Judging Freedom - AMB. Chas Freeman: Can Netanyahu Afford a Ceasefire?

Episode Date: November 13, 2024

AMB. Chas Freeman: Can Netanyahu Afford a Ceasefire?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 Wednesday, November 13th, 2024. Apologies for the late start technical glitches, which we've now overcome. The good Ambassador Charles Freeman has been kind enough to stand by while producer Chris worked his magic to get things up on the air. Ambassador Freeman, good morning and welcome here, my dear friend. It's always a pleasure. I am looking at President-elect Trump's, he doesn't actually nominate these people until he's in the White House, but his intention to nominate, and I'm thinking this, does it matter who's the president? Or will the pro-war, pro-welfare, pro-Zionist, military-industrial-banking-pharmaceutical-complex survive and thrive no matter what kind of bluster comes out of the Oval Office?

Well, I think the proposed appointments raise a serious question about whether Mr. Trump was really serious during his campaign with all of the rhetoric he used to say that he was in favor of peace and stopping wars, because this is a very hardline group indeed, particularly on China. Where they are on Ukraine is a little uncertain. Where they are on Israel is completely behind the Israelis at all costs. So this is arguably something different from what those who voted for Mr. Trump expected. A lot of libertarians on the right and progressives on the left who talked to me indicated a preference for Trump because of the belief that he would say to Netanyahu, okay, enough is enough.

And to Zelensky, that's it. Biden was wrong. It was a disaster. Let's cut a peace deal. We're not going forward with this. I don't know that that is the case. My longtime friend and colleague with whom I rarely agree on anything, but we're friends and colleagues who's about to become the Secretary of Defense, advised President Trump, or actually President Biden, on air from his subterfuge at Fox and Friends to bomb Tehran two years ago. I mean, in my view, Ambassador,

Donald Trump does not need an enabler to encourage his worst instincts. He needs somebody like Doug McGregor to dial those instincts back and remind him of the natural and probable consequences of the execution of those instincts. Do you agree? Yes, I do. I think having worked at the Defense Department, I believe that the most important qualification for a Secretary of Defense is management ability, leadership of the largest organization of its kind in the world. An organization, by the way, that is notorious for waste, fraud, and mismanagement. It's encouraging that Mr. Trump wants to tackle those issues, but it's not clear whether he wishes

to do that at the defense department. In any event, the proposed secretary of defense, as far as I can tell, quite aside from his political judgments, doesn't have any management experience of note, and I don't know that he has led any large group of people. So the Defense Department is basically intended to deliver violence in support of policies set by the President. And the chain of command runs to the President from the military. The Secretary of Defense is a policy advisor, and he's the manager of the department. So I think this appointment raises, again, some questions about the qualifications of those coming into office.

Some people have weighed in already and know on certain terms. Chris will put up a full screen. I mean, this person chooses. Choose. You can see what it says, who the F-U-C-K is this guy. Defense World reacts to Trump's surprise Pentagon pick. Hegseth is undoubtedly the least qualified nominee for sec def in American history and the most overtly political. Brace yourself, America. This guy does identify himself. Paul Rykoff, who's the head of Independent Veterans of America. Everybody's going to be weighing in on this. It's interesting that veterans have weighed in first, and it's been negative. Look, you and I both know history.

Sometimes the man makes the office. Sometimes the office makes the office, sometimes the office makes the man. And a lot of things can happen and can change. But this, not nominee, but the national security advisor, because that position is not confirmable by the Senate, advocated on the floor of the House of Representatives to give President Zelensky of Ukraine all the weapons he wanted, including expressly, you know this better than I, the long-range Tomahawk missiles that can reach Moscow. I mean, is this really the type of advice we want whispered into the ear of a trigger finger happy president? Well, I think there's a problem generally in our political elite, and it's exemplified in these proposed appointments.

And that is we greatly overestimate our own ability to influence events and change them. I think to go back to what you said earlier, the appointment of Elise Stefanik, the most odious Congress critter on the Hill as ambassador to the United Nations is not going to be greeted there with any favor either. In fact, I think she's in danger of finding herself mooned by the rest of her colleagues if she carries on the way there that she did in congressional hearings about university administrators some time ago. And we have a problem with the Secretary of State, Mr. Rubio, who's apparently been a very good senator. But the Secretary of State has to have four characteristics.

First, conceptual ability, strategic reasoning ability, if you will, and particularly when that is lacking in other parts of the government. Second, management ability, because the Department of State is a management abomination. It has had fifth wheels, sixth wheels, seventh wheels welded onto it by various congressional actions over the years, and it is nearly unmanageable. Third, the ability to listen, because listening is the key to empathy, and empathy is the grounding for any kind of persuasive approach to changing the opinions of other people. And diplomacy is all about convincing others to want to do things our way. And finally, the Secretary of State must be able to articulate policy almost at the bumper sticker level. So it's

comprehensible to those in the public and the Congress who need to understand basically what it's about. Mr. Rubio may or may not have these qualifications. I don't know that he's managed anything particularly. I don't think he has any diplomatic experience. I'm not sure what his strategic reasoning capacity is. I don't know him. He may be an excellent listener. He's certainly an articulate politician. But I think we, again, somehow we're seeing a loyalty override expertise and competence as a criterion for appointing people. And I'm not even sure how loyal any of these people really are. If you go back to the 2016 campaign, I seem to recall that Mr. Rubio was not a fan of President Trump. And while they may have reconciled since then, and certainly Senator Rubio is ardently pro-Israeli,

anti-Castro Cuban regime, anti-Venezuela, anti-Nicaragua, anti-Bolivia. And he has a clear position on Iran, which is very belligerent. So, you know, as you say, Mr. Trump makes up his own mind. He does so in a mercurial fashion. I have a friend who speculated that actually there wasn't anybody named Donald Trump. There were eight people sharing a suit and an extra long necktie and an orange wig. Changing the suit and the wig once in a while. And because, you know, you never know which Trump you're going to see.

Before we delve into the latest in Israel, can Marco Rubio and Pete Hegseth compare on the international scene with Sergei Lavrov? No, Mr. Lavrov is an exemplary foreign minister with deep experience, widely respected, I think almost universally respected. It's a great shame of the Biden administration and our Secretary of State did not engage with him because he's someone who is reasonable with whom you can strike a deal. And my other friend and former Fox colleague, the former governor of Arkansas, now offered as the U.S. ambassador to Israel in his first public statement last night after the announcement of his likely nomination echoed the comments of Israeli, you ready for this? No surprise, Israeli finance minister Smotrich that the West Bank should be considered part of Israel.

In fact, let me play for you what Smotrich said. Now, remember, he's the finance minister of Israel. He's the rough equivalent of Israel. He's the rough equivalent of the secretary of the treasury. He appointed himself the governor general of the West Bank. This would be like Janet Yellen appointing herself the governor general of Puerto Rico. But this is what Mr. Smotrich did about eight months ago. Here's what he said on November 11th, cut number nine. I have instructed the settlement division in the Ministry of Defense and the civil administration to begin professional and comprehensive work to prepare the necessary

infrastructure for applying sovereignty. In his first term, President Trump led dramatic steps, including affirming the legality and legitimacy of settlements in Judea and Samaria. Alongside this, there were the Abraham Accords, peace for peace. Those accords, a set of agreements facilitated by Trump's first administration, saw Israel normalize relations with four Arab nations.

We were on the verge of applying sovereignty over the settlements in Judea and Samaria, and now the time has come to do so." Well, that has never been a secret in terms of the religious Zionist agenda. Mr. Huckabee shares those views. He is a Christian Zionist. He is on record as favoring Israeli annexation of the remaining parts of Palestine. I don't know what his position on southern Lebanon is, but I suppose his biblical vision would embrace annexation of that as well. The one thing I can say about all this is that if you look at the United Nations, which is where the world has a chance to comment on these matters, you will find that the United States is joined only by Israel in these views. And I think it's fair to say that that what we are doing or about to do with Ms. Stefanik at the UN

and Mr. Huckabee in Israel is going to separate us decisively from global opinion and greatly reduce our ability to influence events that are of much more direct concern to us or should be than the status of the West Bank. What is the status of Israel today economically, culturally, politically, after a year of this war in which their goals to eradicate Hamas and safely return the hostages to degrade Iran and to degrade Hezbollah have not been met. What is the toll that that has imposed on Israeli society, economically, politically, culturally, geographically, population-wise today? I'm sorry for the long-winded question.

Please address it however you see fit, Ambassador. No, I think politically Israel has never been more divided. The ultra-Orthodox are upset about conscription, although there's been a compromise on that. The settlers in the North are displaced. The last poll of them showed that 60% of them don't intend to return because they feel insecure. Israelis generally feel insecure. The army reserves, when they're called up, often don't report for duty, out of fatigue probably. Over 64,000 small businesses in Israel have gone bankrupt during this war. The startups for which Israel was so famous have departed. There's not new investment coming in.

We don't know how many Israelis have emigrated, but I'm seeing figures that are now as high as 1 million out of a rather small population. And so you see the hostage families, of course, have been shafted to Mr. Netanyahu, apparently, as a leader of Israel, there's a widespread sense that he's dragging the country into oblivion. So now we face, of course, the prospect of a widened war coordinated between Iran, Hezbollah, what remains of Hamas, the Houthis, militias in Iraq, and aimed at Israel, with U.S. troops there as a tripwire, and an interim before January 20th, in which a committed Zionist is in the White House. So this is a very dangerous situation, externally as well as internally. And a number of Israelis are giving voice to their despair and their wish no longer to be identified as Israelis and their shame as Jews,

that the values of Judaism are so basically violated by the society in which they live. And perhaps they are also about to emigrate. Ambassador, is there any way that the United States can be saved from the extraordinary grip vice of AIPAC and similar groups? It does not appear so. I am very concerned, I should say, about another issue, and that is trade wars. I think trade wars are going to generate significant inflation in the United States. Many of those who voted for Mr. Trump did so in the expectation that he would do something about the almost criminal rise in

rents and the inflation of the grocery store that they have faced. I think they're going to get exactly the opposite if he follows through with the Lighthizer approach to global trade. There will be retaliation. The first victims will be American farmers. Our agricultural exports, for which China is the largest customer, there will not be those exports. There will be retaliation. Pharmaceuticals, you mentioned, that will also get hit. Obviously, a great number of things that we make in our diminished but still important manufacturing sector depend on inputs from China. The supply chain disruptions that the tariff war will create are mind-boggling. And I think, you know, we saw some of this in the first term of Mr. Trump. It got overshadowed in the end by COVID. But I think we're now about to see it

with a vengeance. Even if he implements his broad statements of policy pragmatically, this is going to be a time of stress. And the dollar will be hit. I know you like gold. You probably are going to be shown to be prescient. The dollar pegs of other currencies are likely to come unraveled as the dollar increases in value and other countries necessarily devalue their currencies to cope with the tariff walls that we will be putting in place. So this is a concern that I have that goes to our basic power influence, our ability to sustain our leadership internationally, such as it is at the moment. And I'm at least as worried about that as I am about the prospect of a war with China, which is

real. Mr. Ambassador, I have to run. I apologize for the slightly abbreviated segment. I'm deeply grateful for your time. Chris took care of the gremlins in the system. And of course, I have other commitments to make. But thank you very much. I hope you'll come back with us again next week, Ambassador. I'll try to. Okay.

Thank you. At 11 o'clock this morning, hopefully with no delay, Max Blumenthal at 2.30 this afternoon, Phil Giraldi, Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. I'm out.