Judging Freedom - Intel Roundtable w/ Johnson & McGovern: US Ignorance of the Middle East

Episode Date: November 21, 2023

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Thank you. Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Friday, November 17th, 2023. Back by popular demand is our Intelligence Roundtable with Larry Johnson and Ray McGovern. Larry, Ray, my dear friends, thank you for coming back. Thanks for all the time you give my viewers and me. We called this conversation on the platform the United States ignorance of the Middle East. Is it as much an ignorance of the history, Larry, as it is an intentional looking the other way because of domestic American politics?

No, I think it's genuine ignorance. And then on top of it, you have a very effective lobbying organization in the American-Israeli Political Action Committee. And both Democrats and Republicans every year go to genuflect before them in anticipation of garnering financial contributions for upcoming political campaigns. So the combination of that ignorance and then buying a storyline that's prepackaged by a very powerful lobbying group. How, well, let me rephrase the question, Ray. Before October 7th, the three of us agreed that the Ukraine war was the most propagandized war in the modern era. Now, of course, that's on the back burner.

I'll ask you both about it in a modern era. Now, of course, that's on the back burner. I'll ask you both about it in a few minutes. But how aggressive, how effective, or how counter-effective is the Israeli propaganda aimed at Americans? Well, Judge, we ain't seen nothing yet. Oh, boy. What do you mean? I just mean that the media shows no sign of being objective. Every now and then you see a little photo, but it's usually of a hospital in pretty good shape, you know, on top of the New York Times front page. The media is captive to this Zionist sentiment. And of course, so is the Congress, the Senate, and the House of Representatives. You know, I don't agree with Netanyahu on much of what he says. But I certainly agree with what he said when he was off camera about 12 years ago.

We have the video. He said, you know, the Americans support us 80%. It's absurd. Netanyahu. Well, it is absurd, except when you think of who controls the media, who controls the Congress. And AIPAC, the Israel lobby, has never been stronger. They've just showed their mettle in removing a longstanding congressman from the 9th District of Michigan with a terrific heritage. His name is Levin.

They removed him in favor of a woman who is more Zionist than Levin, Jewish as Levin is, Levin's big mistake was to say, Israel cannot be secure unless it gives some respect to the Palestinians. He's out of there. He's defeated in a primary, mind you, by AIPAC. Aren't most of the Israelis secular Jews who obviously would accept what Ray just quoted this former Congressman Levin as saying? Is it not the religious fanatics and right-wing kooks to which Prime Minister Netanyahu has pandered, who won't even consider the two-state solution? Educate me on this Larry well yeah so Israel's small now 7-8 million people and they're fraught with division

and so the number of actual let's call it observant religious Jews probably comprises maybe around 40% of the population maybe a little higher within that you have the ultra-Orthodox,

but the ultra-Orthodox are not the Zionists. In fact, they believe that the state of Israel should not exist. So what Bibi Netanyahu was in a minority position, and he aligned himself with this group that are, that are radical in their view. I wouldn't necessarily call them religious. They use the Torah as it suits them to be convenient and declare that all of what is Israel and Palestine should be for Jews and Jews only. And some of those elements in his group are even advocating laws that would prohibit mentioning Jesus or preaching Jesus, which will be a shock to all these evangelicals who so closely align themselves, insisting that, hey, we've got to back up Israel because, you know,

if we back up Israel, that means Jesus will return all of the Messianic beliefs. So, I mean, it is off to sort of a majority of the population now. They're not religious. They're Israeli, but they identify as Jews. So it's sort of a mixed-up world, theologically and ideologically. Do the Israeli people, the secular people, Ray, recognize that the behavior of the military, combined with the language of the Israeli cabinet, is a war crime at best and genocide at worst? I don't think so, Judge. That's the sorrowful part of all this. There's a rage, the kind of rage that existed here in this country after 9-11. October 7th was something that cried out for vengeance. And on this, secular and religious Jews seemed to be united.

And, of course, Netanyahu was playing that to the hilt. So things do not look very good. They are getting hardened in their views. And in the meantime, you have the Iranians and the Saudis sitting together and other big Islamic states getting together. And it's a question of time. How much restraint can they exercise before their populations, which are largely Palestinian, make real problems for them,

make them commit genocide in places like Saudi Arabia or Syria. I haven't heard any of the arousals of mobs of a million plus from President Erdogan of Turkey in the past couple of weeks. Is he intentionally silent? Is the Turkish army getting ready as he changed his mind? Are the Arab populations in the region as aroused by pictures of dead babies and children and destroyed neighborhoods as they were two weeks ago, Larry? Yeah, no, it has not calmed down. In fact, Erdogan gave a speech. It was either yesterday or the day before yesterday,

and it was even more incendiary than the last one that you played on your show. And he had quite a large crowd in Turkey. So, yeah, the marches are not abating and the crowds are growing. What you do have is a bit of a disconnect between some of the leaders. Erdogan is talking very tough, but you found in Egypt and in Saudi Arabia, they've sort of put the brakes on going full bore against Israel in terms of imposing sanctions, blocking oil, ensuring that they get charged as war criminals before the International Criminal Court.

Egypt has blocked Iran from sending humanitarian aid through the Rafah Crossing in southern Gaza. So there is a bit of division and splits in the Arab Muslim world, but part of that is it's blown back on al-Sisi in Egypt. Many of the Egyptian people are claiming that he's an agent of Israel, which doesn't really help for your longevity. So the anger has not abated. Is Iran a serious threat to Israel, Ray? As serious as Prime Minister Netanyahu makes it out to be? In reality, Iran has a deterrent now that it hadn't had before.

It doesn't have a nuclear weapon. It doesn't need a nuclear weapon. It's got all manner of rockets and missiles that can destroy every town, every city in Israel. Now, that has to be known. That has to be part of Israel's calculus. By the same token, other Muslim countries like Turkey or even Hezbollah in the south of Lebanon, just north of Israel, have many, many thousands, and I say thousands of very, very accurate missiles. So Israel is deterred from using its ace in the hole, so to speak,

its nuclear weapon, of which they have between 90 and 200, depending on who you listen to. And I think, and this is just a surmise on my part, but I think one reason why those aircraft carriers, and now that ballistic missile submarine that also has cruise missiles on it, why they're in the area is for our policymakers to be able to say, listen, calm down a little bit. Don't even think they're using a nuclear weapon, Israel,

even though one minister suggested using it in Gaza, okay? We got you covered here. Nothing's going to happen. We've got cruise missiles up the kazoo. Don't even think about escalating this thing to your east of the hole. All right, here's Prime Minister Netanyahu at the United Nations. This is just two months ago. I want you to listen carefully. The clip is a little over a minute. I want you to listen most carefully to the last

sentence that comes out of his mouth. It's very, very telling. Now, you know, ladies and gentlemen, you know there's a fly in this ointment. Because rest assured, the fanatics ruling Iran will do everything they can to thwart this historic peace. Iran continues to threaten international shipping lanes, hold foreign nationals for ransom, and engage in nuclear blackmail. Over the past year, its murderous goons have killed hundreds and arrested thousands of Iran's brave citizens. Iran's drones and missile program threaten Israel and our Arab neighbors, and Iran's drones have brought and bring death and destruction to innocent people in the Ukraine. Yet the regime's aggression is largely met by indifference in the international community.

Eight years ago, the Western powers promised that if Iran violated the nuclear deal, the sanctions would be snapped back. Well, Iran is violating the deal, but the sanctions have not been snapped back. To stop Iran's nuclear ambitions, this policy must change. Sanctions must be snapped back. And above all, above all, Iran must face a credible nuclear threat. Ah, above all, Iran must face a credible nuclear threat. From whom? He's obviously talking about from the Israelis. Did the Prime Minister of Israel, for the first time in history, admit that the Israelis have nuclear weapons aimed at Tehran and are prepared to use it? Credible nuclear threat. Yeah, he didn't admit it, but

you certainly have to draw that conclusion. That minister that talked about the possibility of a nuking Gaza, he got into trouble not so much for wanting to nuke Gaza, but he was tacitly admitting that Israel has nukes. And Israel up to now has never officially admitted that it has nukes. It was never a signatory to the non-proliferation treaty. So, you know, Israel's playing sort of a dangerous game here. You know, they are doing projection. The reality is that Israel has beaten and imprisoned more Palestinians than Iranians have Iranians that are in opposition to them. And as far as killing Palestinians, Israel has a far higher body count than anything that Iran has done.

Hasn't Israel assassinated Iranian scientists, Ray? Sure. Nuclear scientists, especially. And they've bragged about it. You know, you know, there's one aspect that needs to be brought out in this discussion, and that is it is, according to U.S. law, illegal to give weapons to Israel, to sell them, to give them in any matter. because they violated the nonproliferation treaty understandings that if they develop a nuclear weapon, U.S. law prohibits the U.S. from giving arms aid to Israel. Now, they never joined the NPT, as Larry mentioned, but they violated what those provisions include, and they violated U.S. law. So the reason that the U.S. is reluctant to officially acknowledge when everybody knows that Israel has nuclear weapons is because that makes it illegal. Now, under the new rules-based international order,

will we make the rules? Well, those laws don't apply, I suppose. What they do, they maintain this fiction of legality by denying the existence of nuclear weapons in Israel. Larry, how better are you? Can I just comment on that? Because we applied, we gave Pakistan a waiver too. Ray's correct. It's on the books as a law.

It's the kind of thing that Congress can say, oh, okay, never mind. We're not going to enforce that. And they do give a waiver. So Israel would get a waiver in a heartbeat. I mean, if we give it to Pakistan, Israel gives a lot more money than Pakistan. Two points about the clip we just watched of Prime Minister Netanyahu at the UN. One is that was just two weeks before October 7th. The bitter irony of him calling somebody else religious fanatics and murderous goons, language that would apply

to his own cabinet today. How is he, well, before I get to how is he perceived by other heads of state? Why is it that the United States finally abstained on a resolution that is calling for a ceasefire, at least a temporary pause. So it finally found itself so isolated at the United Nations that it caved. But we can't underestimate the political pressure that Israel is able to provide. If you've watched any of the propaganda videos that are coming out of the hospitals where Israel, you've got Israeli spokesmen. One was at the Rantisi Children's Hospital. The other was at Al-Shifa. And so they're doing it all in English. Well, the official language in Israel is Hebrew.

So you got to step back and go, why are they doing this in English. Well, the official language in Israel is Hebrew. So you got to step back and go, why are they doing this in English? Because they are pandering to the American public. And the guy at the children's hospital, he points to a calendar, what he claimed was a work schedule for terrorists on the wall. And it was a camera. It was a calendar, a handmade calendar.

That was all. But so they lied about that. Then the tour of al-Shifa, the so-called Hamas command center, the Israelis started off by showing this pile of boxes out front that were all labeled medical supplies. It was a hand-printed sign that had been taped onto the box. Again, where's the Hebrew? These guys speak Hebrew.

They don't speak. You know, they may have English as a second language, but that's not their official language. All of that was for Western consumption. So, Ray, is their PR offensive going to have a brush a blow back just like their military offensive in certain quarters like turkey uh is going to have a blowback the question in my view is uh how long it will take before they kill hundreds of thousands more people from Gaza. The blowback is slow in coming mostly because of the domination of our media by Zionists.

Let's say that straight out. The Congress is the same way. Congress risks not being Zionist enough, or they get defeated in primaries now, not just the general election. So there's that. And, you know, I don't know how long it will take before the Arabs and Turkey and Iran say, you know, enough is enough. We're not going to just shoot up U.S. bases illegally in Syria and semi-legally in Iraq. We're going to do more from the north, from Hezbollah in South Lebanon. This thing can get easily out of control. And I think maybe Blinken and Sullivan

don't want that, but they're not willing and they're not able. That's the big thing. They're not able to persuade the Israelis to cease and desist, even though we provide them with the wherewithal to keep this slaughter going. I wasn't going to go to this topic, but since you mentioned Blinken, I have to show you his worst moment in San Francisco. You probably have seen this. But President Biden just spent two days with President Xi. President Xi was still in San Francisco, though obviously not in the room where this event occurred. And, well, you'll hear what a reporter said to the president, how the president responded, and Tony Blinken's wince.

Mr. President, after today, would you still refer to President Xi as a dictator? This is a term that you used earlier this year. Well, look, he is. I mean, he's a dictator in the sense that he is a guy who's run the country, that he is a communist country that is based on a government totally different than ours. Oh, what kind of diplomacy is that, Larry? I feel sorry I don't agree with Tony Blinken on anything, but I don't know how he could tolerate hearing that. They just spent 48 hours doing their best they can to make love to the Chinese president. And then this comes out of our president's mouth. Yeah, no, I mean, that image

has gone around the world. You can see it's a gut punch. He physically reacts, recognizing that all of what they thought some of the goodwill they had generated with the Chinese just went up in smoke. And the Chinese came back and complained. They were not happy about it. I think the Chinese actually need a stronger reaction to get the message out of these guys. One of our writers, Ray, you'll get a kick out of this. One of our writers, not this person, said Tony Blinken's new job, babysitter. Well, you know, Biden's going to be 81 tomorrow, I think. Okay. Now, I'm older than he is, but I don't think he's quite as compass mentis as I am, I hope, anyway.

Ray, you're being modest and you're putting it mildly. Yeah, yeah. Well, comparisons can be invidious. Now, what I'm saying, he's stuck in his ways. Communists, the chai comms are communists, for God's sake. They can't be good. They've got to be dictators. When he left the only summit, personal summit, with Putin, June 16, 2021,

he did his own press conference again. I don't know where Blinken was at that point. But what Biden says, you know, I told Putin, I told him that we know he's got a real problem with the Chinese. They have a long thousands of miles of border and they want to be the primary country in Asia. He's being squeezed by the Chinese. I sympathize. I told him that. Now, that was stuck in his ways from three decades before that was the case.

But Nixon and Kissinger fixed that. That's no longer the case. For him to think that the triangular relationship was the same that was when Nixon and Kissinger were there, and that the tricoms are still tricoms and no more, I mean, that, that, that be tokens of a guy who's stuck in his ways, no matter how people like Lincoln and Sullivan try to say, well, Joe, maybe you ought to think of it this way. No, no. He'll say what he thinks. And my God, that's what he thinks. Wow. All right, guys. Thank you very much. We have a short week next week. We'll see you both early in the week. Thank you very much for your time.

Everybody appreciates so much what you've done and the expertise you bring to us. All the best. Most welcome. Thanks, Judge. Thank you. Okay, coming up at 4.30 Eastern, me. Ask the judge. Oh, and don't forget our subscription drive. Where is that number? Oh, we're up to $236,000. I am confident we'll hit $240,000 by Thanksgiving. I am absolutely convinced we will hit our goal of $250,000 by Christmas. Maybe there'll be some gifts under the tree, and maybe we'll exceed that number. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom. Thanks for watching!