, as Ray McGovern has pointed out, the Biden administration walked that back.

And I think that was a major factor in Russia's decision to invade to sort of impose by force the diplomatic terms that the U.S. had refused to come to that I think would have been an ever-endent interest because why do we want to have long-range weapons between the two world's top nuclear powers pointed at each other, especially on Russia's doorstep,

whether it's Ukraine and now Germany? according to i'm i'm uh switching gears slightly now according to the guardian the russians have arrested three british two military in military uniforms a colonel and lieutenant colonel and one an m i six agent how dangerous is this the british were caught on the ground in ukule in uniform arming weapons to be fired at Russians in Russia? I have not seen this story yet, so it's difficult for me to comment without reading all the details, but if this is indeed correct, if the Guardian is reporting this accurately, it's unbelievably reckless, but it's also the outgrowth of a proxy war in which Western

military forces have been integral to the war against Russia. The foreign minister of Germany has said openly, we're at war with Russia. That's exactly what has happened. We know from previous reporting in the New York Times that the U.S. basically ran the war from a military base in neighboring Germany. And so now, if these British operatives were indeed arrested by Russia and they were indeed part of the war effort, it speaks to how unbelievably dangerous this is. Why do we take this as normal that NATO forces are embedded on the ground taking part in a war

against Russia, but because of the barrage of proxy war propaganda that we've been subjected to, not just since Russia invaded, but really ever since the whole crisis erupted in 2014 with the Maidon coup, all this is possible. Segwaying over to Israel and Gaza, according to this fellow who claims to be former Mossad and claims to be Jeffrey Epstein's former handler, Epstein and Epstein and, Epstein and and Mossad were engaged in blackmailing U.S. officials. I'm not going to ask you if that happened. You probably don't know.

Who knows? But if it did happen, would Benjamin Netanyahu know about it? I'm sure he would. But listen, Judge, I'm going to break from, I know some other people who appear on your show, and I know many people in the audience think there's something to this Epstein Mossad connection.

I haven't seen the evidence for it. And I'm worried about going down the Russia Gate route. where you know where things that that you know black it's very similar to russia gate a foreign power blackmailing and uh and to advance its interests i haven't seen the evidence for it when it comes to epstein and i don't think Israel needs epstein to to basically uh influence u.s politics ever since 1967 long before epstein came came to the scene Israel has been a proxy of the u.s because it serves the u.s. hegemonic goals and now i mean what we do know is there's a lobby a very powerful one, as your frequent guest, John Meersheimer points out, that spends a lot of money to keep people

in line. It can literally buy off members of Congress. That to me is the explanation in front of our faces for how U.S. foreign policy so often is in line with Israel. Introducing a blackmail element, I just haven't seen the evidence for it. And I'm concerned of two things. One, this is going down a Russia gate type rabbit hole of conspiracy theories. And also that it will, if it's not true, if there isn't something there to this. Epstein thing. It will discredit efforts to hold Israel to account. So that's what I'm I commend your intellectual honesty and respect your answer. I want to play a clip for you from Ehud Barak, who's arguing that Netanyahu, I think you probably agree with this,

manipulates Trump and his inner circle. This is from an interview he gave, not on an American television station somewhere else yesterday, we have enhanced his voice because his English is just very difficult to understand. Chris, cut number 11. Nidhahu, manipulate the Trump in his inner circle and the rest of the world to believe that we were facing a binary choice. Either we capitulate Hamas, which is unacceptable, or we'll have to continue until the last, the total, absolute victory, which is another lunatic vision.

The reality is different. There is a solution from day one bring in a kind of interior force, Emirates, the Egyptians, Jordanians for a limited time, 18 or 24 months, bring, create a technocrat government in Gaza. Palestinian bureaucracy and building, gradually a security force. Only two conditions should be moved by Israel. Number one, not a single individual who participated in a massacre of October 7th or part of the armed branch of Hamas cannot serve in any organ of the new entity. Number two, Israel will withdraw only to the perimeter and will withdraw to the border only once all the pre-agreed security arrangement are set in.

That's all. It's on the table for a year and a half. Nidiyahu rejected it because it means that the Palestinians will be involved in that that Israel will have to somehow negotiate starting a process toward the two-state solution, which is a necessity anyhow. And it's another illusion that we can avoid it for the longer term. He could have added, and you can weigh in on this better than almost anybody, Netanyahu rejected it because of being accepted at Ben-Gavir and Smotrich and those folks would leave his government and the government would collapse and he'd be out of a job. Yes, and the influence of those two, Ben-Gavir and Smotrish, it speaks to just how far off the charge extreme the current Israeli government is led by Netanyahu.

But look, someone like Ehud Barak is also an extremist. He's just less extreme than Netanyahu. So, yes, he recognizes that this genocide should stop, although he doesn't call it a genocide. And yes, he criticizes Netanyahu. But he also bears responsibility, along with every Israeli leader before Netanyahu, because Ehud Barak, while now he pays lip service to the two-state solution, he actively undermined it.

When he was prime minister, and he was supposedly negotiating with the Palestinian Authority for a two-state solution, he was massively, expanding the West Bank settlements that make a Palestinian state impossible, and he ultimately offered Yasser Arafat and the PLO, the Palestinian Authority, a Bantustan state, a series of fragmented cantons that were all disconnected from each other, and that would have kept the major West Bank settlement blocks intact. So, yes, Netanyahu is so extreme, and this genocide in Gaza is so horrific that other Israeli leaders, like Ahud Barak, feel compelled to be critical. But that's not because they've been struck by conscience that they care about suffering Palestinians

is because I think they're recognizing that this is just imposing a starvation siege before the world and bragging about it. It reveals the true face of Israel. And someone like a hood Barack was more predisposed to pretending to care about peace while still advancing the underlying settler colonial project. So the criticism that's coming now in Israel, it speaks to just how absolutely extreme Netanyahu is there's still not any genuine force in the mainstream of Israeli society that is willing to support any minimal gesture that could actually solve this for good, which is justice for Palestinians, giving them self-determination and recognizing all the injustice that's happened to them over the years, which Ehud Barak has been a part of.

Did Netanyahu just fire the Attorney General of Israel, who was the head of the prosecution team against him? He did, and I think he felt emboldened to do that because of Donald Trump. Donald Trump recently weighed in on the investigation into Netanyahu, all the corruption allegations, and basically called for it to be shut down. And so much... Did Trump view all of the evidence and come to a conclusion that the government couldn't prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt?

I doubt that. I strongly doubt that. But what Trump really was doing was was, I think, exposing that all this talk that we got, you know, which was, you know, I understood why people wanted to believe it because it offered some hope out that there was talk that there was a rift between Trump and Ninjahou, but there is no rift to the point where Trump is advocating for Israeli officials to drop an investigation into his good friend Ninjahou. It shows that they're joined at the hip, and they're joined at the hip because Israel serves what the U.S. deems to be in its own hegemonic interests and because of the Israel lobby, which heavily influences Trump, you know, one of his biggest donors.

We've talked about Merriam Edelson, giving him over $100 million. And then you also have the evangelical component, which is another major component of his base. And we're seeing now, you know, House Speaker Mike Johnson, major evangelical. He's in Israel right now, going to the illegal settlements in the West Bank, referring to the West Bank as Judea and Samaria. So there's this convergence of extremists in both. countries. And Netanyahu is the biggest beneficiary. How unstable is he politically right now in Israel?

I don't think he's that unstable. I just don't. I don't. He has majority support for his attack on Iran. Yes, he's finally facing more calls to stop the open starvation of Gaza, but still, according to polls, most Israelis support that. So this is a society. that it's just off the deep end when it comes to extremism. And so I don't think Netanyahu is in a politically tough position. How can the genocide, how can the starvation, how can the threatened military occupation of Gaza, which is his latest statement, how can that be stopped other than by Donald Trump? I don't think there's an answer other than Donald Trump.

We've seen that. The rest of the world is feckless. We've gotten some token gestures of late from France and the UK, threatening to recognize a Palestinian state, but it doesn't matter. What keeps Israel going is U.S. support, support militarily with all the weapons. We just saw a Senate effort led by Bernie Sanders to block some weapons that failed, although for the first time a majority of Senate Democrats voted in favor of blocking weapons sales to Israel. And also at the U.N., where the U.S. will consistently veto any resolution. calling to hold Israel to account, as Joe Biden did as well. So the U.S. is the only restraining force here.

Everybody knows that. And as long as Netanyahu has the green light from Trump, he will continue with his plans to occupy Gaza in full and ethnically cleanse as many people as he can. The firing of the Attorney General is going to be heard by the Israeli Supreme Court. It will probably be another clash between the government and the court. it they will probably rule just from my rudimentary understanding of the law that it is unconstitutional and then who knows what will happen but when he does things like this threatens to invade

militarily and occupy permanently fires the attorney general is he applauded or is he is attacked for doing this i know that internally in the Israeli military, there's some opposition to fully occupying Gaza because the Israeli military doesn't want to fight on the ground. It just wants to massacre people from afar with their high-tech weapons. So he is facing some internal opposition, but among Israeli society, I just don't see it. There are protests going on. People recognize that he's abandoned the hostages. And there's like a tiny sliver of Israeli society that is opposed to the genocide of Palestinians, two Israeli human rights groups, positions for human rights, Betzelm, recently

came out and said this is genocide. But those groups represent as like a tiny fraction of Israeli society. The majority, if you read all the polls, supports the genocide, supports ethnic cleansing, supports the starvation siege. And as long as Netanyahu has the support of majority of the country and carrying out a Holocaust, I don't think he's in any real danger. And he's been able to override any internal opposition so far. So even the, Israeli army to the extent that their objections are sincere. I think if Netanyahu wants it, he will fully invade and occupy Gaza. Here's another critical comment from Ehud Barak. It's funny you said he's extremist,

but not as extreme. But the statement he's making here, I think, is true about Netanyahu, I'll let you evaluate it yourself. Again, it's from yesterday. It's in Sky News, which is where both of them are from. Chris, number 10. We are facing a problem. The world has to understand Netanyahu and Israel are not the same. A person can be full supporter of Israel, critic. They're independent of the issue of Netanyahu.

Netanyahu is basically a problem for, for the Israeli public to decide or to depose, not for the rest of the world, you know. I mean, does he want to be prime minister again, Is he sort of leading the domestic political attacks against his successor? I don't think he personally has any more political ambitions. But I think he represents sort of, he comes from the Labor Party, which traditionally has been preferred by, you know, U.S. governments,

because the Labor Party is very adept at putting a kind face on a very brutal occupation. So if you're going to steal Palestinian land, If you're going to terrorize them, if you're going to commit massacres, you still have to at least speak the language of peace. Pretend that you want peace. Pretend you want a Palestinian state, which labor governments like Ehud Barak's have traditionally done. Netanyahu represents sort of like the crude, outwardly chauvinist Israeli mentality, which contrary to what Ihood Burak says, I do think represents the country. I do think Netanyahu, contrary to what Barack wants us to think is Israel, supremacist, entitled. and genocidal.

I mean, look, yes, there are more Israelis speaking out now against the genocide, but for so long now, this has been going on for nearly two years, and Netanyahu has retained popular support. And people like the Hood Barak, I do not think we're calling on Netanyahu to embrace a ceasefire early on. I think they were supportive of him committing mass murder in Gaza.

It's finally now that we have outraged, outrage finally enough outrage from some allies like France and UK that people like, Barak are getting jittery but it's far too late what do you think will happen if the IDF attempts to occupy Gaza what will happen to them militarily what will happen to them morally and in terms of their esprit of core and willingness to fight it's a great question you know I'm not that well placed to answer because I didn't think Hamas would last nearly as long as they did I mean Hamas is still intact they've obviously suffered here

suffered huge blows, but the fact that there's still Israeli soldiers being attacked and killed inside Gaza, it speaks to a certain resilience in Hamas that I certainly didn't foresee. So if Israeli forces enter Gaza, I think at this point, given how Hamas is fared so far, it's fair to expect that there would still be resistance and that there would still be a fight on the ground, which Israeli soldiers don't want to engage in, because as I said earlier, they're much more comfortable just massacring innocent civilians and tents and shelters and bombing hospitals and bombing mosques and bombing churches. So I think that's why you're seeing some internal opposition now in the Israeli army.

But what would be guaranteed to happen if there's a full-on Israeli invasion to occupy all of Gaza is just unspeakable more carnage among the people of Gaza, because that's who Israel targets first. That's always been their top target. And that will only accelerate if there's a ground invasion. What would be the goal of a ground invasion of Gaza? They're not going to rescue the hostages. If they do, they won't arrest them alive.

The goal is to advance the objective, which is to expel as many Palestinians as possible. That's why they've pushed as many people as they can into the south. That's why they dismantled the UN aid system. and replaced it with the fake Gaza humanitarian foundation, reducing the number of aid sites from over 400 to just four, three of those being in the south, to push as many Palestinians to the south as possible

because southern Gaza is right next to Egypt, and that's where they want the Palestinians of Gaza to go. So the objective would just be to advance the ethnic cleansing project and continue to make Gaza unlivable for anyone who's able to remain. And then steal the land. Correct. And that's still the land. And maybe move in Israeli settlers, as some Israeli officials have talked about. Or sell it to Trump personally. Yeah. And it's, you know, I'm sorry to laugh, but given the way Trump has spoken, given that AI video he put out early earlier this year about a Trump Gaza, yeah, nothing is off the table with these people.

Aaron, thank you very much. Thanks for your time, my dear friend. We'll talk to you again soon. All the best. To you as well, Judge. Thank you. Thank you. Coming up at 3 o'clock this afternoon, Colonel Karen Koukowski, who has an unbelievable piece at Judge Knapp called Our Unhinged Government. Should tell us just why, in very, very strong terms, the United States government is unhinged. Three o'clock this afternoon. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom. Thank you.