Judging Freedom - CPT. Matt Hoh : Netanyahu Becomes Desperate

Episode Date: May 12, 2026

CPT. Matt Hoh : Netanyahu Becomes DesperateSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Undeclared wars are commonplace. Pragically, our government engages in preemptive war, otherwise known as aggression with no complaints from the American people. Sadly, we have become accustomed to living with the illegitimate use of force by government. To develop a truly free society, the issue of initiating force must be understood and rejected. What if sometimes to love your country you had to alter or abolish the government? Jefferson was right? What if that government is best which governs least? What if it is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong? What if it is better to perish fighting for

freedom than to live as a slave? What if freedom's greatest hour of danger is now? Hi, everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Tuesday, May 12, 2006, Matt Ho joined us now. I'm out of pleasure. My dear friend, thank you very much for coming on the program. What did you think of the article in the Atlantic by Robert Kagan? You know what I was going to go there. Yeah, I know.

The grandee of neocons. This is the husband of Victoria Newland. This is the principal foreign affairs advisor to Dick Cheney now saying, Israel and the United States have lost the war against Iran. Is there some nefarious motive here, or do you think this is an honest calculation from an unlikely source? Well, thanks for having me on, Judge. And I think it's the same calculation that we've seen before from Kagan and those like him in Washington, D.C. We saw this in 2006 in Iraq.

We saw that in 2009 in Afghanistan, pronouncements at the war. wars have failed and renewed efforts have to be engaged in. Kagan is vague, as far as I've read it, in the sense of what he, you know, what he speaks, the solution should be. You know, he postulates about making the large war, the war larger. He speaks about Trump surrendering. He says the least bad option might be walking away. So he puts nothing there definitively.

I think his analysis is, you know, fine. Why wasn't he saying this two months ago when you and everyone on your program were saying these things? You know, I mean, like, so it's, I think it is very much to me right out of the neoconservative playbook. You describe the failure as it's actually occurring because it is occurring. And then you argue that more needs to be done, right? You know, there's also a possibility. I think people have read it in a sense that Kagan believe this is the distraction from winning the war in Ukraine, which certainly in the Washington, D.C. foreign policy establishment within the blob, there are camps. And there are those who believe that the priorities should be the Middle East in Israel, in Iran, et cetera. There are those who believe the priorities should be Europe and Ukraine and Russia and others who say, no, no, no. China. is what we need to focus on, right? So you have these divisions within the blob,

within the foreign policy establishment, within the, you know, the imperialists. And, you know, I think Kagan is putting himself out there as, you know, ensuring that he doesn't get covered with any of the blame for this, right? You know, it's all just posturing between me, Judge. That's all it really is to me, as well as then allowing for articulation later

of why we need a bigger military, you know, Hexeth is on the hill today arguing how a one and a half trillion dollar Pentagon budget is fiscally responsible as bond yields are hitting 5% on 30 year, right? And four and a half percent on 10 year, right? You know, you're looking at a bond crisis. And these lunatics want to spend hundreds of billions of dollars more through the federal government. And I'm a guy who's a leftist who's saying this, right? If I can see the danger in that, Right. I mean, it's clear, but, you know, this is what we have here. This is what we have. Yeah. Do you think that the recognition that Iran prevented the U.S. and Israel from prevailing is nearly universal? In fact, it's probably everywhere except the president of itself. Yeah, absolutely. Besides the president, you know, that circle of advisors he has around him, the sycophants, the yes men, the yes women. You know, we've seen, we've talked about this. You know, Tulsi Gabbard has been sideline for more than a year now.

John Ratcliffe, the CIA director, took her place. John Ratcliffe is a true believer. I mean, and then as well as who he's listening to. He's listening to the, you know, the folks who are appearing on Fox News, the Hugh Hewitts, the Mark Leibbons, the Sean Hannity's, the Jesse Waters, etc. That seems to be who he's getting his information from as well as his advice. Jack Keene probably has his ear. more than anybody else does, or at least as much as anybody else does, right? And now I can hear

sitting 15 miles away from Ray McGovern, I can hear Ray cursing out loud at the mention of Jack Keene's name, right? It's that type of reality that we're dealing with here. And then we simply, we have a president who should not be president. We're in 25th Amendment territory. I mean, this is a man who is mentally incompetent who uh you're colonel uh mcgregor is 100% in your camp on that mcgregor believes that if trump leaves nathan yahoo out to dry the zionists will press j d vance and the other members of the cabinet to exercise the 25th amendment i think that's a possibility I think that's a possibility. I think Trump still has such control and such power and sway within the Republican Party

that it would be dangerous to do so. I think that those around him like J.D. Vance, who a year ago seemed to be one of the few members of that cabinet who was arguing against war with Iran, he certainly came around because I think J.D. Vance realizes that my best opportunity for 2028 is to stay in this man's graces, whether he is competent or senile. But, you know, we have a president who we just don't know what he's going to do day by day. And it's incredibly dangerous.

This is why Vladimir Putin back in the beginning of 2024, even though Joe Biden's hostility to Russia was clear, Vladimir Putin commented that he preferred Joe Biden to remain as president than Donald Trump to come back because at least Biden is predictable. And Biden, of course, should have been removed by the 25th Amendment as well. Right, right, for the same reason. You know, the Vance thing is peculiar. Again, Colonel McGregor, who recently spent time with some folks in the White House. We didn't ask him who, and he didn't offer to say, claim that Vance's PR people have put out the word that Vance opposed the war. That, in fact, he did not oppose the war when he was in the inner circle, just a half dozen people, you can guess who they are.

B.O. Heg-Seth, et cetera. And General Kane, the same thing, did not oppose the war. But watch President Trump yesterday humiliate his own vice president. Chris, cut number five. So we got a lot of, a lot of beauties out there, J.D. I envy you and other people. I don't know. Who's it going to be? Is it going to be J.D.? Is it going to be somebody else? I don't know. Does anybody have, okay, let's go. You ready? Who likes J.D. Vance? Who likes Marco Rubio?

All right. Sounds like a good ticket. J.D. It's a perfect, that was a perfect ticket. By the way, I do believe that's a dream team, but these are minor details. That does not mean you have my endorsement under any circumstance. That is just horrific. I've never seen anything like that.

Obviously, Vance, I don't know if Rubio was there. Vance was physically there. That is just humiliation uncalled for. I mean, the crassness of it, I've never seen anything of it from any president or any major political figure in the United States of any party, of any stripe. I mean, the man. Yeah. Let's go to another article, which is of,

some controversy. It'll be in the New York Times tomorrow. So the only way you could see it today is in the digital version. That's Nick Christoph's article about the prison rates in Israeli prisons, which is very difficult to read, but which evoked a firestorm from the Israeli foreign ministry. Christoph, who almost apologized for writing this thing, feels intellectually bound to do so, interviewed everybody. Prison guards, interrogators, senior people, prisoners, Israeli prisoners, Palestinian prisoners. The picture he paints is so reprehensible, so clear, so consistent, so profound that Israeli leadership must know what's going on of horrific tortures of Palestinian.

And every one of these tortures involves the forcible entry into someone's body, male or female. Including the use of dogs, especially trained to do so. Yes. I will say, for me, it's quite personal. Behind me, a photo there. I'm with Issa Amro, who was interviewed in the story. And Issa was raped along with his colleagues. They are in Hebron.

They oppose the occupation. Issa has been a major problem for the occupation for years. That photo, Ray McGovern is in that photo as well as from Hebron in 2017. We're being fired at by tear gas canisters. The Israeli border police actually fire him level. One hit Ray right in the arm. If you could see the photo, you could see Ray's walking away holding his arm because they've been shot in the arm of the tear gas canister.

They don't shoot tear gas canisters up in the air, the way they do in the U.S.? Some do, but a lot of them fire and level. And if that tear gas canister had been over eight inches and up eight inches, it would have hit Ray right in the face. Ray was, I think, 80 years old at that time when he was there with us in the West Bank. But when I saw Issa again, in that photo, I'm locked arms with Issa as we approach that line of border police who were firing at us, when I was there in 2024 in the West Bank in Palestine and I saw Issa in Hebron,

Isa told me then that he had been raped. He told me what they had done to them, what they do to them. And it wasn't just Issa. It was, like I said, his colleagues, his compatriots have been raped as well. The documentation of this is clear. This existed before October 7th. I think that's one thing I'm upset with Christoph about is Christoph did not make that clear in his column that this is not, you could read it almost as that this is a consequence

or this was a result or this is a retaliation for October 7th. It's not the systematic torture, including rape and sexual assault on Palestinian prisoners, has been, Palestinian hostages, is more a little better term, has been evident, it's been clear, has been documented for decades, including on children. You know, one of the things that's buried in that story is the report from saved the children that documents 69% of Palestinian children who are detained, who are arrested, who are held hostage by the Israelis. The Israelis just come in the middle of night and they take these children from their homes. Both times I was in Palestine, Judge, both times I was in the West Bank in 2017 and 2024. When I spoke with Palestinians, the things that they were most

afraid of, the things that they're most fearful of, was what the Israelis would do to their children. and the Israelis will go into villages. They will go into towns. They don't do it often because they don't have to do it often. But once, twice, three times a year, they will come into a village and they will raid homes and they will take children away. And they'll hold those children for two or three or four days. And they will be tortured.

They will be abused. They'll be humiliated. They'll be threatened. They'll be forced to sign confessions in Hebrew that they cannot read because they're afraid their parents will be tortured or killed. That's what the Israelis threaten them with. And as we know from the same thing, say the children report on this, two-thirds of Palestinian children who are held hostages by the

Israelis are either themselves raped or sexually assaulted or they witness such rape and sexual assault. I mean, this is just the staggering levels of this. In a documentation that's been there, it has been there, the evidence, but what it's done to this people, the way that the Israelis try and shatter these people is what any oppressor has done, any occupier has done. The converse of it is that it creates a reality in which the Palestinians refuse to bend the knee. And as much as the Palestinians have been preyed upon, the crimes committed against them, the apartheid state under which they live, the humiliation that they endure every single day, and of course the immiseration, the murder, the starvation, the Palestinian still will not bend a knee.

And, you know, I think that is something, too, that you don't get from Christoph's story, this idea that no matter what the Israelis do, they cannot break the will, the spirit, the defiance of the Palestinian people. But I'm glad Nick Christoph did write this, that the New York Times published it. I'm afraid that they're going to pull it, that they're going to retract it, because they're under such pressure. But this is the reality of the Israeli occupation. This is the Israeli. This is the Israeli state. The idea that somehow the Israeli state doesn't endorse this, well, if you've had this documentation, if there has been decades and decades of such evidence, if no Israeli soldier or prison guard or settler has ever been arrested, let alone try

for these types of things. And when it, if it does occur, as we saw last year when Israeli prison guards were caught on video raping a Palestinian hostage. And then when these soldiers were taken to trial, the country erupted. Parliatarians stormed the prison. And you have on video debate in the Knesset where parliamentarians are saying, Knesset members are saying to one another, of course we're allowed to rape them. They're Nukpa. They are terrorists. They are nothing, essentially. I mean, you know, the idea that the state doesn't endorse us. This isn't the state policy is absolutely insane. Of course, it's a state policy. If it's blanking immunity for doing these types of things, if no one has ever hurt and it's publicly known that no one

has ever prosecuted or charged or punished for this, then of course it's state policy. The state lets them do it. And as well as then, of course, the things you hear from not just the right wing, not just the Bezellos-Motrges and Nimar Bengavir's who endorse these things, Bengavir who walks around with a noose lapel on his coat these days, but also, too, the commentary you hear from across the Israeli spectrum, the dehumanization of the Palestinians, the fact that the Palestinians are nothing but animals, that they deserve such treatment. You know, it should be no shock, no surprise to anyone that this is systemic and it's deliberate and it's purposeful.

Does the public understand and accept this, or is the Christoff article news to them? No, I'm sure. The Israeli public. I think the details may be news to them, because by and large, the Israeli press, particularly Israeli Hebrew press, will not speak of such things other than to endorse the punishment of Israeli, excuse me, of Palestinian prisoners, you know, of Palestinian detainees or hostages. So other than the overall glow that's put on this by the Israeli media in terms of how this is necessary, how this is keeping Israeli safe, or how this is the deserve punishment for

the Palestinians, I think most Israelis are unaware of the actual details. Now, English-speaking publications, or Haurettes, or plus 972, will plus. publish such things, but not a lot of Israelis read those, Judge. You know, not a lot of Israelis pay attention to the Israeli media that is published, that published in English and is often very critical of the Israeli government and the occupation. When I was in Palestine in 2024 and we drove past Ofer Prison, which is the major prison in the central part of the West Bank, it's right there off of the road. you can't miss it massive walls and inside as we drove by i knew there were thousands of

palestidians who were being held there uh many of them essentially hostages uh and many of them being tortured as i drove by how many tens or how many hundreds of palestinians are being tortured at that moment you know i can only imagine but on the side of that prison this is a major road and this is an israeli only road a yellow plate license plate road it's a part of apartheid system. So Israelis drive on run road, Palestinians driving the other. If you're a foreigner, if you're some guy from New Jersey, you get to drive on the Israeli road because you're better

than the people who actually are indigenous to there under the Israeli apartheid system. That's how it works. You and I go there, Judge, Napolitano and Ho. We can, you know, we walk around acting like we own the place. I'll tell you one story when we're in Hebron, just to elucidate this apartheid. We go to Hebron. I'm with this group. It's a Christian group called

Sebel, fantastic organization. People should support it. So people should go to Palestine with Sebel. But we're in Hebron. We have our Palestinian friend with us, Omar. We're near the Ibrahimi mosque, the big great mosque there, you know, in Hebron. And there's a public bathroom. And so those of us who are from the United States, from Canada, from the UK, we're allowed to use the public bathroom. but my Palestinian friend Omar, he's not allowed to use the public path. I mean, that's, you know, apartheid right there. But as we're going back to Ofer Prison, as we're driving by Ofer Prison, just to answer your question, Judge, about the Israeli public's involvement in this,

huge banner on the side of Ofer Prison that says in Hebrew, together we will win, right? I mean, so the communication from the Israeli government, communication from that torture site over prison, right, to the thousands of Israelis that drive by that prison every day is that we're in this together. The way we win is through imprisoning and torturing these people. I mean, that's the message you take from something like that.

So your question, I don't know if they know the details. I don't think they understand the picture in color, but they certainly understand it in black and white. And they're supportive of it. Yeah. Last question. Does Netanyahu know that he lost this war? Is he getting desperate? I think he's getting desperate, Judge, because I think he's upset with the foot dragging from the Americans. But also, too, he realizes that the most political pressure he's had on him, aside from the fact that he's corrupt and should be in jail, right?

Aside from that, the most political pressure we've seen exerted on Netanyahu from his opponents have come from this ceasefire with a and even more so the ceasefire, put those in quotes, because as the United Nations said in the last three days, the Israelis carried out 1,300 air strikes in Lebanon, killed dozens and dozens and dozens of people. But, you know, the pressure that Nanyahu is feeling politically right now comes from his opposition who are decrying him, who are criticizing him for this, again, quote, ceasefire, unquote, in Lebanon particularly. So this war, which was very popular and is still very popular in Israel, was meant to ensure Netanyahu's success in this year's elections. The elections have to occur by October.

I recall reading the idea was they'd move the elections up to June. And this way the war would happen. The war would be won. And Netanyahu would sweep back, sweep the elections. And now he's got this political opposition, again, not just based upon. his corruption, not just based on his criminality, but based upon the fact that he is seen as in league with ceasefires with Iran and Lebanon. I mean, so that's the pressure he seems to be under. Plus also, too, Netanyahu really wants to conquer Lebanon. He really wants to complete

the conquest of southern Syria. He wants to destroy Iran, and then he wants to be able to wrap it all up so that they can annex the West Bank and finish off Gaza. You know, so he really does believe in this project. He really does believe in this war. So he wants to see victory in his terms, but he also has this very real domestic political pressure on him because the war, and it's not a question that the war is not continuing. And that's the seems what this Israeli public wants. Wow.

Matt, these are difficult things to discuss, but you made them informative and profound, and I'm deeply grateful to you. Thank you, my dear friend. All right. Thank you, Judge. Yes, thanks. We'll talk to you again soon. All the best. Wow. Well, if you have a strong stomach, you can find this article by Nick Christoff and read it.

Tomorrow's New York Times or today's digital version, but emphasis on strong stomach. Someone with a very strong stomach at 3 o'clock. If you're watching us live in 34 minutes, Colonel Karen Koukowski, Judge Napolitano for judging freedom.