Judging Freedom - Anya Parampil : Activism Takes Center Stage at Commencements

Episode Date: May 6, 2024

Anya Parampil : Activism Takes Center Stage at CommencementsSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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gentle guidance and encouragement to create these incredible changes for yourself and see what good can come from them. Trust me, listening on Audible can help you reach the goals you set for yourself. Start listening today when you sign up for a free 30-day trial at audible.com slash wonderyca. That's audible.com slash wonderyca. That's audible.com slash wonderyca. Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Monday, May 6, 2024. Our dear friend of the show, Anya Parampil, joins us now. Anya, a pleasure, my friend. Thank you very much for your time, as always. What is your take on the near-term effect and long-term effect of the student demonstrations for peace in Gaza? I think it's remarkable, really, if the students that so many online love to bash as being a little bit socially awkward or maybe having weird beliefs are the vehicle that actually end up taking Joe Biden out in November,

or if not before November. I know that the Democratic Party Convention is slated for August in Chicago, which of all the cities to hold a contentious Democratic Party Convention in the year 2024, I think it's quite symbolic considering the history there, what happened in 1968. That's history that even I learned growing up and studying U.S. history as part of this younger generation. We know what happened in Chicago in 1968. And so the fact that Democrats now, according to the Washington Post, a recent article, are concerned that there could be a massive social unrest surrounding the convention in August, says that Biden, by just accepting the Israeli narrative and supporting, giving a blank check to this war in Gaza, has gambled his own political career. This will be his legacy. And if he makes it out of August to November,

even still, I do believe these students are demonstrating that they have weight to pull in the United States. And if there is a brutal crackdown at the convention, if we if, you know, anything can happen between now and August. Now we live in an age where conventions can be canceled and done on Zoom, for all I know. But if the Democrats are too afraid, but if it does take place and there are these massive demonstrations and if they're met with a crackdown, it'll be remarkable because it will be Biden cracking down on his own base. And so I think for people to see that, and especially for younger people to see that, will be a teaching moment in U.S. history as these protests on student campuses, I believe, already are. They're showing where power lies in the United States. And even at the universities, it's not with the students and in the Republic as a whole, it's clearly not with the people.

So there is some breaking news I want to report to you and to those of us watching live. This is from the Washington Times. I don't see it anywhere else yet, although Sonia saw it on Reuters. Hamas announces it has accepted an Egyptian Qatari ceasefire proposal. The Hamas group says it has accepted an Egyptian Qatari ceasefire proposal to halt the seven-month war with Israel. There's no more information than that at the moment. I don't know if Israel is accepted. I don't know if this is an Israeli proposal or a PR move, but I felt the need to raise that now. Does this mean that the IDF cannot invade Rafah and slaughter another 30,000 people. Unfortunately, I don't think that's what

this means, especially if it's saying that this is a Qatari and Egyptian proposal that Hamas has accepted. Israel is not part of that equation. And so it's up to the Israelis. And we know even if they're told one way or another what to do, they often deal with the consequences afterwards or at least deal with admitting that they were going to go ahead with something drastic afterwards. This may be nothing to rejoice over then, because you're right. Israel is not part of the equation. Israel departed the Qatari foreign ministry was quite critical of Israel in general and Prime Minister Netanyahu specifically in commenting on the Israeli departure from the talks. Here's a clip of what he said yesterday. I won't comment on individuals on this because I think this is bigger than individuals. But what I can tell you is that there is a lot of political posturing. I won't comment on individuals on this because I think this is bigger than individuals. But what I can tell you is that there is a lot of political posturing.

There is a lot of very narrow political calculations that are impeding the negotiation process. From the Israeli side? Again, from both sides. And we have taken very clear positions on this and we showed very clear statements on this because we believe that this is not the time for political calculation. This is not the time for political posturing. This is not the time to put your own personal political future ahead of the lives of the hostages and the civilians in Gaza. With the terrible situation, humanitarian situation we have right now, we hope that all those involved, just like the officials here in Qatar, would have only one thing on the top of their mind, which is the humanitarian loss and the humanitarian cause

within ending this conflict. That is courtesy of the All Israel Network, a menu with which I personally am unfamiliar. And it is they who posted the images of Prime Minister Netanyahu during the more critical comments that the spokesperson was making. I don't know. What do you think? Is this going to go anywhere? Since that interview was given, Israel has attempted to completely sabotage the ceasefire agreement that Hamas actually did agree to. There was an agreement in place in order to bring some humanitarian supplies over the border into Rafah. And Hamas actually carried out an attack on the

Israeli army nearby, which is a legitimate military target. And as a result, Israel steps back and says, oh, the ceasefire is off. We can go forward and do whatever we want here now. And it's a way of undermining the negotiations. But of course, before Hamas carried out an attack on Israeli military targets in the region, Israel had already on video, which anyone is free to find online on Twitter, carried out massacres in Rafah. Children, including a child who was born on October 7th, were actually killed. That child killed by the Israeli army during this latest round of offenses. And so this is always what the ceasefire agreements seem to act as, a way of providing cover for Israel to move ahead with whatever plan it has in place for

destruction regardless. And then they flip the script the minute Hamas responds and says, oh, now it's off. Now there's no option for peace. And the fact that it's the Qataris and the Egyptians negotiating this alongside or brokering this mediation between the Israelis and the Palestinians is significant because Egypt really does not want to have to open its own border and pretty much build tent cities in the Sinai Desert, which is what Israel's proposed plan or some of the plans that are in the works that we published at the at the gray zone show that that's actually what Israel would like to do after it carries out this cleansing operation in Gaza is push Palestinian refugees into Egypt and so the Egyptians clearly have an incentive to to get a peace agreement on the table but it just seems like it's never an option for the Israelis and Biden was there or I'm sorry Blinken there last week, and he came back empty-handed. the Israelis are not going to go along with it. The Israelis have 10,000 Palestinians imprisoned, none of whom has been charged, prosecuted, or convicted of any crime.

The Palestinians are quite correct to want these people released, and the Israelis, I'm sure, won't go along with it. Or if they do go along with it, they'll just kidnap another 10,000. This crazy guy, Itamar Ben-Gavir, one of the fanatics in the Netanyahu cabinet, who's the rough equivalent of the head of the FBI, he's the head of internal security, has said, our jails are bursting at the seams.

We need to take these Palestinians out and execute them, execute them so that there are more beds in our jails. I guess this is the language to which the Israeli public has grown accustomed. Frighteningly so, that is Israel, that is the mentality of the Israeli government in a nutshell. And yes, you bring up the fact there are thousands of Palestinian hostages. We never hear about them as hostages in U.S. media. We only hear about the hostages that were taken into Gaza, the Israeli hostages, after October 7th. And then it feeds into this false narrative you hear, for example, Piers Morgan or other mainstream media figures that want to defend Israel. In addition to forcing people to denounce Hamas, the other line that is always introduced is, well, how are you going to get the hostages back?

How are you going to get the Israeli hostages back without some sort of military operation? It's very simple. From October 8th on, all that needed to be arranged through dialogue was a prisoner swap. I believe that the United States, if it were a serious player for peace in that equation, would have pressured Israel, would not have sent any weapons, would not have provided any assistance to carry out the war in Gaza, and would have just said, look, you can make a fair trade. And the reality is, yeah, there are Palestinian hostages inside Israel, including my friend, Bassem Tamimi, who has led the resistance to the Israeli military occupation of his village in the West Bank, Nabi Saleh. I went there in 2018 with my husband, Max Blumenthal, and produced a documentary about his family and how they, at the time, his teenage daughter had been arrested for punching an Israeli

soldier that had actually fired a gas canister into the head of her younger cousin, who I think was 11 or 12. I actually met that child and interviewed him and saw his wounds. It was his forehead here was kind of flattened and he was all bandaged up, but he was, he had miraculously survived. So I had to meet me. She went up to an Israeli soldier who came to her home the day that this occurred with her cousin and punched the soldier in the face or on the leg. She was arrested, detained, eventually let out. But immediately after October 7th, Israel capitalized on the events and the war in Gaza to then turn over to the West Bank and begin rounding up

Palestinians there as well, including Ahed Tamimi and including her father, Bassem, who remains in Israel to this day without charges. Who knows what kind of torture and horrible conditions he's subject to inside inside Israeli jail. But these hostages coming out of the West Bank also blow one of the main Hasbara or pro-Israel propaganda talking points out of the water, which is that this is a war about Hamas. Hamas has no authority in the West Bank. Bassem Tamimi has no relationship with Hamas. And the same can be said for the thousands or hundreds of civilians that have come out of the West Bank and are languishing in Israeli jails. So how do all these recent arrests and military crackdowns in the West Bank, what connection do they have to the war on Hamas?

They don't. The only connection they have is that they are connected to a plan of greater Israel, where Israel wishes to take over the West Bank and all the way to the Mediterranean Sea and clear out Gaza. So Israel is moving forward with that and doing it under the guise of combating Hamas. So we recently learned just in the past hour of a letter, it's two weeks old, but it was just made public. It's dated April 24, sent to the office of the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court. And the signers with the measures indicated in this report, a report indicating that Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defense Minister Gallant and a few others will be indicted, we will move to end all American support for the International Criminal Court, sanctioning your employees and associates, and bar you and your families from the United States. You have been warned. This is signed by 12 United States senators who, if they had said this to a federal prosecutor or even a state prosecutor in the United States, would be arrested within hours for obstruction

of justice. How they can attempt to intimidate the chief prosecutor of an international court, we will target you, you have been warned, is beyond me. But this is what things have come to on you. What do you think of this? This is just absolutely, as an American, I'm ashamed and embarrassed, honestly, that 12 individuals, all funded by a pro-Israel Zionist billionaire, Sheldon Adelson, who's no longer alive, but his money is still flowing. And AIPAC. I mean, when you're talking about Tom Cotton there, one of the signatories, for example, Ted Cruz, these are all the leading recipients of pro-Israel money in the U.S. Senate. They do not represent my views or my interests as an American citizen. They simply act on behalf of their bosses. And these are literal mafia bosses. I mean, listen to that letter. There's actually, did you say at

the end it says, you have been warned? Something like that? What are they going to do? That is the final line of the letter. You have been warned. It does sound like a mobster. Are they going to send a severed horse head to the court next? I mean, what kind of language is that? It's not even appropriate in any way. And it reminds me of Bush, President Bush Jr. threatening to invade the Hague if U.S. officials were ever prosecuted for the crimes of Iraq. Or, for example, even not necessarily international courts, but other international organizations, such as the Organization for the Prohibition on Chemical Weapons. As my colleague Aaron Mate has done great reporting revealing, when these organizations went into Syria to investigate chemical weapons attacks and threatened to actually go against the U.S. and Western line that blamed the Assad government, U.S. officials actually reached out to the heads of these groups and threatened them.

Again, they threatened them with taking their or forbidding them from ever coming to the U.S., taking their visas away. I've interviewed U.S. officials, or I'm sorry, foreign officials. In fact, this is my book right here. I just received the author copy today. And in it, it includes an interview with the foreign minister of Venezuela, who talked about how at the beginning of the coup attempt there in 2019 when the U.S. was trying to overthrow their elected government and replace it with a U.S. puppet, he was actually approached, as were other members of his government at the time, by Elliott Abrams, who was acting as Trump's Venezuela envoy, and said, look, we can give you visas. We can give your children positions in great private schools

and universities. You can come live in Miami and have a great life here if you betray your government and the constitution you swore to protect and the people who elected your party to be in government. This is how our leaders act. They act as agents of an international mafia. And it's becoming more clear to me that that's just simply what they are. It's not even as if they're acting like that. That's simply what they are. Except that the mafia, familiar with law enforcement, would not have put this threat in writing. I mean, we've got 12 of them. Tom Cotton, Marsha Blackburn, Ted Budd, Ted Cruz, Pete Ricketts, Rick Scott, Mitch McConnell, Katie Boyd Britt, Kevin Kramer, Bill Hagerty, Marco Rubio, Tim Scott, the 12 of them put this threat to a prosecutor in writing. They've exposed themselves to prosecution for having done this. The downfall of any empire is when the hubris gets so out of hand that they act in this way.

They forget that they're a mafia and that they're supposed to act behind closed doors because people would be so disgusted if they understood how they truly, truly behaved. Our leaders, I think, have reached a point where they are shameless and they are willing to write letters, send letters like that out in the open because they don't think there will be any blowback or any consequences. And that's shifting. I think they're overconfident now. And that's why they're acting so hard, for example, to crack down on social media outlets such as TikTok. I saw Anthony Blinken recently speaking alongside Senator Mitt Romney at the McCain Institute. And Romney was openly bragging about the fact that there was such a bipartisan support

and wide support to crack down on TikTok within the U.S. Congress because U.S. and Israeli propaganda was no longer working. And Blinken says, yeah, part of it is because we have this intravenous stream of news all day, pretty much saying they're seeing too many images of dead children. And so that's why our propaganda is not working. And that's why we have to just censor everything. And so that, I believe, demonstrates they're acting in this way out in the open because they think they can get away with it. But at the same time, they are finding that they can't. People are finding their voices, your show growing in popularity because people need to hear a real defense of freedom of speech and want to hear what an American foreign policy that was actually

made for Americans looked like. This is all part of a changing tide in this country that I think was working in our favor at this point. And so the more letters they send like that, the better, because we get to see their true face. We're watching the University of Michigan. There's 100,000 people in that stadium. Commencement yesterday, and a peaceful, look at this, called anti-Israel. You can't call it pro-Palestine, you can't call it pro-peace. Chris, who is this from? Is this Associated Press? But whoever it is, it is the Associated Press. There come the police. I don't know how much farther any of this goes. You did mention earlier that you thought these students would take out Joe Biden.

I guess you mean take him out as the Democratic nominee. Do you think if this persists, if August of 24 looks like July of 68 in Chicago. Does it help Donald Trump? That's up to how Donald Trump plays it. A few weeks ago, you may have seen chants of Genocide Joe broke out at one of his rallies. Young men started actually chanting Genocide Joe in the large stadium was taken over by this anti-Israel or pro-peace chant. And Trump kind of stepped back and said, they're not wrong. And though Trump has given many, many statements in support of Israel, and definitely if he comes into office again, I don't doubt we'll have Jared Kushner right there on his shoulder, his son-in-law, who is actually

extremely personally close to Bibi Netanyahu. And in fact, to the point that when he was a child and Netanyahu was visiting the U.S., he would actually sleep in the Kushner home and Jared had to be moved out of his room for the night so Bibi could sleep. There are stories written about that in the press. It's amazing. And so that's why we saw Trump take extremely pro-Israel actions such as moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem and enshrining Golan Heights, recognizing Golan Heights as controlled by the Israelis, even though it's stolen Syrian territory and proudly had his Trump Heights real estate development built there. If he's willing to point to the hypocrisy of Biden on this issue, I do think that it's still, and if he were going

to give statements in support of the students, I think he would look good coming out of this, but I don't think that that's an option for him. If anything, I just saw the recent statement he gave in response to Columbia's decision to cancel its commencement events as a result of these protests. He said that was wrong and it shouldn't have happened and that Biden's donors are funding these demonstrations, which doesn't even make any sense. Sure, there are liberal groups and foundation money and NGOs involved because those are the organizations that provide assistance when students or groups start trying to organize in an organic way. But to say that Biden's donors are funding these students just doesn't make any sense because these are protests against Joe Biden.

So Trump is in a tricky situation himself here because he answers to the same influential donors, including the Adelson Network, that Tom Cotton and Ted Cruz do. I'm going to play something that'll make you happy, even though it's too little. You never say that. You always say, I'm going to get my blood boiling. I do. Well, this will make you happy, although it is too little too late. You never say that. You always say I'm going to get my blood boiling. I do. Well, this will make you happy. Although it is too little too late, it's right on the mark. Bernie Sanders. They are out there not because they are pro-Khomas. They are out there because they are outraged by what the Israeli government is now doing in Gaza, which is bringing unbelievable harm, not just to the terrorist organization, the Hamas,

but to the entire Palestinian people. And that's why these anti-war demonstrators are out there. They do not want to see a situation continue where 110,000 Palestinians out of, you know, 5% of the population have been killed or wounded, where children now face starvation, hundreds of thousands of children face starvation because Israel is refusing to allow humanitarian aid to get to where it has to go. Demonstrations is what, and the right to dissent, the right to protest, that is what the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States is all about.

That's what, in fact, makes you a free country. Being a free country means that somebody goes out and demonstrates, you don't have to agree with them, they have the right. That's the difference between autocracy and dictatorship and a free country. But for anybody to suggest that we cannot be critical of the government of Israel or the government of Italy or the government of Ireland, for whatever reason, is not what democracy is about. So I happen to believe, not everybody agrees with me, that the war policies of the Netanyahu government are a disaster. They are causing unprecedented harm.

They are in violation of international law and absolutely in violation of American law, by the way. But I think people who are critical, the idea that people who are critical of what Netanyahu is doing are anti-Semitic, that is nonsense. And that is a very, very dangerous line to cross in terms of freedom of expression in this country. I am thinking back and other people are making this reference that this may be Biden's Vietnam. Is Bernie believable? I think he's speaking genuinely on that issue.

I don't think he would extend that same principle to, for example, protesters on January 6th, which is a major contradiction I'm witnessing play out right now in U.S. politics, where I see all of these commenters online who are very pro January 6th and in defense of our Constitution when it came to Trump supporters in Washington, D.C., turn and say that we need to crack down on these students and round them up and actually cheer on the police for brutally repressing these students. And that's just not how the Constitution works. It's not how principles should work. They should be applied universally and to all. And so if people don't like the students because they wear masks, which by the way, a lot of them wear masks because the Israel lobby is openly telling them that if they're photographed participating in these demonstrations, they'll never work a real job. They're bragging about the fact they're using facial recognition technology to identify these students. The Israel lobby funded a digital truck and put the names and faces of students that were leading some of these demonstrations

and drove around campus on some of these Northeastern campuses over the last several months. So people aren't just covering their masks because they're still afraid of COVID or something like that. They're covering their faces because they're afraid of having their futures ruined for protesting against a genocide that their tax dollars are funding. So I get really disheartened when I see those critiques. And I actually think that that's the same tired politics that our elite want. They want us divided. They want us hating each other. They want the students with the blue hair hating the white conservative frat boys on campus and fighting because if actually both of those student groups that are equally screwed by our government were to unite at their common enemy, then the people calling the shots would actually be in trouble. So I think that we should make an effort to argue why these principles

need to be universally applied and why we should come together as Americans and figure out who the common enemy that we all have and that we all face is. Because together, rather than separated on these campuses and in our various little political groups, together we're much more powerful. So nicely put. We're watching the demonstration. I don't know if that's tonight or last night. Maybe both nights in front of last night in front of Prime Minister Netanyahu's home, torches, actual torches with real flame.

I don't think that would even be permitted here under fire department regulations, but it's interesting the ferocity of those who want Netanyahu gone. Anya, great conversation. Your statement on the freedom of speech was absolutely marvelous and impeccable from my understanding of the Constitution, something I've taught and written about and lectured on, I hate to say for how long, almost 50 years. But thank you very much, my dear friend. My honor. And I look forward to hearing more of your lectures on freedom and the Constitution

in the future. Thank you. And thanks for accommodating our schedule today. I'm off to Italy tomorrow to give a lecture, but you're very, very good to be here. You are the fulcrum. We have nine today. I thought it was Aaron because I miscounted, but it's you. You're number five of nine. So we're more than halfway done. But it's a pleasure, my dear friend. Thank you. Take care. Sure. We'll see you again soon. Coming up at 2 o'clock, Matt

Ho at 3 o'clock, Phil Giraldi at 4.30, Scott Ritter at 5.30, Professor Jeffrey Sachs at noon tomorrow, Tuesday, Colonel Douglas McGregor, Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. I'm out.