Judging Freedom - Can Diplomacy Save the Middle East_ w_ Alastair Crooke, Fmr. British Ambassador

Episode Date: October 16, 2023

Can Diplomacy Save the Middle East_ w_ Alastair Crooke, Fmr. British Ambassador 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, October 16th, 2023. In just a moment, the former British diplomat and our big brain guest Alistair Crook joins us and I will ask him, can diplomacy possibly save the Middle East? But first this. Can you believe the chaos confronting Americans today? The government is out of control. Debt is out of control. And have you heard? The the dollar is under attack this will soon be replaced by digital currency no more paper cash it's coming fast so you need to get educated in other ways to protect and preserve the wealth you already have what happens if the government destroys the united states dollar i don't know but i do know they can't destroy gold or silver or the value of it.

That's why it's so important that you learn now how to transfer your wealth into gold and silver. So educate yourself about investing in precious metals. Take charge of your retirement with gold-backed IRAs, and you can transfer a portion of your existing IRAs tax and penalty free. So don't procrastinate. Take control. Do the right thing for you and your family. Go to LearJudgesNAP.com or call 800-511-4620. Alistair, welcome back to the program as always. You have a career of personal experience in diplomacy.

As we speak, the American Secretary of State is bouncing all over the Middle East, taking the pulse of Middle East leaders and seeing what he can negotiate. Can diplomacy possibly stop the conflagration between Hamas and Israel? You know, I always used to tell the Salana, who was a high representative of the European Union, when he asked me to try and see if there's room for a diplomatic initiative or a CISFA. And I would say, you know, we can't be King Canute on the beach telling the tide to go out when it's coming in. It just won't happen.

So I think if the answer to your question is at the moment, I think an invasion is almost baked in, an invasion of Gaza. How long it will last, it may be quite a long-term operation in Gaza. There will be horrific consequences, both for civilian Palestinians, there already are, heavy bombing last night in Gaza, but also for the Israelis as well. When that finishes, is there going to be a chance? Well, there is some interesting diplomacy just taking shape at the moment, but I don't think it's very much noticed in the mainstream. But it's very,

very important, very significant shift taking place. What is the important shift that's taking place as we speak? China is gathering the Arab states together. China has taken a very strong stance about Palestinian rights and about the Palestinian need for humanitarian assistance. And we've had also a very strange, I mean, a very important telephone conversation between Raisi, the president of Iran, and Mohammed bin Salman,

the crown prince in Saudi Arabia. And all the states are coming together in a very strong way. I mean, it's almost reminiscent of the sort of Arab rebellion that took place at the end of the First World War, when the Arabs rebelled against the Ottomans and against the Alliance, the Alliance at that time, and overthrew it. It was an armed rebellion. It won't be so evident to you in the United States, for those of you in the United States, but there's a huge differential between what is shown on, I think, American television and on the television around the Middle East. And in the United States, very little about actually what the situation in Gaza, I believe, is shown. But in the Middle East, it is riveting and it is mobilizing people. And I think there is a sense that when this war comes to an end,

then Russia, China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the Arab states, are going to try and push very hard for a diplomatic solution, i.e. a negotiated, acceptable solution for a Palestinian state, something that was never done after 1947, despite the UN resolution 242. Whether this will succeed, we just have to get through the first stage. Politics is not static. It shifts. It's always in a dynamic state. So we don't know where the dynamics will go. But at the moment, many Arab states are very anxious about their own stability

because of the popular unhappiness, popular anger at what they're seeing happening in Gaza to the civilians of Gaza being bombed and the Gaza city being completely destroyed? Well, this morning, or this morning, American time, the Israelis destroyed the Syrian airport in Aleppo and rendered useless the international airport in Damascus. So we're beginning to see already an externality. I mean, violence taking place outside of Israel. What do you think the Israeli initial goal is here? Is it to extricate and save the hostages, or is it to degrade Gaza totally and completely? Well, there's a big difference. When Lincoln goes around, when he talks to people like Ben Salman. He's basically talking about the hostages. I mean, that's the main American concern.

The concern of Saudi Arabia and the other stages is the humanitarian situation in Gaza. And there are two rather different agendas. So, first of all, there's a completely different agenda. But we know pretty clearly what the Israeli intent is. The first intent is to try and move as many people out of the top, if you like, a third of Gaza, push them down to the south. They can't go through to Egypt because Egypt is blocked,

the Rafah crossing, which is the only crossing into Egypt. They can't go across that, but they want them out of the way so that Israel would then stage two is to level that area, i.e. bomb it down to ground zero, And then to put in troops. And they've been mobilizing huge numbers of troops, reservists and others for this and assembling tanks and equipment on the border as we speak now, this large congregation. this could happen at any moment it seems that Israel is adamant that it must be done they believe they've got a assurances from Western states even if they're cautioned about human rights and law nonetheless they feel they have the support of the West to go in and try and kill and exterminate the members of Hamas in that area, who are probably sitting well below ground in tunnels and in their bunkers underneath Gaza. But under international law and commonly understood Judeo-Christian morality, they can't slaughter innocents.

They can't destroy a country in order to attack a terrorist group that has taken over the country, particularly when they know where the terrorist group is. Does Prime Minister Netanyahu purport to justify the slaughter of Palestinian innocents because of the slaughter of Israeli innocents? Well, basically, yes. I mean, there is huge support for the bombing of Gaza from the Israeli public. I mean, overwhelming support for that. But yes, of course, if you bomb a city like Gaza and, you know, complete apartment blocks have been leveled, have imploded with families living inside them, yes, it's going to cause massive civilian deaths. Already there are massive civilian deaths, massive deaths of children

as a consequence of these bombings. But then we go into the next stage, which will be with the troops on the ground. And as I've said to you before, I think, you know, this urban guerrilla warfare is terrible for troops. It's the most awful thing. How do you tell a friendly face from an enemy face? How do you know where they are?

They'll come at you from tunnels. There will be booby traps. There will be snipers. It's going to be very, very difficult. But nonetheless, it seems, at least right up until before this program, it seems that Israel is determined to go ahead with this project. It's given certain assurances to the United States. The United States has insisted that water be restored in the south, for example. There's talk of a humanitarian corridor coming in, The United States has insisted that water be restored in the south, for example.

There's talk of a humanitarian corridor coming in, but so far Israel has not agreed to that. And I don't think Hamas has either. But the main preoccupation of America is hostages. occupation of the Arab world is the situation for Gazans as they face more bombing, more leveling of Gaza in preparation for troops going down on the ground. Here's Jake Sullivan, the President's National Security Advisor, cut number two, Chris, on the Israelis know where Hamas is from their intel and they know where the rockets are coming from. Hamas is a terrorist group. Don't get me wrong, but how do we know anything about what they're hitting

given the fact that it doesn't sound like any of the intelligence inside Gaza is particularly good. Well, Jake, Israel has known where particular parts of Hamas's terrorist infrastructure have been located. They know, for example, where rockets are fired from, and they can go back to those locations to take out the rocket emplacements. They know from various forms of intelligence collection where certain individuals are located who are senior commanders in Hamas, who are part of the bloody and barbaric attacks that took place against Israel last Saturday. Aren't they compelled by international law and Judeo-Christian morality to target offensive weaponry and those who would use it, as opposed to targeting civilians by starving them and denying them water, denying them electricity, forcing their hospitals to close? Yes, that is, those are war crimes, simply put.

They are clearly war crimes. It's against all the conventions of law, if you like, to knowingly kill civilians, knowingly to starve and bribe them of water, of medicine, of electricity, all those things. All the hospitals have stopped because they have no fuel and no electricity. And of course, it would be widely condemned in other places as a war crime. Will there be consequences when this is over to Prime Minister Netanyahu, either domestically, politically, or internationally, as a defendant in a war criminal prosecution? I think the latter is probably unlikely because I don't think there's a very great success rate of prosecuting them except in rare instances. I don't know. I mean, there is strong opposition to Netanyahu. There's a feeling that when this is over, when this phase is over, the invasion and what happens.

But I just want to remind everyone, because we're talking about this in a static way again. I mean, at any point, we are teetering at the edge of other fronts, multi-front war starting against Israel. It's not just simply what's happening in Gaza. Very easily, you talked about what happened in Syria. But every day, incrementally, there are further exchanges of fire between Israel and Hezbollah. Hezbollah have taken out all the observation posts, all the radar, all the electronic observation posts in and around the Lebanese border. The Israelis have declared a no-go zone of four kilometers leading up to that area.

But Hezbollah is still firing into IDF camps and into their areas, more or less as we speak. It's going higher and higher and higher and higher. Every day it's escalating. So, I mean, we're talking about something quite different then, that if the invasion starts, as Bola has said, it is a red line, and if this is crossed, then we will react. We will open another front. I don't know how I don't know what they would have in mind but as you know they have huge stock of smart cruise missiles

150 000 many many swarm drones uh and so I think yes we, we're seeing that. And I think the United States has warned the Arab states that they will intervene if they believe that Syria, they will probably leave Hezbollah to Israel, but they will intervene with the aircraft that they have on the carriers just off the coast of Lebanon. They will intervene if Syria uses its S-300s or its other surface-to-air systems. That's what the Aleppo and that's what the Damascus bombing was all about. It was to test whether the Russians had given the green light to their S-300s being used. Now, either they haven't given the green light or they've said wait, because we're not quite at that stage yet when the S-300s can be

deployed in the support of Lebanon and the Palestinians of Gaza. How concerned are you about this becoming a major conflagration, whether from the West involving U.S. aircraft carriers, which could be sitting ducks for drones and missiles, or from the East involving Hezbollah supported by Iran? As I say, you know, you can never tell the course that a sort of dynamic war can take. It's impossible to predict. Often small incidents can take you to the next stage.

But we're literally at the cusp. And at any moment, we might find that Israel has invaded, Gaza is bombing it heavily, and Hezbollah has incrementally increased its participation to the point at which it's becoming an actor in this war. What is becoming of the war in Ukraine while the West's eyes, and I guess the Middle East's eyes, are on Israel and Hamas? The so-called spring offensive, the renamed summer offensive, has absolutely failed. President Zelensky hasn't even heard from these days because the media is fixated on the events in Israel and Hamas. In the meantime, it appears the Russians may actually be moving westward. How much longer can that conflagration even last?

And does the U.S. Congress even care about it anymore? Okay, I've asked you a lot of questions all at once, my apology. No, no, it's clear. I mean, the Ukrainian, just to be clear, the Ukrainian offensive has stopped. They've gone on to a defensive mode. They're not doing any offensive operations at all. And the Russians have gone on the offensive. So yes, they've started their offensive. Not in a big way, but across the board. A huge number of casualties still taking place for the Ukrainian side.

And how long can it go on for? I think, you know, effectively it's over. I mean, the war is over. It's just a question of how it is brought down to rest because I don't think Ukraine any longer has the material. I mean, that is real troops to continue the war. It's finished. All of those are dead or injured. And they really can't continue the war as it is. And their money is likely to run out in the next two or three weeks. And what will the White House, the West, and NATO say

to justify rather than to lament the hundreds of billions of wasted dollars and the millions of dead and displaced lives? I think they just, I mean, mean very basically they just hope that their influence over the media means that they'll just have moved on you hardly see anything about Ukraine at the moment it's sort of gone from the the the the from the news cycle certainly in Western journals. And I think after Kabul, after the retreat from Kabul, that also just disappeared from the news. And I think they will try and do that, just disappeared.

Last question. From your knowledge of the way governments work and the way power is used and the way governments rise and fall, what is your best prediction, for lack of a word, of what becomes a President Zelensky? I imagine he's going to be moved on somewhere. I mean, he has a house here in Italy, and I expect he'll be moved on very soon. I mean, there are already signs the US is pressing hard for presidential elections.

He's being attacked in the US press, notably, which suggests his time is up and he's gone. He's really going when they find the right way to do that. So I think he's basically on his way out of that. And I think they'll just try and forget it all. They'll say something pious about how they've succeeded and they've stopped Russia sort of in its tracks. Everyone knows it's not true, but I mean, you

know, it will serve a purpose. Alistair Crook, always a pleasure, my dear friend. Thank you very much for joining us. We'll see you again next week. Thank you. Thank you very much. Of course. Ray McGovern at 10 o'clock Eastern, Larry Johnson at 11 o'clock Eastern, and maybe a surprise in the afternoon. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom. Thank you.