Judging Freedom - Alastair Crooke: Trump, Netanyahu, and Collision

Episode Date: January 27, 2025

Alastair Crooke: Trump, Netanyahu, and CollisionSee 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, January 27th, 2025. Alistair Crook will be with us in just a moment on our Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu on a collision course. But first, this markets are at an all time high. Euphoria has set in. The economy seems unstoppable. But the last administration has buried us so deep in debt and deficits. It's going to take a lot of digging to get us out of this hole. Are you prepared? Lear Capital specializes in helping people like me and you grow and protect our wealth with gold. Did you know that during Trump's last presidency, gold rose 54% to a record

high? If that happens again, that puts gold at $4,200 an ounce in his next term. Don't wait. Do what I did. Call Lear at 800-511-4620 or go to learjudgenap.com for your free gold ownership kit and special report, $4,200 gold ahead. When you call, ask how you can also get up to $15,000 in bonus gold with a qualifying purchase. Call 800-511-4620, 800-511-4620, or go to learjudgenap.com and tell them the judge sent you. Alistair, good day to you. Thank you for your time. Always a pleasure, of course. Is Benjamin Netanyahu really did not want the, if you like, hostage deal to go through.

He was not keen on it to go through because his right-wing, Smotrich, Ben-Gavir, and the right of the party, the right of the Netanyahu camp, all want to see, if you like, Gaza clean of all Arabs and it to be settled by Israeli settlers in their place. And therefore, one of the deals when he signed, if you like, when he signed off in cabinet, not in the original deal, but he agreed to Smotrich saying that at the end of the exchange of hostages, we will go back to war in Gaza, we will destroy Gaza. And that puts him very much at odds with Trump. But there he has a catch-22 situation. Netanyahu, if he doesn't, if you like, blame Hamas and break the ceasefire and say it's all over and now we're going back to war, then his government will crash because Ben-Gavir has left the government already.

He had six seats, seven seats, and Smotrich has six. It is going to be very difficult to keep the government alive in those circumstances. It will be a major crisis. But I think more than that, something else very dramatic has happened in this period. You probably saw, many of the people watching would have seen the release of the four hostages, all of them the Israeli army young ladies who were the observers on the fence. All of those were released and they came back and as you saw smiling waving and in very good health and smartly dressed and it's had a huge impact as you can imagine uh on Israeli public as a whole they want the other

hostages back now I mean it's much more determined they They saw them come back. They were in good health. They didn't need to go to hospital or anything. And indeed, those girls, they were in a car, and they have been filmed. And they said, well, we're very grateful to Al-Qassam for looking after us so well, for feeding us and clothing us and looking after us. So there is a big shift I think in public

sentiment. So for Netanyahu now to try and sabotage it in order to be able to go back to putting the IDF into Gaza and destroying it and pushing more Palestinians out is going to be a lot more difficult. And it's going to be doubly difficult because what we've seen, and I must say it's an amazing sight, all the Palestinians from the north are heading back across the Netserim Strip, which was the sort of no-go line, to northern Gaza. One and a half million are arriving there, and they are cheering and in a victorious mood. We will never be displaced from this place. This is where we're from. This is where we're staying.

Well, now, I mean, the army, israeli army have now one and a half million palestinians back in the area they thought they had completely cleared and emptied of palestinians how are they going to start are they going to start again and what will that mean for trump at the same time because trump if you like well and certainly steve whitcoff nailed his cuts to the ceasefire to the sister to the um to having the exchange of hostages i mean he's committed on that he's up for that now he's bought into that and so what would it mean for Trump if Netanyahu went for, if you like to say, declare the ceasefire bre continue. He will certainly want an end to the massacres going on in Gaza in this period. But that is the secret clause that was granted to Smotrich, not in the original ceasefire agreement. There's nothing of that sort in it. It not in the original ceasefire agreement it's nothing of that sort in it it is in the

cabinet meeting the six-hour cabinet meeting that followed it he made this undertaking that there would be a return there would be no part two to the ceasefire well then this is not this is not a ceasefire if Netanyahu believes and has told his right-wing supporters that he on his own can declare it invalid and move the truths back in. This is just a charade intended to please Joe Biden in the death throes of his administration and give Donald Trump crowing rights. Yeah, I mean, it's not a ceasefire in the sense that we're only at the first stage, which lasts 16 days. But the bulk of the hostages that are going to be released come later, after 16 days, and then after 42 days.

And that's what the Israeli public are waiting for. That's what they want. They want them all back now because they've seen them and they've seen what's there. You know, most of them are alive still. And I think that surprised people. Most of them, they're in reasonably good health, as you can see on the video now. And to think that they are actually saying nice things about the way their captors treated them has to be boggling Netanyahu, Smotrich, and Ben-Gavir's mind. Absolutely. It's absolutely causing chaos. And at the same time, we have not only that, but also the Trump administration or the putative Trump team were responsible for the ceasefire in Lebanon that was supposed to, Israel was supposed to have left Lebanon yesterday. And they haven't done so.

And they're saying now that they're gonna stay till the 16th of February. Well, there's been another mass, a wave of population of the Lebanese coming down from the north trying to get into their homes in the south of Lebanon. All of them parading Hezbollah and Hamas flags. I mean, a huge at the moment they're stopped.

But, you know, this is actually very good news for Hezbollah more than anything else, because, you know, this is what Hezbollah is saying. Look, you know, you, the new government, the Saudis and the Americans, you've installed President Aoun and he's supposed to take over and Hezbollah is supposed to stand down and be pushed away from the political front. And look, you're incapable of even managing a ceasefire with Israel. You're incapable of getting the Israelis out of there. Your agreement was worthless. And so, again, it puts Trump on the spot. And then, you know, that I think with this, what's going on? I mean, in a sense, we've got a split a split-screen presidency taking place what trump has been saying

about on the sort of issues of particularly the cultural issues about dei about what he's saying about free speech no more misinformationinformation, disinformation attempts to use these to convey your single unified position. All of this has to go. It shocked Europe. I mean, it's really, you know, broken the narrative of Europe for the last 20 years in all of these about, you know, the green scam, the how to run an economy, how to get the prices down. All of these sort of domestic issues is like a whirlwind hitting Davos hitting hitting europe um and they it seems as if their intent on regime change in germany and regime change in britain and it looks very much as if the trump team is going to engineer a change in both those countries to move it more closely to be more closely aligned with the Trump vision of the future which many Europeans welcome including me I want to play a clip from a former Israeli negotiator you may know him from your diplomat days named Daniel Levy this is is from the Big Picture podcast. He has some astounding statements to make. This is about a minute and a half long, but it's profound what he says at the end. Here he is, Daniel Levy, cut number one. One cannot underestimate the impact on the Israeli public psyche of the release, the initial three who were released.

And of course, everyone, therefore, saw those images. They've been told Al-Qassam defeated. They've been told the public has turned against them. They've been told so many things turned against them they've been told so many things and then they saw those images an occupying army armed and aided by the most powerful military in the world the u.s a nuclear armed state israel in a struggle between that and a resistance movement we saw a very powerful display and Israelis saw that we're being told by Israeli analysts talking heads political leaders and their backers in the west, that the next phase has to be to move forward.

We have to have the demilitarization of. The reality is the most significant force in Gaza by a long stretch is Hamas. Al-Qassam emerges from this with a very strong narrative. Israel's narrative doesn't look so good at all. What do you say about that, Alistair? Well, Daniel is exactly right. On the button with what he's saying. But actually, and although you said it was shocking, he underplays it. The Israelis, I mean, in the Hebrew language in their channels, are saying it much more bluntly. We've been completely defeated. Look what we see. We see Hamas on the streets of Gaza, running it, organizing it. And as many people said, look at them. I mean, they're in smart uniforms, they have the latest Israeli weapons they've taken from them. They are managing, they are clearly

in charge of Gaza. What was this war about? We've lost this war completely, is what they are saying. We've lost it. And one, Nahan Banea, I know him also. He's a celebrated journalist. And he said, at the end of it, all we've done is we've substituted Sinwa, Yahya Sinwa, for his young brother, Mohammed Sin, who's now in charge of Gaza. That's all we've achieved. After all these deaths of Israeli IDF forces, after all this bombing and destruction, we have actually only achieved substituting Yahya for Mohammed Sinwa.

That's it. We've been a complete failure. This is having a big impact and this is coupled with the things that you mentioned to begin with too, which are very important, is Nenia's health is very bad at the moment. He's been making very powerful pleas to the court where he was supposed to appear today. And he's been saying, you know, he hasn't healed from his operation. He can't manage. He's facing a wave of political crises.

He can't cope with having to come to court. And he's really in a bad condition. And we know he's in a bad condition because we've been told by Gantz, the former defense minister, that he's recently had a pacemaker put in his heart and it has to be monitored very carefully. And his family are not that. They are in Florida. His wife has been there for a long time and doesn't seem likely to be coming back. As you know, his son and his wife have been the power behind Netanyahu, driving him on. But there's been an internal struggle inside the family between particularly the son against his father, maybe even involving physical attack. And both of them have gone and she is not returning. His wife is not returning.

It doesn't seem at the moment she's returned at all. This is Netanyahu just a few hours ago, Alistair, going to where he absolutely does not want to go, a public courtroom in which he is a defendant in a bribery and corruption case. Did you say there was a physical attack between the son and the father? There are reports of that by very serious. That's why, and that afterwards, because, you know, the son has been sort of exiled to Miami,

where he is staying. And according to the report, Shin Bet, the security service, told him to get out of the country and go and stay in Miami. And his mother is there too. And she hasn't come back. She says she's got COVID too and she hasn't come back she says she's got kovitch so she can't come back what is the uh relationship if if we know of it between netanyahu and trump are they on a collision course yes i mean they are politically because netanyahu can do one of two things. Either he can keep his coalition alive or he goes ahead and he releases the hostages from Gaza, which is what Trump wants.

Either he does what Trump wants or he can't keep his coalition alive. He's caught in this element. And for Netanyahu, as you recall, because you just played a clip of him in the court session, it's very important that his coalition stays alive, because without that, it's going to be difficult to prevent him self-ending up in jail under the criminal indictments that have been launched against him. Chris, put up Netanyahu in court again, please, the B-roll. How does this play to the Israeli public when they see this, Alasdair? There is a huge turmoil and what I was going to say because you know it's bringing out lots not only in this but in many other areas corruption and you know poor governance in Israel. And so the country is really sort of close to schism on this. And if Netanyahu

declares that he's not going to proceed with Part 2, Section 2 of the release of hostages from Gaza, I don't know what will be the consequences of it. I don't know what will be the consequences of it i don't know what will be the outcome it will certainly cause a huge effect um in israel um and i mean uh what daniel levy just said to you was absolutely you know that was he was talking about the first three coming out then we had the four military young ladies come out and smiling and happy, and people want the rest back. All of the hostages out. And if he sabotages it, as he's promised, as Netanyahu promises Hamas will sabotage it,

then his coalition is over. Then who's going to run? And what is going to be the policy of Israel? So far, I mean, all the Israelis can see what's happened in Gaza. After more than a year, there was Hamas in their bright uniforms, managing things, hearing crowds, one and a half million of them heading back, even though there's nothing to go home to in the north of Gaza. They are determined to go back and that is their place and they're not going to be removed from it wow and I think it was a bit unfortunate um Trump's comment about um his suggestion that he's going to ask

Jordan and Egypt to take these people so that um we can clear out Gaza and then rebuild it with nice sort of converse-like. I think he was shooting from the hip when he said that. But we can discuss that the next time we are together. Alistair, thank you very much. Thank you for your insight, as always. We'll look forward to seeing you again from another part of the world next week. Thank you. Coming up later today at 10 o'clock this morning, Ray McGovern at 1130 this morning, Larry Johnson at one this afternoon, Ben Cohen of Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream, a man who has spent his lifetime battling for peace.

And at four o'clock, another warrior for peace, Scott Ritter. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. Thank you.