Judging Freedom - Alastair Crooke (fmr. British Diplomat) - What is Biden’s endgame in Gaza?

Episode Date: November 13, 2023

Alastair Crooke (fmr. British Diplomat) - What is Biden’s endgame in Gaza?See 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, November 13th, 2023, at 2 in the afternoon in Rome and 8 in the morning here on the east coast of the United States. Alistair Crook joins us now. Alistair, always a pleasure, my dear friend. Israeli cabinet ministers have stated that anything short of the total eradication of Hamas, will be a failure for Prime Minister Netanyahu's government and for the IDF. Does President Biden share that goal, that view? To a certain extent. I think he has trouble about the means by which it's being achieved,

the heavy toll of civilian life. And I think the White House is deeply unhappy about the surrounding of this hospital, al-Shifa hospital, and fearing what might happen. It's already without electricity and patients have been dying. So I think he's deeply, and I think everyone across the sort of political sphere is deeply worried about the means and what route and where those means are taking Israel, because it seems to be accelerating in a certain direction. But I think he does agree, you know, that he would like to see Hamas completely removed. But they do have some sort of fantastic ideas

about that somehow a new sort of Hamas government of moderate Palestinians and Arab states would sort of be able to slip into Gaza and take over. And so that is partly the problem, because the Israelis don't share that view. They know very well that that's not going to happen. Well, if the Americans object to attacking or destabilizing or immobilizing, whatever you want to call it, a hospital, if the American government objects to the displacement of Palestinians and the carpet bombing of civilians, what are they doing about it besides talking to

Prime Minister Netanyahu? I mean, the equipment that's being used to accomplish these dastardly deeds comes from the U.S. Yes, and they're sending more and more. I mean, it rides every day, lots of equipment. As I've said, in a sense, I mean, Biden has put himself, I mean, the White House is in a trap of their own making. It's very difficult for them. They can't tell Israel what to do. And they are really not able to make much impact on Israeli opinion. On American opinion, yes.

But in Israel, the opinion is hardening very, very fast. There's no sort of support for the Biden view within Israel. 86% of the Palestinians want Gaza not only crushed but completely eviscerated, and the people deposed and moved elsewhere, and they want Gaza emptied. So there's no Israeli support for his position, and even in the cabinet, it's moving. And in fact, as I understand it from the Israeli press, there was a cabinet meeting.

There was a cabinet meeting yesterday, first of all a war cabinet, and then a full cabinet meeting to decide what to do about Hezbollah and this increased, if you like, tempo of attacks in northern Israel. And the cabinet almost unanimously wanted a hard attack made on Hezbollah, a hard knock delivered to Hezbollah. And it was Netanyahu who said no. He was the only one that said no to this. So I don't think there is a great deal of leverage that the White House—in fact, it

doesn't have leverage. I mean, it's becoming impotent observers, viewing from the sidelines as things become worse in the Palestinian field and as things are on an ascendant trajectory across the region, where things are becoming more and more tense, both on the Lebanese border, in Iraq, and in Syria. Can we conclude that Prime Minister Netanyahu feels comfortable or safe politically killing all the Palestinians he can, so long as he has this massive israeli public opinion behind him which on october 6

was the other way around massive public opinion was against him for reasons having nothing to do with this yes he is i mean i think he he feels he's um as long as we're in this situation he's quite comfortable with it he's in a situation which commands support massive support and so far it hasn't turned out to be a day buck now this is the next stage what happens you know all the attention is on what's going to be found in gaza and that the idf are about are about to unearth the command center for hamas and to destroy it under our shifa hospital but what happens if it's not there because so far the idf have not engaged fully with the Hamas forces in Gaza. They have certainly inflicted no serious harm on Gaza. And to be fair, there are some Israeli generals like Yorai Land who say that. I mean, they're not affected by it. They may be a little bit affected by some things, but they're not affected

by it at all. So what then when the public says, well, you know, what did you do if you didn't destroy Hamas? Well, he can say, but you know, I've got 1.7 million of the Palestinians now dispossessed of their home and nowhere to live. And of course, they're going to have to sooner or later, they're going to have to, there's going to have to be a removal of the population out of Gaza. Is that a success he can sell to the public? Probably yes, providing it doesn't become too obvious that the IDF is not making any progress against Hamas. And they know the time limit is coming up, the international opinion in the US and elsewhere is hardening, and that they cannot just keep this bombing

forever. So they know there's a time limit, but they haven't even started on really being able to deal with the main thing that the Israeli public wanted, which was, as they said, the end of the threat of Hamas. And that hasn't started. So I'm going to ask you a question, and then before you answer it, we're going to play a clip of Jake Sullivan, the president's national security advisor, talking about displacement, occupation, and Palestinians to decide their future. But before we play the clip, here's the question. What does Joe Biden want? Can he even articulate what he wants? Now, before you answer, Jake Sullivan yesterday. Secretary Blinken has been clear that it's the West Bank and Gaza that

need to be under unified control and the Palestinian Authority likely to govern that. It doesn't sound like the Netanyahu government is on the same page as the Biden administration, because the prime minister said something very different just yesterday. Well, from our perspective, the way forward, the basic principles of the way forward are straightforward. And this is something that Secretary Blinken laid out publicly this past week. No reoccupation of Gaza, no forcible displacement of the Palestinian people. Gaza can never be used as a base for terrorism in the future, and Gaza's territory should not be reduced. Secretary Blinken also said that ultimately we do want to see the reconnection, the reunification of control between

the West Bank and Gaza under Palestinian leadership. The Palestinian Authority is the current leadership on the West Bank. But ultimately, it's going to be up to the Palestinian people to decide their future, who governs them. There haven't been elections held in ages. The United States will support a process. Well, that's right, Margaret. There haven't been elections held since the early 2000s. But post-October 7th, we can't go back to

the way things were on October 6th. Boy, are they ever, Biden and Netanyahu, on different pages? No forced displacement? You wrote this morning that they've displaced a million seven,

1,700,000 human beings. No occupation. Netanyahu says we're going to be responsible for security for as far into the future as I can see. The Palestinians to decide their own fate over Bibi's dead body. You have it exactly. I mean, really, I mean, again, I don't want to use the term too loosely, but, you know, the old paradigm that you can just go back to the Palestinian Authority taking control here, you know, this is a Vichy government. It has no popularity, no credibility. It's just a

collaborationist structure taking back command and that Israelis will live alongside Palestinians. I think that that is now obsolete. It's called the two-state solution. But Israel is moving further and further away from a two-state solution, leaving it really obsolete. And I think also the Arab world is, in a sense, aware that really the idea of two peoples living either intermingled or together like this in the present circumstances is not really feasible. So, you know, we have to find a new sort of paradigm.

Is it a one-state solution? Well, Israel will hate that, will not accept that, of course. But otherwise, we have to wait and see how events turn out on the ground. And I think whatever the solution is, is going to be determined very much by events on the ground. And as as importantly and we shouldn't lose sight that you know this is a much bigger war it's not and they've been careful not to frame it as you know an israeli palestinian war any longer they're talking about this as a war essentially against the Western hegemony. I mean, the Arab League, the OIC, the Organization of Islamic States, are talking in very different, in very, very

different terms now. And so we don't have, and you're right to say, we don't have, if you like, a clear answer. And this is where Netanyahu is stepping in and giving the Israelis an answer. It's Nakba. We are going to go back and we are going to found and take over the state of Israel on the land of greater Israel, i.e. parts of Lebanon, too, parts of Jordan, all parts of the West Bank and Gaza. And that's our biblical lands, and we are going to take them now. Now, Joe Biden can't possibly support that and sell it to the American public. Exactly. This is why it's such a, I mean, this is why it is such an unpassed and such a difficult thing. He's committed himself wholly to giving Areli Netanyahu and the cabinet support, no limits

on their actions in Gaza. He said that specifically. So this is happening. This is what he is becoming, if you like, the collaborator in what has been happening in Gaza. But there is nothing. When they talk about getting moderate Arab states to go into Gaza, I mean, you know, who's going to volunteer to go into Gaza and act as an Israeli sort of police force? It's not going to happen. There isn't going to be that easy solution. And I'm afraid the Europeans are even, you know, worth in sort of supporting this without thinking it through. The two-state solution has not come after 36 years of negotiations and trying to, instead of which we've moved further and further away from the two-state solution and closer and closer to what we now have, which is an eschatological Israel, talking about biblical lands and returning and founding the state on biblical lands

and according to Jewish law, halakha, and to Jewish ethos. And of course, no Palestinians, no Muslims are going to accept that as the state that will come into being on their lands. Is Hezbollah, or does Hezbollah view itself as the guarantor of Hamas's existence? Yes, they've said that. They are guarantor of its survival. And Hassan Nasrallah, the Secretary General, has said explicitly on this, you know, if we see that the survival of Hamas is in danger,

yes, then we will enter into this field. But we don't see that. We see them still as being strong and not in any need of our support at this stage. So our support is limited to the area around the north of Israel, which has been heating up noticeably over this weekend. I mean, there have been many more attacks, and Israel has started to attack right up to the Litani, 40 kilometers or so, inside southern Lebanon. And Hezbollah have been using heavier rockets with heavier warheads, up to 500 kilograms, and using their cruise missiles, and inflicting quite heavy casualties on Israel. Now, the complication here, and this is one that the White House is worried about, is

that they suspect now that the cabinet actually want to provoke Hezbollah into an overreaction because then they feel they might be able to bring, draw in the United States into a war on Hezbollah in Lebanon, and then perhaps even a war that is wider still in Syria and Iran. And this is why Hezbollah is being very careful and is managing what I think you would call an escalatory ladder, very carefully calculated where the increase of pressure on the United States is to be placed. But don't forget the pressure now, as far as the Arab states is concerned, the pressure is on the United States, not on Israel.

The whole point of that Arab League meeting and the other League meeting was to insist this is for the United States to get a ceasefire, to impose by whatever means it can, a ceasefire. So the emphasis is sort of shifted away from Israel and to a sort of regional, if you like, a regional conflict, conflict that must be one of increasing pressures on the U.S. in order to have it impose a ceasefire. And as I can see, you're nodding your head, but as you rightly understand, the United States doesn't have the tools to do that, frankly. Well, here's Prime Minister Netanyahu, Sat 3, Chris, yesterday on his friends, the Americans. We will win this war because we have no other choice. There's no life for us. There's no future for us and our neighbors if we allow the axis of terror led by Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis, and the Armenians to dominate. We have an alliance

for peace on the other side. It includes Israel, the United States, the moderate Arab states, and the rest of the civilized world. Now, it's a question, who wins? We have to win. There's confusion in many parts of the world. I have to say, not in the United States. I'm glad to see that the majority of the American people support Israel. They understand that we're fighting the just battle of civilization against barbarism. Well, they may support Israel, but I don't think they support genocide and carpet bombing. Is he deluding himself himself or is he just being the master politician he's always been? Oh, he's always been good at this sort of, this is his element. He loves sort of gaslighting the Western media, who often don't know enough really to sort of get back and argue with him.

But again, this is what I keep saying that I fear is that this is becoming not just a Palestinian-Israeli thing, which, goodness knows, would be almost impossible to resolve politically, but this is becoming a civilizational clash, a civilizational clash. And this is what Netanyahu was just saying. It's, you know, the West, he said, not Israel, because we have this great support behind us. We're clashing against all of these people, against Iran, the Houthis, the Hezbollah in Syria,

and that this is the new war against evil. We must not let this evil prevail against the good for which Israel stands. It's a very dangerous expansion of the conflict into what I call eschatological. In other words, it's sort of heading, you know, Israel is reverting to biblical justifications for the settlers, reverting to biblical justificationifications for the settlers, reverting to biblical justification for taking South Lebanon, because it used to be part of greater Israel, according to the Old

Testament. So we are moving into sort of very dangerous territory. And I think, you know, I think it's probably quite true that America is worried that Hezbollah, that the Israelis might be provoking Hezbollah to try an attack in order to bring about this clash of civilization, by which Netanyahu may be hoping that he can actually bring for the Israelis the promised land, greater Israel by the defeat of Hezbollah, helped by the Americans, defeat of Iran, helped by America. All of this would be a wonderful victory in his view, in sort of Manichaean terms of light against darkness, good against evil. I want to play a clip for you from Jake Sullivan on hostages. And before I do,

I'm going to ask you the question and ask you to await your answer until you hear what he says. Are the hostages being lost sight of? Is the IDF more interested in eradicating Palestinians from Gaza than in finding and saving the hostages? And let's not lose sight of the fact that the Israelis have, correct me if I'm wrong, after this clip, 10 times the number of Palestinian hostages in their jails as the Palestinians have Israeli hostages. Here's Jake Sullivan yesterday on hostages. We had the opportunity to speak with Congressman Mike McCaul from Israel, where he had just met with the Israeli prime minister. And he told us that Israel is considering Hamas's proposal that Israel release Palestinian women and children from prison in order to obtain the hostages held by Hamas. Is that something the U.S. thinks should happen? Well, Margaret, you'll understand if I'm very careful in how I answer this question,

because the negotiations are delicate. They're high stakes. What is at stake is the recovery of a significant number of innocent people, including innocent Americans currently being held hostage by Hamas, a murderous terrorist organization. It is the case that there are active negotiations underway between Israel and Qatar, who is communicating with Hamas. And the United States is involved in those discussions, very much involved in those discussions. But I'm not going to get into the specifics of what's on the table, only to say that we are actively working to ensure the safe return of every American being held hostage

and every other person being held hostage by Hamas. PAUL JAY These Israelis have Palestinian children in jails as hostages. ANTHONY FAUCI Yes, they have a lot. We don't know exactly how many, but about 6,000 Palestinians are held without trial in prisons under administrative occupation law. And so, yes, there are a lot more. Now, you asked me the question, what's happened to it? I think for this period, the emotions and the passions and the excitement of seeing Gaza being bombed, I'm afraid to put it in those terms, have rather left the hostage issue aside. The cabinet clearly has not put a priority on the hostages during this period. change, I suspect, because if it turns out that the Israelis don't get an early victory

in terms of defeating the command center, capturing the leadership of Hamas, which is quite on the cards, shall we say, then they will need a break. Netanyahu will need something to sort of divert opinion, something to sort of give a new thing, while the army then regroups and decides what to do next. And so I think at that point, the hostages will probably come swim back into view. But incidentally, what I hear is that the Hamas have said no

to that exchange that was just being talked about by Jake Sullivan because of what's happening with the hospital, the hospital instance. And they said they're not going to discuss this while the world, where this will be in five or six months from now? I don't because there are so many. I do think that it's going to be very, very difficult, maybe impossible to avoid escalation. I think it is going to escalate, but not in the way in which the West thinks. I think it's going to escalate horizontally. It's going to escalate in terms of attacks in Iraq, in Syria, all these things are going to become out of control. And I think that Israel at this point is going to find itself very vulnerable and will start getting quite frightened about what all this means as all of these elements come together. You know, the plan and the strategy of Hassan Nasrallah and the resistance fronts

is not to go to an all-out war, is to prove they don't want it to be a war against the nation states. Whether it's Iran or Syria or Lebanon, they don't want a war against the nation states where all the infrastructure and everything is destroyed like it was in 2006. That's not what they want. So the nation states step back, and you have if you like, the militias, the armed movements who are at the forefront of this. First of all, starting here, starting there, starting this way, starting in another way, changing the weapons, increasing the sort of tempo of it, reducing the tempo.

The main aim is to keep the West and Israel off balance. So they calculate, and they learned this lesson from earlier, so they calculate very much, you know, what is this expected to do, this provocation or the statement, this warning from the United States, how do they expect us to react? And then they don't react that way. Either they leave it or react from a different quarter. But they learned the lesson of Pavlov's dogs, you know, that it's always a mistake to have a Pavlovian reaction to any statement or provocation by the West.

So I think it's going to be a very complex sort of moving part. With the risk, it will escalate further. But, you know, I think the states are trying. And that was why it was quite important that meeting of all the Islamic world in Riyadh, because, you know, there are many divisions in the Arab world and in the Islamic world, but they all came together and they all spoke. And you had bitter enemies, former bitter enemies

and others. You had Erdogan with President Assad. You had Raisi, the president of Iran, being met at the entrance to the conference room by Mohammed bin Salman, greeting him warmly, sitting together and discussing warmly in Riyadh, the next stages. And I do believe that Iran is coordinating closely these steps and reassuring that Saudi Arabia, that neither does Iran nor any of the other states want the complete destruction of the nation states of the Middle East, setting everyone back a generation. Alistair Crook, my dear friend, thank you very much for your thoughts and your analysis. This is a great way, it's morning here, The sun just popped up. This is a great way to

start the week. Big brain time. Thank you, Alistair. Have a great week. We'll see you a week from today. Thank you very much. Thanks. More coming, my dear friends, Ray McGovern and Larry Johnson later this morning. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. Thank you.