Judging Freedom - Alastair Crooke: Does Netanyahu Have an Exit Planned?

Episode Date: December 21, 2023

In an eagerly anticipated conversation, we are set to engage with Alastair Crooke, the esteemed former British Ambassador, to delve into the captivating question: "Does Netanyahu Have an Exit Planned?" This dialogue promises to unravel the complexities of Israeli politics and the enigma that surrounds Benjamin Netanyahu, the long-serving Prime Minister of Israel.As we explore this intriguing topic with Ambassador Crooke, the anticipation is palpable. With a distinguished career in diplomacy and a profound understanding of Middle Eastern affairs, Crooke is poised to offer unique insights into the motivations and strategies that may be guiding Netanyahu as he navigates the intricate political landscape.Viewers & Listeners can anticipate a thought-provoking exploration of Netanyahu's legacy and the broader implications of his actions on Israel's political landscape. Crooke's ability to contextualize events within the larger geopolitical framework will add depth to the discussion, offering a comprehensive perspective on the dynamics at play.This conversation holds the promise of unraveling the mysteries surrounding Netanyahu's political trajectory, with Alastair Crooke's seasoned analysis guiding the way. #russia #ukraine #USMilitaryHistory #Israel #Gaza #ceasefire #hostages #Ukraine #zelenskyy #Biden #china #IsraelPalestine #MiddleEastConflict #PeaceInTheMiddleEast #GazaUnderAttack #Ceasefire #Jerusalem #prayforpeace #hostages #Israel #Gaza #ceasefire #hostages #Ukraine #zelenskyy #Biden #china #IsraelPalestine #MiddleEastConflict #PeaceInTheMiddleEast #GazaUnderAttack #Ceasefire #Jerusalem #prayforpeace #hostagesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Thank you. Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Monday, December 18, 2023, one week before Christmas. Alistair Crook joins us in just a moment on Does Netanyahu have an off-ramp plan for Israel, for himself? But first this. Can you believe the chaos confronting Americans today? The government is out of control. Debt is out of control.

And have you heard? The dollar is under attack. This will soon be replaced by digital currency. No more paper cash. It's coming fast, so you need to get educated in other ways to protect and preserve the wealth you already have. What happens if the government destroys the United States dollar? I don't know, but I do know they can't destroy gold or silver or the value of it. That's why it's so important that you learn now how to transfer your wealth into gold and silver. So educate yourself about investing

in precious metals. Take charge of your retirement with gold-backed IRAs, and you can transfer a portion of your existing IRAs tax and penalty free. So don't procrastinate. Take control. Do the right thing for you and your family. Go to learjudgenap.com or call 800-511-4620. Alistair, welcome to the show, my dear friend. Who has more staying power in Gaza, the IDF and Prime Minister Netanyahu or Hamas? I think it's without a doubt. I think Hamas has the staying power. I don't think they have been badly degraded by the military operations. I'm told, and I can't vouch for the figures, but maybe they've lost 1,000 to 3,000 men out of 30,000 that they started with.

So it's not a huge loss. They continue to harass, and they impose casualties on the Israeli forces. Now, they are prepared for a long fight, whereas Netanyahu is under pressure and will be increasingly under pressure, both from Biden administration and from other states, international states, to start a ceasefire and to get humanitarian help in. So I think the time issue favors Hamas. Is there a consensus that Bibi has, Netanyahu has, erred substantially substantially by the reckless, catastrophic behavior of the IDA, much of which with no legitimate military purpose,

such as destroying Hamas cemeteries. Certainly. I mean, yes. I mean, just to be fairly brutal about it, there's no logic to what's happening in Gaza at all. I mean, it's not affecting, it's an attack on the civilian population. It is leveling, destroying buildings, which the Israeli military say, you know, could be used by hamas but it's not actually achieving any real objects it's not achieving the destruction of the hamas military system it's not going into the tunnels it's not really it's not really taking doing anything that is logical in this. It is simply an exercise in revenge and an exercise in hitting the civilian public

and also everything else, hospitals, schools, bakeries, everything that supports civilian life. But just to be clear, I mean, the polls continue to show in Israel overwhelming 90% support for this, what is happening in Gaza from the Israeli public. In fact, if anything, the Israeli public feel it's not tough enough. So, I mean, this is the reality of where we are at the moment. What do those polls show with respect to Prime Minister Netanyahu, personally, politically, and in the near future? Well, he's being criticized. He's being quite severely criticized for what happened on the 7th of October

for the intelligence failures and the military failures, although he's blaming the military and the intelligence failures and the military failures, although he's blaming the military and the intelligence service as the cause of those failures and said he didn't know anything about it till the morning after. But he's still in the polls, he's lagging. So I think he is desperately trying to survive survive I think he wants to survive for the next two years the next election is 2006 and 26 and he is um obviously trying to stir up this base this is the liquid base and it's a hard right base. Remember, it was Likud in 1948 and Irgan and the other, if you like, movements that was behind the ethnic cleansing

of Palestinians out of Israel by violence and killing and driving them out beyond the borders of Israel. So this is the group. And he's having some success, it seems, because he talks now, you know, not about just Gaza and Hamas. He hardly mentions that. He's talking now that we are engaged. This is a new war of independence.

This is a new cosmic war of good against evil. We're not fighting for Israel. Actually, we're fighting for Western civilization against barbarism. And there is a resonance, and he is succeeding in turning this whole thing into a sort of biblical eschatological struggle against not just Hamas, but against all of the evil which he would describe as sort of coming from Islam or from Islamic civilization. Here he is very recently, cut number four, Chris, basically arguing that Israel is in a war for its own existence. We are in a war for our existence in which we must continue until victory, despite the international pressure and despite the unbearable cost that the war is exacting from us in our fallen sons and daughters.

Did you, in your years as a diplomat, once meet with the founder of Hamas? Oh, yes. Sheikh Ahmad Yassin. What were the circumstances under which that meeting occurred? I asked to meet him. That's really... But, of course, I was working for the European Union, so I had to get the permission and the consent of the high representative and the

12 member states. It was 12 member states at that time, which they gave me because I said to them very clearly, you know, you're not going to be able to get any political solution to the Palestinian problem, you know, with Fatah divided from Hamas. Even if Hamas will not join in the negotiations, what you need from Hamas is that they won't sabotage them, they won't spoil them. And this was what was important. And therefore it was important to brief and to bring alongside Hamas

at that stage because the two were divided, and they still are divided, and were deliberately divided after 2006 by the antics of Blair and President Bush at the time, who wanted them completely divided. They wanted Gaza to wallow in poverty and the West Bank to be a sort of model modern state in a sort of consumer society mode. founder of Hamas, before he was murdered. In 2006, the Americans and the British supported a popular election in Gaza, but they never expected the outcome that they got. And then when the outcome came about, Hamas got elected.

President Bush, Secretary of State at the time, I believe, Condoleezza Rice, and Prime Minister Blair did everything they could to undermine, to negate the free and fair elections that they had promoted because they didn't like the outcome. Do I have that right? You have it absolutely right. That is exactly what happened. They won the election, fair elections. It was a complete shock. And Condoleezza Rice said, effectively, you know, this is what we meant by holding elections. We didn't want them to win it. And so then Blair produced a secret document with the Americans, which the EU were not included in it,

even though they were engaged in this process, in which he would see the complete sort of separation of the two. And the result of that was, of course, that the instruments of power remained with Fatah in the West Bank, but Hamas had the legitimacy and had the credibility on the streets. But the two never came together, and therefore there could never be any political movement forward. So it effectively destroyed any political progress from then, 2006 until today, nearly 20 years. When you met with the founder of Hamas, tell us about the meeting and tell us what he said Hamas was it's completely at odds with what was then at the time

the founder of Hamas, the esteemed Yassin, because he was a paraplegic in a very sort of museum-quality wheelchair. He was a slight figure, bent over. He had a hearing aid that always went off every two minutes and shrieked and wailed and made strange noises, and he was fiddling with that. But he also had a sharp intellect. He was tough as nails.

Trying to get some sort of agreement from him was, you know, pulling teeth. I mean, it was terrible. But he was very clear about what Hamas was. And it was different from what you might expect. He said that Hamas is a liberation movement. He didn't say it was an Islamic movement. In fact, he said it wasn't an Islamic movement. It was a liberation movement for people who are occupied. And he said, so Christians can join it. Druze can join it. I could join Hamas if I wanted as a liberation movement. And this was quite at odds, if you like, with the ethos of the time, which was Islamist. That is political Islam, which has dogma and it has an ideology. And he was rejecting this completely. He imposed no dogma and no straightforward. It was

about liberating people under occupation. What is Hamas? I mean, is it a political party? Is it an ideology? Is it a culture? It's got to be more than just the people who invaded Israel on October 7th. Yes, I mean, is it a legitimate, I'm sorry, is it a legitimate governing government? Well, it used to. I mean, up to 2006, they intended to govern, and that's why they fought those elections. But that was really overturned by Condoleezza Rice and Blair. And I remember attending a meeting very recently after that with the Hamas supporters, and the leadership was there. And the young were really antagonistic,

and they kept pointing at the leaders and said, did you really believe, were you so naive you thought the West would ever let you administer this territory? And they said, the only thing to do is to burn it all down, burn it completely and start again. And so this was a reaction to their failure to be able to govern or to practice governance. They'd wanted to do that. And so that was a turning point. It was a change, and they became basically a liberation movement. But what's very important is, so it is in a sense a liberation movement,

and it is, if you like, a representation or in following al-Aqsa, linking it to al-Aqsa. They're linking it to the whole Islamic civilization of the last thousand years or so, this long period of a great civilization in science and literature and poetry and so on like this as well, but by linking it not to a particular movement or branch of Islam, so to Al-Aqsa, which is the icon of this whole civilization, but it's not Shi'i,

it's not Sunni, it is not Muslim Brotherhood, it is not Wahhabi, it is not Salafist. So they very cleverly, I mean, they've given it a sort of Islamic cultural tone, but no ideology, no dogma, no, if you like, doctrine for that. who's Christian and wants to join in the liberation from occupation, as he said, was free to join it. And this is why it's so potent at the moment because, you know, it actually really very much chimes with what's happening all around the world where we have this sort of what I call, you know, it was a successor to the Bandung movement from the 50s, but it is a new independence, if you like, push that is coming from the global south and from all around the world. They don't want to be, if you like, under hegemony.

They want to break loose from Western hegemony. They don't want any more of colonialism. They want to regain their sovereignty. And this is, so if you like, Hamas gelled very well with the wider ethos that is promoted both by China and Russia and the BRICS as a whole. So it's something which has much wider ramifications. And I think it explains why so many on the ground you know in the rest of the region i mean the huge support there is now for hamas

if it was just for the muslim brotherhood or a particular orientation of islam it wouldn't be there but they're standing for something But they're standing for something bigger. They're standing for something more important, if you like. It fits very well with this whole idea of moving from a unipolar world to a multipolar world of civilizational values, their civilizational values. In this case, the values of Islam, not precisely defined, but as a project that has been in existence for a thousand years and more. Can the IDF defeat Hamas, or is that like trying to catch all the butterflies

in the world? I mean, is it an idea that obviously can't be defeated? Some of the people who embrace the idea can be killed, but the idea can't be liquidated. Exactly. It's an idea. It's a spirit. It's a sort of sense of justice, you know, justice in the big sense of the world, the pursuit of justice and the

pursuit of the independence of human beings. So it has a huge, if you like, appeal and cannot be defeated in that way. I'm not even sure. Does the Israeli public expect the Netanyahu government to defeat, crush, eradicate an idea? Yes, that is the expectation. And the expectation is that when, if you like, when the Palestinians look around at Gaza and see the destruction, when they see everything destroyed,

schools, hospitals, everything, then they will turn on Hamas and they will turn against them. But that is the opposite to what's happened. Actually, the young people, the people in Gaza, you don't hear them criticizing Hamas, going against Hamas at all. And in fact, the support for Hamas is spreading to other parts of the world, particularly in places like Jordan, also in Egypt. So, no, it's not something that they can...

They did think that, you know, if they... You know, that they would show the Palestinians such destruction, such loss of everything in their civilizational life, if you like, that, you know, bread and water supplies and everything, break all that, and then they would turn on Hamas and they'd throw them out and the IDF would kill them. But that hasn't worked. Here is an interview. It's a little testy and a little bit difficult to follow because they

keep cutting each other off. But it's an interesting interview on British television with the Israeli ambassador to Great Britain about two-state solution, Palestinians, are there differences among the Palestinians? It's testy and irritable, but I'm anxious to hear your thoughts on it. Two-state solution? Is there still a chance for a two-state solution? I think it's about time for the world to realize the Oslo paradigm failed on the 7th of October and we need to build a new one. And in order to build a new one... But does that new one include the Palestinians living in a state of their own? Is that what it includes? I think the biggest question is what type of Palestinians are on the other side. This is what Israel realized...

Do they have a state? The answer is absolutely no, and I'll tell you why. Well, then how can there be peace? The reason there is no peace is because the Palestinians... Without offering a state to Palestine, how can there be peace in Israel? Israel knows today, and the world should know now, the reason the Oslo Accords failed is because the Palestinians never wanted to have a state next to Israel.

They want to have a state from the river to the sea. So the two-state solution is dead. Why are you obsessed with a formula that never worked, that created this radical people in the other side? Why are you obsessed with that? What do you think? Does she represent the views of the Netanyahu government? I think the answer to that is probably yes. Does she represent the views of the Netanyahu government? I think the answer to that is probably yes.

Does she represent the views of the Israeli people? I'll let you opine on that. Are her views constructive? No, I think, you know, the people, you know, who still got this image of Israel that did exist, you know, the kibbutzes and the people who went to the kibbutzes and worked there in their summers have got a view of a sort of liberal European Judaism. And that's gone. It's a very different world now. And it'll probably surprise you. But what I will say to you is that actually, she's right. The Oslo Accords completely failed to produce a two-state solution. I've written

long ago, I was trying to explain this to the European Union nearly 20 years ago and saying, look, it's been failing for 17 or 20 years. Isn't it time you asked yourselves why it's been failing? What's wrong and what the problem is? Because you can't just go on saying two-state solution, two-state solution like a sort of formula if you don't actually think about what you're saying and to think about what that means anymore. So the two-state solution has failed. And what, in a sense, and this is what i have been writing a little bit about is you know

that actually the israelis think they've done a two-state solution it is actually an apartheid solution that they've done um that it was operating this was how they would do it. It was, if you like, it was enforcement, it was deterrence, it was, if you like, control and the separation into small groups of Palestinians. And this is what they envisage would work. But what's ended it now was predictable. If you look at the demography, there are 7.3 million Palestinians on the land and 7.3 million Jews. It's parallel in demographic terms, but of course the Palestinians have much higher birth rate than the Israeli, even the Orthodox Israelis. And so they don't this paradigm of, if you like, an apartheid state isn't going to work anymore because, I mean, quite clearly soon the Palestinians will outnumber and then they will demand the same rights, same privileges, same political positions

as the Israelis. And that's what they won't accept. And they won't have that. And that's why it's coming to an end. And this is why increasingly you're getting the Israeli public. What else can they say? Well, this isn't working. It's not going to work for us.

The solution to state solution isn't really available. So the only thing is to clear the land of all the, get rid of all the Arabs out of the end, not as they cleanse it and then we'll be safe and then we'll be all right. Now they tried that in 48 and it didn't work. And I predict it won't work if they do try it again now. But you can see the logic of where they are, because the whole Oslo process was based on the Palestinians, if you like, assuring the security of the state of Israel. was set up as a sort of Vichy force that would provide Israel and cooperate with Israel and arrest Palestinians

and turn them over to Israel for imprisonment. And that's what's been happening. But increasingly the Palestinians are getting more and more tense and more and more unhappy with their situation and more and more ready to rebel against all of this with an uprising, with an intifada or what have you. So the whole paradigm that the Israelis relied on, this deterrence and enforcement and the

vision of the Palestinians separated in separate roads, separate structures, separate areas has collapsed. It collapsed on the 7th of October this year. And now they have the same problem in the north. They have the same problem in Gaza. And they have the same problem in the West Bank. And this is why when Netanyahu says the sort of thing that you said to, you showed us just now, it resonates with many Israelis. And they say, okay, if we can't get a two-state solution, it's no longer available, which they generally believe. And I think it's true that the only alternative is population removal.

Clear them all out. Does Netanyahu have an off-ramp? I mean, at some point the war has to end, and whenever it ends, Hamas will come back. What is Bibi's off-ramp, either personally, politically, or geopolitically? Well, he needs sort of two off-ramps. I mean, the first one is he needs an offer out of Gaza because he's not achieving the objectives that he set for himself in Gaza, which was the destruction of Hamas and, if you like,

the end of Gaza as a governing state. And that is becoming increasingly obvious to the Israeli public. So he needs an off-ramp out of there. He needs, if you like, let's call it a diversion rather than an off-ramp. And the diversion is going to be in Lebanon, I suspect, because already the defense minister, Galant, said very clearly, we must get the Israelis, if you like, removed from the north of Israel because of Hezbollah on the north. We need to get them back home.

We want to get them back home. And I undertake to get them back home in January, next month, in other words. But to do that, we have to remove Hezbollah from the south of Lebanon because all of these residents are very vocal. And the residents of Matula, for example, say, we're not going back. Of course we're not going back. Look at the fence. We can see the fence from our houses.

And what's on the fence? Hezbollah flags. And the other side, Hezbollah fighters. We're not going to go back there. You have to remove them. So he's undertaken, he says, if we can't do this by diplomatic means, then we will find other means to change the status quo in Lebanon between the River Letani and the southern border. If the Netanyahu government collapsed tomorrow

because of defections in the coalition, the governing coalition, would Netanyahu lead Likud and would he be re-elected as prime minister? Well, I mean, that's complicated because if he's no longer prime minister, he's subject to justice. And he might end up in prison and not leading Likud.

But, you know, what I try and say, because the West always tends to focus everything. You know, the problem is President Assad. The problem is Putin. If only Putin's gone, everything will be all right. If only Assad is gone, everything will be all right. If only Assad is gone, everything will be all right. But I keep trying to say, you know, I mean, the government, the cabinet per se, has the overwhelming support of Israeli people. And they want, if anything, a tougher line against, as I say, it is becoming very much that of demanding the population removal from West Bank the moment uh Israel is trying to get the support of America and European states to the old resolution from 2006 that was never implemented

that Hezbollah must be disarmed and removed um across the litani anyone who thinks that's going to happen um you know I have a bridge to sell you. It's not going to happen. Very clever. Very clever. And it's called the Brooklyn Bridge. Been bought and sold many times. I think originally by the British.

Only kidding. Alistair, it's a pleasure, my dear friend. Thank you very much for joining us. And early Merry Christmas to you and your family. Thanks for all your great work. We hope you'll, even though it's a short week next week, we hope it can grab a little bit of your big brain on this show. Thank you, my friend. Thank you very much.

So we have coming up for you 10 o'clock Eastern, Ray McGovern, 11 o'clock Eastern, Larry Johnson, 2 o'clock Eastern, Professor Jeffrey Sachs. Judge Napolitano on this week approaching Christmas for Judging Freedom. Thank you.