Judging Freedom - Kevork Almassian: Israel Bombs Beirut Suburbs

Episode Date: April 28, 2025

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you Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Monday, April 28th, 2025. Kivork Almasian will be here with us in just a moment on the Israelis bombing the suburbs of Beirut. But first this. While the markets are giving us whiplash, have you seen the price of gold? It's soaring. In the past 12 months, gold has risen to more than $3,000 an ounce.

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Kevork, my friend, welcome here. Thank you for accommodating my schedule. It's always nice to chat with you. How deep is the divide in Israeli domestic politics over Benjamin Netanyahu's continued slaughter of innocents? Actually, since the ceasefire agreement in Lebanon, Israel killed around 100 Lebanese civilians. So it has violated the ceasefire agreement multiple times. Now, the pressure in Israel is always mounting against Netanyahu. However, he has the backing, of course, of influential, let's say, circles of power in the United States. Therefore, he feels himself immunized to act with impunity, not only against Lebanon, against Syria, against Iran. For example, the attack against the port was probably also a cyber attack from the Israeli side.

Therefore, I have the impression always that despite the domestic pressure against Netanyahu, he is always managing to maneuver through and navigate through these pressures in order to implement his greater Israeli project in the region. And he has been, in my opinion, successful in Syria. However, in Lebanon this is a completely different case because they are calling for disarming Hezbollah and basically alienating the Shia community. I think this is going to be very controversial and very difficult task for him if he wants to implement it and this is not going to happen unless there is another major war in the region because Hezbollah is not only a military, let's say, party, it is a political party, it is

represented in the Lebanese parliament and it has a civil society, it has schools, it has universities, it has hospitals, and nowadays these bombings, let's say in Lebanon, it goes in line with the grand strategy, let's say, of Israel in the region, which is to eliminate all the state and non-state actors that could pose any obstacle for the Greater Israel Project in the region. Are the Israelis bombing civilians in the suburbs of Beirut? Oh they have bombed civilians many times. What do they gain by killing civilians? Actually there is a doctrine in the Israeli army called the Dahye doctrine. Dahye means suburbs in Arabic and because they're bombing now the suburbs of Beirut, they have created a doctrine for it, which is to deliberately destroy and bomb civilian infrastructure and civilian neighborhoods

in order to try to exert pressure on Hezbollah by turning the people against them. So this is the strategy of Israel in Lebanon. However, people also, your respected audience should know that Hezbollah, Lebanon is completely divided. So you have 50% of the people support Hezbollah and probably half the population do not support Hezbollah. So the places where Israelis are bombing basically, it's in the popular base of Hezbollah. And the people of Hezbollah are very much religiously, ideologically, spiritually are attached to Hezbollah. So what they're basically doing, they're giving more reason for more people to join Hezbollah and fight against the Israeli forces. So I think this strategy is definitely not working well for Israel

because the people who are against Hezbollah inside Lebanon, they are already against Hezbollah. But the people who are with Hezbollah, they are now becoming more emboldened and more supportive for Hezbollah because of the actions of Israel in this case. And they're the ones calling on Hezbollah to retaliate. And remember, Hezbollah has restrained itself since the ceasefire agreement from shooting and firing against Israeli targets or inside Israel because they don't want to open a big front against Israel. Meanwhile, they have lost their ally in Syria in this case. The slaughter of civilians is murder and a war crime. There's no justification for it.

You can't legally kill civilians in order to get them to change their mind about their own government. But nobody seems to do anything about it. Netanyahu has been indicted. His former defense minister has been indicted. A few other people have been indicted. Nothing happens. As we speak, this fanatic Ben Gavir is walking around New York City, people shouting at him

and harassing him in English and in Hebrew. But he just walks around openly. He's got bodyguards, but nobody's arresting him. Yeah, Judge, I mean, we heard a lot that we live in rules-based international order, but we know well that rules and regulations do not apply on the powerful in this case, and especially on Israel. Israel has carpet-b bombed Gaza completely. And when Trump mentions now Gaza as a place

where people cannot really live any longer, he doesn't mention what is the reason behind it. Who bombed all these neighborhoods and flattened all these buildings? And they have done this in several towns and villages in southern Lebanon. And in some of the cases cases they have detonated the entire village and they have blew it up from far away.

So they have destroyed entire neighborhoods and entire towns in Lebanon as well. Now who is going to basically persecute Israel in this case? There is a case against Israel in the ICJ, there is a case against Israel in the ICC, and despite that Israel feels itself safe and its officials feel themselves safe going and flying into different countries and into different regions and nobody is coming after them. Therefore, if we want to speak about international law, we need at least to apply this law on everyone equally and evenly. But in this case, when we see, let's say, give one example. I come from the Middle East. I come from Syria.

But when we see in our region that these laws and regulations do not really apply on the people who are attacking us, then the people will be encouraged to join groups like Hezbollah because they say the only way to liberate my home and my city and my town is to join an armed group and join a resistance against the Israeli forces. Therefore, at the beginning of our conversation, I mentioned that what Netanyahu is doing in Lebanon, basically they are encouraging more people to join Hezbollah and join the resistance against the occupation. Because remember, since the ceasefire agreement, encouraging more people to join Hezbollah and join the resistance against the occupation.

Because remember, since the ceasefire agreement, the Americans told the world basically that Lebanon has a Lebanese army and Lebanon can defend itself against any foreign aggressor. But where is the Lebanese army now against all these aggressions against Lebanon? Unfortunately speaking, the US embassy in Beirut, they have managed to install a pro-US government in Beirut, and they have also installed a pro-US leader for the Lebanese army, and they are trying to turn the Lebanese army into another, let's say, Abu Mazen or Mahmoud Abbas type of police army which is only coordinating with the Israeli side on the security level and coming after the enemies of Israel. So what they're trying to do in Lebanon is copying the example of the PLO or Al-Fatah of Palestine inside Lebanon by turning first the government

against the resistance and secondly the army to become only an army that comes after the people who are fighting Israel in this case. So Lebanon is in a really bad shape at the current moment and I don't see that Hezbollah has an interest in expanding the scope of the hostilities at the current moment against Israel. They are restraining, they are containing these attacks but if there is an existential threat against them then we will see another war and this time it could expand also into other regions in the Middle East. The AP just posted a piece which supports everything that you just said. towards everything that you just said. A Palestinian diplomat told the United Nations top court at The Hague on Monday

that Israel is killing and displacing civilians and targeting aid workers in Gaza. In Gaza, in the case that Israel criticized as part of the systemic persecution and delegitimation, Israel denies deliberately targeting civilians. The diplomat said Israel is starving, quote, Israel is starving, killing and displacing Palestinians while also targeting and blocking

humanitarian organizations trying to save their lives. Before you respond to that, Chris, do we have Ambassador Huckabee justifying the use of starvation as a means of war? We'll post this for you. It'll turn your stomach. It's in English. But what good are these hearings before the International Criminal Court when nothing comes of it? I don't know, Netanyahu didn't go to the Pope's funeral. Was he worried he was going to get arrested? No, he's not worried. You know, Judge, these so-called wars against Gaza and against Lebanon,

they have normalized a new type of warfare. And that is the bar of tolerance for violation of human rights and killing of civilians has become too high, the ceiling has become too high, that Israel has created a new normal in modern warfare, which means in the future we should all be terrified that if this type of warfare has gone without accountability and nobody has been held responsible for these crimes, then in the near future, there could be other wars in other regions and could be also justified under similar justifications. What has become of the government of Syria

since the overthrow of President Assad? Since the overthrow of Assad, now we have Jullani in charge, which is, I mean, the founder of the Al-Qaeda offshoot in Syria. And nowadays we have aolani in charge, which is the founder of the al-Qaeda off-shoot in Syria. And nowadays we have a completely different situation in the country, where the people, the loyalists of Jolani basically are going to the streets and calling for genocide against ethnic and religious minorities. And this has been all documented on video and posting them on my ex account. So what happened is basically the Jolani, when they came to power, they have established themselves as so-called Islamic state in the country. And all other ethnicities

and religions, they have freaked out. Therefore, they isolated themselves into different cantons. Now, the Kurds, only yesterday or two days ago, they have declared a new political program which clearly says that they're not going to be part of a centralized government in Damascus and they're going to promote for a federal system in Damascus because they feel they cannot coexist with this type of governance in Damascus and that is Al-Qaeda regime. And a similar action was taken by the Druze, which is another split inside Islam, a different domination inside Islam. And they have taken another decision to keep their arms

and they don't wanna join the central government as well. And the same thing goes for the Christians and the Alawites. So Syria is now fragmented into different vertical lines and Jolani is ruling only over his loyalists. Meanwhile, his loyalists. Meanwhile his loyalists are calling him to commit genocide against the religious and ethnic minorities. Today the US Embassy in Damascus made a statement basically they're putting some conditions in front of Jolani. I think they're asking

Jolani for eight conditions to normalize the relationship between Washington and the new regime in Damascus, one of which is Jolani should accept Israel's legitimacy in the region, which means normalize ties with Israel, never pose a threat against Israel from Syria, and they're also expecting him to protect the religious and ethnic minorities in the country, And after that, they would evaluate their relationship with Damascus. My appeal and my urge would be that you can take a man out of al-Qaeda, but you cannot take al-Qaeda out of a man. And therefore, trying to normalize ties with Jolani or legitimizing him would be not only a crime against Syria

and against the Syrian people, but it will set an example in the region that in order to be relevant politically, you need to join such jihadi, takfiri terrorist groups in order to reach power and exercise this power in your country. So they're setting a really unsettling, let's say, and very bothering actually precedent in the region. And that is that Syria could be an example to encourage other countries to become like Syria.

Meanwhile, before the regime change, Syria was a secular, multicultural, multiethnic and multi-religious country. Now they're trying to make it a one-color state, which could also, this domino effect could be very dangerous in the region and swept into other countries. Does is before we get to the tape of ambassador Huckabee, which we have for you, uh, does Israel do all of its killing by itself or do other, uh, countries, uh, troops or do other militias help the IDF? Actually, you know, the U S helps them. The, the, the U S certainly gives them, gives them a tremendous amount of equipment. I don't know if there

are US soldiers there. Actually, the US has been, they have spying fighter jets in the Mediterranean and they keep scanning all the Mediterranean, the Eastern Shore of the Mediterranean in Syria, in Lebanon, in Gaza, and they share this information with the Israeli occupation forces in the region. The U.S. also has another military base. There is a border intersection between Jordan, Syria, and Iraq called Al-Tanf Border Crossing, and they have a military base there where a few months ago they lost a few soldiers there. And in this location they have jamming technologies which means that when Israel flies fighter jets, let's say from Haifa or from Tel Aviv, and they fly over Jordan, the U.S. Army there, they activate

their jamming technology in order to blind all the technologies in the region, the radars and the detecting systems, so that the air defenses could go blind, so that Israel could bomb these regions with complete impunity basically and without any aerial resistance against this bombardment. So yes, the US Army, the main reason why the US was located in Syria was because of Israel and because they wanted to keep the oil for themselves in order to ban or basically block the access of the former Syrian government from having its hand over the oil and sell the oil and reconstruct the country. So the reasons were economic and the second was the security of Israel or Israel's expansionist project basically in the region. Here's Ambassador Huckabee justifying the denial of medicine as a means to win a war. Hello I'm Mike Huckabee, U.S. Ambassador to

Israel. This past weekend Dr. Hanan Balkhi, who is the regional coordinator for the WHO for the Eastern Mediterranean region called upon me to put more pressure on Israel to bring humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza. I appreciate the message from Dr. Balke and today what I would like to suggest is that we work together on putting the pressure where it really belongs on Hamas to give us the opportunity to open up those humanitarian channels. So we call upon Hamas to sign an agreement

so that humanitarian aid can flow into Gaza to the people who desperately need it. When that happens and hostages are released, which is an urgent matter for all of us, then we hope that that humanitarian aid will flow and flow freely, knowing that it will be done without Hamas being able to confiscate and abuse their own people

by not allowing those resources to get to the people who desperately need it. Before he was the governor of the state of Arkansas, he's a Christian, a Protestant minister of some sort. What kind of a Christian could justify starving innocent people? What kind of a moral person, Christian or not, could justify a government starving innocent civilians in order to cause the government of their country or even a militia fighting for them to collapse. It's just beyond their ability. Yeah, I'm a Christian also from Syria. I'm a Christian from Levant. And when I hear these statements, it disgusts me, to be honest with you.

And food should not be used as a weapon for political purposes, but they have been doing it for quite some time. Like in Iraq, when they imposed the sanctions against Iraq in the 90s, they have killed half a million children in the discourse of exerting pressure on Saddam Hussein with the sanctions. And when Madeleine Albright was asked if the price is worth it, she said yes. So now Hukabee or Hakepe is saying similar things basically, that if you agree to our terms, then we will allow the flow of the food into Gaza. Then they did the same thing in Syria. They occupied the wheat fields. The wheat field was under the occupation of the US Army and they have burned the wheat

fields in the country. So they weaponize the food, the energy, medication, they have imposed sanctions on the people in the region. And then they wonder why the people are going to Europe as refugees or into other regions. And they say, we don't want refugees any longer. But yes, probably I agree with you, but at the same time, you guys are occupying our oil fields, you're burning our wheat fields, you're imposing sanctions, which means if I'm in Syria and

I want to buy medical equipment, I cannot pay for it because I'm out of the swift, I don't have PayPal, I cannot organize any crowdfunding, and I cannot pay through banks because there are sanctions against the country. So the people would like also to have a better life, and they leave the country. And now they're trying to do this same thing, which is choking the people to the extent in Gaza, I mean, to the extent that the people would say, enough is enough.

I cannot tolerate this. I'm hungry. I'm starving. Malnutrition. And the people are dying with starvation, and I want to leave Gaza Strip. This is what they're trying to do in the Gaza Strip, and that is to spread desperation and push the people to the edge, so they accept to leave

voluntarily from their homes and from their cities. Do other countries in the region acknowledge what Israel has never publicly acknowledged, that it has a nuclear weapon? Oh, that's a very good question, actually. I think the many countries in the region, of course, they are very much concerned about the Israeli nuclear program, especially that they have a doctrine called the Samson Doctrine,

which they could nuke the region and completely annihilate it if they feel any existential threat against them. However, this is also encouraging other countries to develop their own nuclear programs in the region, one of which is Iran. I'm not saying Iran is developing nukes, but they are definitely enriching uranium and they're using it as leverage in the region or as deterrence against the type of aggression against them that Israel and the US have conducted against Iraq, against Libya, against Syria, etc. So Israeli nuclear program, which is completely under the rug between 80 to 400 nuclear weapons, is the, of course, it's a weapon of intimidation and it's a weapon of to buy leverage in the region and expansion. Remember that Israel... Why do the Israelis not acknowledge that they have it? Because it's unlawful under international law for them to have it.

Yes, because if they acknowledge it, then they have to join the NPT, the Non-Proliferation Treaty, and there will be pressure against them. So they have chosen the policy of ambiguity that we don't acknowledge we have it, but we develop at the same time a doctrine which says that we will use it and they try to use it in the 67 and the 73 war in the region they have activated their nukes in Preparation for the worst-case scenario back then so yeah Israel I think in the region is treated like it's a special case that is above the law, above international law, basically, and their territorial claims in the region is crazy.

They're justifying with texts that goes back 3,000 years ago that this territory belongs to them and they will expand between the Nile to the Euphrates. And this is in five different countries in the region. So we either have a Westphalian world, which means we have sovereignty, we have borders, or we don't have them. We cannot apply this on some countries

and then come and say Israel's books 3,000 years ago justify their expansion. So that's a political part. Here's a clip from one of Benjamin Netanyahu's close personal friends, arguably one of his most outspoken supporters in the United States, a retired professor of law at Harvard University of International Repute, whose name is Alan Dershowitz. Professor Dershowitz recently debated our friend and colleague Scott Ritter over this

issue of Israeli nukes. And Dershowitz admitted that the Israelis have it. Here's the admission. Although I support a two-state solution, I have since 1967, I wrote my first article supporting a two-state solution in 1970. I supported it in a debate with Noam Chomsky in the early 1970s. It's an ideal.

A one-state solution is impossible because who gets the nuclear weapons if you have a one-state solution? Obviously, the Jewish state of Israel, the nation state of the Jewish people, is not gonna give its Arab population access to its weapons system that are the only guarantee of Israel's survival. The only reason Israel survives at all today is because it has overwhelming military strength

more than all the Arab armies combined. It was proved in 1948, and it was proved again on October 7th, a year ago. Israel must maintain its superior military force. So by what conceivable, legal, or moral argument could Israel have a nuclear weapon in order to secure its own safety, but Iran not have one in order to secure its safety? I will give him another solution for this. How about we apply the Ukraine model when they separated from the Soviet Union and they have given up their nuclear weapons, right? So how about that, that we create a Middle

East free of nuclear weapons and that Iran, if there is going to be a deal with Iran, then Israel should be part of this program. Because all other countries have started developing their own WMDs or nuclear programs after Israel has developed its own nuclear weapons in the 70s, and some of them, they were stolen, some stolen data or stolen technologies from the United States. So in this case, if we want to speak about peaceful region, yes, I agree with him that the two-state solution is a fantasy, and one state solution, in my opinion, is the way to go, that everybody can live alongside each other, Jewish, Christian,

and Muslims, but in a nuclear-free region, not where Israel has nukes and intimidating other regions, and especially when they have territorial claims inside other countries, and especially when they are already expanding into other countries, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, and they are also eyeing on the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt. Therefore, the Egyptian army sent reinforcement to the Sinai region because they are speculating that Israel could expand also inside Egyptian territory, something that even Israeli soldiers, they put a badge on their shoulders showing the greater Israel map stretching between the Nile to the Euphrates. So

yes, nuclear free region, but Israel should be part of this agreement. It can't be that only. It's a great observation that you make and we're going to promote it for you, and we'll see where it goes It'll get under a lot of people's skin, but those under whose skin it will get like our friend ambassador Huckabee Deserve it Give work the pleasure my dear friend. Thank you. Thank you for letting me take you across a variety of The subjects you're very eloquent about all of them. We hope hope to see you again back here soon. All the best. Thank you so much, Judge. Of course. And coming up on all these topics at three o'clock this afternoon, always worth waiting for, especially when he gets mad, MUSIC