Judging Freedom - Col. Lawrence Wilkerson: Is Israel a US Ally?

Episode Date: April 19, 2024

Col. Lawrence Wilkerson: Is Israel a US Ally?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 Friday, April 19th, 2024. Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson joins us now. Colonel, a pleasure, my dear friend. Thank you for joining us. Colonel, is Israel an ally of the United States? I go back to the remarks I gave at the National Press Club six years ago or so, where I said, is Israel a liability, strategic liability, or a strategic asset for the United States? And I think I proved conclusively in my remarks, their strategic liability. What is an ally of the United States? Is it a country with which we have a treaty that establishes a legal relationship between the two and commitments in the case of untoward events that happen to one or the other, sort of like the NATO treaty? There's a diplomatic parlance that uses ally more or less as friend.

And then there's a legal statutory parlance that usually has congressional approval of some sort, treaty or whatever. And that's more binding. And that is where commitments are actually made. For example, Strategic Agreement One with South Korea and the whole alliance with South Korea, and the or tacitly approved and have the force of law if the Congress wishes to surrender the sovereignty necessary to enforce that law, which they're usually not willing to do unless it's an extremist. NATO is probably the most vivid example of surrendering so much sovereignty. The reason I am asking you these questions is I'm irritated, and I think you are as well, when I hear members of Congress say Israel is our closest ally.

You have argued and argued forcefully and articulately, if I may say so, that Israel is not only not an ally, it is a substantial liability. But if you make that argument on the floor of the Congress, either no one will listen to you or they'll hoot you down. That's true. I would say of the 50 states, there are one or two that at least some of my political party, the Republican Party, and maybe some of the Democrats too would have a similar opinion about. But I think that's a better way to look at Israel, is a 51st state. A 51st state that enjoys, in many instances, including security, as much as any of the other 50 states, and in some cases more. The state of New Jersey, where I live and where I grew up, has a population approximately the same as Israel,

and its size is roughly the same. The state of New Jersey pays between $4 and $5 billion, with a B, in income taxes, the people that live in the state, the state that pays it, to the federal government, it gets back one and a half billion in various projects that members of Congress are able to extract from the federal government. Israel is about to get another gift of 20 billion if this piece of legislation that Speaker Johnson put on the floor this morning is passed. There's really no comparison.

Of course, they don't pay any taxes. Israel has far more control over the government than politicians in New Jersey do. Isn't that extraordinary? And, you know, take New York, California and New Jersey and other states like that. Without them, South Carolina, Alabama, not Georgia. Georgia's in there pretty good. But Louisiana, some other states would probably have a hard time surviving economically if there weren't revenue sharing from those other states that really generate the kind of income product addition, GDP addition that New Jersey, New York, California, and other more prolific economically states do. Israel gives nothing back, nothing back and takes everything. Do you think that the Israelis recognize that notwithstanding the slaughter and genocide they have visited upon Gaza, as of today, April 19th, 2024, Hamas still stands. Do you agree with that?

Yes, and I think they realize that. I don't think Bibi Netanyahu, as much as I despise the man, is a total idiot. Quite the contrary, actually, in a political context, he's quite clever. But I think he knew he had to say those sorts of things to get the kind of onslaught that he's got and get support for that onslaught from a majority of his people. That support is falling off a bit. I understand it's gone from about 85, 86% down to 68, maybe even as low as 60 percent now because people are getting tired, partly because of the hostage situation and no resolution of it. And so he's getting in more and more danger every day that goes by with regard to his own political standing. But still, you have in the background Likud members. I don't see anybody else challenging them, not successful anyway. Likud members who would just pursue probably the same policies he did, but would be a little more circumspect about it and probably a little more amenable to U.S.

pressure. Now that said, I think of late, Bibi has become remarkably amenable to some U.S. pressure because he's backed off some of the things that I thought he was invariably going to do, such as he was going to spread the war to Hezbollah and maybe to Iran. I think the recent attack, if you can call it that, by Iran, careful orchestration of RPVs is a better title of it, maybe cowed him a little bit. Maybe not cowed, but taught him a lesson or two. And maybe he thought, I'm going a little bit, maybe not cowed, but taught him a lesson or two. And maybe he thought I'm going a little bit too far with this because one, I'm not sure the United States is coming in, which is my main goal. And two, I'm not sure that I can survive until the United States realizes

that it is existential and does come in. So I've got to be very careful here. And I think he's being more careful right now. Do you buy, do you accept the Western narrative that the Iranian retribution on Israel was overdone, overplayed, and a failure because 99% of the projectiles were stopped by the so-called Iron Dome, aided by the U.S., the U.K., and Jordan, or do you accept the view that it wasn't an attack, it was a message, and the message got through? The latter, unquestionably.

It was a marvelous orchestration of no injuries and no real damage, if you want to truly talk about it, and a marvelous orchestration of and demonstration of what they could do were they to become very serious and use first-line missiles, first-line warheads, and attack in a swarm that would be four or five times as large as that one. And the United States, Jordan, France, Egypt, even probably, and others can't keep shooting down. I understand now that they probably shot down 60 to 70% of the missiles, some with fighters out of value deed and elsewhere and off of carrier battle groups. I understand that that probably, you know, total cost to Israel and the United

States, read cost to the United States, period, was over $3 billion. Iran didn't spend that much. Colonel, if Israel on its own spent a billion of its own money, as some of our guests have told us, can they afford to do that every Saturday night? No, not at all. Not unless we're willing to write them a blank check the next morning. And I think that period is coming to an end here as Republicans, but some Democrats too, get more and more concerned about this incredible debt we're building up. Why is it, Colonel, that in the West, and maybe the simple answer to this is because of the AIPAC and the donor class and its ironation for the Israeli provocation, which A, destroyed a consulate, which is B, immune under international law from any kind of attack, and C, is a classic

war crime, and D, killed two generals and 15 civilians. That is astonishing. It calls forth what Anatole Levin sent me today or yesterday. Actually, he was criticizing Rishi Sunak, the despicable prime minister in the United Kingdom. Now, I know that's not saying much with Perfidious Albion. They've had a lot of despicable prime ministers over the last hundred years, but Rishi seems to be going for the trophy. And Anatole sent me the lines from Dante's Inferno in Canto III. And those lines vividly describe these people. They vividly describe these people. So I took a class on the divine comedy when I was an undergraduate. That was many, many years ago. A whole semester was just on the Divine Comedy.

Do you remember what the lines were, Colonel? I certainly do. I won't give them to you in Italian, but if you'll hold on just a second. I prefer them in English, and I think the people watching this now do as well. With a name like Napolitano? You will appreciate these because they are just so damn descriptive of these people. And Dante, as he is wont to do, totally condemning him. He says, who here keep company with that craven choir of angels?

Not rebels, not faithful to God, out for themselves only. Justly the heavens chased away such angels, whom hell's deeps rejected too, to make sure the infernal shades don't lord it over these cowards. The world cast them out of its concerns. Pity scorns them. Justice loathes them. Let's stop talking about them. Let's look and pass by. Wow. Dante was, of course, banished from his home city of Florence because in the Inferno, which is about hell, he placed some living people who were very, very significant, powerful people, including the Cardinal Archbishop at the time. Another story for another time. I agree with you, and I think most people watching us now, particularly our friends in Europe, agree with you on Sunak, and I'm going to play Sunak for

you in a minute in a rather humorous clip if you haven't seen it. But before I do that, I want to play one of his predecessors, who's now the British foreign minister, Lord Cameron, David Cameron. You may know David Cameron. He may have been the prime minister when you were running the State Department. I might be wrong. You may know him from other involvement. I know David. I know David. You can tell us what you think of him. We're going to play Cameron one, and then I'm going to talk to you, and then we're going to play Cameron two. But Cameron one, they're both two clips from the same interview with a British interviewer last weekend. I think I saw this, but play it again.

Okay. Yep. Yep. Listen saw this, but play the game. Okay, yep, yep. Listen to his attack on the Iranians. What about Iran's frustration at part of its sovereign territory being flattened? Well, I would argue there is a massive degree of difference between what Israel did in Damascus and, as I said, 301 weapons being launched by the state of Iran at the state of Israel for the first time, a state-on-state attack. 101 ballistic missiles, 36 cruise missiles, 185 drones.

That is a degree of difference and I think a reckless and dangerous thing for Iran to have done. And I think the whole world can see all these countries that have somehow wondered, well, you know, what is the true nature of Iran? It's there in black and white. God, he's obviously memorized the numbers. You're going to see Richie Sunak in a few minutes having memorized the same numbers and talking points. But what is he talking about? The first state on state attack. The first state-on-state attack between these two was Israel destroying the sovereign territory of Iran in Damascus, Syria. He's demonstrating exactly what we're seeing, and Dante reflected in his lines, generally speaking, from all these people, these so-called angels. they are using words that sound impressive, massive attack, unprecedented and all this goodness, quoting huge numbers and everything. And they're lying.

They're simply lying underneath all that rhetoric and all those big highfalutin terms. And that's what Cameron's doing there is lying. You're absolutely correct that it was an attack on sovereign Iraqi territory that happened to be located in Syria. And as others have pointed out, and really taking Cameron to task over this, they kill people. And it was clandestine. Not even the United States knew the attack was going to take place. Right, right. attack was going to take place. Iran told everyone, called our CIA and told them that they were not going to hit any U.S. targets, not kill any U.S. people. As it turned out, they didn't kill anybody. So what a preposterous thing for him to say, but that's what these people

have to resort to, is hyperbole and exaggeration and hypocrisy. So bear in mind the self-confidence with which he answered that question as he answers the follow-up that this same reporter put to him, Cameron Too. What would Britain do if a hostile nation flattened one of our consulates? Well, we would take the very strong action. And Iran would say that that's what they did?

Well, what they did, as I said, was a massive attack. So they were right to respond, but they overreacted, is that what you're saying? What I'm saying is that the attack they carried out was on a very large scale, much bigger than people accepted. But did they have a right to respond? Well, countries have a right to respond. How reluctant he was to say they have a right to respond? Countries have a right to respond. How reluctant he was to say countries have a right to respond when their territory is attacked and their citizens, particularly two generals in which the countries have invested a lot of money

by the time they become a general, you know this better than anybody, are killed. Please, if someone's going to attack me, attack me like the Iranians did. Don't attack me like the Iranians did. Don't attack me like the Iranians did. All right. Here's another comment from a not as well-known but far more articulate and intellectually honest member of the British Parliament. And then you will see Rishi Sunak's response. This is the great George Galloway. George Galloway.

Speaker, I knew your father well for a very long time. He was a fine man, and I am sincerely sorry for your loss. There was not one single word in the Prime Minister's statement of condemnation of the Israeli destruction of the Iranian consulate in Damascus, which is the proximate reason for the event everyone is here in concert condemning. He was not even asked to do so by the Front Bench opposite. Kay Burley is the only person so far to demand that of a Government Minister. We have no treaty with Israel, at least not one that Parliament has been shown, and the Iranians are not likely to listen to him when i wrando arno pan oedd Brifysgolion yn cymryd Iran, yn llwthio ei gwerth a'i gwrthwynebu i'w gyfranogwyr ddemocraith, cymdeithasol, yn fy mhrofiad fy hun? Rwy'n dweud y gwir. Mae'r ffordd y byddai wedi digwydd ychydig wythnosau yn ddiweddar, yn unig, ddim llaw i ddod i'r afael â chynnyddio mwy na 300 drws a misail o un

ddyluniaeth sydd yn ystod yr Israeel. Mae'n syml. Nid oedd yr wythnos ond yn ystyried y gweithgaredd hwn, neu'r gweith indeed the actions of Hamas in the region. There is no equivalence between these things whatsoever. And to suggest otherwise is simply wrong. And here, Mr. Galloway in the background shouting, but of course, they cut his his microphone off. This slippery, slimy British prime minister is just a toady to the United States. Would you agree with that? Absolutely. The special relationship has his name stamped in it. He's incredible, just incredible. I can't believe that the British are tolerating him. Yeah. Here's Professor Sachs on a little bit more of the

history that George Galloway was talking about. Rishi Sunak, ironically, you know, of Indian descent, Britain was the imperial power. The British Raj ruled India rather brutally, I might add, leaving millions and millions to die in famines at the end of the 19th century, because this is what laissez-faire is. Leave it alone. They're dying. That's okay. We don't touch it. So this is a country that should be apologizing. Ironically, now their prime minister is of Indian descent. It's nice to see, but parroting all of the old lines and the double standards. Starting the old lines and the double standards, Colonel Wilkerson. Oh, I forgot to ask you before we get to adjust back to memory. Go ahead. Let me just say also, he didn't even address Galloway's most pithy remark, which was in 1953, when Dwight Eisenhower was extremely reluctant to overthrow Mossadegh in Iran.

And Kermit Roosevelt was extremely reluctant to be the CIA's front man to do it. The British talked him into doing it based on the fact that the British were going to fall apart, they said, if they didn't get that cheap oil. And Eisenhower, being an anglophile par excellence, agreed with them and went ahead reluctantly and did it. But he didn't even address that. Every Iranian in the street, in the bazaars, on the farms knows about 1953. Right, right. You're exactly right. Last night, the Israelis apparently sent a few missiles into Iran, and either the damage was minimal or we don't know what the damage is. But here is Secretary Blinken early this morning, U.S. time. He's in Capri, a beautiful place. You've never been there, right in the Bay of Naples,

where three of my four grandparents are from. But the G7 is meeting in Capri. This is Blinken number one, Chris. Here's Secretary Blinken with another off-the-wall, hand-wringing response. We're committed to Israel's security. We're also committed to de-escalating, to trying to bring this tension to a close. You saw as well, or you'll see soon in the G7 statement, a commitment to hold Iran to account, to account for its destabilizing activities, holding it to account by degrading its missile and drone capabilities. And yesterday, the United States announced additional sanctions on Iran, targeting UAV programs, the steel industry, companies that are associated with the IRGC, the Ministry of Defense, and its armed forces logistics.

The G7 statement makes clear that G7 countries will adopt additional sanctions or other measures in the days ahead. Don't they know that if Iran closes the Straits of Hormuz, gasoline in America will be $10 a gallon? They do, but let's parse his words very closely and carefully here. First of all, the Iranians do not give a hang about our sanctioning their RPV production capability, or for that matter, they don't give a hang about most of the sanctions we put on them. Now, they hurt the Iranian people.

There's no question about that. Like most of our sanctions, they never hurt the people we want to hurt. They hurt the people we shouldn't want to hurt. Now, the other thing he's doing there, same thing Rishi was doing, he's deflecting attention from the unprecedented attack, the slaughter, the 30 plus thousand people, many of whom are women and children, that Israel has perpetrated on Gaza. That's what he's trying to do. He's trying to take the spotlight off that and put it on the run. Sorry, Tony, everybody's not an idiot as you are. Now that your blood pressure is up, I'm going to play what he said a few minutes later, and this is about Iran. You know probably better than I that as we speak, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, I hope for not much longer, but who knows where that's going to go, has orchestrated all kinds of things on the floor of the House to allow the House to vote for the

$61 billion that the Senate sent over. But here's Blinken number four, Chris. Here's the Secretary also early this morning in Capri, Italy. This time he's talking about helping Ukraine on a long path to stand on its own two feet. This after we are primarily responsible for its destruction by telling them not to sign that treaty that they had agreed to. But here we go. Together, we are helping to put Ukraine on a long-term path where it will stand strongly on its own two feet – militarily, economically, democratically. More than now 30 countries are engaged in negotiating, and some have concluded negotiations with Ukraine, on security ties.

And together with what I'm convinced will emerge from the NATO summit, you can see Ukraine effectively building a force for the future summit, you can see Ukraine effectively building a force for the future, one that can deter aggression and defeat it as necessary. Same guy that said two weeks ago as he was standing in Brussels next to the Ukrainian foreign minister, he looked right at the camera and said it with certainty, Ukraine will be a member of NATO. I figured somebody must have slipped something into his coffee that morning, and he made a slip up. Let's look at this from the perspective that I just suggested with regard to Gaza.

He's trying to deflect attention. I got a map right here on the floor. I can tell you that from Kyrgyzstan to Odessa, as the crow flies flies is about 216 kilometers. Now, the only thing the Russians would be doing were they'd cross the river and make a move on Odessa, which would be a huge strategic move and a great victory for them, reports on the Black Sea and make it sort of untenable for us to come into the Black Sea as we do all the time. All he'd have to do is decide to do it. Now, he would expose his northern flank, but then I asked myself, and he must be asking himself as well as his generals, who's going to hit me? What has Ukraine

got of offensive capacity to come down, to shift its focus from the east to the south and come down and hit me on my northern flank. Wow, probably not much that I can't handle with air power. The only thing they've got is if I really get NATO pissed off and they come in the war. So he's got to take that into consideration. But it's not looking good for Tony Blinken, NATO, the 32 countries, Washington, London, Berlin, Paris, or anybody right now. Their alliance is falling apart around their ears, and they did it precipitately themselves with this unqualified support of Ukraine. It would have fallen apart anyway, but it would have taken 10 or 15 years. All alliances do when they don't have a real threat. And NATO has no real threat since the USSR went away.

Putin is not intending to be a new threat to NATO. So it's going to disappear. It would have disappeared anyway. But it's going to go a lot faster and with a lot more chaos and catastrophe and productive of hatred of the Europeans, for Washington in particular, than it would have otherwise. We've done all that. That's the result of our, quote, diplomacy. Well, here's another result of our diplomacy. Last week, Japan's prime minister, whose approval ratings are worse than Joe Biden's. Addressed a joint session of Congress.

Now, we're going to play this cut. Cut number one, Chris. It sounds like the State Department wrote this line, because I can't imagine why he gives a damn about what he says in this line. Take a listen. The leadership of the United States is indispensable. Without U.S. support, how long before hopes of Ukraine would collapse under the onslaught from Moscow? Why would the Prime Minister of Japan be saying that? Did the State Department write it? Did the State Department, from your knowledge of the way the State Department works, approve it before he

read the speech? He's got people that came and did an advance and essentially found out what the United States was looking for from him. And he's also got people, here's how desperate he is. He's actually resurrected the issue in Japanese domestic politics of the abductees that North Korea still has. Very ripe issue with the Japanese people, very angry over it still. They have long memories and no prime minister has been able to successfully deal with it and get all of them back. So he started that again in the diet. He started talking about that's how desperate he is. So his desperation leads him to try and get some kick.

And Japanese prime ministers, when they come to Washington to meet with our president, always do get some kind of political kick in the polls from that. And so he's saying whatever he has to do in order to get that kick. I suspect he will be gone within the next nine months. Last thing I want to raise with you is threats to the freedom of speech. Here is cut number three. This is a congressman that I had not heard of before, Anthony Desposito, Republican of New york introducing legislation in which the congress will condemn the slogan from the river to the sea palestine will be free i guess he has forgotten the first amendment but listen to what he says and then you can comment on it my resolution condemns the slogan from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free because it is blatantly anti-Semitic. Madam Speaker, I remind my colleagues that this slogan was used by Iranian

leaders responsible for the recent attacks on Israel. This slogan communicates one thing and one thing only. It is not human rights. It is certainly not peace. It is the violent destruction of the state of Israel and the Jewish people that live within it. To employ this slogan is to perpetuate the cause of hate and regional instability. Between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea sits Israel,

a free, diverse nation, a safe haven for Jewish people, formed in the wake of the mass murder of European Jews. When the world witnessed the tragedies of the Holocaust, we said never again. Now is our chance to mean it and to reject anti-Semitic hate in all of its forms, whenever and wherever it rears its ugly head. Congressman, take constitutional law 101, hate speech, even if this is hate speech. Hate speech is protected speech. Colonel, this is dangerous. I don't know if they voted on it.

I don't know what became of this. This may just have been some political ploy to win support back home. But very, very dangerous if Congress is in the business of isolating phrases in the English language and condemning them. I agree. It's right out of George Orwell. And you're right. It's extremely dangerous, just as it's extremely dangerous for USC to have told that Palestinian American, I think she's Palestinian American, I know she's Palestinian, who's the valedictorian, that she can't give her address. And then answering questions with, it's a security problem. It's a

security problem. We're afraid that if she gives her address and she says anything in politics, that we'll have security problems. Well, I wanted to say back, sadly, but say back, we kill somebody in this country every freaking week. So you're worried about security problems and you're going to rob her of her rights in order to give this speech? She worked hard for all her time at USC and she became valedictorian. I understand she's in a very hard field, so she's done a great

job. And I suspect having heard her before, she's not going to say anything that bad for the address. She might talk about the Palestinians and how we need to treat them better. And I just have to say, this Esposito must have a lot of rich Jewish voters in his district. That's all I can say. AIPAC has probably poured money into his district to oppose him or to support him, probably the latter. And he doesn't want to alienate that money.

That's what this is all about. But he doesn't realize, as you've pointed out, this is one of the most dangerous things in this country right now, is abridging the rights in the and Harvard, and the two of them resigned. The implication is if you don't do what we want, you won't get the $100 million a year that we give you from the federal government. That's the problem of government and money, a bigger problem for another time for us to discuss, Colonel. But the day after they beat up the president of Columbia, and I don't know her, she ordered the New York City police to arrest her own students because they were protesting and using this phrase so upsetting to Congressman Desposito. One of the students

arrested is the daughter of a congresswoman. I know it's a quick arrest. They let you out right away. It's a glorified traffic ticket, but it's outrageous that the police should come onto a campus and arrest students because they're protesting. I agree. I think it's one of the most dangerous things happening in this country. That plus, as Ali Soufan pointed out this morning in his report, we're on the anniversary of Timothy Bay's attack on Oklahoma City, which is really traumatic. I lived through it. I remember it. And Ali is really worried about that sort of thing happening again. The time is ripe for it. And this sort of invective and this sort of, you know,

Esposito is more an inspirer of that kind of terrorism than the person he's trying to stop from speaking. It's just not a good time to be doing these sorts of things, in addition to the fact that it's unconstitutional to be doing these things. Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, a pleasure, my dear friend. You're so good to join us every Friday afternoon. I hope you can do it again next week. Thank you very much.

Thank you for having me. Of course. Coming up at 3 o'clock Eastern, it's Friday. It's time for the boys. The Intelligence Community Roundtable with Ray McGovern and Larry Johnson will be here for you shortly. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. Thanks for watching!