Judging Freedom - Alastair Crooke: The Resistance to Israel is Ready

Episode Date: March 18, 2024

Alastair Crooke: The Resistance to Israel is ReadySee 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, March 18th, 2024. Alistair Crook will be with us in just a moment on the resistance to the Israeli slaughter in Gaza. But first this. How do you really feel about your financial future right now today? Stable or uncertain? Despite all the happy talk that the Fed and the banks want you to buy into, I believe that 2024 is going to be a very unstable year, politically and financially. That's one of the reasons I decided to buy physical gold and silver. And I suggest you should do the same and do it now.

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You'll be happy if you have protection in place. So call Lear at 800-511-4620, 800-511-4620, or go to learjudgenap.com and tell them your friend the judge sent you. Alistair, good day to you, my friend. Who or what comprises the resistance to the Israeli genocide in Gaza? Well, essentially, you could say that it is the global south. It is most of the Islamic world and quite a bit of Europe and the United States in terms of, if you like, having a general resistance. I mean, just to be clear, what I'm saying is that Israel has already lost its, if you like, global reach on people.

This is going to be very significant, losing this because this is their ability to, if you like, command and support, get supporting politics in Europe and America. And it's impacting it. And you've seen that with what's happened in Michigan, in the United States, but you've also seen this in the attempt of Mr. Schumer, if you like, the leader in the Senate, to try and, if you like, divert attention and to make it much clearer to the Democratic base that, if you like, the Democrats are doing their best to try and reduce, I think, particularly opposition at the convention. I think they all fear. I mean, you may be much more up on this than I am, but I think in 1968, I mean, there was this opposition and there were protests about Vietnam at the time.

And it took away a lot of the attention from the main event, if you like. I think that's what the fear is. I remember it well. I was 18 years old and it was sort of my baptism into, if you will, into American politics. You mentioned Schumer. Yes. We'll run the clip, but as I recall it, the essence of it is that Israel is becoming a pariah state, and that's because of Prime Minister Netanyahu's unholy alliance with extreme right-wingers.

But we'll let Senator Schumer speak for himself. He is, of course, the majority leader in the Senate and the highest-ranking elected public official in the United States who is Jewish. Here's what he said last week on the floor of the Senate about Prime Minister Netanyahu. Prime Minister Netanyahu has lost his way by allowing his political survival to take the precedence over the best interests of Israel. He has put himself in coalition with far-right extremists like Ministers Smotrich and Ben Gavir. And as a result, he has been too willing to tolerate the civilian toll in Gaza, which is pushing support for Israel worldwide to historic lows.

Israel cannot survive if it becomes a pariah. As a lifelong supporter of Israel, it has become clear to me the Netanyahu coalition no longer fits the needs of Israel after October 7th. The world has changed radically since then, and the Israeli people are being stifled right now by a governing vision that is stuck in the past. Vision that is stuck in the past. What's your take on this, Alistair? Well, I think it goes

back, some of your listeners and viewers will recall about 10 years ago, Netanyahu started moving the dial on Israeli politics, and he moved it towards saying that, you know, Palestinian issue was over no one was interested in the Palestinian it has gone away and we can concentrate on the Abraham Accords and integrating ourselves in the world but the other part of it which was very important was that it was quite apparent that the Israeli politics were moving very far to the right, young as much as the older elements of it. So the Israeli politics have swung quite hard right over these 10 years.

And so even then, a decade ago, it was fairly obvious that the Likud and the Democratic Party were on divergent paths. One was becoming more woke, if you like. The Democrats were becoming more woke. And those values did not fit with Likud values any longer. Certainly the right wing of Israeli politics were on quite a different path. And the values of the Democrats

as they embraced woke thinking, of course, had some threat to Israel, because that sort of language was quite threatening, because it implied, if you like, equal rights for everyone, if you took it literally. And so it was about that time that Netanyahu said, well, we need to switch. And the evangelicals are going to be the main, if you like, path for us into the Republican Party. And that this is where we need to move to, that Israel needs to move much more towards the Republicans and away from woke Democrats. I mean, this is his terms about how it was. So you can understand, I mean, this really

with Schumer making that speech is the culmination. It's sort of marking, this is the declaration of divorce, if you like, but it's been 10 years in the making. And this is why it's not stirring such a stir, making such a stir, as you know, Axios and the other media are suggesting that, oh, it's been an absolute extraordinary thing in Israel. Well, Israelis who follow the news have seen this coming for a long time, and it was expected. So how they interpret this is very much, if you like, that Schumer is simply trying in this for the Democrats about American politics to keep the party, the democratic, the element within the Democratic Party that is supportive of

Palestine to keep the flames down sufficiently, certainly to keep the flames down of those protests right through till the convention is passed. So it's not so much, I think, a threat. And actually, one of the interesting things in a poll that just came out in Israel from the Israeli Democratic Institute showed actually that a clear majority of Israelis wanted, say, Gantz, who'd just been to Washington, who's been in Washington, as you know. I mean, they wanted him to stay in the government. And at the same time, 74% of Israelis want the operation in Russia to go ahead. It's not that Netanyahu is out of tune with Israeli opinion. He's out of tune with democratic opinion. And this is what is reflected. And that's why it hasn't been the earthquake that so much of the Western media have suggested it has. It's the culmination. They've been on the

divergent path now for some years. Do you think that Senator Schumer articulated in that clip that we ran, the entire talk, I think it's about 25 minutes, but in the clip that we ran, do you think he articulated what a lot of Americans, particularly Democrats, especially Jewish American Democrats, have been thinking? I think absolutely, 100%. But I think, you know, this is the point, and this is where the divergence was coming. Most of those, the Jewish diaspora that vote for the Democratic Party, and they overwhelmingly vote for the Democratic Party, are reformist Jews, and they are also liberal Jews. And therefore, they are naturally much more inclined to the sort of the, if you like, the left-wing parties in Israel, and not to the majority where Israel politics now has sort of centered itself. So I think he was reflecting something like, as you say, a majority of reformist liberal Jews in America are very unhappy with the direction Israel is going.

But the point is that Israel has been moving in this direction. I wrote a piece just recently about when I look back from about 10 years ago that I wrote, and even then I wrote in it, it seemed obvious that we were moving to a very different position between Israel and the Islamic world, and it was one where we would see the religious symbols becoming the focus of conflict, the Temple Mount versus Al-Aqsa. And that's exactly what we've got today taking place. And so Israeli politics has moved on and the American liberal constituency hasn't properly assimilated this. The new Israel is something they find very difficult to accept and acknowledge, you know, that this is how it is, that 74% of Israelis would like a military operation in Rafah, knowing full well what that would mean in terms of dead Palestinians.

They don't mind. So this is a new Israel. And it's something I'm not sure that the White House, the Israeli grasp, or if they have grasped, have just decided, well, the best thing we can do is to firefight and to try and say the right things for our constituency base so we don't have trouble in the primaries and at the convention, even though we know it's not going to make much difference within Israel. I don't know which it is. What is your view of the attitude of the

Israeli public about Netanyahu personally, given the allegations of criminal behavior, the commencement of his criminal, at least one of his criminal trials before all this started, and now his disenchantment from his patron, the United States of America. That's the first part of the question. The second part of the question is, does Mossad play a role in here? For example, if the CIA decides to whip up demonstrations in the streets against the Netanyahu government, as they did a year ago when he tried to take over the judiciary, what role would Mossad play in that? I think a year ago Mossad went along with what the CIA wanted. Would they do that again? Well, I suppose I say something slightly against the current trends of thinking.

But what I read, I mean, particularly in the Hebrew press and what we take from the Hebrew press, is really that actually it's reinforced Netanyahu's position in Israel. Yes, he is deeply unpopular amongst about a third of Israelis who, you know, for a whole lot of reasons going back a long, long way. And they're not all together to do just with the Palestinian issue. He's not popular. He's known for corruption and other things. And he's got these trials taking place against him. But if anything, and it's not surprising, in America, you do it the same. If another country told you what to do and that you must have a new election and inaugurate a new government.

Americans wouldn't like to be lectured like that either. And most Israelis weren't terribly pleased with that. And just to be clear, as I said earlier, the Democratic Party successively over these years has ceased to be the patron of Netanyahu. If you recall, when the embassy, U.S. embassy, was moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, it was under the patronage of the evangelicals, not the Democrats. Right. Right. And most of those evangelicals are Republicans, and most of them are staunch Trump supporters. Let's just take a step back from Netanyahu's problems and the borders of Israel or whether it's the genocide against the Palestinians or both? I think this is very important. Iran has played a very, if you ask me, a very shrewd diplomatic game in this period for many years now.

And I followed it quite closely over this period. Iran has put a new form of, if you like, military thinking together. Because, of course, it was quite clear to them that the United States had dominance of the skies. It had an air force. Iran had nothing. So the Iranians set to and made their own air force. It's not a conventional air force. It's an air force of smart, earth-hugging cruise missiles and swarms of AI-driven drones.

And this has provided a deterrence. They've embedded these throughout the geography of Iran. And the other part of it is they've created with others. It's not just Iran that's done this. There are many other people that have been involved, Syria, for example, and of course, Lebanon and Yemen. And they put together a coalition of like-minded movements that are not the nation state, the states in the region, but are, if you like, independent to a certain extent, although they reflect their own states as well. And those agree on a consensus approach and have been planning the next stages of this, of the slow increase. And so what Iran has always done, and the resistance leaders, Hassan Nasrallah is by agreement the sort of spokesman of the resistance, and they only move by consensus.

And one of the things is that they want to have control, incremental control of the intensity of conflict. So they raise the flames, they lower the flames, they move the flames here, they move them somewhere else, and always to keep escalatory dominance with them and not with Israel. So that Israel is always responding and they are not actually activating the resistance. And really, I mean, this has made it, Israel is really facing, and you see this reflected in the Israeli press, the greatest threat. I mean, since it was first established, they have fronts open on many sides. They have economic problems, but more than many sides. They have economic problems. But more than anything else, they have internal problems.

There's an internal war within Israel, as well as an external war that they're having to fight. And they know that if they do end up fighting with Hezbollah, it will be conventionally in the West. They just say, well, oh, you know, conventionally in the West, they just say, well, oh, you know, I mean, what with America backing Israel and with Israel's military forces, it can't lose because, I mean, they have everything, you know, they can just bomb them to dust. Well, that was what they tried to do in 2006,

and I assure you it's got a lot more sophisticated by Hezbollah now. So really, I mean, there is, you know, Israel may lose out. What does Iran want to see? Where is this going? And Iran has always suggested it's in favor of a Palestinian, a one-state solution, if you like, a Palestinian state, and that the solution is simply that Israel would give up its Zionist element and just live in the region like ordinary citizens within the region, but they would not have special rights, special legal, political, and administrative rights over the subordinate population that shares the territory with them. That is, their aim is to go back to how the region was hundreds of years ago, where Jews lived quite normally. I mean, they always have lived in Iran.

There's still a large Jewish population in Iran and all over the region. They want to go back to that, but there would be no special rights. There would be no Israel that has been awarded a military edge by the United States, if you like. And so their game is one of a long-term attrition. It's not one of, you know, fighting and killing Israelis. It's simply bringing Israel to the point of exhaustion and a sense of defeat in which it's forced to consider the whole project of Zionism and whether it can continue and look for some solution. And that brings to the key point, you know, what is the way forward? And I'll tell you a surprising anecdote, but I remember it well. One time in Israel, when I was talking to the head of the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission,

i.e. the man running the nuclear policy. And he said, you know, we'll go on like this, but one day, believe me, suddenly Israel will start talking to the Iranians. And he said, after that, America would follow suit. And long after that, the Europeans would get there and get it. But that, he said to me, the only way out of this eventually is going to be when we all recognize that it's important to bring Iran into the situation. Incidentally, Trump said something quite similar, I think, over the weekend. And he said, actually, oh, I'm going to get the,

you know, Abraham Accords. Okay. But he said, and Iran will probably be part of it, which was a very striking, important change of language. Because until now, he's just said, well, you know, we sanctioned them to the sort of dust when I was in office. And now he's saying, well, yes, Israel needs to be part of the region, and Iran will be part of that framework.

This raises a couple of questions. Do other Gulf state nations resent the Abraham Accords? Hasn't Iran not only survived but thrived, just like Russia, notwithstanding American sanctions? And does Israel realize that if it attacks Hezbollah, it will incur the wrath of that AI air force that Iran has? Well, yeah. I mean, there are dissidents within Israel who understand the danger, and they keep warning. You know, General Brick was one of them, but there have been others that have said, you know, we engage with Hezbollah at our peril because we will be destroyed. to take out the entire infrastructure across Israel, airports, all of these infrastructure projects, ports, airports, right to Eilat. It's not a simple joke.

This is serious deterrence. But Israel seems to be compelled on that route because it's not prepared, if you like, to give up its present paradigm of Zionist, if you like, hegemony over the river to the sea. And if they want to keep that, then the inevitable is going to be that they will go to war with Hezbollah. And people realize it. What do the Arab states think about it?

Well, the Arab population, I'm told, is explosive. And now everyone says, oh, but the Arab street, you know, we don't really believe that. I think it is at a different level now. I think it is at a different level. Now, when you talk about, you know, some Gulf states, remember the population of some of those Gulf states is smaller than a small city. I mean, 80% of them are workers, you know, brought in from India or Pakistan or Bangladesh to supply the manpower and the waiters and the servants. So they are in different positions. But the point is that they have been totally dependent.

I mean, look at the way they've built themselves up on tech. They've turned themselves into green tech instruments. And this has been through Israel. And who has supported that? Well, this is Wall Street channeling its venture capital, its venture funds through Israel into these Gulf states to make money. But now, I mean, most of that tech world in Israel is closed down. It's not there.

So what does this mean for the business model of those Gulf states? Is it so good to be sort of now part of the Abraham Accord? Or do they need to look at China? And do they need to look at Iran and Russia? Are they stuck in, if you like, the old model and the new model, which is the heartland, the new BRICS version of the economy that is opening up across the whole of Central Asia. Where's the most exciting part of the economy now? Well, it's actually in the north, in Vladivostok, all the economy in Siberia. I mean, it's an extraordinary integration of China and Russia that is producing all sorts of new economic and technical innovations that will

change the region. So do you look that way, or where the pendulum is already swinging away? You're painting a very gloomy future for the Israelis if they continue their destruction of Gaza. So what match is going to light this? What's going to provoke other state actors to get involved? And does Prime Minister Netanyahu recognize that he's playing with fire. He's not just killing civilians. He's playing with fire. I think, yes, Netanyahu understands very well. This is why he keeps calling it.

You know, this is, and he uses these apocalyptic terms. This is, you know, Israel fighting for its life. This is Israel, the great, you know, the great Armageddon battle is coming. We have to have complete victory. I mean, you know, he's absolutely determined. And this is shared by nearly all Israelis. The Poles confirm it. Absolutely. They do not believe it's possible to survive, as they have survived as a Zionist project project when other states do no longer fear them. It's been that military edge of fear that has been the survival of Israel. And they feel that's gone since the 7th of October and eroding every day since. And unless they can restore that in some way. But he does realize that. And I mean, you know, a lighted match

cannot just set Hezbollah on fire. What would happen in Iraq? Iraq is already, it's now no longer, it's attacking Haifa and the ports of Ashdod and Haifa. Eilat is already closed.

It won't be much longer before perhaps we'll find that Ben-Gurion is closed. I mean, the squeeze is continuing. And this is asymmetric warfare, which, you know, fortunately, the sort of conventionalists don't accept. Oh, no, this is nonsense. I mean, it won't happen. But this is happening. It's happening now. And Israel is facing, and it understands that. But it is compelled. And it is compelled because it's compelled not by, if you like, literal politics. It's compelled by the eschatological, the biblical narrative that Israel has to go in and do these things because it is the will of God.

We have every day, we hear rabbis coming on and saying to the troops, I mean, senior rabbis come and say to the troops about the Old Testament. And they say, this means that you have to kill the children in Gaza. You have to kill the children because they will grow up and they will turn into terrorists who will attack us. And you have to kill the women because these are the vessels that give birth to these future terrorists. And you have to kill all. And it is in This is a halakhic command, which is not voluntary, which is mandatory on you. You are commanded under halakhic law to do this. Halakhic law is Jewish law to do these things. That and the Talmud require us to do these things.

So there's this compulsion. We're not talking, and this is why I keep saying to you, you know, the West keeps conceptualizing this. I mean, there are the generally literal aspects of it, but there are other forces that are very different. These are the forces of biblical myth and story, and they compel people to act and follow things that may not make a lot of sense in the literal world, but nonetheless very compelling to those who believe in them. Before we go, I want you to hear what Joseph Borelli, the EU's top diplomat, said earlier today with respect to the famine in Gaza. In Gaza, we are no longer on the brink of famine. We are in a state of famine affecting thousands of people. Chancellor Scholz told Prime Minister Netanyahu,

we cannot stand by and watch Palestinian starve. Okay, then what are we going to do? We cannot stand by and watch Palestinian starve. What are we going to do? Because this famine is not a natural disaster. It's not a flood. It's not a earthquake. It's entirely man-made. By whom?

Let's dare to say it. By whom? Well, yes, Israel is provoking famine. Oh, how do you say that? What evidence do you have? Come on, what evidence do I have? Hundreds of trucks are waiting to enter. And it's absolutely imperative to make crossing points work effectively and open additional crossing points,

then it's just a matter of political will. Israel has to do it. It is unacceptable. Starvation is used as a weapon of war. Yes, starvation is used as a weapon of war. Let's say that. And it's not a question of a lack of sufficient supplies. We hear that there are several months of food stock on the Egyptian side, several months of food stock.

And is used as a weapon of war. I've not heard, maybe you have, any diplomat or head of state or high-ranking person in the foreign ministry of any relevant country make a statement that direct. But what is he going to do about it? What can he do about it? This is the counterpart to Schumer's speech, effectively. I mean, you know, he said the right things. Schumer said many things that were correct. He also said things that are correct. And I looked this morning at what is on the agenda for the European Union Council meeting that is coming up. And it said, we're going to do two things about this. What we're going to do is we're going to tighten the sanctions on Hamas and we're going to sanction more of the settlers. That's what we're going to do. I mean, it's fatuous. It's all PR.

And I mean, the sentiments he expressed were nicely put eloquently and said and believed probably. But what is the EU going to do about it? It can't, because it's paralyzed a different way from America, but the effects are really very much the same. The politics of Europe won't allow him to do anything really serious about it, so they're going to sanction Hamas, and they're going to sanction a few settlers. I mean, that's what Europe is going to do. Alistair, thank you very much, my dear friend.

Brilliant and gifted analysis and very, very timely. Thanks for your time. Thanks for your analysis. We'll see you again early next week, I hope. Thank you very much. Thank you. All the best. Coming up later today, later this morning, Larry Johnson at 2 o'clock this afternoon, Ray McGovern, and a surprise for you at 3 Eastern Time.

Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. I'm out.